It is now undoubtedly true that the politics of today take us the people as secondary, and this is wrong as any man who seeks to lead this nation must put Nigeria first, the people must come 1st. How do we make this happen ??? Our votes must count and we MUST Vote.

In this concluding series, we all saw the NN24 debate and how excitingly shocking it turned out to be. On one hand Ribadu, which had so much respect from Nigerians and the International Community denied making a lot of statements and was presenting his arguments like in the days of OBJ. He was forcefully making points that we already knew and could not really analyze how to solve the problems he said we had. He insisted that Nigerians were not corrupt but the government was the issue, meanwhile he headed the EFCC for a period of time.  He lost his crowd that day. It was a shame, that I think is the best thing to say.

Our very own Gen B, was ok but really could not give clear views on present happenings. He had good records from the past and promised to clean up the system. He although could not really give us a strong debate but has recorded achievement which has given him a good edge. This is a man that clearly has shown that he is not in for the money, my only problem is that time has changed. His tactics has to be up to date on solving problems and developing new ideas for Nigerians.

We have long voted by Name and hear say, meeting the people in question was very important. The President refused to attend this debate because the party (PDP) said it was unfair for only few candidates to be called and also that the national carrier NTA should have been actively involved.   Was this a genuine excuse ? Well thats left to Nigerians to decide.

Finally, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau was amazing, he had facts and analyzed every question aside being a mathematician he also displayed political intelligence from my point of view. He talked about the solution to the  Niger Delta problem better than Niger Delta’s candidates  themselves. He also pointed out current solutions, using his state as an example to current problems. He impressed me and I think also a lot of Nigerians. But is that enough for you???

Do any of these men deserve your vote ? Please lets do the right thing and for the right reason. What you decide today will effect this generation and maybe the Next either Positively or Negatively.

YOU DECIDE

The youths have been used as instruments of ridicule for far too long, we have heard a lot of aspirants talk about youth what have they done for the so called “Youths” ? For instance The president goes on a show with D’banj as the interviewer? We all know that story by now as how annoyingly amazing it sounds. On and on we have heard the music of youth development, I think is time to ask ourselves, have they given us a reason to actually cast our vote for them ?

Today, again we will be looking at two of our supposed to be leader of our great Nation. Both trying to rally for votes using youths as one of their major instrument. My fellow Deltan elder brother Pat Utomi is preaching about effective communication amongst youths. This is a renowned entrepreneur who has headed and managed Nation wide recognized organisations, exactly what is he preaching at the moment ? What has he done for Nigerian youths ? He has contested severally and why is that no one is listening to him?  I don’t think running a business and a Nation is the same thing, do you ?

Same with Dele Momodu, on his campaign web page he has a sing and vote competition where ‘youths’ can win millions ! What exactly do these men take youths for. Are the Issues of the country a game or medium for jokes. I have read both campaign web site and I wonder, every one of them is talking about new this, new that, better this and better that…. No one is really talking about investing Nigerian funds? What happens if our economy which almost depends on only crude oil changes because maybe there is an emergence of alternate source of energy? No laid out plan to show us the Youths, what will be available for us to grow on .We have heard many of their so called promises over and over again. Lets look for some difference, something reasonable enough to deserve our vote.

Pat Utomi in his web site was speaking highly of Nuhu Ribadu, a man who denied on NN24 presidential debate on calling his now “Godfather” Tinubu a criminal of international standard or level. This clearly shows that he was an instrument for the government at that time. Now he screams that PDP was corrupt, he claims they were running a bad government of which he forgets he was a member . Why on earth should we praise this kind of man ???

This is no fun time, this is serious. Our country needs a good leader who means well for everyone, especially the youths. Who will it be, as PU says “God bless Nigeria”.

To be cont …………..

A friend of mine wrote on his face book page today “Myopia can not just be a condition for the eye alone; i think some people have it in their brains. How do you explain some one adamantely wanting to sell bad goods all in the name of politics? oh i remember!! they are called “myopic “. And that brings me to my topic.

What is the reason people decide to vote for a particular candidate? Why has every one put aside quality and substance for tribalism, religion, ethnicity and so much baseless reasons ? I am a Christian, yes and am proud to say that but not every one that says it really do what the bible says. In character a true Christian is known. In the bible there is no kingdom that flourish with the wrong person in power.

In the upcoming elections we have the likes of Goodluck, Shekarua, Dele Momodu, Pat Utomi , Buhari ,Ribadu and some others who entered the race to taste the reasoning faculty of Nigerians. Why should will vote for any of these candidates? Do we know them ? Have we seen what they have done ? Who can truely say they are tested and trusted ? have they been in government ? Why , whats your reason for your vote .

I am going to mention just what I feel about some of the few candidates I have mentioned, beginning with our president with all due respect that is. GEJ to me has not shown any clear difference from his predecessors. He is our own brother but should that be the basis for my vote ??? Recently, according to findings a lot of seriously rejected and unwanted bad leaders are striving in his reign. I mean imagine even in His own state were people are complaining seriously about the governor of the state , the man still won his primaries. Even in delta State, he personally campaigned for a governor who has been accused severally of fraud and neglection  of citizens of the state. Rumors has it that he sent a representative to the scandalous homecoming of the unrepentant ex-convict, Bode George, and confounded us by withdrawing (or about to withdraw) corruption cases against the Vaswani brothers, Kenny Martins, Julius Berger, Nasir El-Rufai and the Minister of State for Health, Suleiman Bello.

What are we judging him by ? There has been occasional crises here and there, Lagos, Jos,Abuja and Akwa-ibom as much as the president has enemies he must pay more attention to these happenings , which so far as not shown enough concern of cubing the problem .

To be cont……………

We can not over emphasis the importance of  planning, It all started when she said “Yes I will marry you”.When ever people say I want to get married there are mixed feelings, one of excitement and the other of fear, what kind of wedding am I going to have? are people going to come ? who cares is it not all about me ? I want my wedding to be the best ? and so on . The reality which every one knows, is that it’s just a day or two at most. So you can imagine how a day can change you

Its a happy day,your day of joy and gladness. I was so happy and my wife too, she couldn’t stop smiling. But it took planing and the favor of God. It was all very dramatic, how the day drew close by the minute. I woke up and noticed am getting married today,with thanks to God for how things all fell into place, with all my friends around me and family doing their best to ensure it was a day to savor.

With work, church activities and so much more, God still answered our prayers, clear weather and so much joy in the air,why wont I want to write about it. It was favor. Pardon me as I preach a little, because my wedding was nothing short of a testimony. like 1st Peter 5:7 , says “cast your cares upon the Lord for He cares for you “. Worrying about so much those not change your situation, but preparing and praying will lead you to your testimony. We prepared and God did the rest and when he is involved your planing is made easy.

Life has a lot to offer both pain and gain, which do you take? Which will you receive? How prepared are you? You need money but day dream more on how to spend it, you are not satisfied with you work but have no plan of owning your company,no saving, no mutual benefit, no investment, no idea. Open your mind and tell God to fill you. Wisdom He says he has in abundance but will only be given to does who ask. Have you asked ? When you ask will you back it up with faith for what He has told you to do ? During my wedding His favor saw me through, as His name states “A Great Provider”.

I can go on and on and will still not exhaust His favor and how it changed me, one last verse I will like to share with you is John 3:16, I have been coming across this over and over again in recent time it reads ,

“For God so loved the world that

he gave his one and only Son,

that whoever believes in him

shall not perish but have eternal life”

Now thats love .

I happen to work in a very fast growing civil engineering limited. The difference between my firm and others out there is basically quality.  We have been able to pattern with some companies abroad, like Halumm Germany, Trend Sanitary, Qiakon Aluminium in China and working on a lot of others, check us out in face book , with user name Ngoben EngineeringLimited(follow us on facebook).

I have a workaholic boss, he is impressive, the way he thinks, work, calculate and organize staff , you just can’t but try to think better when you are working with him. He is a great guy but when it comes to him needing you it doesn’t really matter how busy you are, you just have to make time. At the same time with my wedding plan and as a member of church harvest ,he needed me more than ever, we had a lot of projects on hand and I had to handle more. It took a lot and had to add extra hours.

All through I had to learn how to manage time, there was no time to hand out or have any kind of fun. But what I did at the end was learn how to mix business with pleasure. I had to attend some meetings with my fiancée ,at social friendly locations like cinemas,fast foods and “wedding planing locations”, lol.

I had help from reading my bible and depending more on God, when it gets complicated and I get all worked up, its like the holy spirit is there to tell me, its well.  So many people , work, get held up in traffic, have family problems or even end up in the hospital on there way to work. I have learnt to say thank you Lord before I go to sleep because at the end of the day, life could have been more complicated but He helps me meet most of my targets in a day.

Follow this link read 10 things you must do this year 2011 http://www.opportunityworld.biz/goals2011.pdf .

I feel blessed, all new and excited. Before I boast about what God has done for me let me start with an opportunity which was worth it all the way. I got my letter on a Sunday, as the Young Adult Coordinator in my church, I felt another letter from the church council but to my utmost surprise, I was just made a member of the 2010 Harvest Committee. I was like really ? What do I now about being in a committee of that magnitude. After church we held our inaugural meeting were I was made the secretary. Now, I had only been thought about how to take minutes in secondary school but never really practice it. I went into action, reading and practicing for it but my initial minutes was not up to my chairman’s standard. I grew to write to standard after some try and it was exciting and fun .

I never knew harvest planing and execution could be so much fun. The visits to member’s home, which i could attend only once, due to my wedding plans at the time, visits to members in the hospital and ageing members of the church, who were very excited to see us. Also the parties, kids picnic and  youth outing and all the food. It’s a lot of work but all worth it at the end. I made a lot of new friends, like my fellow members of the harvest committee and all the testimonies they shared was inspiring and helped through it all.

Finally, aside the fun, working for God is always refreshing and brings out a new you, we had to be close to God, He always has a way of showing up in the middle of making and meeting difficult targets. We had few guest pastors during this period,  they all torch the reason for the harvest which theme was “Thus far the Lord has helped Us”. Really, think about it, some say there s no God, some say all sort but all over the world there are religions and stories of gods all over. There has also been cases which were all unexplainable. Mysterious events and now a days magic is taken as tricks for entertainment. Lets all be sincere, there is some thing out there. As for me , I believe and know it is God, through Christ I know that this God is like no other John 3:16.

To be continued ……

Today is a good day for me, as I begin blogging again after a long break. I am  also very happy today as I celebrate the day a good part of me was born. I want to use this medium to wish her a great day filled with favor and blessing. Going back to the topic for today I have a beautiful story I will like to share, most might have seen it before, while others who have not , should open their minds and enjoy.

“A young man had been to Wednesday Night Bible
.
T he Pastor had shared about listening to God and obeying the Lord’s voice

The young man couldn’t help but wonder, ‘Does God still speak to people?’

After service, he went out with some friends for coffee and pie and they discussed the message..
Several different ones talked about how God had led them in different ways.

It was about ten o’clock when the young man started
driving home. Sitting in his car, he just began to pray, ‘God…If you still speak to people, speak to me. I will listen. I will do my best to obey.’

As he drove down the main street of his town, he had the strangest thought to stop and buy a gallon of milk.

He shook his head and said out loud, ‘God is that you?’ He didn’t get a reply and started on toward home..

But again, the thought, buy a gallon of milk.

The young man thought about Samuel and how he didn’t recognize the voice of God, and how little Samuel ran to Eli.

‘Okay, God, in case that is you, I will buy the milk.’ It didn’t seem like too hard a test of obedience. He could always use the milk. He stopped and purchased the gallon of milk and started off toward home.

As he passed Seventh Street , he again felt the urge, ‘Turn Down that street.’

This is crazy he thought, and drove on past the intersection.

Again, he felt that he should turn down Seventh Street ..

At the next intersection, he turned back and headed down Seventh.

Half jokingly, he said out loud,

‘Okay, God, I will.’

He drove several blocks, when suddenly, he felt like he should stop He pulled over to the curb and looked around. He was in a semi- commercial area of town. It wasn’t the best but it wasn’t the worst of neighborhoods either.
The businesses were closed and most of the houses looked dark like the people were already in bed.

Again, he sensed something, ‘Go and give the milk to the people in the house across the street.’ The young man looked at the house. It was dark and it looked like the people were either gone or they were already asleep. He started to open the door and then sat back in the car seat.

‘Lord, this is insane. Those people are asleep and if I wake them up, they are going
to be mad and I will look stupid.’ Again, he felt like he should go and give the milk.

Finally, he opened the door, ‘Okay God, if this is you, I will go to the door and I will give them the milk If you want me to look like a crazy person, okay. I want to be obedient. I guess that will count for some thing, but if they don’t answer right away, I am out of here.’

He walked across the street and rang the bell. He could hear some noise inside. A man’s voice yelled
out, ‘Who is it? What do you want?’ Then the door opened before the young man could get away.

The man was standing there in his jeans and T-shirt… He looked like he     Studyjust got out of bed. He had a strange look on his face and he didn’t seem too happy to have some stranger standing on his doorstep. ‘What is it?’

The young man thrust out the gallon of milk, ‘Here, I brought this to you.’ The man took the milk and rushed down a hallway.

Then from down the hall came a woman carrying the milk toward the kitchen. The man was following her holding a baby. The baby was crying. The man had tears streaming down his face..

The man began speaking and half crying, ‘We were just praying .. We had
some big bills this month and we ran out of money. We didn’t have any milk for our baby. I was just praying and asking God to show me how to get some milk.’

His wife in the kitchen yelled out, ‘I ask him to send an Angel with some. Are you an Angel?’

The young man reached into his wallet and pulled out all the money he had on him and put in the man’s hand. He turned and walked back toward his car and the tears were streaming down his face.
He knew that God still answers prayers.

In order to remedy the poor condition, efficiency, and profitability of the nation’s railways, the government is seeking to privatize the Nigerian Railway Corporation.  Lagos state, Rivers and Balyelsa state have all talked about undergoing major railway projects. I don’t know but i think as David Mark said we should first look deep into the root of the problem which i must list a few:

Maintenance: It was provided in the Railway Act of 1995(amended)  that the Chairman should appoint a rail way supervisor. Even with this provision the lack of implementation has impeded the growth of the system. Supervisory services must be provided to always ensure that the railway and trains are well maintained with adequate report to show that supervision had been carried out.

Funds: Many at times we hear that alot of money has been pumped into repairing and restructuring of the railway system, like in the case of 2006 when BBC announced China was to build back Nigerian Railway. A contract was awarded to CCECC costing a total of $8bn from Lagos to Kano 1,315km, The president at that time witness the signing of the contract which was said to be the first phase. Now, I ask what happened to CCECC and the contract? What happened to the money? Which body was put in place to monitor the project? how can it cost so much ? we must know, don’t you think so.

Will: Is the government really willing to change the situation of the rail way system? Or are they focusing on the development of roads and just blabbing about the railways, because as earlier mentioned why are they not talk about probing the lasting administration for the contract given out which has not yet been completed, and if work is in progress why is no one saying anything about the progress of work. We talk about re-branding, a great concept by the Minister of information, but how does she plan on changing the mind set of the leaders ? That politics should not be all talk and no action.

With a project of this magnitude you cant imagine the amount of jobs that will be created, if we are truthful to ourself. I love my country and I want things to change but we must continue to pressurise the government, we have the money now, why wait and allow the people suffer. every one is talking about alternative source of Fuel, times are changing we must do the best we can do for the nation now. I pray that all politicians will put greed aside and promote growth.

The New Nigerian Club which started a year ego, had the same dream and wants all mind set of Nigerians to change, love your country and believe new times are here, were by we should forget the past and look straight ahead.Forget the ills of the leaders and corruption in anti corruption agencies. How the nations number 1 man will use these bodies/agencies for personal  fights.Alot has happened over the years, not so good but Nigeria now has a dream,  a dream that this is not the end but just the beginning. A dream we all need to share.

When i was growing up i never thought life could get so demanding, i always thought my dad and my mum will always be there for me. Providing and listening to all my problems. I never knew only God could do that . I had a dream of becoming a Pilot, my mum use to joke with the meat sellers then that; ‘when my son grows up he will blow up the market, as she complained they always cheat her’. I had this passion for flying, and i knew i will be at peace in the air, and the first time i actually was on an airplane it felt safe, I was happy and  cant stop thinking of owning my own private jet.My dreams did not end in being a pilot, i also always wanted to leave in a mansion that i know will come to pass, and have a loving wife at that time would have wanted some one exactly like my mother, but now i would want some one that will love me enough to always be there for me just like my mum has never turn her back on me.

To be the best in our endeavour is always a dream we desire, I always dreamt of owning more than one business and succeeding in it at that. Growing up i now see clearly that all my dreams was centered around being a helper to people in need. My dad had a lot of people working for him and i always saw them as family.

Nigeria is our Nation, we are all family, as part of my dream and the dream of a nation i know that soon, and for generation to come what we do today will go a long way in changing their part. I am happy to be a part of my Nations dream, join us both Nigerians and friends. Lets make our nation better.

The word love according the Webster dictionary means, unselfish loyalty or benevolent concern for others. We all at one time want to love or be loved. On the 14th of February is saint Valentine day.

St Valentine was a christian martyr, he brought about the name, all around the world even in Iran this day is celebrated as lovers day. This day is celebrated with some one special, some that you have deep affection for.  I have some one like this, who is very special to me and I’ll want to spend the rest of my life with not only this particular day, her name is Isioma Modunkwu, the girl of my reality.

Coming back to what we were talking about, the topic  love. What else can we do, our mission was to love our neighbor as our self, the greatest commandment in the bible. Who is your neighbor some once asked Jesus, His reply was a parable, which was about two individuals from two known enemy tribe, one was rubbed and when his fellow tribe men saw him injured and lying on his own, they passed him by, but when the man (neighbour) from the other tribe was passing, he took pity on him and helped him. This is a story of true love given to a fellow human been.

Our country Nigeria needs to use this period to find love in their hearts, express it by showing it to their neighbour. All those in power must take time out from enriching their pockets and think about the Nigerian who is working very hard and can not see what he has gained, as he spends time paying for every thing that government would have provided. Our parents should take time out and understand that true love is not giving their children money to bribe there way through school, but actually ensuring that these children get proper education and represent the country in the nearest future.

We have to love our country and be deeply committed to it on the other hand. We see young Nigerians fight for a change in the system, why don’t we join in. The New Nigerian Club and its members have a reason to celebrate by the weekend, because as a matter of priority they have shown their love for the country with all they have put in for change. They have gone to over 20 higher institutions, addressed over 50,000 Nigerians offline, millions on line, they have reached beyond the physical boundaries called Nigeria, to Nigeria and Nigerians in Diaspora – UK, US, Canada, Ireland, e.t.c. They have been on radio, they have featured on Television, they have branded t-shirts, branded cash cards, wear Nigeria lapel pins, branded CDs and DVDs like Nigeria’s map, they have sponsored events, sponsored athletes, supported orphanages, given scholarships, empowered people and have done their widows might in achieving a truly New Nigeria.

Lets Show love this season. I love you all