It was a kablooey election!
“Trump can’t be president!”. The paean that followed it was in the spirit of the order of impossibility: “Chewing stick no be mcCleans’ toothpaste”,
“Dried fish no dey swim for river / soup”,
“Cold no dey catch fish under water or water belle”,
“I fit climb, I fit come down, Na body dey suffer am”
“Trump can’t be president!”
…and so it was in the just concluded election, TRUMP has triumphantly won.
To those that vowed to destroy their green passport, you are pardoned; to those that based their winning theory on diplomatic experience, there is more to winning than being perfectly qualified.
With the noise and viral rejection of Trump dwindling, I gained and learnt from all these. Here are my lessons:
#1. No amount of strategy can salvage a bad reputation.
#2. Be yourself / believe in yourself even when the community thinks you are losing or against you. Believe is a subject of faith even when not seen.
#3. Don’t place your hands on the plough and quit; see it to the end. There is no room for excuses. I heard a seating “King” almost abdicated the throne in Nigeria.
It is scriptural, “No procrastination. No backward looks. You can’t put God’s kingdom off till tomorrow. Seize the day.” Permit me to paraphrase the statement, “if you are a king, no procrastination. No backward looks. You can’t put your kingdom off till tomorrow. Seize the day”. Leadership is a responsibility; It is a yoke of a people, for a people, the burden for the downtrodden. Challenges are bound to stir their monstrous heads, the solution is best seen in Einstein’s echo, “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them”.
#4. Truth sets free, diplomacy / diplomatic prowess is just a cliché.
#5. Human stratagem is not without flaws.
#6. Anybody can be a winner; anybody can be a loser too.
#7. You don’t have to be perfect to occupy an office you just need to sell yourself to the people, organization or nation that you are the best candidate for the job.
#8. The predictability / probability of an event occurring is not a dictate / determinant of the media.
#9. Leave room for God / space for the maker. In Yorubaland, we have certain group of men referred to as the “Afobaje – King maker / Installers of royalty”; Becoming a king is not the making of the afobajes. With the presidential endorsement of Madam Hilary, she still couldn’t bring her luggage into the “White House”.
#10. Winning is not same as sustainability. Have you ever heard the statement, “power must change hands”? it can actually change hands and be given up when the right things aren’t propagating or happening. Do the right thing.