Opened Up My Mind.

Type :Personal Essay

Countries :Nigeria

My name is Ovie, I am 19 years old am from Yenegoa L.G.A of Bayelsa State in Nigeria. I leave with my parents in Abuja. As a teenager growing up in Nigeria, I never really cared about anything, nor took anything concerning my life seriously. When I got into senior secondary school, my friends and I formed a gang which we used to intimidate and bully other students. Our activities eventually led us to being expelled from the school.
After the expulsion, I hated myself for putting my dad through so much pain and disappointment, at the same time I was trying to convince him that I had given my life to Christ and I don’t do any of the things stated in the letter anymore. My dad was still upset with me, he didn’t want to talk to me, didn’t eat my food and he didn’t answer my greetings. I could understand his pain and I knew he was hurt!
About a month later, he came home from work one evening gave me a big hug and said ‘’I’ve forgiven you”! we hugged it out in-between sobs and promises. However, when all the emotions had died down, he said ‘I registered you for a Self-Discovery Leadership Clinic Please go there and see what you can do for yourself’. I was like OK thank you! I was ready to do anything to gain back his trust and make him happy, even if it meant seeing some Doctor! However, I soon found out that the clinic had nothing to do with physical health or doctors. It was a 3 days’ event organised by Guardians of the Nation International(GOTNI).
During the course of the event, we were taught on topics such as integrity, career choice, goal setting & behavioural change. The facilitators, namely Comrade Linus Okorie, and his wife Nkiru simply started out by telling us to take a good look at the state of the country, before they asked us if we knew the causes for high levels of corruption and general poverty in the nation. Comrade Linus argued that most leaders today never really gave a thought about themselves becoming leaders someday in the future so they never really took the time to invest in their leadership capital. Com.Linus taught us that these ‘accidental leaders’ were the cause for the present predicament which our nation finds herself. He therefore urged us that in order to secure our future and by extension the future of the next generation, we as youths must take adequate action and deliberate step to invest in our leadership capital so we don’t repeat history by not being ready to lead when we get a chance someday in the future. He said ‘someday this nation will come to you and beg for leadership, please prepare for it so you won’t fail her when the day comes, for it is better to be prepared and not have an opportunity, than to have an opportunity and not be prepared’
I was so inspired by the program that i believed if every Nigerian could get an opportunity to have such an experience which will broaden their minds and make them break the stereotype of ‘it’s not possible’, then maybe people will take risks and give life all they’ve got! I was obsessed with telling people about leadership capital. This lead me to get permission from my school management to establish a leadership development club in my school.
I was a young man who didn’t care who the president of the country was. I didn’t care if my leaders only cared about themselves and their families and sent their kids abroad to study because they can’t let them attend the free public schools they provided for us. I didn’t care if all the roads in states other than the federal capital territory were death traps, just because I don’t have to use them, after all, I don’t stay there. I so cared less, I never even took my own life seriously, I just went to school because everybody goes to school, I went to church because my parents forced me, and I read because I didn’t want to fail and be called the dumb kid in class, but just by having the right association with a person that has an open mind seeking to salvage young people with a mind-set like mine, I became a change maker. Conscious of myself, my family, my community, my environment and my nation Nigeria! Planning the emancipation of a nation one mind at the time. Living with the awareness that everything I do, every decision I make, and every habit I cultivate is being forged into my character! Dealing carefully with the thoughts which i entertain in my mind because I know, and am aware that they all will constitute the package which I will deliver to this nation if I get a chance to be a leader.
I sincerely hope that whosoever you are, that you are not selfish about your life and you know that God has given you a specific task to accomplish on earth. 70 years is so short you don’t have time to make a mistake, and if you’re over 40 years old your already over the 50% mark, don’t be a generational thief, find your purpose, stay on course and fulfil your destiny.