In tune with Ayi Kwei Amah’s 1968 published The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born, it’s beginning to dawn on me that the best books are yet to be written. This realization leans against the backdrop that I’m yet to arrive at the best book I’ve ever read, talk less of the best ever written. Of course, I’m not talking about religious masterpieces, such as Christianity’s Bible, Islams Koran, and Buddhists Sutras, which claim divine inspiration, and even divine authorship.

When on this platform I talked about and recommended Spencer Johnson’s Who Moved My Cheese?, I thought it was about the best book ever, given its sophisticated simplicity and its capacity to make profound impact. Of Who Moved My Cheese? someone had commented: This book is all the miracle I’ve been asking for. And then came Tuesdays with Morrie; I’d read it through and through and reviewed it on this platform. Tuesdays appeared to be far more remarkable that it rated higher than the Cheese story. Being a report of a real life encounter, it just had this way of cutting deep into one’s mind and heart as would a sword forged under the proverbial dragon breathe.

Today, I’m up to yet another thriller: “BUY THE FUTURE: Learning to negotiate for a future better than your present“ – by Ghanaian Mensa Otabil. Without much ado, Otabil, in a single book, killed and nailed his subject of discourse: ‘the future’. What about the future, one may already begin to wonder. Otabil, though a Pentecostal preacher and founder of Ghana’s first private university – Central University College, employs the biblical story of Esau and Jacob to demonstrate how one’s future can be sold or bought – without the hand of the divine element. There is absolutely nothing preachy about the book, and the choice of that biblical story hinges on the fact that it’s one single story that embodies all the dynamics that play out in the journey from the past, through the present, to the future. In fact, Otabil radically holds that every human being alive and every nation on earth is either an Esau or a Jacob.

Now, something particularly triggered up the writing of “Buy the Future.” It is this, and he writes himself:

Why does our future often so contradict our present? Is there a way in which we can determine our future today? Are there some things we do that make us prone to success and others we do that make us prone to failure? Can we determine the outcome of our future today?

…[T]wo people can be born under very similar circumstances go through similar experiences and yet arrive at different destinies. People sit in the same classroom and listen to the same teacher, use the same textbooks, do the same assignments, sometimes even get the same grades, but then as they grow into their future roles, they do not achieve the same levels of success in their individual pursuits. The same applies to corporate bodies, organizations and nations.

The above situation was what got Otabil writing. And he killed it and nailed it. Trust me, the book is worth every effort you put into the search for it, because I can assure you that it’s going to be a hard task finding it. However,

seek and keep seeking, and you shall find.

It’s really been a long time coming into 2016. Today, March 1, is actually Day-61 of the 366 days of 2016 – a leap year. And if we go by the truth that many things can be done in one single day, then we ought to have gotten too many things done already. However, given the seeming hard times that appear to be bedeviling the first quarter of 2016, especially Nigeria’s economic woes, many a Nigerian appears to be doing 220 in reverse gear. Too bad.

I particularly remember the pomp and pageantry with which we welcomed 2016, and the unspeakable optimism with which we embraced it. Side by side the welcome of 2016, we bade 2015 goodbye forever, with some even tagging it their worst year yet. Usually, the divide between the ‘passing’ year and the ‘coming’ one is never a celebration of the former. As typical of human nature, the old becomes undesirable, and even cursed. Of course, the comic thing about this arrangement is that at the breaking of 2017, our darling 2016 becomes the old, and possibly the cursed.

Be the above as it may, we must MARCH on! Yes, this new month is very true to its name: MARCH. We must not peter out. 2016 is only 61 days down and has got 305 days coming, a number of days many enough to make this year our best year yet. However, we must be particular about realizing the following:

Life goes on

No matter what, life just rolls on; 1960, 1993, 2013 or 2017 has little or nothing to do about this. Bad comes to worse, gently remind yourself that the situation, the difficulty or the frustration has nothing to do with 2016 but has got everything to do with the nature and dynamics of life itself. And just as they showed up in time, they’d also roll out at a time. That’s just the way it is.

Count your blessings

The bigger problem is that of ingratitude. We’ve always proven to be better ingrates than ‘gratefuls’. In this regard, it may not have been a bad year after all, as many have chosen to claim; they are possibly being more ungrateful thank thankful. And one may not see a reason to be grateful until one gets to actually get down to counting one’s blessings – naming them one by one. To meaningfully march on, March 1 is a good day to count the blessings of 2016. Ask yourself what is it that you wanted that you’ve already gotten. Mind you, don’t dismiss any as small or insignificant; every little counts. I can assure you that a grateful heart does better – naturally!

Revisit those resolutions and promises of January 1

January 1 is notoriously reputed as being a day of resolutions: New Year resolutions. Everyone gets to resolve to start doing something new or stop doing something old. Funnily enough, we go back on those resolutions as soon as we made them, and are sad that we couldn’t hold the forth. The usual response is to stop trying, to give up. However, I like to announce to you that what is responsible for that situation is the problem of habit and change. Truth be told, a habit that took years to form shouldn’t disappear by a ‘mere’ resolution to stop. No, change is hard! And the best we can do is rise up after every fall, and keep at it until the desired habit overrides the unpleasant one. So, March 1 is a good day to revisit those resolutions and promises made on January 1.

It’s all about you

For most Nigerians, it is President Buhari to blame. Funnily enough, even the gods are not to blame. It’s just all about you! When the going gets tough the tough gets going, we often say; why not get tough? The best captains are made in the roughest of waters, we also say. In business history, many new millionaires and billionaires emerge in the worst of economies. Could that be you?

Forward March!

When this command is given in a military or paramilitary parade, the only valid thing to do is move forward – and never backward. Such is the command we get from this month of March: Forward ever, backward never. Let go of the messes of January and February, and focus on the possibilities of March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December; 10 whole months to look up to.

God bless your MARCH.

This reflection was inspired by a friend who had lost a friend. When I inquired of him what was responsible for his friend’s death, he told me that the guy suddenly started gasping for air in the night, and passed on shortly afterwards. I felt sorry for his lose, I silently commended his late friend’s soul to God the Most High, but I had a serious problem with ‘suddenly‘. Yes, inasmuch as suddenly is not impossible; it is not usually applicable when it comes to bodily breakdown.

I come from a country, Nigeria, where people give testimonies in church for not having visited a medical facility in a decade; where all ailments must be malaria, headache or typhoid fever; where one walks up to a pharmacist and demands for this or that drug that one thinks holds the cure to an ailment; where one goes to a doctor, if one decides to, to more of tell the doctor what is wrong with him/her, instead of letting the doctor have his/her way at what he/she does best. Interestingly, the one giving the testimony in church doesn’t know that his/her pastor’s wellness secret is not solely the anointing of the Holy Ghost, but has got to do with both a fully equipped medical facility in the presbytery and visits to India, London or the United States every so often for ‘full’ medical checkups. Ask the Oyedepos, the T.B. Joshuas, the Mbakas, the Edehs, the Adeboyes, the Ogbuelis, the Sulemans, etc., and if they care to say the truth, which I believe they would, they will agree with Homer who wrote in The Odyssey that the gods are not in the habit of doing for man what man must do for himself.

I live in a country, Nigeria, where witches and wizards have their field day menacing the health and safety of the citizenry. Of course, experience has shown that these witches and wizards exist more in our minds than in reality, and that their purported mayhem come more from our fear of them than their actual activity – that is, if they’re even capable of any activity. And when these witches and wizards strike, our first port of call is usually the herbalist homes. With all due respect to the potency of herbs and being in the know that most orthodox medicines are more of herbal extracts than synthetic formula, I wish to categorically state that most of those herbalist homes are not worth stopping by for any reason. They woefully fail as simple as basic hygiene test; their concoctions are more poisonous than medicinal.

Truth be told, the various healing centers do more harm than good. Worse than the herbal healing center is some of the prayer healing centers, where outrageous sums are charged with little or no betterment to show for it. Inasmuch as God’s not dead and reigns supreme over every situation, some of the ministers of those centers are the very ones that would be told I know you not on the last day. At some of these centers, flogging is the recipe for exorcism; ‘holy sex‘ is the cure for barrenness, during which HIV/AIDS and other venereal diseases could be translated, etc. To say it lightly, the concoctions administered in both prayer and herbal healing centers can really get people killed. Of course, they only get to show up in hospitals when the deed is done: failing kidneys, bad liver, infected lungs, poisoned blood, terrible eyesight, and what have you.

Furthermore, we must realize that any condition that got one broken down has been a long time coming. This is because the human system is a fortified barracks, with a formidable arsenal to show for it. The immune system is so great that it settles many health challenges without our ever knowing it. In fact, it is so potent that it can expel a baby on the grounds of Rhesus factor; can reject a transplant on the grounds of compatibility; can eat up malaria parasite like yam is eaten with palm oil. The liver on its part does the amazing function of detoxification; the kidney is perfect at what it does; the lungs too. It’s so interesting that each of all paired organs can function to full capacity for as long as we have to live. Pope Francis, for instance, has lived with one lung since he was a boy; that didn’t even stop him from being Pope since the Vatican knew it shouldn’t.

My point is simple:

Death is as unpredictable as it can be sudden, but it’s most times a long time coming.

And so, if we cultivate the habit of keeping track of our medical records, we could avert this story that touches the heart. With facts from these records, and follow up expert medical advice, we can nip some ailments in the bud or manage those ones that have gone offline.

To-do list

1. Visit your doctor if you have one, or get one if you don’t

2. Visit a medical laboratory and get up to date facts on your blood and vital organs

3. Eat healthy, exercise regularly
Develop an obsession for personal and environmental hygiene

4. Ensure you live out all your years; don’t carelessly cut it short

Over the past few years, Nigeria has been on the brinks of collapse. This was so serious that her immediate past president, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, conceded defeat to Mohammed Buhari at the April 2015 polls on the ground that countless heads would have rolled if he did otherwise. In Mr. Jonathan’s very own words, My political ambition is not worth the blood of a single Nigerian. Over the years, too, Boko Haram has been a cankerworm in Nigeria’s system. And most recently, the crash in the global price of oil has hit her economic life below the belt. Of course, there are many other national concerns and serious issues that are spitting fire at her.

However, I wish to contend that she’s not even seen the worst yet – unless she maps out a workable plan to arrest the situation. I’ve the following reasons to back up my claim:

1. Education is not yet her priority
Truth be told, all effort directed at education so far put together amounts to little or nothing when pitched against global standard. Needless to say, our budgetary allocation to education is just a little more than nothing; it’s never ever come any close to the UN benchmark. And so, who is deceiving who?

Given that education is the one determinant of development, and sustainable development at that, not according education its pride of place on the national scheme of things is tantamount to national suicide. I can assure you that Nigeria is reaping the dividends already, albeit negative: unemployable graduates and skyrocketing rate of unemployment. Trust me, she ain’t seen anything yet, unless…

2. She’s still paying lip-service to diversification – of the economy
Successive Nigerian governments of the past kept chanting:

Diversification! Diversification!! Diversification!!!

The most some of them did was try, but their trial wasn’t try enough. Of course, it was all lip-service, given that they didn’t pass necessary laws or leave behind a convincing roadmap for the way forward.

And then, oil shocks Nigeria! The price crashes! The Dollar appreciates unbelievably against the Naira! And everyone gets panicky! Nigeria is still lucky it wasn’t the case of oil vanishing, with the pipelines running dry. Interestingly, that’s going to happen someday, and if she’s still paying lip-service as at then, then your guess is good as mine: This house would have finally and truly fallen.

3. Nigerians really don’t understand the difference between value and cost
Nigerians have been winning ridiculous awards lately: Most Corrupt, Most Religious… I think we should add Most Ostentatious to the list; Nigerians are ostentatious to a fault – with the craze for articles of ostentation to show for it. Mega million-dollar cars and jets, billion-dollar mansions, lavish parties, precious stones and metals, etc; even food items, like rice, pasta, drinks, beef and chicken. Nigerians import virtually everything. Terrible!

This ostentatious orientation has a root: Nigerians’ understanding of the difference between value and cost is terrible, to say it lightly. Some things are just not worth the craze, and simplicity has been the most amazing way to lead a worthwhile life. And truth be told, this manner of conducting a personal life has a ripple effect on the general economy. The state of the economy, for instance, is a function of balance of trade: the relationship between import and export.

If Nigerians continue this way, then trust that the worst is on the way. Unless…

4. She’s yet blind to population dynamics
I continue to wonder what National Population Commission, NPC, is all about. Nigeria’s sense of numbers is something else. Do you know that no meaningful national planning can be done without a workable census figure? It’s even held in some quarters that Nigeria’s population is far more than it is being kept out. But where did these people get their figures from, too? What a comedy of errors! Of course, we hear stories of what happen in some sections of the country during census, how figures are doctored to serve the interest of geopolitics. Aside those, Nigeria’s record of births and deaths are nothing to write home about.

Population determines virtually everything, and for Nigeria not to have a close-to-the-truth figure, then the worst is yet to come.

5. She’s still oblivious to the time-bomb called unemployment
Every year, the hundreds of tertiary institutions in Nigeria churn out graduates who only get to fall in place on the unemployment queue. Every year. Every year. And every year. Yet, nothing pretty serious is being done about it. This foretells that the worst youth restiveness is yet to come. In pigin: Niger Delta militancy and Boko Haram dey learn work for where wetin go happen dey. It is squarely a case of do something or…

6. She’s never taken the need for orientation seriously
She said she has a National Orientation Agency, NOA. No doubt. But what has it been all about. It could have been about whatever all along, but it hasn’t been serious business.

Mental reorientation and attitudinal change is everything Nigeria needs to move to the very next level.

Christ said it best: Anything other than this comes from the evil one.

I’m a philosopher. Not a self-acclaimed one. But by professional training, which was what my Nsukka days were all about. Yes, I make bold to say that I was instructed by some of the finest lecturers on the planet, and they did fashion me into a positive something else. I’m not on some sort of ‘self-trumpet-blowing’ mission here, but intent on demonstrating that my testimony is trustworthy.

By internalizing the succeeding 7 ways, you will turn into a philosopher – almost overnight. And it is darn important to note that philosophy is not so much about Aristotle’s Hylemorphism, Plato’s Forms, Kant’s Categorical Imperative, or Aquinas’ Five Ways, as it is simply and squarely about employing critical thinking to engage the tough choices that daily stare us in the face, and the hard questions that always bother our mind.

So, lets get started:

1. Develop the Socratic mindset: “I know nothing“
Of the Greek Socrates the Oracle of Delphi revealed that none was wiser. Perturbed by this startling revelation, Socrates made it a life’s mission to prove the Oracle wrong; he went in search of a wiser person. Guess what? He found that everyone else claimed to know something when in fact they knew nothing. And so, Socrates was said to be wisest on account that he alone knew that he knows nothing.

Seen thus, it has come down to us that the philosopher must profess ignorance, not in the guise of humility but as a matter of fact. So, this Socratic mindset is a conditio sine qua non for philosophizing.

2. Remember that everything makes sense; even ‘nonsense’ has a ‘sense’ in it
Don’t be quick to branding things ‘nonsense’ or ‘meaningless’. By natural default, everything’s got meaning & makes sense. It’s your job to ‘draw’ meaning out of things & ‘make’ sense out of them; it’s a sign of mental laziness to quickly dismiss them as meaningless & nonsensical. Philosophy is such that ‘it is done’; ‘we do philosophy’. It’s a job, & we do it!

Want to become a philosopher? Don’t wish it were easier; do the job! E.g. While a stranger may dismiss a child’s rantings as meaningless, mum knows that little baby is up to something. We’re always up to something; find out by thinking more.

3. It is more about raising questions than trying to answer them
My first lesson in philosophy was the primacy of ‘questioning’ over ‘answering’. In fact, it is the ability to raise questions that makes one a philosopher. Answers are not No. 1 because every answer becomes a new question. Raise question! Why is there something rather than nothing? Why do people die, & when they do, where do they go? Why is the naira crashing against the dollar? Why do married people cheat?

When you begin to ponder on those questions, then you’re a philosopher.

4. Think critically; leave no stone unturned
Admonishing his disciplines on praying, Jesus told them not to babble like the Pharisees. In like manner, the philosopher must not think like the everyday man. No. Philosophy is marked by thinking things through; critical thinking. When the philosopher thinks, he leaves no stone unturned; he stretches everything to the limits. When thinking is critically done, things make more sense.

5. Listen to everyone; someone out there knows something you don’t
The Socratic mindset moves one to listen to everyone, to try to get something from them. And it could just be that the solution to the problem you’re facing simply needs you to pay closer attention to the cab driver or person next door. In essence, have an open mind; this means everything.

6. Argue to learn, not to win
The function of argument is to straighten out thoughts. To marshal out, in a sequence, the basis for our beliefs and conclusions. It’s never about trumping those of others. In arguing, be always ready to shift grounds when it’s obvious that the other person knew something you didn’t. Of course, don’t be hell bent on your position simply because you want to have the day. Argue to learn. Argue to learn. And argue to learn.

7. Communication is everything
Communication is a complex. What happens at the senders end and the receivers end is something else. And it’s a world where it’s the case of communicate or perish. Therefore, we must meaningfully and effectively communicate. Devote ample time to understanding human psychology, because a whole lot come into play during the communication business. Spend quality time to crafting your messages, because a good part of understanding you depends on what you actually sent out.

At the end of the day, and after all said and done, those are all what philosophy is about. Everything else is commentary.