By Henry Ukazu

Dear Destiny Friends,

The school of life is an institution no one can graduate from. It is equated to marriage where new things as well as surprises are the order of the day, occurring on a daily basis. However, there are ways to live through life, and one of them is to accept each day as they come.

Life is truly great and enjoyable if we understand it and accept this truth. There’s no doubt that life is such a great challenge, and we must work hard and smart to overcome the challenge. Once we acknowledge it, nothing really matters any longer because life becomes an infinitely easier project to pursue.

As human beings, we will be tested and tempted. One’s ability to overcome each test and temptation will set one on a higher pedestal. The book of life made us understand there’s time for everything. A time to cry, and a time to laugh, a time to sow and a time to reap,  According to the Book of life “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.”

One thing is certain if one looks at the timing- they all come in stages and phases. When there’s misplaced priority, success appears like mirage. One’s ability to manage each phase will strengthen one.

Life comes in several stages. When a child is born, the child will learn to crawl before learning how to walk and run. The same is applicable for a student who is interested in education, he will attend high school, college and post graduate studies. These are all stages of life.

The same phase is applicable in relationships and marriage. During the dating and courting stage, the relationship is different, immediately the parties marry, the tone changes. Marriage has three stages namely: Romance (or Honeymoon) stage, Power Struggle (or Disillusionment) stage, and Real Love (or Mature/Conscious Love) stage.

Let’s analyze each stage:

Romance/Honeymoon: (The “Falling in Love” Phase)

This stage is characterized by high intensity, passion, and bonding. At this stage, partners focus on similarities and overlook flaws. At this stage a partner might step on the other partner and instead of getting hurt, the partner will smile and say something like: I love the way you stepped on me, or step on me harder, it makes me endure the love. At this stage partners do everything together.  This stage usually lasts from a few weeks to a couple of years.

The first three to five years of marriage can generally be regarded as the most challenging part of marriage, especially the kids start coming in; if it’s not properly managed, the marriage might hit the rock.

 Power Struggle/Disillusionment (The “Reckoning” Phase)

During this stage, the “rose-colored glasses” usually come off, and partners notice flaws and differences, leading to “disillusionment, disappointment, and early conflicts”. It is at this stage kids start coming up and the challenge of life starts hitting up. The stage is often characterized by struggles with control, communication, and frustration over unmet expectations. Many couples usually get stuck here, if proper is not applied, it might end the relationship.

Stage 3: Real Love/Mature Love (The “Conscious” Phase)

At this stage, the couples have seen it all. They have been through all stages of life and have seen it all. There’s literally little or nothing that can affect marriage at this stage. It’s only unimaginable and unbecoming acts that lead to the fundamental tenets of marriage that can make the marriage hit the rock.

At this stage couples have trained their children through colleges, and some may have married. Couples will be able to laugh over their acts and start to bond again.

At this stage, couples have been able to navigate their conflict and have learnt to accept their partner’s flaws and choose to build a stable, loving, and mature relationship. Their focus is usually to build a deeper commitment to their marital vows, finally accepting each partner for whom they are, and working together to create a conscious and intentional partnership.

The outcome is usually a sense of safety, connection and lasting love: A sense of safety, deep connection, and lasting love.

In business, the principle is not exempted. An entrepreneur will begin a business, grow it, attract customers, hire employees and then institutionalize it. All these stages come with several phases if one is intentional.

An employee who is hired as an entry level position will have to prove his worth by producing measurable results to walk through the corporate ladder to become Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer or one of the higher ups. This position doesn’t come ordinarily; one must have earned it.

In conclusion, regardless of what stage one is experiencing or facing, one thing is certain, this too shall pass, and we shall overcome. So, just hang in there.

Henry Ukazu writes from New York. He works with the New York City Department of Correction as the Legal Coordinator.  He’s the founder of Gloemi. He’s a Transformative Human Capacity and Mindset coach. He is also a public speaker, youth advocate, creative writer and author of Design Your Destiny Design  and Unleash Your Destiny .  He can be reached via info@gloemi.com

By Tolulope A. Adegoke PhD

PREAMBLE: THE STRATEGIC MOMENT AND ITS IMPERATIVES

The Economic Community of West African States confronts a moment of institutional reckoning without precedent in its fifty-year history. The confluence of democratic recession, the fracturing of regional solidarity, the commodification of the Community’s security space by external actors, and the erosion of popular faith in the tangible benefits of integration has converged to pose a systemic threat to the organization’s foundational relevance. The established toolkit of declaratory diplomacy, automatic suspension, and sanctions escalation has demonstrably exhausted its capacity to compel compliance or to stabilize the regional order.

The way forward, therefore, cannot be a mere intensification of existing methods. It must be a strategic recalibration of ECOWAS’s institutional posture, operational doctrines, and normative architecture. The objective is not the preservation of institutional prestige for its own sake, but the patient, principled, and incentivized reconstruction of a regional political community in which sovereign member states and their citizens perceive membership as a demonstrable enhancement of their national security, economic prosperity, and democratic legitimacy. The following roadmap articulates a sequenced, non-biased, and operationally concrete way forward, structured across five interdependent strategic lines of effort.

STRATEGIC LINE OF EFFORT I: RECALIBRATE THE NORMATIVE FOUNDATION OF THE COMMUNITY

The prevailing perception that the ECOWAS normative framework on democratic governance is applied with selectivity—penalizing military seizures of power while remaining diplomatically passive in the face of civilian constitutional manipulation—has inflicted severe damage on the institution’s moral authority. Rectifying this asymmetry is an indispensable precondition for the restoration of credible institutional leadership.

Action 1.1: Convene an Extraordinary Authority Summit Dedicated Exclusively to Normative Self-Correction

The Chair of the Authority must convene, within a non-extendable 90-day period, an Extraordinary Summit with a single, undiluted agenda item: the critical review and amendment of the 2001 Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance. This Summit must not be subsumed within a broader agenda of security or economic matters. Its singular focus signals institutional seriousness and prevents diplomatic evasion.

Action 1.2: Codify and Adopt a Binding Symmetrical Sanctions Regime

The Summit must adopt a formal Supplementary Protocol that introduces, with legally binding precision, a definition of the “Constitutional Coup” or “Incumbent Entrenchment.” This shall be defined as any action by a sitting elected executive, whether through legislative manipulation, compliant judicial ruling, or tailored constitutional referendum, that modifies the fundamental law of the state for the primary purpose of abrogating or eliminating established presidential term limits in order to extend the incumbent’s tenure. The sanctions prescribed for this defined violation must be identical in their automaticity of trigger, procedural robustness, and severity of consequence to those prescribed for classical military coups d’état. This single act of symmetrical legal self-correction eliminates the charge of institutional bias and re-establishes the Community as a principled, impartial guarantor of democratic integrity.

Action 1.3: Mandate the ECOWAS Council of Ministers to Develop a Compliance Monitoring and Early Warning Matrix

The Council of Ministers must be mandated to develop, within 120 days, a transparent, indicator-based Compliance Monitoring and Early Warning Matrix. This matrix must track, on a continuous and publicly accessible basis, the compliance status of every member state against the full spectrum of democratic governance norms, including term limit provisions, electoral calendar integrity, and civil liberties protections. The matrix serves as an objective, depoliticized early warning mechanism that triggers preventive diplomatic engagement before a crisis crystallizes, removing the element of discretionary political judgment that fuels perceptions of bias.

STRATEGIC LINE OF EFFORT II: REPOSITION THE SECURITY ARCHITECTURE FROM PUNITIVE POSTURE TO ENABLING PARTNERSHIP

The region’s security space has become an unregulated, competitive marketplace for external military projection. ECOWAS must fundamentally reconceive its security offer to member states, pivoting from a posture associated with kinetic interventionism to one of technical enabling partnership that sovereign states perceive as enhancing, rather than constraining, their national security.

Action 2.1: Adopt and Promulgate a Binding External Security Partner Code of Conduct

The Mediation and Security Council must convene a high-level Strategic De-confliction and Transparency Dialogue with all external state actors conducting unilateral security operations on the territory of ECOWAS member states. The binding, legally codified outcome shall be an ECOWAS External Security Partner Code of Conduct. Its central provision mandates that all bilateral Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs), defense cooperation memoranda, and security-related basing or access pacts between any external state and any individual ECOWAS member state be formally and confidentially deposited with a centralized registry at the ECOWAS Commission within a non-extendable 90-day period. The objective is a non-prejudicial technical audit ensuring that the cumulative effect of multiple, independently negotiated bilateral arrangements does not inadvertently undermine collective regional security.

Action 2.2: Formally Reconceptualize the ECOWAS Standby Force into a Modular Technical Enabling Capability

The Department of Political Affairs, Peace and Security must be directed to present, within 180 days, a comprehensive doctrinal and operational blueprint for the reconceptualization of the ECOWAS Standby Force (ESF) into a new instrument, provisionally designated the “ECOWAS Crisis Response and Resilience Capability” (ECRRC). This new capability must execute a decisive doctrinal pivot away from large-scale conventional combat power projection—a mission type assessed as operationally unviable and politically irrecoverable in the current environment—and towards the provision of high-demand, low-substitutability technical enabling functions. These core modules shall include a multi-source intelligence fusion and strategic warning cell, a specialized digital border security and management task force, and a dedicated regional counter-financing of terrorism unit operating in institutional coordination with GIABA. This recalibrated offer creates a non-coercive incentive for disengaged states to voluntarily resume security cooperation.

Action 2.3: Establish a Specialized Civilian Harm Monitoring and Accountability Mechanism

The Commission must establish, with immediate effect, an operationally independent Civilian Harm Monitoring and Accountability Mechanism (CHMAM). Its personnel shall be sourced from member states with no direct security-material interest in the Sahelian theatre. Its mandate is the impartial, transparent, and universally applied monitoring, verification, and public reporting of civilian harm perpetrated by all armed actors, including state forces and their external partners. This mechanism depoliticizes the protection agenda and positions ECOWAS as a non-partisan guarantor of humanitarian accountability.

STRATEGIC LINE OF EFFORT III: ENGINEER A CALIBRATED, INCENTIVE-ANCHORED POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT FRAMEWORK

The sterile binary between “immediate unconditional constitutional restoration” and “indefinite unverifiable transition” has produced a protracted diplomatic gridlock. A new engagement framework, grounded in verified deliverables and sequenced incentives, is required.

Action 3.1: Constitute a Permanent, Empowered Panel of Eminent Persons for Silent Mediation
The Chair of the Authority must formally constitute, through a Decision of the Authority, a permanent Panel of Former Heads of State and Eminent Persons. Membership must be curated exclusively from a small cohort of former leaders whose nations possess an unassailable living legacy of peaceful, constitutional, and fully contested democratic alternation of executive power. The Panel’s mandate is to conduct a silent, continuous, indefinitely sustained shuttle diplomacy mission, operating strictly on the methodology of interest-based negotiation. No public statements, no deadlines, and no press releases are to be issued by the Panel. This permanently discontinues the counterproductive practice of “mégaphone diplomacy.”

Action 3.2: Table a Formal, Three-Tiered Transition Compact with Verified Deliverables and Sequenced Incentives

The Commission, under the political guidance of the Mediation and Security Council, must prepare and formally table a comprehensive Three-Tiered Transition Compact as the baseline framework for engagement with member states currently under transitional military administration. The tiers are sequenced as follows:

·         Tier 1 (Immediate Confidence Building): Full, unimpeded humanitarian access to all conflict-affected zones, verified by operational humanitarian agencies; and the release of all political detainees not credibly charged with violent criminal offenses, verified by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Upon successful independent verification, ECOWAS commits to a formal suspension of targeted economic sanctions against the state apparatus.

·         Tier 2 (Sequenced Political Roadmap): A binding 24-month, bottom-up electoral sequence—local elections first, constitutional referendum second, presidential and parliamentary elections third—with a guaranteed statutory role for ECOWAS in the technical vetting of the electoral management body. Upon verification of each phase, incremental incentives are released.

·         Tier 3 (Structural Guarantee Against Self-Dealing): The constitutional entrenchment, prior to terminal elections, of a non-amendable clause prohibiting any serving member of the transitional government from contesting those elections. Upon verification and peaceful transfer of power, all remaining sanctions are lifted, and ECOWAS proactively sponsors the state’s full reintegration and development financing package.

Action 3.3: Formally Delink Humanitarian Access from Political Negotiation
The Commission must issue a binding institutional directive establishing that humanitarian access and the protection of civilian populations are non-negotiable obligations under international humanitarian law and the ECOWAS Treaty. These shall not be treated as bargaining chips within political negotiations. This directive establishes an impartial humanitarian baseline that protects the vulnerable and starves extremist narratives of their recruitment material.

STRATEGIC LINE OF EFFORT IV: CONSTRUCT AND DELIVER A TANGIBLE, VISIBLE ECONOMIC COUNTER-OFFER

Economic sanctions, while a legally mandated instrument, have inflicted disproportionate harm on vulnerable populations and have been successfully weaponized by transitional authorities as evidence of ECOWAS hostility. A serious, fully-funded, and rapidly disbursing economic offer that demonstrates the irreplaceable material value of ECOWAS membership is a strategic necessity.

Action 4.1: Capitalize and Launch the ECOWAS Community Livelihood and Border Zone Resilience Facility

The Commission, in partnership with the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) and the African Development Bank, must convene a dedicated donor pledging conference within 120 days to capitalize a substantially expanded, fast-disbursing stabilization instrument. The facility’s exclusive investment focus shall be the cross-border communities whose economic fabric has been destroyed by insecurity and political rupture. Priority projects shall include the rehabilitation of transhumance corridors with negotiated local governance structures, the construction of solar-powered border market infrastructure, and the launch of a massive Community-Based Youth Employment and Apprenticeship Program targeted at displaced youth in frontier zones. All projects must be collaboratively and transparently branded as direct dividends of ECOWAS solidarity.

Action 4.2: Adopt a Unified Institutional Position Linking Debt Relief to Verified Governance Progress

The Authority must adopt a formal Common Position directing its collective diplomatic weight towards aggressive advocacy for a comprehensive, non-punitive, and development-sensitive sovereign debt restructuring framework for all severely affected member states. This advocacy shall be executed at the G20 Common Framework, the IMF Executive Board, and the Paris Club. Critically, the ECOWAS Common Position must explicitly and publicly link a pathway to structural debt relief to the affected state’s independently verified, irreversible progress against the Tier 2 and Tier 3 benchmarks of the Transition Compact. This leverages the international financial architecture as a structurally aligned positive incentive for good-faith engagement, offering a sophisticated alternative to blunt unilateral sanctions.

Action 4.3: Reaffirm and Technically Safeguard the Free Movement Protocol as a Non-Negotiable Community Asset

The Commission must urgently establish a dedicated, technically staffed “Free Movement Safeguard and Facilitation Unit.” This unit’s mandate is to work bilaterally and discretely with all member states, including those in withdrawal processes, to identify and implement the minimal, security-justified, and technically proportionate border management procedures that can preserve the residual functional operation of the Free Movement Protocol for ordinary citizens, even during periods of political estrangement. Preserving this tangible, daily-lived benefit of ECOWAS citizenship protects the human constituency for regional integration and prevents the political fracture from metastasizing into permanent inter-community estrangement.

STRATEGIC LINE OF EFFORT V: INSTITUTIONALIZE A TRANSFORMED STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION AND DIPLOMATIC PROTOCOL

All substantive policy interventions will fail if transmitted through the existing, demonstrably counterproductive communication protocols. A binding institutional transformation of ECOWAS’s mode of public engagement is a standalone strategic priority.

Action 5.1: Institute a Mandatory Linguistic and Register Recalibration Across All Official Communications
The Commission must issue a binding editorial protocol mandating a permanent and institution-wide recalibration of the language employed in all communiqués, declarations, and public statements. The default opening frame of “condemnation, suspension, and ultimatum” must be replaced by a primary, consistent language frame that centers the “non-negotiable, legally binding obligation of ECOWAS to the sustained physical security, human dignity, and economic opportunity of the individual West African citizen.” The primary subjects of all public interventions shall be the identifiable human beings whose lives are affected: the farmer, the trader, the displaced child. This reframes the diplomatic confrontation from a contest between elites into a shared responsibility for protection.

Action 5.2: Permanently Discontinue Mégaphone Diplomacy and Institutionalize a Protocol of Public Humility

The ECOWAS Authority must formally resolve to permanently discontinue the practice of issuing public ultimatum deadlines as an instrument of political mediation. The only regular public updates permitted on the political process shall be confined to measured, independently verified progress on humanitarian deliverables. The substantive, consequential work of political resolution is to be conducted exclusively through the confidential, professional channels of the Permanent Panel of Eminent Persons. This protocol deliberately starves the political crisis of the sensationalist, polarizing public media cycle upon which spoilers and external actors depend, relocating the work of resolution to an environment where trust can be painstakingly reconstructed.

Action 5.3: Launch a Sustained, Decentralized Community-Level Public Diplomacy Campaign

The Commission must design and resource a sustained, decentralized public diplomacy campaign that operates below the level of national media and engages directly with local communities, traditional authorities, women’s associations, and youth networks in border regions. The campaign’s message must be non-polemical and focused exclusively on the tangible, practical benefits of ECOWAS citizenship—the right to travel, to trade, to access education and healthcare across borders—documented through the authentic testimonies of real citizens whose lives have been positively impacted. This ground-level, person-to-person diplomacy rebuilds the popular constituency for regional integration from the bottom up, countering the top-down, state-controlled narratives that currently dominate the information space.

Dr. Tolulope A. Adegoke, AMBP-UN is a globally recognized scholar-practitioner and thought leader at the nexus of security, governance, and strategic leadership. His mission is dedicated to advancing ethical governance, strategic human capital development, resilient nation building, and global peace. He can be reached via: tolulopeadegoke01@gmail.com, globalstageimpacts@gmail.com

By Henry Ukazu

Dear Destiny Friends,

To be fruitful is to be productive, profitable, and successful in all areas of your life. When one is fruitful, he will attract many opportunities and values. When we are fruitful, we won’t be barren because we will be producing fruits and results with our work. Even the book of life said no woman will be barren in your land. That’s being fruitful.

Fruitfulness permeates every area of our life. When you are fruitful, your life, marriage, business, academic, ethics, relationship/network will flourish. Our business must be fruitful to survive, otherwise it will be out of business. We shall discuss several areas where one can be fruitful.

Parents

The joy of every father is for the child to be greater than him. Any father that wants to be greater than his son is not a good father in my understanding. Parents, mentors, government, teachers, leaders of faith, etc. all want us to be fruitful.

Let’s take a case study of parents. They sacrifice their time, resources and health just to give us a decent life. They do it because they want us to be successful in life.

Personally, I watched my late father and mother deprive themselves of the luxury of life just to give me and my siblings a decent life. My late parents never had the opportunity of having a decent education, it won’t be out of place for one to say they are unlettered, but they knew the value of education.

My late dad will always say, he’s not concerned about building houses, or living a luxury lifestyle, to him, those are secondary needs of life. His primary concern is for his children to have a good education. My late dad will always say assuming he’s educated, he would have excelled higher in life.

My late mother is not an exemption. I vividly remember one day my late mother said to me, her colleagues are buying jewelry, shoes, clothes, making their hair, etc. to fit into trends, but she’s not concerned about that, her major concern is for her children to have a decent education and look good.

Most people don’t understand the inspiration behind why I do what I do today. My late parents were and remained my biggest supporter. Apart from going to heaven, my greatest goal is to make my late parents and children proud. The moral of this analysis is my late parents sacrificed even their life for me and siblings just because they want us to be successful and fruitful.

Mentors

Mentors are not left out of this equation; mentors can be regarded as gatekeepers because they have paid the price of success. It is the fruitfulness of mentors that attracts values and mentees to them. When a mentor accepts a mentee into his fold, he’s simply telling the mentee, “I want you to be successful, I don’t want you to fail. However, it is important to state that before a mentor can accept to mentor a mentee, the mentor would have seen some potential in the mentees.

It’s instructive to mention that there are five types of mentors namely:

• Position Mentor: People follow you because they have a right to follow you which can be because of the position you occupy.
• Permission Mentor: People follow you because you allow them. For example, in relationships when you decide to allow people to build relationships with you.
• Production Mentor: People follow you because of what you have done for the organization or association. This is result oriented.
• People Development Mentor: People follow you because of what you have done for them.
• Pinnacle Mentor: People follow you because of who you are or what you represent. The question now is where do you belong?

For the umpteenth time, I am a product of mentorship. My mentors have really shaped my life.

Teachers

Teachers are not left out. Teachers are generally regarded as professional educators who play a critical role in fostering student achievement, personal growth, and social development. They are seen as the “lifeblood” of the education system, often serving as mentors, role models, and agents of social change.

There are many components of teachers namely:

• Professional Experts: Teachers are trained specialists in pedagogy (the art/science of teaching) and subject matter, holding degrees and certifications that qualify them to guide learners.
• Facilitators and Mentors: Beyond delivering content, they act as guides who help students acquire critical thinking skills and knowledge, shifting from “information dispensers” to active facilitators.
• Lifelong Learners: Effective teachers are viewed as individuals who continuously learn and adapt their practices to new technologies, curricula, and student needs.
• Moral and Cultural Guides: Teachers are often expected to act as stewards of community values, maintaining student safety, and cultivating civic responsibility.
• “Backbone of Society”: They are considered crucial to a nation’s social and economic development by preparing the future workforce. Above all, they assist in making us fruitful human beings.

Leaders of faith

The leaders of faith are regarded as the molders of the human faith because they help to build our faith. When the scripture says in Genesis 1:8, be fruitful and multiply, the scripture is also referring to them because they are regarded as shepherds. As Christians, we expected to be fruitful because our heavenly father is fruitful. Being fruitful here entails bearing fruits with our life and this entails using our life to attract people into the kingdom of God as evidence of our heavenly father who expects us to be Christlike.

Government

Let’s talk about the government. When a government is fruitful, it will reflect on the lives of her citizens, but when the government is performing below expectations, the citizens will be on the receiving end. The principal responsibility of the government is protection of life and security for her citizens. Every other thing is secondary. The government is also responsible for creating job opportunities for the citizens. However, it should be noted the government cannot create for all her citizens, and as such they provide an enabling environment for the private sector to thrive.

Employers/Supervisors/Leaders

These sets of people are regarded as people of influence. You need them at your corner, if you intend to move higher in life. Your employers and supervisors are regarded as your leaders. You can never outsmart them; the best one can try is to be in their good books and tolerate their excesses. When an employee is fruitful and exceeding expectations at work, they tend to be rewarded by their supervisors or employers because of the value they create and the problem they solve

In conclusion, whatever you do in life, please try and be fruitful.

Henry Ukazu writes from New York. He works with the New York City Department of Correction as the Legal Coordinator.  He’s the founder of Gloemi. He’s a Transformative Human Capacity and Mindset coach. He is also a public speaker, youth advocate, creative writer and author of Design Your Destiny Design  and Unleash Your Destiny .  He can be reached via info@gloemi.com