THE PEACE CONTEST: The effectiveness of a persons life hinges on the peace level of such life. Any life that is not at peace will self destruct. Life is a contest for peace. All a man encounters is a ploy to steal his peace. The single reason why most countries of the world especially in the Arab region hardly make progress is because the foundation of peace has been destroyed. A good look at Afghanistan, Syria will give you a very good example. And most countries in Africa have also had their peace destroyed, countries like Nigeria, Sudan e.t.c, thereby making progress a mirage. But I have looked at all these nations and even people that are not making progress, certain elements seems to be traceable to them which I would like to address today. They might seem very familiar, but the fact that they are familiar makes them even more dangerous:

DEBTS: A lot of people talk about bad and good debts, but to tell you the truth, those are just mere nomenclatures, debt is debt. The reason why a lot of people still play with these nomenclatures is because luck has not run out on them. Many African nations have watched their economies sink because of debts gone bad. The quickest way to forego your future and destroy the brightness of the next generation is to get heavily indebted. Many people would know Willie Nelson, one of the most decorated musicians of all times? The one single thing that brought him down was indebtedness. At a point, he was about 17 million dollars indebted to Internal Revenue Service. In 1990, he had all of his properties and bank accounts seized by the IRS to pay towards his debts. He was also forced to produce two new albums, with 100% of the profits from each going directly to the IRS to pay off the rest of what he owed them. It is possible to live debt free! You better begin to think differently about your debts now and make conscious steps to clear all, else your peace and that of the next generation is at stake! You can not be indebted and be at peace at the same time.

UNFORGIVENESS: Since the Korean war ended in a truce in 1953, both North and South Korea remain deeply hostile, refusing to forgive themselves. In life, you must not always win in all circumstances but letting certain people win some times could become your biggest victory. Forgiveness is a non negotiable component if you do not want to murder the peace in your life. You can never get through life unscratched. Many people might not be as careful as you. Some will hurt you intentionally but you must understand that not letting humans be humans is my definition for insanity. Un forgiveness will drain you more than it will help you. Make up your mind that you will always forgive even though it will not always happen overnight. Your peace is more important than the offence.

PROCRASTINATION : On January 11, 1994, the UN Headquarters got a fax that gave a very concrete clue to the disaster that was due in Rwanda. Assuming there was a very quick response, may be the Rwanda Genocide would have been averted but nothing was done about it until there was an uncontrollable national disaster. Have you not ignored a ''cricking'' sound in your car and felt ''okay, it's"nothing, I will do it later'' only for you to spend a very huge amount of cash fixing what has become a huge damage? Whatsoever you ignore, grows in size and that is why we tend to have so many terrible situations in our lives. We must cultivate the culture of nipping things in the bud if we don't want our peace to be paralysed.

THINK - TIME: If you do not have a think time, the instances in your life will always be blown out of proportion. Your think time is where you analyse all the different issues in your life, to see which ones would require which materials or resources to handle. Have you tried sitting down with all the issues in your life? America has a think time which they call The Situation Room. It was created in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy. This is where America sits down with it's issues and that of the whole world. You must also learn to sit down with your issues and consciously put them into perspective, they might not be as bad as you think. Never you trade your peace for any reason because the quality of your life can never rise above your peace level.

This little piece is my gift to you. I just hope you have been blessed by it.

TACKLING MILITANCY IN NIGERIA'S NIGER-DELTA: Today, militancy is a very lucrative vocation which helps self- centred, impoverished minded people become multimillionaires in Nigeria, majorly because of the irresponsibility and lack of sensitivity of previous governments to the genuine needs of the people. The government back then, would have been more creative in handling the unrest in the Niger-Delta instead of signing a multibillion dollar oil installation protection contract with them. Many of them became billionaires, while the Nigerian Navy became a toothless bulldog. Since the funds came so cheaply then, today we have so many factions of the militant groups destroying oil installations with very great expectations that maybe, this government in power will also sign a multibillion dollar agreement with them, of course, everyone wants to collect their own share of the national cake! but I am so convinced that this present government will not be that foolish?
So, I have taken out time to think about solutions, and here are some I could think of:

1. LET THE WARRI REFINERY WORK TO IT'S FULL CAPACITY: By the time the refinery is fully in place, I guarantee you that many people will be back to work, off the streets. We could have more than 2,000 people working in the refinery. so, when amnesty is granted to the militants, some of them could be employed including other indigenes of the Niger-Delta.

2. LET THE OIL COMPANY OPERATING IN THE REGION SIGN A MOU TO ENSURE OVER 80% OF IT"S STAFF STRENGTH IS FROM THE REGION: By the time the region sees that more indigenes makes up the work force, I guarantee you no militant will be bold enough to destroy those oil facilities especially if they have someone from their household there.

 3. LET A LEGISLATION BE PUT IN PLACE THAT MAKES MILITANCY AN "A" LIST CRIME, LIKE TERRORISM: By the time militants are labelled terrorists, I believe anybody will not just wake up to be a militant? Let the nation also reposition the military to deal with militancy like we are presently dealing with Boko Haram

4. LET WESTERN DELTA UNIVERSITY BECOME A FULL FLEDGED FEDERAL UNIVERSITY(FULLY TAKEN OVER BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT): By the time it is a Federal institution, it would employ more staff especially from the region. Just like other Federal institutions are treated, it should also  get the same treatment

5. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT THROUGH THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE TO SET UP A FISH INDUSTRY: I heard an Isreali researcher say recently that the'' rivers in Nigeria had enough fish to feed the whole of Africa'. If the Ministry of Agriculture can enter into an agreement with the association of fishermen in the Niger Delta, a very solid fish industry could be set up in the region.

6. FULL FLEDGED AMNESTY WITHOUT ANY FINANCIAL BACKING: Let amnesty be granted without any cash backing, but instead let all of them be given employment. So, they will all have to work for money, after all there is dignity in labour?

 By now, the militants should be so ashamed that the only tactics they know is destroying national assets they did not contribute in setting in place. God Bless Nigeria

A DIFFERENT STYLE OF LEADING. Sometimes leadership is so disconnected from the grass root, that they only rely on feedbacks from the P.R team. The bitter truth is this, most of the P.R team have a way of telling the leadership at the top, would they would love to hear, that is what appeals to their ego. But top leadership would be more in sync with the people on the down line if they put parameters or practices in place to get direct feedback from the people. One of the most famous devices for creating been effective the people was a practice developed by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, founders of the legendary electronics manufacturing firm in California. Hewlett and Packard both would wander around through their company, engaging in conversations about work in progress or any other topics that arose. They found these opportunities to be so useful that they formalised them in a company management principle called MBWA" management by walking around". Hewlett-Packard's published vision for how they wanted to work together was modelled and reinforced by this practise and institutionalised as an expectation for management behaviour at every level.
If most African leaders adopt this style of leadership in their governance, Africa will be better for it. But the problem is that they out so much sycophants all around them. Leadership is not just about getting people to do your bidding but inspiring them to get the work done with a very high sense of personal fulfilment.