Now I know why I have not been writing so frequently! There is regularly a clash of thoughts in my mind for having to write about something and speak about something else, and when the writing and the speaking need to happen on the same day, it’s tough. Today for example, I had made up my mind that I will write about “Freedom”, but in a few hours from now as well, I will be with the GTBank training school to talk about “Personal Effectiveness and Life Mastery”, then tomorrow morning I’m sharing a platform with Great Leaders (Rev Sam Adeyemi, Mrs. Ibukun Awosika, Pastor Ben Akabueze and Mazi Sam Ohunabunwa) to talk about “Character in Career and Business” (9th May, 10am – Daystar, 71 Oregun Road, Kudirat Abiola Way). As soon as I’m done from there, I head for another seminar where I speak about Financial Freedom and share a business opportunity (9th May, 2pm&4pm -Generis Solutions, 3rd Floor Oluwatobi House, 71 Allen Avenue, Ikeja), as soon as that is done, I begin to put finishing touches to my presentation for Good Tidings Bible Church, Abuja on Wednesday on “Entrepreneurship” (13th May, 5:30pm - Good Tidings Bible Church International, Kingdom Centre Plot 125 Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Way, After Julius Berger Headquarters, Utako, Abuja). Then I have a number of other seminars in Abuja, come back to lagos for another one on the weekend and start finalizing my preparations to head for Malaysia.
Thinking about all that needs to go on today, and then tomorrow is sufficient to create a writers block. Mixed with that also is my desire to really make a comment about the Ekiti Re-Run fiasco! If I however write too many thoughts in one post, I can get accused of being desultory. This worries me, but I guess like today’s topic, I simply need to set myself free of the encumberances created by expectations and standards, and speak from my heart, exactly the way the words flow 
. I’ll try to stick to the topic of freedom, while I use the key things I must express myself on as examples. Let’s together see what is capable of building up.
I’ll like to look at freedom from the angle of what a mechanic, a tailor or a vulcanizer apprentice strives to get. I marvel at how the uneducated set themselves goals to serve for 5ys to get knowledge and then become free, while educated graduates labour for knowledge for years only to spend the best days of their lives in a vicious cycle. Does it not show more sense in the artisans than our educated selves? They set themselves goals, in 5yrs, I want to learn enough not to go and work in another cage of self expression, but to become FREE! While we set goals, goals that are not so serious to us that we may never hold ourselves to -To learn for 5-10yrs (in the good universities, it takes time – GREAT IFE!?), and then to go out and learn for another 3-40yrs!
First of all, are you free? Do you have plans to be? Or do you live by the sloppy definition of freedom that defines freedom as the ability maximize the space withing your harness? You know why the artisan does this and many of us don’t? I’ll tell you, it’s because naturally, outside our education, we all love to be free! Our education somehow conditions us to follow the crowd, to do what everybody else is doing, and we have offered our lives to serve lesser causes in exchange for different colours of collars – blue, white, green!
1. Freedom is not given
“In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved” -Franklin D. Roosevelt
Well if you are thinking let me do what I’m doing well, in time I will be free, you are either kidding yourself or fooling yourserlf. Someone ones told me a humorous perspective about assumption and thought. “Thought he farted, but shitted on himself ” Stop thinking or assuming that freedom is in your pathway it is not! People become free – to pursue their true purpose and identity or even become financially free by deliberately striving to achieve it!
Kilometer long queues suddenly surged back into reality in Nigeria, Lagos feels bad, but hasn’t seen anything. Go up north and see people queuing for days. We didn’t know we were enjoying some levels of freedom until somehow we are losing it. Did the queues of the past simply dissappear because we waited long enough or because leadership did something about it? Is someone pressing a reset button on Nigeria or do we need to wake some people up?
2. Freedom is better than slavery no matter the adjectives
“I prefer liberty with danger to peace with slavery” -Author Unknown
Stop giving yourself comforting excuses for changing what you know you ought to change. No true unconditioned soul relishes the thought of working within confines forever. Just like the bird in the cage wishes to fly, and the gorrila in the zoo longs for the forest, so does the soul of a man seek for it’s place. The place of every man is not in the company of mediocres nor in the crowd of average. When you find your place your generation will celebrate you. If God intended that we all stay at the same level doing similar things, he would simply have created us the same way, creation would have been easy, same template – mass produce!
Ekiti Re-run for example simply drops my arms, what we have seen for me is a sample of what the self appointed leaders have in stock for us in 2011. If we can stomach this open show of shame, we’ll probably not even be able to notice perversion in processes on the national scale. I’m certain the argument that won the day, was, let’s settle for peace with slavery at the expense of liberty with danger. Let’s bury values and ideals in the grave of self interest. Slavery is never going to be better than freedom no matter the adjectives! As leaders of Nigeria’s future – which already started yesterday, we must position ourselves and work the system to favor true liberty and justice.
3. The Free also Err
“Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err” -Mahatma Gandhi
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying a Job is good or bad, I’m only saying that the way to get the most of life and to engage life is to set a goal for yourself of when your freedom will be. If you don’t set it, it will be set for you. They may allow you to hang around till 74 (hmmmm), if beyond the value you once added, there is some aesthetics you bring to the table with your nice blend of grey hair and perhaps some endorsement that your gender and age can give to the process.
My Name is Akinyemi, Deolu Akinyemi, I am from the Future, I am a freedom fighter and I believe in the emergence of a New Nigeria!
wao. this an opportunity i regard as inexpressible! being the first to comment on this…its just so great.
freedom! freedom!! freedom!!! i would call this : your job won’t make you free” part two
turely speaking, the iliterates are conscious of a day they would be free from all the hurdels of their job, but the literate will tell you we are managing even as a receptionist, he calls himself a manager.
thanks baba for revealing this truth. you are making me realize the need to break new grounds.
The analysis of an apprentice and educated person’s goal and dividends really struck the cord. Many educated guys just want to earn salary while a minute part want to go the way of starting out. I guees our school curriculum should be addressed. It is not helping matter. It is turning many into “educated slaves”. The Ekiti saga is a good example. No one is talking again, we have returned to status qou ante in the face of reckless use of power.
Word!!!! Thanks
In secondary school, Dr. Tai Solarin taught us the concept of ‘Education-for-Self-Reliance’ an education of the mind as well as the hands. Essentially a program that sees education as a means to an end not as an end in itself. We were farmers, carpenters, plumbers and barbers and electricians as well as being the best students in science, literary and dramatic arts.
I designed the basic plumbing in my house by myself from skills I learnt in Mayflower. I am not a ‘professional’ plumber as it is but I can make money from it if I want to. Even my plumber attests to this.
We were trained in Mayflower School to see ourselves as apprentices-in-training working for our ‘freedom’ after five years. (Those were pre-6-3-3-4 days). A post-secondary education was considered a period of specialization after which you serve the ‘Master’ for one year as a ‘journeyman’ (NYSC).
Its instructive that the Yoruba term for a Youth Corper is ‘agunbaniro’ which is the same word for ‘journeyman’. Unfortunately, the graduates of our educational system appear to be on a ‘journey’ to nowhere.
The key is incorporating entrepreneurial training into our school curriculum. Our current educational system is at best purposeless and we can see the results in the graduates that we interview.
sir, maybe it was an oversight on my part but can you tell me how one can be free? in the case of Naija, where many freedom fighters are dying by the day and more worse things keeps happening(ekiti re-run) can we say we have freedom as a country?
sometimes, its as though things wont just get better but that doesnt stop me in contributing my own quota. i am a true Nigerian. i share in its shame and in its glory.
Dear Deolu,
I
I feel you. This post coming at this time makes a whole lot of sense to me now than it would have some 22 hours ago.I called a friend yesterday to get some info and stumbled on what i consider a life opportunity and crucial to realising my dream business. Opportunity to go on a 4 days trip with my friend and a friend of hers who is an authority in the field i wish to get established in when i quit my job in a couple of years.All that stood in my way to avail myself of this opportunity that might eventually begin my freedom was my job.To tell my boss that i needed 4 days off work at so short a notice was an herculean task.For like 4 hours i hated the fact that i was an employee and wished i had the freedom to decide without so much calculations..My husband watched me make several calls to swap my duty at work with some colleagues incase the leave option doesnot fall through and he said to me ” you have job security, your friend has freedom”. This i didnot find funny at all.This frustration of my life not really being mine seriously weighed me down and i made up my mind to fight more for this freedom by making sure i do all i need to do to ensure i meet my target of exiting paid employment without delay. Thankfully, im going on the trip and you can bet i will make the most of it because it is costing me so much (apart from the money involved)! Im commiting to gaining my freedom more, its just one life i have and there are several things i love to spend time doing that i cant do yet. Deolu, thanks for finding your place, we celebrate you today and always.
I will call this by the title of Myles Munroe’s book, “The Burden of Freedom”. Thank you sir. To be free indeed, we must know the Truth!
Father!
This is freedom in a class of its own…Freedom itself is not FREE….It is bought. The key to freedom is truth..Buy the truth and sell it not…Hear the truth with a price and multiple it…
I’m freee to set others free and in line with the last sentence – My Name is JesusFreak, Adesoji Adegbulu, I am from the Future, I am a Truth Fighter and I believe in the emergence of a New Nigeria!
Le veritassss
God bless you.
@ N.I.M.M.O
You are hitting the nail on the head so squarely. I think it’s a top level approach to fix the institutions, I think pending when it happens, we can encourage people to invest in their own self development as well.
I wonder at times where the values get lost and where all that we did so well becomes easy history?
@ STafunmi,
I feel you. The job that offers safety must first be a safe, locking you in from risk and a world of possibilities.
Deolu, omo Akinyemi… Karee…Ku ise. (To Non-yoruba speakers, I just spoke in tongues)
Freedom is not given, it is achieved. I feel you.
Thanks
“Freedom is not given, it is achieved.” I feel you.
Thanks for sharing this
and for all the events lined up, the Lord is your strength.
my comments are not showing. what’s the problem?
Hmmmm, Oro!
I really appreciate the “Educated” & “Uneducated” thingy, also the last point; The Free also Err, many a speaker make it salient….there’ll be the Highs & lows on the jouney to TRUE Freedom.
The future to the Nu Naija begins now.
Tnx Sir.
The die is cast, are we going to know all these from someone and keep it for ourselves?nope, get the truth and share not sell.I am in this with you Sir, I believe in the New Nigeria, a place where people will think about and smile.CHANGE has come and we have a CHAMPION.Oruko mi ni Trevis, am game!
talking about freedom makes me feel great, but in the real sense of it, the capital of sierra Leone is freetown and in freetown, nothing is free. so what are seeking freedom for? think about it. you cannot be free from working but you can be free from slavery.
keep the stars bright baba DEE.
I’ve been a while off this wonderful forum. This happens to be a very good welcome back for me. This perspective of looking at freedom is particularly outstanding. Thanks for the thoughts.
Freedom could be something you fight for, learn for, be patient to get or be radical about. It is a question of how we define our freedom, and what or who we are getting free from.
Freedom cannot be bought, it is earned! Thanks chairman for illuminating.
First of all sir, i must say a very big THANK YOU SIR, you have been a blessing to me and everyone that have listened or read your articles, this is yet another great one, FREEDOM, hmmmm, thats a sigh of relieve
Thought provoking, i sure got more than a penny’s worth , thank you!
@ikotun its a standard “no food for lazy man “so dont even think of being free from work,but you can be free from slavery of 30 days salary cycle.Its quite funny the issue of fredom is sometimes beyond skills or knowledge,i think there is a bit of CHARACTER inclusive,i share a story of a former boss,i visited him yesterday and i met “my Manager” lamenting over non-payment of salary and i begin to wonder what on earth is this man talking about with all the hundredrs of thousand this man collects every month he still complains anrd prior to this we were still discussing a project he was about to embark on that i was suppose to manage for him and he declined due to some claims that was flimse to me.Now my point here is even when some people have the opportunity to set themselves free the issue of CHARATER becomes a problem,character to sail the ocean of unchartered course,the issue of fear,doubts not wanting to stoop low,many forget that there is always a price to pay in the interim and a gift to receive in the long run,so freedom is not actually free anyway but there can be so much to get from it,So go get yours now!
@ Ifects, i laughed when you said your comment was not showing!!..its delibrate, so that you do not become again the winner of the month!!!lol!hahaha, am joking o! This post is deep my prophet..when you talked of grey hair at the end..i saw the wooden plaque to go with it that will be neatly placed on a mantel in a strategic place for all to see and hear the story of yester years!!lol..any ways..freedom does not come cheap..it comes with a lot of pain, anxiety, risk but at the end, the dividend is worth all the trouble..like a pregnant woman, if after nine months or max ten months of pregnancy, the child refuses to be delivered, then that child will be forcefully removed to start his/her new life out of his/her comfort zone….so i believe that some of us may have to be taken forcefully out of our comfort zone to secure our future..God help us! I totally agree with NIMMO on changing the school curriculum, so that enterpreneurship studies and other such subjects are introduced, so when our graduates come out, they can think clearly and be focused on other things instead of looking for jobs that are no where to be found or if found, have been reserved for a selected few with Godfathers! As for political freedom, we deserve the kind of leaders we have, if all of us including myself will not take the needed risk to change the status quo, then we must suffer and smile, watching our nation being plundered by wicked and vile men! I am still nosing the ghanian type of freedom that Rawlings modelled in ghana for it to enjoy the level of freedom, it has now. God help us all..am still thinking of the kind of freedom fighter that i am..but for now, i will assume the title of a Revolutionary freedom fighter..on a quest to secure a future for the next generation in all ramifications; political, economical, spiritual, physical etc! Tall dreams abi..all things are possible to her that believeth! lol
@ Oomoba welcome. you are in for the best God has destined for you.
talking about political freedom, Nigeria is yet to experience it in all sincerity. in a country where our leaders that should frown at fraud and all forms of evil, wine and dine with the people that do not want the progress of our country…then we need to beg God to do something. political godfather ism is gaining prominence a against the rule of law. political are selected into office as against the wish of the people they want to rule….and so many other bitter experiences.
more so, our youths must know that they are not instruments of political violence.
economic freedom is another issue we cannot exhaust within a very short while.
I am anticipating a post that will highlight this menace and give possible tips to survive it even in a time where i seems nothing is forth coming.
Thanks Ikotun, and yes we are overdue for political freedom. We actually need to break free of everything holding us back! Enough is enough!
Oga Sir! this is thought provoking. I love this Idea of Entrepreneurship. Freedom! Like one of my fathers used to say. “There is nothing good as free freedom” – Dr. Tunde Bakare.
Sometimes, i feel this Education thing in the University or so is a whole lot of distractions, studying the wrong courses, becoming the wrong persons, pursuing the wrong priorities and all that. I feel people need to quickly discover their place and study towards that direction to become the Best in it.
Rather than this Identity crisis or multitude in the valley of decision or valley of confusion. Let’s encourage young people from their youth to discover their place, family should support the child and the society should create a platform for people to become the best they are created to be.
Freedom from friction not necessarily from action. We need to stop this cat race. This thing of running to become somebody else, liking who you are not. True Freedom start with being yourself and liking it.
its been a very long while, NNC. its like 10 years away from reality. thank God i’m back.
i stormed on this about a while ago and i think we have to loot at it closely and state categorically our role in breaking those rules. :”In Nigeria, every law we need to be a transparent nation is in the books. But every avenue to break those laws exists in the mind.” OBY EZEKWESILI,Fmr. Minister/VP (Africa) World Bank @ HBS, Seminar, 2000.
DELE MOMODU, THISDAY SATURDAY 9TH MAY,2009(http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=142927) SUGGESTED THE FOLLOWING AS NIGERIA’S POSSIBLE OBAMA IN 2011. 1DONALD DUKE 2MALLAM NASIR EL-RUFAL 3BABTUNDE FASHOLA 4.PROF. PAT UTOMI 5.DR.NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA 6.DR. OBY EZEKWESILI 7.PROF. DORA AKUNYULI 8.FOLA ADEOLA 9.B.G. BUBA MARWA 10.NDUKA OBAIGBENA WHAT’S YOUR OPINION?
NB:in my previous post i meat LOOK not loot. thanks a lot.
WHEN WILL NIGERIAN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM BE FREE FROM STRIKE. ASSU IS ON STRIKE AGAIN. GOD WILL HELP US IN THIS COUNTRY O.
thank God the national strike has been called off but i hear rumors that some states will continue from where the national body stopped. is any body there to give insight to this?
It is with serious pain in my heart that it consider it unavoidable to send these lines to you. Our fore fathers that fought for our independence did a very good job but i consider this; “freedom turned inside out”. what is freedom without an appreciation of our local values and ethics. today if a man cannot speak English language so well, he is considered a nonentity and an unexposed person. we need to understand that the english language we crucify ourselves for not being able to speak is not and cannot be our language. as far as the word freedom is concerned, we are still experiencing an advanced form of bondage. We cannot be free in one way and be held captive in some other areas.
in my quest to understand english language, i have discovered that I keep making the same mistakes I make on a daily basis which are informed by the technicality of the language. a lot of students have been writing WAEC and other exams for over five to seven to years and despite the fact that they perform gallantly well in other subjects, they keep failing this English language. the question I’d love to ask our learned models is this: other exams they write, is it another language different fom english language they use to write it? How come they fail a language they use to pass other subjects so well? is it the use of english they do not understand or the technicality of the language? Why are we being judged by our inability to showcase the technicality of a language we know little or nothing about? In other countries of the world today, science subjects are taught in their own language. I’m talking of great countries like Japan, France, Germany and many more others to mention but a few. English language is not our language and our capability and competence must not be assessed by the language or values of another country. Remember these countries mentioned above were colonized by English speaking countries but they fought for their complete freedom. NIGERIA IS NOT AN EXEMPTION. WE CAN CHANGE THE TREND!
Just yesterday i heard the news headline on a radio programme saying that the President Yar ‘Adua has requested that soft wares should be written with indigenous languages. when i heard this, i said thank God our leaders are realizing the need to bring us the second phase of the freedom we need…”lingua franca” we can’t be addicts to a language that is not ours. we must be free from this…
It took me five years to admit the truth that my job cannot ‘take me home’ but my passion can. The shameful thing was that it took my customers to inspire me to freedom rather than my education in the classroom….incidentally my job is stiil in the classroom, but still had not freed me.
Others, such as the UK, Germany, Norway, Austria, and Denmark do not seem to be that far behind. ,