News
The Mastery of Strategic Alignment
By Tolulope A. Adegoke
“You need a plan to reach your goals. It is your plans that take or get you to a place, not just your dreams. Dreams without an active plan will take you to nowhere. It is a plan that empowers and exposes you to the discipline and responsibilities required to achieve your dreams or set goals. A plan teaches you “HOW” to get there, it is your blueprint. This is your time to set in place some plans that lead you to an ‘expected end’. By the time you get to the ‘end’, you shouldn’t be surprised, because success is intentional; it is deliberate. It is plans that takes you to success, and it is planning that helps you succeed for greatness. Therefore, set it up and step it up!”
– Tolulope A. Adegoke, PhD., FIMC, CMC, CMS, MNIM, CIV
There should be synergy between your actions and ambitions. You should be able to look at your actions and tell your ambitions. From your ambitions, I will be able to tell where you are going by what you are doing. If what you are doing doesn’t tell or prophesy where you are going, then you are doing the wrong things. Since you are a limited resource, then you are not enough to go round; that means, you have to choose where you have to expend your energy. You cannot tackle everything at the same time. What you are doing must reveal or prophesy where you are going.
A plan is important, not just a dream. A lot of institutions teaches about dreams and vision, but they tend to dish the real deal in parts or halves. You need to understand that getting your plan lined up (to align) with where you are going is far more important. You need a plan to reach your goals. It is your plans that take or get you to a place, not just your dreams. Dreams without an active plan will take you to nowhere. It is a plan that empowers and exposes you to the discipline and responsibilities required to achieve your dreams or set goals. A plan teaches you “HOW” to get there, it is your blueprint.
This is your time to set in place some plans that would lead you to an ‘expected end’. By the time you get to the ‘end’, you shouldn’t be surprised, because success is intentional; it is deliberate. It is a plan that takes you to success, and it is planning that helps you succeed.
The Book of Life says: “write the vision, make it plain, so that whosoever that reads it may run with it.” Somewhere in your life, there ought to be a perfectly Mission Statement: your Vision, Purpose and Goals. That’s what is done in business, and you are in a business to earn a living. What’s your vision? What’s your purpose? What are your goals? With the aforementioned, you are able to choose what is yours wisely. Such that when people offer you things that are not in your Mission Statement, you can say NO because that’s not what you do. A lot of things can be very good, but if they are not in alignment with where you are going, you just have to let them go because you are a limited resource, which is specifically wired for a purpose or calling.
The Book of Exodus 25:1-9 unveils so much: “And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, speak unto the children of Israel, that they may bring me an offering: of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall take my offering. And this is the offering which ye shall take of them; gold, and silver, and brass, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats’ hair, and rams’ skins dyed, red and badgers’ skins, and shittim wood, Oil for the light, spices for the anointing oil, and for sweet incense, Onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod, and in the breastplate. And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them. According to all that I shew thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the patterns of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it.”
Could God have designed a tabernacle? He is a Master-planner, but He invited His people into the process and planning, and gathering the raw materials. You can quickly tell or deduce by what they are gathering that they are getting ready to build something. Also, one of the most profound statements spoken by God to Moses in the above verses is “Build according to pattern”. In other words, you should have a pattern for living. What God meant by the above is that: “I want you to build according to what I have showed you, do not build outside my plan.”
What you need is that you should get your vision from the Lord; this is simply the vision of where you are going, and this is “WHY” I put you on Earth; this is the purpose I have for you to do. Your job or duty on Earth is to build on Earth what God has already shown you. So what has God shown you? whatever God has shown you is your purpose and vision. A plan simplifies the process of tasks for an easy accomplishment of set targets. Pattern helps you grow; it builds you and gives you a niche. You are here to build on Earth as Man according to purpose and pattern which has been revealed by God.
Most people have no pattern. This is where mentoring comes in to lead you to act according to a designed pattern or system. Mentoring is about giving somebody a pattern to operate with; it is about giving or revealing and availing to somebody what they can see: walk the way I walk, step the way I step. Ask yourself, genuinely, “do you have a pattern?” Do you have a pattern for a successful career, marriage, business or ministry? Have you ever been around someone who is succeeding? You cannot imitate what you have not seen! People who don’t just hear the word, but do the word prospers and keep going up, challenges notwithstanding, but they continue to succeed because they are obedient and attentive to a laid out pattern of success.
A plan is a clear strategy which is usually documented for the purpose of succeeding, leading, conquering and achieving set-targets or goals in any facet of human endeavours. If you must prosper, then you must not fail to plan!
You must understand that success is always intentional, though many people act as if it isn’t, but it really is. You do not graduate from College and be surprised how it happened; you don’t lose weight by accident; you don’t run a marathon and say you do not know how you did it! The authentic truth is that nobody succeeds by accident.
The next thing you must not fail to understand here is that, you need to forgive yourself for making mistakes. You may have done something so foolish. Success isn’t a magic pill, but an intentional act for a change to occur via the renewing of your mindset, it is a process, it is going to take a little time, but it will work if you work it.
Invest Extra Income
Any unexpected income that is beyond your budget is the kind of money you should invest. Stop engaging in lavish spending. Understand that you do not need to buy what you do not need at all! Other people are investing in the idea that you will spend; that’s why they built a mall; that was their investment, expecting you to spend your money in it so that they can save it. You open up streams of income by investing your extra income, and you don’t start spending like the prodigal son (a fool). Don’t spend beyond your limits again. Now, you have understood that there is need for added investment pockets. In the Book of Matthew 25:14-30, Jesus Christ taught the same concept about investment. Even if He didn’t teach it, you still need to know these concepts of investment because you need to do it for your own good!
One of the biggest errors or mistakes we make is that whenever we a get a lump-sum of money, the first thing we try to do is to pay off all our bills, and what you do not realize is that when you are trying to pay off all your bills, you have bills again. You need to maximize opportunities. Gradually continue to pay your way out of debts by using the measure called DISCIPLINE. Keep the money by saving it; Grow the money by investing the money!
The Book of Life says, “you should bring forth fruits, so that your fruits may abide.” God implies that: “I am interested in getting you to a place that you stop losing everything I am giving you. What you know now will change the next five years of your life.
How can you love somebody and not have a life insurance? So you leave them struggling, evicted and uncared for? It isn’t about the luxuries or the expensive gifts or items. I charge you to convert them into assets, and get an insurance! Set your priorities straight in-line with what makes sense!
Stop accepting what keeps depreciating, and stop ignoring what keeps appreciating. Stop paying for your emotions! Even if you love a thing or luxury or property, don’t buy it if it is beyond your financial means or budget. Quit the emotion, where motion is required for your legs to step back. Stop spending too much on what is not necessarily important for you. Buy the basic needs and invest the rest so that as you rest, the profit yields!
A plan makes you a planter (sower). The idea is the seed; the plan makes you the planter. Every planter (sower) is eligible for the harvest of whatever he or she sows or plants! Ensure that you update your plan on a regular basis, because things change, so that you can make this year your year of effective and sufficient productivity. You must have things in order. Every of your steps must count! Are you positioning yourself in the line of your dream? You need to get ready to do it before you do it! You need to look like it before you are it! Remember, God anointed David to be king while he was still a shepherd boy. God was gradually positioning David into Royalty. God told Samuel in the Book of 1Samuel 16:13 (paraphrased), “I have got a Man in the House of Jesse, find him, I want you to anoint him to be king.” At first, after David was anointed to be king, he was still a shepherd boy, but rumour heard it all across the territories in his time that David was going to be king. You need to realize and understand that God is much more interested and focused on “WHERE” you are going than where you are, at the moment; and He is committed to plan and ride with you, if you will be reasonable enough to take responsibilities and endure the processes required to arrive at the successes that leads to greatness through a PLAN or pattern (strategy) that is well detailed for shifts and positioning to prosper and prevail in your areas of calling or purpose.
…to be continued.
Dr. Tolulope A. Adegoke is an accredited ISO 20700 Effective Leadership Trainer
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has accused President Bola Tinubu’s administration of “weaponising hunger” and using food prices as a political tool, alleging that the Federal Government’s claims of improved local food production are false and intended to mislead Nigerians.
According to the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, the ADC described the government’s economic narrative as “deceptive,” saying it was designed to create an illusion of progress while millions of Nigerians continue to face worsening hardship.
“The African Democratic Congress (ADC) is deeply concerned by the Federal Government’s misleading narrative around the so-called drop in food prices. Contrary to what is being celebrated in official circles, the reality on the ground, as confirmed by the voices of struggling farmers and families across the country, is that the Tinubu government is manipulating food prices and weaponising hunger for political gains,” Abdullahi said.
The ADC claimed that the reported fall in food prices was not a result of improved local production, but rather an artificial outcome of government import waivers that have flooded the market with cheap foreign goods.
“The reported drop in the prices of some food items is artificial, and a result of import waivers that have flooded the market with cheap foreign food. It is neither evidence of sound policy nor proof of increased local production.
“And while that may offer momentary relief in food prices, it has, and will, come at the heavy cost of sabotaging local farmers who can no longer compete due to soaring input costs, especially fertilisers, and worsening insecurity,” Abdullahi stated.
The party further criticised the government’s claim that its agricultural policies were encouraging domestic production, calling the assertion “dishonest” and “out of touch with reality.”
“Additionally, we find it particularly strange and dishonest for the government to claim that its policies are encouraging domestic production at a time when many farmers have been displaced by bandits, and those who remain are barely able to afford the cost of planting. How can production be increasing when the rural economy is under siege by bandits, and the costs of planting are now beyond the reach of the average farmer?” the party queried.
Rejecting government denials that imported food had been released into the market, the ADC described such claims as “false and cynical,” questioning the logic behind hoarding food in the face of national hunger.
“We also take note of the government’s claim that it has not released imported food into the market. If we are to even momentarily entertain this falsehood, it begs an even more damning question: why is the government hoarding food while the people go hungry? What sort of administration stores food in warehouses during a hunger crisis?” the ADC said.
The opposition party warned that any current decline in food prices was “temporary and unsustainable,” insisting that the government was engaging in propaganda rather than genuine economic reform.
“This is propaganda. What we are witnessing is a deliberate manipulation of food prices for short-term political gain, designed to create the illusion of economic progress while citizens continue to suffer. Any current drop in price is temporary, unsustainable, and driven by panic, not strategy and deliberate planning,” Abdullahi maintained.
Calling for urgent reforms, the ADC urged the Federal Government to “end the politicisation of hunger” and prioritise policies that safeguard local farmers, ensure fair pricing, and guarantee long-term food security.
“The ADC condemns in the strongest terms the weaponisation of hunger and calls for a complete overhaul of the current agricultural approach. We must protect local producers, address rural insecurity, and invest in long-term food sovereignty, not temporary political optics,” Abdullahi stated.
The party concluded by urging the government to put citizens’ welfare above politics, saying: “The Nigerian people deserve truth and food, not manipulation and a false narrative of renewed hope.”
The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) has announced plans to commence an indefinite nationwide strike starting November 1, 2025.
NARD President, Mohammad Suleiman, disclosed this in a statement on Sunday, saying the strike directive was issued after the expiration of a 30-day ultimatum earlier given to the Federal government over unresolved demands.
This latest action comes after a five-hour meeting of the association’s National Executive Council (NEC) on Saturday.
“The NEC has marshalled out minimum demands, strike monitoring directives, and ‘no work, no pay/no pay, no work’ resolutions needed for a successful execution of this action,” the statement reads in part.
According to Suleiman, the decision followed the expiration of a 30-day ultimatum earlier issued to the Federal government to address its demands.
“Today, after a 5-Hour Extra-Ordinary National Executive Council Meeting, the Members of NEC have issued out new marching orders to us once again.
“The NEC has unanimously directed us to declare a total, comprehensive and indefinite strike action to commence on Friday 31st October 2025 at 11:59pm.”
Suleiman said the National Officers Committee (NOC) has been mandated to ensure full compliance with the directive and to implement strike monitoring and enforcement measures across all centres.
He added that the association’s centre presidents and general secretaries have been directed to convene emergency congress meetings to brief members on the resolutions.
“We have reported to NEC and NEC has decided. The NOC will carry out this directive to its latter and in full compliance.
“NEC has also decided that centre Presidents and General Secretaries shall go back and call Emergency Congress Meetings to brief Members on the details there-in.
The NARD President accused some government and non-government actors of “evil and exploitative plans” against resident doctors, adding that the union will “collectively resist” such moves.
He also called on members of NARD to use the next few days to hand over patients, engage community and religious leaders, and sensitise the public ahead of the strike.
The industrial action is expected to cripple medical services in hospitals nationwide, as resident doctors constitute the backbone of clinical care in the nation’s healthcare system.
On September 26, NARD issued one-month ultimatum to the Federal Government to address the lingering issues affecting the welfare and training of resident doctors and medical officers across the country.
Part of the grievances listed by the association are excessive and unregulated work hours, nonpayment of outstanding arrears from the 25 and 35 percent upward review of the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure (CONMESS), and the unjust dismissal of five resident doctors from the Federal Teaching Hospital, Lokoja.
The resident doctors also expressed frustration over the non-payment of promotion arrears to medical officers in various federal tertiary hospitals, as well as the failure of the government to pay the 2024 accoutrement allowance despite repeated assurances from the Ministry of Health.
They further cited bureaucratic delays in upgrading resident doctors’ ranks following the completion of postgraduate medical examinations, leading to non-payment of new salary scales and accumulated arrears.
NARD also condemned their exclusion from the specialist allowance, despite their critical role in providing specialist-level care to patients across the country.
The association faulted the exclusion of medical and dental house officers from the civil service scheme — a policy it said denies them rightful salaries, professional recognition, and career progression.
NARD also decried the downgrading of newly employed resident doctors from CONMESS three Step three to CONMESS two Step two, resulting in reduced earnings and unpaid salary arrears in several federal hospitals.
By Henry Ukazu
Dear Destiny Friends,
Secrets are exclusive preserves of certain individuals or institutions. They are one’s advantage over others, in the sense of ‘there’s something I know, which no one else knows. No one can ever claim that they don’t have a secret, either in the good or bad light.
Secrets therefore, exist in the family circle, business terrain, academic environment, career/professional pursuit, health management, spiritual connectivity and even in everyday personal living. It is an undeniable fact that everyone has a secret that works for them.
Let’s take a minute to discuss some of the aforementioned secrets.
Family
Every family has a secret. It will be foolhardy for anyone to disclose family secrets. Most families die with their secrets. To understand how family secrets work, imagine the Coca-Cola company. The family is said to be the only one in the world that has the formula for the beverage; a trade secret that originated with its creator, John Pemberton.
It is said that not even all family members enter the room where Coca-Cola is mixed or manufactured for fear of the secret being divulged. Imagine where spouses have access to the room and the marriage goes south, there’s a tendency that a spiteful divorced partner might leak the secret and the rest as they say is history.
There are many secrets that bind many families which only the immediate family members know. In some cases, only the parents or grandparents know. They can decide to share the secret to either the first male child, first female child or even a member of the family that one considers rational. For instance, imagine where a family is faced with a peculiar life threatening illness which ordinarily might scare anyone who wants to get married into that family, it will be stupid for anyone to spit it out, that act alone can make the intending spouse to reconsider his/her plan to marry from the family.
Business
Every business has a trade secret. Trade secrets are what makes a business unique. Every business has a unique selling point. (USP), which is a distinct benefit that sets the business or product apart from its competitors. A shrewd businessman will never leak his secret to his employees or competitors. The best his employees will know are the values, the operational systems or structures of the business and how his mindset works. But what makes the business stand out is the mystery that one will need to unravel.
Academic
Every student has a distinct trait that makes him/her succeed academically. This unique trait makes the student exceptional. For any student to succeed in their academics, he must know himself and what works for him. While some might study at night, some might study during the day, others might just listen during the lecture and understand the key points.
It’s sad to see students, who haven’t discovered who they are and what works for them following students who have discovered who they are. For example, while some students have good listening and understanding ability, and can listen to lectures and read a little and pass their examinations, some other students will have to read the course material before the lecture, listen during the lecture, read after the lecture and read thoroughly for examination before they can get a decent grade.
In some cases, they might not get the desired grade. Some students will even party hard during the day and at night they study, while some will party at night and study during the day. So, you can see that while some students have discovered themselves and what works for them, some others follow them sheepishly. Moral: Know what works for you and do what works for you because according to Oscar Wilde, “be yourself because others are taken”.
Career/Profession
Every career professional has a secret that works for them. In the same way, every industry knows what makes it stands out. The secret of what makes someone in the entertainment industry successful is quite different from what makes someone in politics or law enforcement, energy, education, legal, or health sector different. They all have different strokes, and the ability of one to do the needful in addition to playing the associated game can be the game changer.
Health
Health is a personal thing. Nobody knows you more than you know yourself. To show you how secretive and important one’s health is, it’s been said that there are three kinds of life: Public life, private life and secret life.
Your public life is the life that is generally known by everyone. It is the character we exhibit in the public space. It can also be regarded as the image perception lifestyle; we don’t generally go around revealing our health status in the public domain except where necessary. The private lifestyle; this is the kind of life only our family and close friends know.
Again, we don’t disclose such pertinent information to them only where and when necessary, then we have the secret lifestyle which only us and our creator knows. In some cases, we go to the graveyard with this. Do you see why health is a personal issue which needs to be kept in a secret place?
Personal
As mentioned earlier, everyone is unique. One of the best things that can happen to anyone is knowing themselves, and knowing what makes them different. I strongly believe we all have seeds of greatness in us. What works for Mr. A might not work for Mr. B. Like I always say, you can copy my style, but you can’t be me because imitation is a limitation.
For instance, I have unique energy and inspiration when it comes to writing. I have developed a keen interest and passion for writing. If tomorrow I become very successful or attract a unique opportunity, and someone decides to try writing to attract similar opportunities, the person might fail because God is the one that decides what opportunities come to anyone nor matter how hard someone may work.
Spiritual
This is another interesting aspect of life. Life is indeed spiritual. There’s nothing that happens physically without taking place spiritually. Everyone has a covenant point that was assigned to them at birth. Once that covenant point is touched that fellow might lose their blessings, anointing or what makes them strong.
There have been many testimonies about this. For instance, in the Bible, Samson’s touching point was his hair. He knows his power lies in his hair, that’s why Delilah tried so many times to know the secret of his strength, but Samson refused to tell her. She tried to make him drunk, but Samson still has the power. Samson repeatedly lied to Delilah about the secret of his strength, first saying it was new bowstrings, then new ropes, and finally by weaving his hair into a loom. Each time, he easily broke free, but Delilah continued to pressure him.
Weary from her constant questioning, Samson finally confessed that his strength was tied to his hair, which had never been cut because he was a Nazirite from birth. Delilah then called for a man to shave Samson’s seven locks of hair while he slept in her lap. His secret was revealed. His hair was cut. He strength was gone.
Do you see that Samson’s secret place was his hair?
In conclusion, depending on what we are working on, we all have our secret strength and place. The onus is on us to cultivate and dwell on this secret place to avoid losing power and focus.
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
