Stay at the top of the shrink!

Recently Nduka Obiagbena, Publisher of Thisday Newspapers clocked 50. In an interview with The SUN Newspapers, he shares some of the principles that guides his life and am willing to share it with you.

· Until you are able to offer something different, innovative and exciting, and compelling, you have not broken into the market
· Its always tough at the start, but don’t give up, ever!
· Recruit good hands.
· Think out of the box
· Find solutions that are different
· Learn from your mistakes of the past.
· Have a store of values
· Build capital, save
· Manage your cash-flow
· Failure is to learn from success
· If you don’t fail, you can’t learn.
· You stumble, fall, but keep walking.
· Be determined
· Diversify
· Crisis are there to strengthen you
· What to look for in workers-Independence minded, strength of character, power of innovation
· Grow your leaders
· Stay at the top of the shrink!

Be a Voice

This last July 14th I was 40 years Old. Hmmmn How time flies. I am grateful to god and the good people around me.

However, I am concerned about matters of faith worldwide. There is a presure from Hell and we need all the faith we can muster to face the challenges. The funny thing is that I am not sure many people understand these times.

There is a great cry for a Voice that will usher in the King!

Willl you be that Voice, In Nigeria, I humbly asked God to make me a voice.

Take Your Life in Your Hands

Take Your Life in Your Hands

There are some very interesting scriptures I want to explore in this blog today. No Matter what happens in life, resolve what to do and take your life in your hands!

Luke 16:3-4 Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed. 4 I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.

Judges 11:1 Now Jephthah the Gileadite was a mighty man of valour, and he [was] the son of an harlot: and Gilead begat Jephthah. 2 And Gilead's wife bare him sons; and his wife's sons grew up, and they thrust out Jephthah, and said unto him, Thou shalt not inherit in our father's house; for thou [art] the son of a strange woman. 3 Then Jephthah fled from his brethren, and dwelt in the land of Tob: and there were gathered vain men to Jephthah, and went out with him. 4 And it came to pass in process of time, that the children of Ammon made war against Israel. 5 And it was so, that when the children of Ammon made war against Israel, the elders of Gilead went to fetch Jephthah out of the land of Tob: 6 And they said unto Jephthah, Come, and be our captain, that we may fight with the children of Ammon. 7 And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, Did not ye hate me, and expel me out of my father's house? and why are ye come unto me now when ye are in distress? 8 And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, Therefore we turn again to thee now, that thou mayest go with us, and fight against the children of Ammon, and be our head over all the inhabitants of Gilead. 9 And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, If ye bring me home again to fight against the children of Ammon, and the LORD deliver them before me, shall I be your head? 10 And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, The LORD be witness between us, if we do not so according to thy words. 11 Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head and captain over them: and Jephthah uttered all his words before the LORD in Mizpeh.

Judges 12:2 And Jephthah said unto them, I and my people were at great strife with the children of Ammon; and when I called you, ye delivered me not out of their hands. 3 And when I saw that ye delivered [me] not, I put my life in my hands, and passed over against the children of Ammon, and the LORD delivered them into my hand: wherefore then are ye come up unto me this day, to fight against me? (Emphasis mine)

Jephtha’s life story is recorded above in Judges 11 and 12, and what a very glorious story it is! If you want to possess your inheritance in life you must realize certain facts. First, is that no one on earth owes you ANYTHING! We are all pilgrims on earth. In fact the Scriptures says we must fight for our salvation with fear and trembling.

Philippians 2:12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Jephtha’s life story is similar to that of many people all over the world, I am sure some of us reading this book can identify with this story. Son of a harlot, thrown out of his father’s house and living with a band of vain men. Yet this man that life seems to have rejected took his destiny in his hands and in the process of time with the help of the mighty God became the captain or leader of the same nation that rejected him. What a story!

Caleb and Joshua had a minority report against the overwhelming report of the other 10 spies, the nation rejected the minority report for the majority report and thereafter spent forty years in the wilderness! But in the process of time, the minority report became the true history of Israel.

Do you have similar circumstances in your life where people have cast you out as a never do well? Do you have vain men or as another translation puts it worthless men around you? The key is to take your life in your hands and take life heads on, listen to me, in the process of time you will win and become the captain!

Jephtha and the servant in Luke 16:3-4 took their lives in their hands. They resolved that irrespective of their current circumstance in life, they were resolved not to beg, not to steal, not to dig. What have you resolved to do with your current situation? You cannot afford to fold your hands and wait for kingdom come, you must do something with the opportunities you have today. Resolve today and you will not beg tomorrow. In the process of time, God will make all things beautiful for you. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. Halleluyah!

God Cannot Lie!

Hebrews 6:12-20 “That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself, Saying, Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee. And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath: That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us: Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.” (KJV)

Tit 1:2 In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;

YOU ARE ABOUT TO ENTER INTO YOUR SEASON OF HARVEST. God is the one that is taking you into that season of harvest. You may think that you can labour; you think that by the wisdom of your life, and the ability of your hands that you can do it. Take a look at this, when God told Abraham that He was going to make him a father of many nations, by his own hands, labour and works of the flesh, Abraham caused something that God did not decree. But when God’s time came, God fulfilled his promise. You have tried it by your own strength and in your own way, but His own time has come, it is termed for you a SEASON OF HARVEST. God swore by himself because there was none greater for him to swear by, He has indeed committed himself and decreed of Himself that those things which he said concerning you and me, he will bring it to pass. You know when God searched in heaven, there was nobody there that he could swear by. He looked in the earth and saw that there was nobody that could establish anything beyond Him. So He swore an oath by Himself using as basis two immutable things –things that are infinite, that cannot change for all eternity– His word and His Name!

Numbers 23:19 “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” (KJV)

THE STRENGTH OF ISREAL

1 Samuel 15:29 “And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent.” (KJV)

The scripture here describes God as the strength of Israel that cannot lie. If there is a group of people that the world has done everything to wipe off the face of the earth, and totally annihilate, it is Israel, as a nation. In 70 AD, invaders came upon Jerusalem and burnt it to ashes. No single block remained on another in that city. The people were scattered upon the face of the earth. There were few remnants and in 135AD, another group of invaders came in and burnt down the whole nation. Many have determined that the nation of Israel will neither stand nor exist. In different nations of the earth, the Jews are there because of these different scattering.

However, in 1948, it pleased God to begin to gather together Israel again. That is what only the Strength of Israel can do. That nation came back together, and was established, according to the pre-determinate counsel of God in Isa 66:8. The One who established that nation against all odds is THE STRENGTH OF ISRAEL and he wants you to know that as long as Israel is in existence, He will fulfil His WORD concerning you, He will not fail you. You have good assurance to trust in the WORD because ‘THE STRENGTH OF ISRAEL’ will not lie or repent seeing that he is not a man.

Men can make promises and fail to live up to it, but God wants you to look up to him because He desires to take all the glory for your life alone. God cannot share His glory with another. He cannot lie concerning what He has promised you.

Romans 11:29 “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.”

God cannot forget those promises He has made concerning you. You don’t have to consider your age when it comes to the promises of God concerning you. It is not wise to use clock and calendar as a yardstick for measuring the fulfilment of God’s promises.

Age is one of the things that do not matter in the counsel of God. Assuming, you are due for marriage and you think that God has forgotten you…No! God has not forgotten you. Promises have been made and oaths have been sworn concerning you and because of that heaven and earth are both bound and locked together to fulfil those promises. That is what God can do in the life of everyone who believes Him.

REJOICE!

“It is time to celebrate before the LORD your God at the place He chooses to put His name to be honoured. Celebrate with your whole family, all your servants, all the Levites from your towns foreigners and orphans, and widows who live among you. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt: so be careful to obey this laws.” Deuteronomy 16:11-12 TLB

REJOICE! It is given to you to rejoice in the presence of your maker. God is omnipotent and omnipresent, so you are supposed to rejoice anywhere you are. There is no where that you can run to that God is not there. David discovered this and penned it sweetly in the following scripture:

“Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.” (Psalms 139:7-12 KJV)

Since God is everywhere you ought to rejoice where ever you find your self because God commands you to do so especially where He has chosen to put His name. It doesn’t matter how the tears of the night has been, joy will come in the morning. From the scripture we read, to rejoice means to be glad, to be happy, to be satisfied, and to be filled with joy. For some people their joy level has gone so low! They have been bent over and caged in their spirit by the circumstances of life, such as the global economic crisis, personal loss, pain, death of a loved one etc. Whatever has caged your spirit, I speak as an oracle of God; I command those gates to be broken open in the mighty name of Jesus. Let the joy level that has gone low in you begin to rise in the mighty name of Jesus.

To rejoice means to exult, to celebrate in His presence. When you go out and you come in, your children exult at your arrival. That’s the way you ought to be rejoicing before your Heavenly Father. Whatever the situations and the circumstances of your life, you just rejoice in the LORD your God because you have just been presented with another opportunity to demonstrate the power of God. You should not look at situations and circumstances as if they are fixed. They are not fixed! There is no mountain that is fixed before Zerubbabel, neither can any mountain limit your joy.

“Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it. (Zechariah 4:7 KJV)”

Excuse me mountain, who art thou? Declare yourself, because the God I serve when He moves Himself, mountains skip as ram before Him.

You have to rejoice since you know the end from the beginning. Rejoicing is for you and your entire family including the strangers within your jurisdiction. As a believer you are not supposed to have anybody around you that is unable to make it.

When I was much younger, we used to live in Makurdi, in the railway compound and I was a little bit smallish in stature. There were this group of boys in the environment tormenting my sister and me. They just enjoyed beating us up. And I was the favourite in the family. So you can only imagine if I come home crying, everyone at home will be interested in knowing who beat me up. One of my cousins then was a mechanic, so you can only imagine how all his biceps were bulky and well built up. So usually, on our way back from school those bullies will take on my sister and I and all we could do was go home and cry. Then my cousin decided to take on those boys for us. Every time they attempted to beat us again, he would give them a thorough beating. It was such a delight to see those bullies belittled and my sister and I had the joy of jeering at them as they were beaten, humiliated and confounded before our eyes by our cousin. That is how you are supposed to be rejoicing in the face of the devil. Jesus has taken him on and he is defeated for you!

Go out this new week, fear no foe, face your variety of challenges, be strong, be bold, be courageous and God has gone ahead to give you victory. Rejoice in the face of those adversities, let them know they cannot limit you. We all have challenges, but what makes the difference is how we respond to those challenges of life. I want you this week to rejoice, as you do so, the devil will be ashamed, and the obtacles he's put in your way will melt like ram, because when you rejoice, you release the angels of God to fight for you. Victory is certain, so rejoice.

Be thou My Vision: My Best Hymn!

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart,
be all else but naught to me, save that thou art;
be thou my best thought in the day and the night,
both waking and sleeping, thy presence my light.

Be thou my wisdom, be thou my true word,
be thou ever with me, and I with thee Lord;
be thou my great Father, and I thy true son;
be thou in me dwelling, and I with thee one.

Be thou my breastplate, my sword for the fight;
be thou my whole armor, be thou my true might;
be thou my soul's shelter, be thou my strong tower:
O raise thou me heavenward, great Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise:
be thou mine inheritance now and always;
be thou and thou only the first in my heart;
O Sovereign of heaven, my treasure thou art.

High King of heaven, thou heaven's bright sun,
O grant me its joys after victory is won;
great Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
still be thou my vision, O Ruler of all.

2009 World Telecoms and Information Society Day: Whither Nigeria? By Bankole Olubamise

Monday May 17th is International Telecommunications and Information Society Day (WTISD). The World Telecommunication and Information Society Day is a merger of the World Telecommunication Day which has been celebrated annually on 17 May since 1969, marking the founding of ITU and the signing of the first International Telegraph Convention in 1865. It was instituted by the Plenipotentiary Conference in Malaga-Torremolinos in 1973 and the World Information Society Day. In November 2005, the World Summit on the Information Society called upon the UN General Assembly to declare 17 May as World Information Society Day to focus on the importance of ICT and the wide range of issues related to the Information Society raised by WSIS. The General Assembly adopted a resolution (A/RES/60/252) in March 2006 stipulating that World Information Society Day shall be celebrated every year on 17 May.
In November 2006, the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Antalya, Turkey, decided to celebrate both events on 17 May as World Telecommunication and Information Society Day. The updated Resolution 68 invites Member States and Sector Members to celebrate the day annually by organizing appropriate national programmes with a view to:
stimulating reflection and exchanges of ideas on the theme adopted by the Council
debating the various aspects of the theme with all partners in society
formulating a report reflecting national discussions on the issues underlying the theme, to be fed back to ITU and the rest of its membership
For 2009, the theme is Protecting children in cyberspace. The theme of this year’s WTISD aims at ensuring that children can safely access the Internet and its valuable resources without fear of falling prey to unscrupulous predators in cyberspace.
The big question is what is Nigeria doing strategically to protect children in cyberspace?
We have made a lot of progress in telecommunication, though still a lot to be done, but in accessing the Internet, harnessing its benefits and protecting users, Nigeria is still far behind. Most cybercafés where majority of Nigerians access the Internet remains uncontrolled. Most yahoo-yahoo boyz use the cybercafés as their turf to commit the numerous frauds that Nigeria has become branded with. Cybercafé owners are more interested in the financial gains that accrue to them rather than prevent the use of their facilities for such demeaning crimes against their fatherland. Nationalism is not a very profitable venture fore cybercafé owners.
The worst danger that is growing now is the lax ways that cybercafé owners run their business whilst children are there. I recently visited a café in Lagos where they were showing the entertainment channel E! at 2pm in the afternoon with at least 3 children who accompany their parents watching. I was shocked that nobody including the parents could either stop the café from showing that channel with lewd picture while children and young adults were there and why show such a channel like that at such a time in a public place which is what a café is anyway?
A major challenge for regulatory authorities (am not sure café’s have one) is to promote safe surfing in the Nigerian cyberspace. Those of us who have travelled out of Nigeria to Europe and America can readily attest to what unbridled freedom have turned those societies into. We must immediately begin a national process of promoting children access to safe surfing. Our regulatory agencies must come out of their shells with a policy statement. The Cybercrime bill sitting in the national assembly for almost 5 years must be passed without further delay. It is a shame that a nation that is victim of negative branding through yahoo-yahoo has not taken any positive step to criminalize the act and regulate the use of the internet. This is a campaign the Nigeria Internet Group (NIG) should advocate upon. NITDA and NCC should collaborate to see the cybercrime bill out of the National parliament in record time.

Now many schools and homes are gaining access to the Internet through great programmes like Schoolnet and most of the Mobile telecommunications companys’ Internet Access programme. In fact most new generation phones are internet ready. As these service providers and products are bringing Internet closer to the user, especially children, we must ensure that children are protected from Internet predators. In the UK there is the Paedophile Register to track convicted paedophiles (child sex predators). The Nigerian Police must develop a similar programme and policy directive to protect our children. In fact the ITU makes an urgent call for proactive policies to protect children “During this year’s WTISD, ITU calls upon all stakeholders (policy makers, regulators, operators and industry) to promote the adoption of policies and strategies that will protect children in cyberspace and promote their safe access to online resources. This will not only lead to the building of a more inclusive information society, but will also enable Member States to meet their obligations towards protecting and realizing the rights of children as laid out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by UN General Assembly resolution 44/25 of 20 November 1989.”

Why must we protect Children’s access to cyberspace? Cyberspace is the future of the world. Bill Gates said whoever comes late to the Internet revolution, will be the developing country of the future. I am afraid if we do not take advantage of the benefits the cyberspace offers our vision to be a top 20 economy in 2020 may never materialize. It is also important because we are the digital age and as globalization deepens the global digital divide, only a globally competitive workforce can produce the necessary capacity to engage the emergent knowledge economy and leapfrog the digital divide, which is invariably deepening poverty
This millennium is the millennium of the ‘information society,’ where the economy is ‘knowledge-based’ and the main driving technology is Information and Communications Technology (ICT). The technology has changed the way we lead our lives from the way we work, the way we learn, to the way we live at an unprecedented speed. Nothing has influenced human civilization as Information and Communication Technology in modern times. Information and communication technology is changing almost all aspects of human activities. Information and Communication Technology has affected all aspects of modern society such as communications, trade, business, culture, education, services, entertainment, research, information and knowledge. Today information and communication technologies are unfolding new dimensions. They have been instrumental in bringing new industrial revolution based on information and knowledge.

With the rise of information and communication revolution, a paradigm shift is taking place in the course of human development. Globalization is taking place. Geographical boundaries are vanishing. Knowledge and information are creating new economic superpowers.
The material development of a country is not judged by what natural resources a country possesses but by the quality of the human resource it has. It is the brainpower that brings prosperity to a country. Efforts should, therefore, be directed towards developing such brainpower. Development of human resource should be viewed from this angle. Education is a key factor in human resource development. This is why Nigeria needs a National Strategic document to drive this development. We cannot get to the top 20 in 2020 without a national Development Strategy that is built on ICT. It is simply not possible. In fact, ICT tools are our best chances of getting near the top 30 economies of the world.

The key resource for developing the information and knowledge economy in any nation is human resource. The Federal Government of Nigeria realizing that the 21st century being a knowledge age and driven by knowledge economy built on innovations and deployment of ICTs is committed to transforming the Nigerian economy into a globally competitive economy by investing in human resource development. It acknowledges that: the extent to which she will benefit from the advances and the opportunities of the emerging information age will depend on how she is capable of developing and harnessing its human resources to initiate, support and maintain its socio-economic development towards an information and knowledge economy. Hpowever, dreams are not enout, we must act fast to produce the human resource that will lead us into the future. When last did the Police recruit computer experts as policemen and women to help them fight cybercrime and prevent predators at cybercafés. There is need for a very concerted effort to change the current trajectory of things. The Cyberspace is developing on a daily basis, we need the right kind of policies and people to implement these policies. The National Strategic Plan document has been ready for months yet there is little movement on the implementation side. Its time to act to protect our future as well as take the future.

The Cyberspace is for the good, the bad and the ugly. Which one will Nigeria allow to dominate?

Bankole Olubamise is an ICT Consultant and Executive Director of Development Information Network, DevNet, 386, Murtala Muhammed Way, Yaba, Lagos, bolubamise@yahoo.com.