INVESTMENT IN CHARACTER

INVESTING IN YOUR CHARACTER
In dealing with a subject of this nature, the starting point is to unravel and define in proper perspective what investment in character means. Character is a characteristic property that defines the apparent individual nature of someone or something. In a well definite way, character is refers to as the inherent complex of attributes that determines a person’s moral and ethical actions and reactions.

From generation to generation, from one dispensation to another, character has always been a distinguishing and distinctive features of an individual. If a society, organization, or a community want to define an individual, it is basically on character, which most time is refers to as a person’s reputation and sometimes seen as a complex of mental and ethical traits making a person or a group.

Good or godly character is the ultimate goal of all traditional and cultural education. To settle for anything less is to miss the point of growth, acceptance, reputation and legacy within clime and jurisdiction one belong. Every family, community and society spend and invest so much in character development of their children and wards, which later turn out to be the hallmark of the family. Developing the character that is good and of emulation is  life’s  most important task because it is the only thing that will launch us into enduring legacy.

Investment in character is to be committed, courageously and painstakingly inculcating the right moral and ethical values into one’s life. Education, whether formal or informal has been the object of formation of character. Not that alone, education and empowering the mind with positive and goldly values, moral and ethics is a way of investing in human character.

Every man’s eternal rewards in heaven will be based on the character we develop and  demonstrate here on earth. This means the objective of all teachings and education, must be to change  lives, invest and develop character in them, not to merely provide information.

There are two types of characters – (i) Godly or good character, (ii) evil character.

POINTS TO CONSIDER
•Character is never built in classroom; it is built in the circumstances of life. The “classroom study” is simply the place to identify character qualities and learn how character is developed.
• some of the events and  circumstances we face are to develop character in us, and that will make us  respond correctly when individuals are placed us in character-building situations.
• Character development and investment always involves a choice. When we make the right choice, our character grows and enhance our reputation.
•Whenever we choose to respond to a situation in good and ethical way instead of following our natural inclination we develop character

PROCESS OF CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
How does God produce the fruit of the Spirit in our lives? By putting us in the exact opposite circumstances so we have a choice to make.
•God teaches us how to really love by putting us around unlovable people (it does not require any character to love people who have it all together).
•He teaches us joy in times and in the midst of sorrow. Joy is -internal. Happiness depends on what’s happening, but joy is independent of circumstances.
•He develops peace within us b9 placing us in the midst of chaos so we can learn to trust him.

Character development is not always easily, so also investing in character is one of the herculean task that sometime very difficult at the beginning but pay off later in the future. When you se a parent, mentor, teacher or community that is interested in character development or investment, their concern is to perfect their wards or children, and to make a better person out of them, and not to pamper them.

For this reason, anyone who choose the path of character development or investment, life will  allows such individuals to go through all kinds of character building circumstances: conflicts disappointment, difficulty, temptation, and times of dryness and delays.

When you put knowledge of what you are instructed and taught, had a good perspective, with conviction and corresponding skills together, the resulting product is CHARACTER.

NIGERIA DILEMMA

NIGERIA DILEMMA
Nigeria, a land of prosperity  Plundered and impoverished  Nigeria, a land of values Desecrated and bastardized  Nigeria, a land of resilient people  Plunged into despair and hopelessness

Nigeria, constantly in dilemma  Constantly in search of an elusive hope  Nigeria, living in perpetual contradictions  Ugliness in the midst of beauty  Poverty in the midst of wealth  Death in the midst of life  Wars, Famine, Poverty adorn its landscape  Nigeria cries for help

Who will answer the call for help?
Who will help this wobbling giant?
Who will salvage her land from total destruction?
Who will stand to say enough is enough?
Who can understand by the hand of the clock?
That the time to rescue and save Nigeria is now.

A new dawn is upon us
Nigeria is about to take U-turn completely from her retrogress
We are in a rare season and time
Provided for us at this time to rewrite the wrongs
We must all ensure it all ends well
If we miss this time, posterity will not forgive us.

EXISTING VERSUS LIVING.

This piece is design purposefully to stop you of meandering in the maze of mediocrity and just existing start  living a meaningful life.
Are you working hard or playing hard, are you living or mere existing? Are you in charge of your life or you leaving it in the hands of someone else to control?

Let me show you the art of living. The person that makes little distinction between;
His work and his play
His labour and his leisure
His mind and is body
His information and his recreation
His love and his religion
He hardly knows which is which
He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does,
Leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing
To him, he’s always doing both

Don’t follow society’s standards or you will be sentenced to a life of average. Life is neither a practice nor a dress rehearsal; it is the real deal.
Life presents us with two choices. (i) We can either exist efficiently or (ii) live abundantly. Both choices have a price tag on them.
The price for existing efficiently is that you tend to lead a very shallow, empty, unproductive life frustrated life, far below your potential and your privilege.

The cost of living abundantly is that you must get out all that lies within you become that person that you have always wanted to be, not only for yourself but also for the benefit of others. The moment you realize and internalize that, you becoming better make the world better and your life change.

We have been lied to! We think that in order to create world change we have to hold some large political office, be some wealthy business tycoon, or be some famous celebrated world figure. But nothing could be further from the truth. Want some truth? The truth is that you, yes you can change this world, your environment, your institution for better by just the way you approach your academic (study and learning) life, work and life in general.

Just by deciding that you will live abundantly change the world and the cause of your life. Imagine our world if people stopped existing and really started living. Crime would almost disappear because when people live, they don’t need to take from or harm other to get what they want, because they realize that what they really want, they already have within then. It’s just a matter of recognition and development.

Invest you time in developing yourself instead of tearing down others.

NIGERIA AT 55: The past, Present and the Future.

MY INDEPENDENCE BROADCAST… By Dotun George

At this defining moment in the history of Nigeria, when we are celebrating 55th year of our independence from our slave and colonial master. One part of me rejoices and another part of me cries, why? Because of where we are coming from, where we are now and the hope for the future that is just coming a bit brighter. Unfortunately, Nigeria at 55, she was taken captive by conspiracy of deception, oppression, corruption, bad leadership and injustice. She needs liberation, freedom and independence of thought, action and reasons. 2015 became a watershed in the history of Nigeria, the year Nigerians from the South, North, East and West decided to break the yoke of oppression and reposition Nigeria and her leadership, it looks very impossible but right before our eyes, we all saw it happened. Today as a nation we are grateful to God, who change the course of event and redirect Nigeria from perdition and precipice.

A lot of questions are fighting for expression inside of me, are we really or truly free, has anything change over the past 55 years of independence? Nigeria is yet to create her own variant of democracy informed by our own norms, culture, systems of belief, values etc. It is not my joy to start exposing the problems of Nigeria and expose the inadequacy and failures of the past leadership in Nigeria, frankly all the leaders Nigeria produced in the last 55 years had done a great havoc to this nation with the exception of few. But I believe in solving a problem, we must agree on the causes of our problems. More often than not, the problem of Nigeria development process is usually reduced to that of leadership.

The frequent political changes have brought inconsistency to our education polities. The military regime and Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan administration had done evil to education by allowing perpetual closure of our higher Institution and voting a very small percentage of the national annual budget to education. Our academic certificate does not attract any value in the international community. There is an urgent need for a stable education policy, a responsible generation like ours must make sacrifice for their future.

There is high level of poverty in this land, lack of the basic facilities of life, poverty of independent thought and actions, poverty of vision and direction among our leaders, we appear not to know who we are, what we are worth and where we wish to go from here. The literacy statistics shows than we have high level of illiterates now than we have in 1960 because the Nigerian government since 1979 had done a great disservice to this country by progressively uneducated Nigerian children.

Today the minimum wage in Nigeria is N18,000 the questions I kept on asking people is still the same, show me any one who can successfully live with this minimum wage without stealing, begging for more or borrowing at the expense of his own future economy?

In 55 year of existence what can we do to improve our lot as individual and as a nation? We need a very strong national philosophy (Philosophy that will guide every citizen like America, all of them are guided, propelled by their national philosophy), national orientation (This very important because Nigerians have been conditioned to certain lifestyle like corruption, nepotism, cheating, etc that needs change) and direction.

We all need discipline, probity, integrity, hardwork, accountability and righteousness to build a new nation. Hardwork does not kill; it is laziness that kills the mind and the body. Hardwork is the essential to the building of a solid foundation for self, family and country. Hardwork is a cure for fraud, cheating, examination leakages, certificate rackets, secret cults and failure in life.

Discipline encompasses modesty, thoughtfulness, community living, punctuality, duty, leadership and followership, obedience, cooperation and discussion. We all need a self control.

Let us all be honest in accounting for actions and activities. Righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach. Where are you? and what are you doing? If you say because others do it you will follow others to do evil? You are a jellyfish then. Avoid immoral shortcuts to achieve goals. Avoid cheating in class, in home, in class election and examinations. Then you will grow up to be a trusted, trust-worthy and reliable individual at home, at work, school and within the community. You will grow up to be respected person.

Money cannot buy everything. Resist the urge to join people in praising corrupt people and more importantly resist the temptation of following them. If all of us can start doing all this little thing there will be change in our society and it is this change people from the society that will later emerge has our leaders in all sphere of government. It is not too late for Nigeria to reverse the ill of the past

All Nigerians are expected to be a activist in our own way, pursuing actions to a logical conclusion towards; good governance, exposing what is wrong, Industrial commitments, crying against instances of injustice, teaching/educating the people to be self-sufficient, re-orientate the mind positively, working behind the scenes to promote enhanced political leadership, promoting Political/Human Rights activism and using the media to propagate meaning leadership

CORRECTING THE MESS IN EDUCATION SECTOR..

On a very sad note, in our clime we confuse schooling with education and today we are paying dearly negatively for it. Schooling is different from education, unfortunately for us, we left the most vital and begin to chase shadows. Schooling is the process of being formally educated at a school, while education is the activities of educating or instructing or activities that impart knowledge or skill in an individual. Or better still, education is the Knowledge acquired by learning and instruction.

There is a line of distinction between the two and obvious our policy maker, the player maker and agencies in our educational sector do not know the difference and that is why there is confusion everywhere. The greatest things colonial master gave us is education but today Nigeria has messed up what was given to us. We are not emulating the colonial master in embracing the best practices of education, after we have messed up what they gave to us, instead of us repairing the damage and finding solution, the rich, well to-do, the poor and those in government took their children and wards abroad to obtain quality education, which they know quite well that is what we lack.

Over the years, government is not considering and paying serious attention to the foundation, which is the primary education and imagine when the foundation of a house is faulty, what happened? That is an invitation to disaster. Firstly, we are not having adequately trained and qualified teachers at the primary level, what they teach our children are irrelevant to their demand, time and age. Investment in the teachers that will teach our children in school should be the utmost priority of government. A teach cannot give what he does not have, therefore, to secure the future, its high time we look in the direction of training and re-training the teachers. The curriculum are wrong and we are not delivering values anymore. We must revive the national policy on education the formative years of every child is vital and must not be taken for granted and most importantly, public schools must be well funded.

Solution to our moribund education is not lowering the cut-off marks that JAMB (Joint Admission Matriculation Board)  is embarking on but re-evaluating and improving the standard. Teachers are suppose to be highly intelligent people, reducing the cut-off marks to 150 is an insult on teaching profession.

What is the relevance of JAMB in the life of our nation and our children? JAMB has outlived its functions and relevancy in Nigeria, they only cause confusion for the student and they have succeeded in causing retrogressing harm to our children. The day JAMB died and lost its relevancy was the day schools were allowed to conduct post UTME after students have written JAMB examination. JAMB should be scrapped and the bogus funds spend on JAMB every year should be spent on training, re-training and adequately equipping and improving the teachers. Spent it on redeveloping and remodeling our moribund and declining education standard.

Organisations, institutions and employers of labour are part of the problems and the mess in education sector. In their advertisement, looking for students with two-one, looking for student with 5 year to 7 years of working experience from a newly graduated student, is that not futile?
Where they missed it is that, they should not expect students to study law, marketing, business management, banking, etc and come out from school and automatically become a lawyer, marketer, business manager, banker, etc, without practice, without someone taking him through the practicality of the profession. What we need now is a leader who will prioritize education.

In other developed and advanced countries of the world, CEO and employers sit at the project defense panel of the students and many students got employment without writing any interview and test to get the job.

In the past we used to have international students on our universities but today, all our students are abroad because there is no standard and no value for money paid.

ARISE AFRICA

Arise Africa

Arise Africa  To your destiny and purpose  Hear God’s clarion call  To harbour the King and His Kingdom  Like you once did against Herod’s sword  But now against the darkness  That has engulfed your land and beyond

Arise to a new day  From the clutches of the past  From the shackles of the present  And the trepidation of the future  Sing a new song of freedom  He is faithful that promised  To restore your lost glory

Arise Africa  Let your sprawling cathedrals  Overflow to the highways and hedges  And your godly influence  To homes, governments, workplaces and communities  Let His kingdom reign  Among those that bear His name

Arise, dear Africa  Let your priests stand in the gap  And your kings exercise dominion  Let your sons and daughters at home and in Diaspora  Think of you above their very lives  Let each become an agent of change  And usher in a renewal

Arise now, Africa  Let your light bearers stand against the prevailing darkness  With the endurin godly culture  Prescribing and implementing divine solutions  That will astound the heathen  Daring to disciple the nations  As manifested sons of God

Arise, O Africa  Let your great men rebuild the ancient ruins  Let them repair the broken walls  And restore the age-old foundations  Where the poor, orphan and widow rejoice  Then will you be like a watered garden  And your night like noonday