Start Small, End Big!
Wealth from get-rich-quick schemes quickly disappears;
wealth from hard work grows over time.
Prov. 13:11
Just as hand of the clock ticks without minding whose horse is gored, so blunt to is life everyone of us. Whether we do something about our lives and future or not life continues move on. Unfortunately many people are blind to this fact. And suddenly it is nightfall in their lives!
I observe one terrible habit that is prevailing amongst the youths in my place of birth and origin. This is the fact many youths don't want to start life small. They want to get rich quick. So many of them dropped out of school early enough to start 'Okada' or taxi businesses. In their haste to grow faster than their ages, some of them engage in impregnating girls around. I particularly know of one who impregnated three girls all at the same time so he has become the father to a set of triplets from three different mothers. He is an Okada rider!
In the same town, our farmers are looking for young persons to work in their farms for fees. But none of this youths will engage in that. And our visionary brothers from other parts of Nigeria are now doing that and with all their hearts too. So they are reaping the benefits that ought to accrue to visionary indigenes who would have realised that life MUST OF NECESSITY start small and projected to end big. These ignorant lazybones are the people that will flock round anyone who has the pleasure of visiting the town for cheap money and if they fail to perform, then they are nicknamed 'stingy, bad, wicked, etc' whereas the INVOICES they submit are bigger than the overall budgets of their benefactors!. One interesting thing is that even when they are given anything, it ends up in the beer parlours and in prostitutes workshops!
This reminded me of my early days as a village boy. Thank God I had a good mother who developed a good vision for me - desire to be educated. And God opened me up to catch up with her vision and I became interested in schooling. First I wanted to become a teacher, then a Lawyer. But the journey to school was near impossible. God never allowed anybody to come to my aid. Instead he gave me the spirit, the strength, the ability and the resilience to continue to strive. I enjoyed the pleasure of formal Primary School but the rest was between God and me, hard work and sacrifice. Finally I graduated in Law at the age of 46 and called to the Nigerian Bar at the age of 47. I am now retired from paid employment venturing Legal practice. All I can say is: I AM DETERMINED to succeed in Law as I did in other fields I have ventured. I am used to not giving up a good struggle!
Coming to our young ones, I am saddened by the fact that they are not willing to start small and building consistently upon a small beginning to the point they can grow. I am saddened because they see Okada business as a quick way to get rich quick and painfully they are investing the proceeds on wasteful expenditures! I am saddened because they never again gave a thought to being educated. I am saddened because they have sold their birthrights like Esau and may never recover them. I am saddened because as the Bible rightly says, the lazy man shall serve the hard working one. I am saddened because they don't seem to understand that poverty is the ruin of the poor. I am saddened because they are toying with their destinies and very soon the night time will come like a thief in the night and no amount of explanations or justifcations will avail their success when they can actually start as an Okada (motorbike) Riders and end as Captains flying the latest Aeroplanes! .
As a Minister of God who believes so much in the fact that beautiful sermons without corresponding action amounts to nothing but 'entertainment' which sometimes makes the church to look like an ordinary social club, I don't just want to live a life of a sad man because of them. I want to do something about them. I am giving birth to a programme that will educate, enlighten and liberate as many as are willing from the shackle of ignorance. I want to teach them how to start small and end big. They ought not to despise a little beginning!
I just pray that the Lord will help me to make the required difference in the lives of these precious souls. Amen. If I can achieve this and bestow it as a legacy to my people, I will be fulfilled.
Above all, we have people like these in our families. They are friends to our children. We have them as neighbours and so on. You can help to positively impact their lives by encouraging them to read my autobiography FREE. Or better still, you can sponsor the printing of a number of copies for distribution to those whom you identify as needing it, you will be saving Nigeria from impending calamity awaiting our youths.
The book will be customised as you will be acknowledged as the sponsor and giver of the number of copies you purchase. Good morning.
