Monthly Archives: October 2023

In the fields of leadership, healthcare and entrepreneurship these three words (Availability, Affordability and Accessibility) are of great importance. It is not enough for a person or thing to be available in the market place, he (it) has to be affordable and accessible too. Without affordability, availability profits nothing and without availability, affordability profits nothing. Without availability and affordability there is no accessibility.

In healthcare, any of these could be a major problem, especially to the poor. We have already argued that healthcare for the poor for the most part is poor healthcare. Sometimes the poor have poor health because they have access only to poor healthcare. At other times the poor are poor because they have poor health and poor healthcare, so are either unemployed, poorly employed or grossly underemployed whichever suits your fancy.

The relationship between poverty, poor health and poor healthcare have been amply demonstrated in literature.

Who waits a year to see a doctor and pays him a thousand dollars if there are in fact other doctors you could see within a few days for a couple hundred dollars? Who waits for a year to see a doctor for free if he can readily afford to pay a thousand dollars to see him today? The poor always make trade offs that the rich wouldn’t worry about. So poverty and poor health tend to be in a vicious cycle because of the inability of the poor to afford what they want.

To get some great leaders to speak in a conference or an event could be very expensive. Any or all the three issues under discussion could be a problem. To honor an invitation, (s)he has to be available, affordable and accessible. The problem is that meeting these three conditions in one person at a given time could be unpredictable. The time of the year and the individual’s itinerary may get in the way of access assuming that affordability is not an issue.

A leader who is available may not be affordable and the one who is accessible may not be available and the one who is available and somewhat accessible may not be affordable. How do you navigate these issues given the tight budgets of this present economic situation with many organizations? What trade offs are you willing to make and yet achieve the purpose for which you want to reach or invite this leader? What knowledge, insight, empowerment or strategies do you stand to trade off if you settle for someone who you can readily afford?

Effective leaders are accessible leaders. Accessible leaders are not just available but they don’t build ‘walls’ around themselves. They can be reached as need arises and they are responsive to the people. It is not difficult to differentiate an inaccessible leader from an accessible one. Even then, some leaders are actively accessible while others are passively accessible. While the actively accessible ones reach out to their team and connect with the members, the passively accessible ones maintain some kind of open door policy where members can reach out to them with issues, questions or concerns.

Although passively accessible leadership is better than inaccessible leadership, actively accessible leadership wins the vote every time. Passive leadership misses lots of opportunities to know what’s going on and be able to make inputs before it becomes a crises situation because most employees or proteges would not take advantage of the open door policy.

Every leader needs to be effective and that demands connecting and communicating with your team members, especially those who would ordinarily not come to you. You may be surprised where you would get the greatest ideas on how to move your organization to the next level. A time came in one of our churches that we had a problem. This problem defied the rank and file of leadership until it was brought to the open at a church meeting. A lady who was not taken very seriously was the one that suggested the way out of the impasse to the amazement of everyone. Had it not been brought to the open or had she not spoken up, she would have robbed the church of her God given idea. Leaders glean ideas from followers to become even better leaders. To do that, the leader has to be available, and accessible at all times.

Who wants to work for a leader he cannot talk to? Nobody deserves a snob of a leader who has all the answers all the time and who is always right, even when he is wrong on an issue he knows nothing about. Even Kings get ideas from their subjects on issues. A prophet in the Bible prophesied against a king and one of the overzealous false prophets smote him on the cheek and asked ‘which way did the spirit of God pass me to speak to you?’. The king ordered food of affliction and prison terms for the true prophet until when he came back from the war…did he come back victorious? The last time I checked he didn’t come back. Some advice or idea from an otherwise insignificant fellow could be prophetic, you ignore it to your peril.

One of the things that I like about my profession is that pharmacists are available, affordable and accessible….much more accessible to the community than pastors, lawyers, doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers, name them. So when you come to the healthcare marketplace, you can pick up your phone and call any pharmacist with questions. You can work up to him and you can stop him on the road and ask questions. There is no ‘do you have insurance?’ Or ‘Call my tech and book appointment’ or ‘have you bought a registration card?’. How many hours do some of us wait to speak to our pastor for 3 minutes?

Back in the day pharmacists used to work behind some cubicles and only stuck out their hands to pass pills but nowadays we are community leaders, proactively getting involved and getting results. Some of us are involved in other community programs like chamber of commerce, local school management board, church board and so on.

So I ask you today, are you available as a ……….(fill in the gap). Are you affordable? Are you accessible? Do people have to follow long prompts on the phone before they could leave a message or even speak to someone? Impact is easy when you understand the place of availability, affordability and accessibility in your calling or office. Creating unnecessary barriers water down your leadership effectiveness and undermine organizational efficiency. Building walls make a leader ineffective and irrelevant. Those 3 A’s are keys to successful leadership, which proactively builds bridges and readily extends hands for fellowship.

Mezie Okolo is a leadership analyst @ www.mezieokolo.com

We cannot solve collective problems without having genuine conversations. Many people have been conditioned to follow the path of political correctness so as to get as many likes on social media as possible. We don’t write to get likes, we write to get affirmative actions and change what is wrong in society. You do not have to like what we write about or the conversations we want to have, but then if you address the issues and fix the problems we will have nothing to write about.

I thought that God created us one race – the human race; and He made us in different shades and colors. Don’t you see the beauty in the different shades of our colors, cultures, accents etc? Everything that God created is beautiful and that includes humans in their different colors. When He said ‘subdue’ the earth He didn’t intend for one color to subdue the other. There is no way you could justify what we have now from scriptures, unless you are talking about a different kind of scripture.

Racism is man’s creation. I suggest that the reason was economics and that is the main reason it lingers. All the discussions around race, racism, equality, civil rights, etc have not been able to yield desired results because the people on the different sides of the aisle are not on the same page – the political will needed to eradicate racism is lacking. Those who are favored by the status quo do not want any change and will do everything to maintain status quo even if it has to be justified and proven from scriptures. After all people in the Bible days had slaves, are you for real?

As far as we allow history to go back, most of the black people were brought here as slaves. Someone was needed for hard labor to work the farms and make the slave masters wealthy…it has always been about economics and economic interests. Then there was need for police to supervise and monitor the slaves in a bid to ensure they work their fingers off if possible. Minimum laborers but maximum output was required and these slaves had to be made to do what the policemen that monitored them could not do. So it appears the police was primarily focused on the slaves to ensure compliance with labor and productivity targets. And the black man was the chief laborer, unfortunately.

Fast forward, the abolition of slave trade, the end of slavery, the civil rights movement of the 60s and so on, the black man has been trying to gain freedom and independence but has not yet been able or allowed to play on the same level field. Although he has come a long way, now black men marry non black women, there was a time a black man went to prison for staring at a non black woman. It was so bad that black women kept their men at home and went to work so he wouldn’t get into trouble for ‘nothing’ or rather for being black and a man at the same time. It was almost enough crime to be man, black and free.

It was and still is some kind of territorial behavior of the white man who saw the black man as the intruder in his space and as a competitor with him for the good things of life…wealth, women, land, etc. Everything to deny the black man access to wealth, fame, women, land, and property would be the ‘norm’ so they don’t begin to compete or maybe rule. So instead of the supremacist to step up his game and show superiority of wits – that will be too much work – he has to lower the pedestal for his most dreaded competitor…the black man.

Everything was designed to keep the black man in check…if more of them are in custody then there will be less of them to compete with, in this ‘limited’ space for wealth and women. Some black women play to the gallery of the competitor when they hand the black man over to the police and accuse him sometimes ‘falsely’ for battery or abuse or whatever…the system readily adopts by default that the black man is guilty (and sometimes he gets a chance to prove his innocence). How many black men are in prison for offenses they have no idea where, when and how they were committed? How many black men get maximum sentences for the same offense for which white man got minimum sentence? Are we not familiar with these? Do we not see the effects of these systemic racial practices on black families and the generation next?

If a black man has a business plan and business idea, and wants to get loan to fund his business, his chances of success will more than double if his name sounds ‘white’ so long as he doesn’t have to show up in person otherwise his loan application will be denied. Even with a credit of 725 and lots of money in the account for equity ingestion a black man still risks being denied because the business plan appears ambitions, or the location of the business is too black to be approved or the logo of the business is not beautiful or there are too many competitors (of the favored race) or the economy is not looking good enough for black success. There is always a reason to say ‘no’ to a black man and keep him working for the white man.

I believe that the greatest emancipation for any man is achieved when he is able to take up his own destiny in his hands and put his talents to work for himself. But we don’t operate in a vacuum and laws are enacted with intentionality. If a level playing ground is established legally the black man will take over the show and run the world. It is enough that slaves were freed without the tools to create wealth. It was similarly repeated when Biafrans that lost the war got ridiculous 20 pounds to start life in 1970 regardless of how much they had in the bank before the war….what a world! Which war did the black man lose in America?

When the Israelites left Egypt after as long as it took for slavery to be abolished here, they spoiled the Egyptians. They didn’t go empty handed. There needs to be a paradigm shift in the system in a way that makes it easier for the black man to be fairly treated in this country, and be able to access the tools to create for himself the American dream. Those who suggest that perhaps black men should go back to Africa will need to be treated as racist as the police who kills the black man. Perhaps if that be the case then the black man should be asking for reparation and payment for several hundred years of labor. Perhaps the black man should ask for the whole land of America as adequate reparation so that all non black people pay rent to the black man. If asking for equality is too much, then maybe we need to rethink and come up with something more tangible and more costly to ask for.

While we support the work of the police in keeping us safe, every now and then they miss it. But people who are not police miss it too, every time at the workplaces with all manner of hate comments and racial rhetoric. So I do not think that all police are racists but there are racists who became police and brought their racist ideologies to the job. Those are the ones that need to be weeded off. Nobody is born racist, the family and society teach it. If we could come up with some kind of lie detector, there should be racist detector test too which every person that wants to be police or judge must pass in order to be allowed to discharge those duties. Maybe that will start separating the weeds from the corn.

It is good to protest but there has to be some other actions taken to drive home the message that black men are sick and tired of being brutally murdered in this country and elsewhere especially by people who swore to protect the people. We cannot solve this problem by looting anybody, you cannot get revenge by breaking into people’s homes or businesses. Simply tendering official apology for killing us does not fix it either. Protesting is good and could go on for as long as it takes to see law makers move motions that are capable of addressing this malady.

The next time we go to the polls let us vote politicians who do not have racist tendencies, maybe racism could be put on the burner and hammered into shape accordingly. How about that? Whatever we do or do not, this racially colored police brutality and violent murder of black men must stop. Enough of institutionalized racism, perpetrated by people who condemned apartheid and uphold a constitution that begins with ‘We, the People’. When those words were written, were black men included in “we” or “the people”? If so, then where is justice, common defense, general welfare and the blessings of liberty as enshrined in the constitution of the United States.

Mezie Okolo is a leadership analyst @ www.mezieokolo.com

Culture is the people’s way of life. It includes their dressing, language, greetings, food, relationships, marriages, religious practices, etc. Man is a social animal and the social arrangements that make up every human society derive from and respond to the culture of the people. These social fabrics of society identify as well as differentiate one society from the other. They could make all the difference between human beings and being human. A people are identified and could be differentiated from another group by their cultural practices.

In Africa, we could differentiate one ethnic group from the other by way of their culture. Although theoretically one could speak of African culture but in practice there could be slight variations even though the core aspects would be closely aligned, and this is because Africans are not necessarily a homogeneous group. Just in Nigeria alone, there are a couple hundred ethnic groups each with their unique culture. The diversity in this unity makes us a people rich in culture even though it could also be a dividing line between a people that otherwise are assumed to be one. The difficulty in managing and integrating these diverse people into one cohesive group has been the bane of Nigeria’s political and socio-cultural crises.

The issue of identity crisis cuts across ethnic groups and nations. In America, we see these culture shocks among people who either came to America as adults or were born in America of parents who grew up in another culture. Sometimes we have seen people who, in the course of acculturation in the American society get confused on whether to behave in tandem with the African culture or the American style. This culture clash manifests first in the African-American, Nigerian-American, Mexican-American or Biafran-American dichotomous identification. I am not suggesting that anything is wrong with those dichotomies, but I am afraid that people that identify as those become hybrids. I think that hybrids are neither nor.

Every black person in America is technically African-American but there is a difference between African-Americans with remote family ties in Africa and those who still have direct family ties. Over time, those whose forefathers came by ship have lost some of their African cultures while those who later came by flight still remember some of what makes us Africans. Problem is that most of us, especially the women tend to quickly jettison their African-ness in a quick bid to embrace America, with the vices that come with this new identity. This madness could be explained by the fact that someone has allowed himself to be convinced that everything African is bad and everything American or European is good. Again I am not saying that one is better than the other but I consider it an error when I see how quickly people that came from Africa the other day forget their language, basic family etiquette, cultural duties and the like. I understand that the dynamics are different in the two cultural settings but isn’t that the same for Chinese, Mexican or Indian folks? Do they abandon their cultures as quickly as we do? I do not think so…

So why does it seem as if this cultural identity crises are more of an Africans in America issue? Look at the Mexicans, their children speak Spanish. They eat their Mexican food. They dance their music. They maintain family ties. They even celebrate their holidays and so on. The Chinese are like that. The Jews also and so are the Indians. If you work with and observe them closely you see that they are very committed to their core cultural practices regardless of their educational qualifications, job titles, income, or social status. They speak in their accent and dress in their attires. Their men still lead their families and model for their children according to their cultures. Regardless of status they do not forget where they came from and how things are done.

In the African communities it is different. Our children do not understand let alone speak our languages. Our women hardly dress the African way and our men likewise. Even those who grew up in Africa soon forget the language and would not even eat African food anymore because they want to be more catholic than the pope. When you speak with our people, they want to fake Americana…how irritating!

How many of us still know how to present kola nut to guests and how to break it? How many of our elders know how to give a girl out in marriage according to the African norms? How many of our women know enough to fit in were they to be reunited to African family today? How many of our young people know that we don’t meet a boy at Walmart and follow him to his house without him paying dowry? How many of our young people know that Africa still has what is considered ‘bastards’ even though it is not necessarily American? I am not suggesting that these practices are good or bad, but do we know about them and do they influence our decisions?

I am afraid that most of us have resolved that our children are hybrids, and so we are confused about whether to bring them up as Africans or as Americans. Again, I am not suggesting one or the other but that is surely something to think about. I know that someone may say ‘if Africa is good why are you here?’…Well I am also aware that we want our children to benefit from both worlds. If you are like me, it might be a good idea for us to proactively start teaching our children our African language at least. One of the reasons the children wouldn’t want to go back to African is if they cannot speak the language. Even though I am not ignorant of the fact that most of our women do not want to go back under any arrangements…but that will be our discussion for another day.

In my twelve years of living and working here, I have seen several African-Americans who wish they could move back to Africa. Maybe our children would be in that situation someday and they wouldn’t be happy that their parents did not teach them the language and the culture. As they try to figure out their identity in the early stages of life, I don’t think it would be a bad idea to raise them with all the norms and morals with which we were raised back in Africa. If we train them the African way, they will grow up to become African men and women of substance in American. Then our houses could be little Africa in a foreign land. Wouldn’t that be a good way to start reintroducing Africa to them in a way that will appeal to their sense of fashion and modernity? How about that?

Mezie Okolo is a leadership analyst @ www.mezieokolo.com

There are different personality traits, while some are easy to deal with, others are very tricky and deceptive…yet deadly. In the workplace, if someone is hot tempered or just aggressive in his approach to things or somewhat overtly intolerant of different views, it is easy to handle. We may not all agree but we will naturally come up with a coping mechanism that works for our own personality trait, yet without creating an unhealthy work environment. If you have such a person as sibling, you probably don’t want to talk to him…if you have him as a boss, you probably want to apply for another job as quickly as you can find…if you have him as an employee, you will probably get rid of him. Nobody wants to put up with shit for so long.

What is even worse is passive aggression. Dealing with passive aggressors is more difficult, as they are mainly sneaky and snaky…when you think they are going east they go west. Nobody would believe nor imagine the emotional trauma they put you through because they look harmless and peaceful. They subtly make the workplace hostile and even when you go out of your way to make them happy, your effort will be in futility. They avoid holding a conversation and act as if they know everything, yet they do not communicate nothing. They are wise in their own eyes. They are always right because they haven’t given themselves a chance to listen to a different argument. They tell themselves they deserve the world for waking up and they expect that everybody should take their side and celebrate them. They even call truth lies, and you would believe them until you listen critically to the other story. Beware of the danger of a single story.

Passive aggressors walk and behave as if they cannot harm a fly but they would kill an elephant and swear by their fathers. Passive aggression sounds like an oxymoron but that is the problem, and that is what they are. A passive aggressive person could break a bank and you would bet your life for him. They may even start crying as though they are innocent and oppressed until you begin to gather the facts and push emotions to the side. If you start investigating them, they adopt emotional blackmail to ward you off and point you in the wrong direction. You would believe their story even when it was a well calculated alibi, meant to deceive. They are sentimental, they mop up sentiments and they are fake. If they commit a crime, investigators will earn their wages trying to nail them to it.

Passive aggressive people are stubborn but very very deceptive. They make you aggressive and they want all to see you as the aggressor, but they are the aggressors. I don’t know if anybody has had any experience of the picture I am painting. They are everywhere and they come in different shades. Sometimes we make the mistake of coloring it with race and mis -classifying it as racism if they have different skin color. But then you realize they do it to people of the same race too. They even do it to family. They are not confrontational, but they are acidic…they eat like the canker worm. They can find everything wrong with everybody but nothing wrong with themselves. They are very suspicious, and they watch your every step with sinister mind. They are very manipulative and they have to win every “battle”. Don’t even make the mistake of disagreeing with them, you become an enemy to be eliminated. When you offend them, and apologize to them, it is not over. Several years down the line, it will be brought up again against you. These people are in the churches and some of them are ordained ministers.

Passive aggressive people can set members of a team against one another and you cannot pin them to it. They can set a house on fire, raise alarm and appear harmless.

When you ask them, they give you an answer they believe you want to hear, and then they sneak in to do something different. They may even start rumor and appear as if they have no idea what you talk about. If they pick your slack at work, the world must know it to give them all the credit. When you are not there, they use you to shine but as soon as you come in they fake a smile and appear as though they are your friend. But they do not have genuine smile or laughter. If you want to be their friend, then you realize how cold and boring they are. They are very negative…nothing is done well except the things they did, you don’t know what you are doing unless you do it the way they approve of.

If you have such a person in your network, mark them and watch them. They will not clap when you are winning. They are competing with you and you do not even know it. They are interpreting your jokes negatively, your laughter critically and your friendship gestures derogatorily. You must be someone that pays attention to details to figure out what they do and who they are. In positions of leadership, they are the most difficult to work for. You cannot please them. They are the least hospitable of people and they could be obnoxious to put it in perspective. You give them gifts, you must be up to something sinister, yet they don’t know how to be friendly.

Wouldn’t you want to work for someone you could tell when he is angry and when he is happy? Every day is not sunshine, and every day is not gloomy….when someone’s day is always gloomy…chances are that they are passive aggressors. Watch out for them and tread cautiously. They are dangerous and they can ruin your career. I have met them in my twenty years of career. They hate you for being you and they do not want to openly admit it. I’d prefer you and I agree that you don’t like me and I don’t like you, so we keep our meetings and discussions official, especially when and if we have to work together. We can keep our differences at the door when we get to work, then pick them back up on our way out.

Passive aggression in the workplace, at home, in the community…anywhere is a no no. You don’t want an enemy disguising as a friend…those are wrapped in passive aggressors. If you know anybody like that, maybe a counselor can help them if they ever admit that they need help, otherwise just avoid them so they don’t mess up your day, your week, your career or even your life.

Mezie Okolo is a leadership analyst @ www.mezieokolo.com

There are people who doubt, and there are people who believe. It could be about the possibility of all things, life after death, the inevitability of eternity, or just something as simple as passing a particular exam. If you say ‘I CAN’, then you can but if you say ‘I CANNOT’ then you cannot. In this kingdom you have to first believe…then you see. In between you have to sweat it out. Life is not easy.

A certain uncle of mine taught me a life long lesson. We disagreed on an issue back in the day and I did something he didn’t approve of, so he said to me ‘He that says I CAN funds the way’. As a result of that statement decisions were made and by serendipity I had to start my first business to survive …omezyphotos was born. Those were the days of little beginnings at Nsukka. I remember hustling one matriculation day and a classmate of mine in high school saw me and laughed me to scorn. He couldn’t imagine a student pharmacist hustling with photographers, taking pictures of people and selling them. For him, photography was not dignifying enough. But I understood there is dignity in hard labor. I had bills to pay and I wanted to get to the next level by all means honorable. So I didn’t mind him. 

‘He that says ‘I CAN’ is probably one of the best lessons I learned in school and today I am grateful that it came to me when and under the circumstances it did. The person that taught me that lesson may have forgotten but it is still driving me. I will make sure my daughters learn that lesson too. Today I want you to think about it for a minute. When you say you can, you actually can but you have to get to work. You cannot say ‘I CAN’ without rolling the sleeves of your shirt. You cannot say ‘I CAN’ and not expect to sweat. Nobody says ‘I CAN’ and observes the weather or yet expect that lines will just fall for him in pleasant places. If they fall, that is an extra but hardwork beats talent every time talent does not work hard. So while we all want to become successful by sheer luck, I am sorry to tell you it will not happen. 

Even the greatest investor of all times, Warren Buffet has not retired from investing, and making money. Although his money is working for him, he still tells his money where to work. He still keeps up with current affairs and still projects where opportunities for the future are. When there is problem in society for example Covid-19, he is able to see opportunities in the midst of the global crises to make money sitting in his couch. That is hard work my friend even though it is easy for him. Ability to see what others do not see is what makes people outstanding. Ability to do what others would not do stands people out. Seest thou a man diligent…he will stand before kings. 

He that says ‘ I CAN’ must be ready to do what it takes. But before you say ‘I CAN’ do you understand what it actually takes? Do you really know the nitty gritty? Some people say ‘I CAN’ only to get to the middle of the road and realize they cannot. You don’t know how to swim and you saw little children in the pool having fun. If you jump into the pool because little children are there, may those little children be able to save you when you start drowning. Although that is the way most people approach issues, what they don’t know is the strategy and the preparations that went into what Jill and John are doing. 

Let’s consider this little boy who refused to listen to his parents here in America. His dad kept talking and kept correcting and kept instructing until when he could kick him out of the house, and he sure did. This boy, whose parents are well educated and pretty comfortable became homeless…like the prodigal son in the Bible. He eventually paid his bills and went days without food. He got to his whits end and realized he messed up. Today he is a college graduate, but not without humbling life experiences and lessons from ‘I CAN’. 

As a matter of fact, when the prodigal son wanted out of his father’s house and out of his father’s leadership what he said was  ‘I CAN’. By the time his resources were depleted then he realized how stupid he was. But I give the prodigal some credit for despising shame, coming to his senses, throwing pride to the trash and coming back in humility to his father who had been waiting for him. 

Even though his father received him, the father also knew the boy had leaned his lessons. Life will teach you more lessons than any teacher will ever teach you in the classroom. When we left school, we were excited that we don’t have to sit within the four walls and do what the teacher wanted. Little did we know that graduating means falling from frying pan into the fire. Life is much more complex than algebra and calculus put together. If you haven’t seen or realized it yet, wait. You will surely see. You cannot copy from anybody the way you copied from your neighbor in school because everybody has a different question paper. There are as many different question papers as there are people so you will fail this exam if you copy from me. As we graduated we thought we would become millionaires in no time, twenty years later most of us have not even become ‘thousandnaires’ let alone millionaires. 

Nobody gets a credit for answering the question the teacher did not ask and you don’t get to tell the teacher what question he should ask you in the exam. What is even more interesting, the exam is an ongoing daily experience. When you fail an exam what do you do? Unfortunately you have to repeat the class. Even though your age mates may be in 12th Grade of life you may still be in 3rd Grade because you haven’t passed 3rd Grade life exams. And you don’t get promoted because others are promoted…i wish it wasn’t so.

But you said ‘I CAN’. So it is not in the saying, it is in the doing and in doing it right. Activity does not always mean productivity. Some activities lead to productivity and some don’t. You have to determine what productivity means and then make sure that your activity will lead to productivity. If you assume it, you waste time and resources for nothing. Life will not just reward you for activity, you got to produce. No employer pays you huge bonuses for just going through the motions and yet adding no value. He that says ‘I CAN’ has to add value….what value do you bring to the table ? 

When someone interviews for a job he strives to convince the interviewer that he brings to the table relevant values. When they say ‘why should we hire you?’ You don’t say because I have bills to pay or I have student loans due or I am good looking. If you really want that job which you have applied for, then you must tell in 2 minutes, what values you bring and what values you will add to the company. 

I was once invited to an interview and there were tens of applicants and I was maybe the fourth person to be interviewed. By the time my interview was over the rest of the applicants had bad luck…the job was no longer available. My employer was convinced I was going to add value to the team and the rest is now history.  Convincing the interviewer you will add value does not guarantee that you will add value…so you will still be evaluated on the job. You better get to work. When you stop adding value that counts, then you start counting days that don’t count and your job soon goes away. He that says I CAN does not count what doesn’t count.

When you tell your brother or your spouse or your parent or your employer, be gone…I am of age, I am grown, nobody tells me what to do…then get ready to pay your bills and to drink your water and to eat your food. Make sure you got it. When you fire your boss, then make sure to boss yourself all day every day or you will soon be in a bind. ‘I CAN’ means you can….including holding yourself accountable daily and accepting responsibility for everything you do or fail to do. 

When you say America is a land of freedom, it is also a land of freedom to pay your own bills. With every freedom comes responsibilities….whatever represents freedom to you, go for it but please take your wallet and your check book with you….you got to fund the way through whatever you said ‘I CAN’. When I disagreed with my uncle and behaved in a way that said ‘I CAN’, I paid my bills. ‘I CAN’ can be a costly venture but all things are possible to them that believe and to him that says ‘I CAN’.

Among the people referred to as Biafra, there are different principles by which they live and even name their children. One of those is the principle of Ozoemena, which is both a name and a statement. When something horrible happens, maybe a family is bedeviled by the serial death of their children, a new baby could be called Ozoemena. The same goes for people who had one misfortune or the other. The ultimate misfortune is the evil of death. Although a resilient people, every other thing but death is tolerable to Biafrans. But there is so much a people can take.

Today marks the 53rd Anniversary of the declaration of Republic of Biafra by then Lt. Col. CO Ojukwu, the Ikemba Nnewi and Eze Igbo Gburugburu. That declaration, which resulted from Gowon’s decision to ignore the Aburi Accord, led to a genocide which is erroneously called a war. In hindsight, everybody wants to tell the story in a way that justifies his actions and inactions, but the truth remains unchanged. The massacre which had started in the north, forced Biafrans to run to the east for their lives. The government of the day under Yakubu Gowon implicitly supported the displacement of Biafrans by refusing to stop the madness. Already pushed to the walls, Biafrans had no where else to run, so they declared a republic and defended Biafraland, and for 30 months Nigeria got more than she bargained for. No thanks to Britain, Ozoemena!

Every time leaders fail to discharge their duties and make lame excuses, people die physically, emotionally, psychologically, mentally and otherwise. It doesn’t matter whether you are a military leader like Gowon, or Business leader like Bill Gates or Civilian leader like Trump, the principle is the same. You can kill a people by killing their hope, their enthusiasm, their confidence in themselves and their commitment to you. I refuse to point fingers but Gowon has not yet explained why he wasted almost 3 million of my people between 1967 and 1970. I do not care who thinks otherwise, the international court of justice should summon Gowon before he dies, to explain what he did with the blood of the soldiers, the children, the women, the elderly and all manner of people killed by the barrels of the gun and through starvation. More people probably died of kwashiokor than by the barrels. How shameful! Ozoemena !

Today, the music and the beatings of war that filled the air by this time 53 years ago are here again, and maybe louder. This time, not only are the Arewa youths threatening sulfur and brimstone in the north, the Fulani herdsmen have occupied all the bushes and forests of Biafraland with their AK47 and their cattle waiting for further instructions. Everyday, we hear about farmlands destroyed, crops eaten up, people threatened/harassed and people’s lands illegally occupied by herdsmen and their cattle. In Dunukofia, Anambra State for example, women were shown weeping and wailing for their farmlands that have been decimated by cattle. We are worried about the food insecurity that is imminent with Corona virus, now we have to worry about cattle eating up whatever is available on the farms. What are the poor village women farmers supposed to do against men with AK47 in the bush? Does Buhari want these women and their children to die of Kwashiokor and all manner of nutritional marasmus, again?

Not once has the President of Nigeria condemned this ugly trend in the strongest possible terms. Even when these Fulani herdsmen have killed and wiped out entire villages, the presidency called them “herdsmen-villagers clashes”. There is a difference between clashes and onslaughts. Attack is not the same thing as fight…there is always a root cause to a problem and it is only when a people have agenda that they brush over issues and make them sound mild for political gains. This government needs to learn from the government of Gowon how to not let a situation degenerate to war. if this war begins, Nigeria will probably become history. When they are treating you for diarrhea and you start manifesting other serious symptoms, do you have a deal with the spirit of death and the evil forest? Ozo emena!

This music that herdsmen and the people that gave them AK47 are playing, when the dancers start dancing to it, may it be well with both parties. Today in Biafraland we remember, with tearful eyes, all those who died for the struggle. Although the government has refused to give them befitting burial, we observe a moment of silence for them and we pray that their souls will continue to rest in peace. The reality is that people have died, government is suffering from leadership leprosy but the Spirit of Biafra cannot be quenched, not even by the whole forces of Nigeria and Britain put together. We are a peace loving people, we do not advocate for war, but we cannot abandon what Biafra represents for her people. Biafra would have been 53 years old today but Nigeria seems to have learnt nothing in 53 long years. After the war in 1970, Gowon gave every Biafran that had a bank account before the war 20 pounds (GBP), and those that had no bank accounts got nothing. Out of that nothingness a great multitude of entrepreneurs have been raised in 50 years. Today, we weap, not for Biafra, but for Nigeria because it seems at last, by current trends, Biafra will survive Nigeria, because before Nigeria, Biafra existed. Long live, the spirit and the ideology called Biafra.

@MezieOkolo is a leadership analyst at www.mezieokolo.com

Who actually cares about the poor? In all of human society known to us, health care has become ostentatious good, available to and affordable only by the upper class. Growing up, we were taught that universal primary heath care is a fundamental human right…y’all right. First and foremost, there is nothing universal about health or health care. If indeed there is anything universal related to health, then there is no care associated with it. Health care for the poor seems to always be poor health care. But why can’t health care be universal and universally accessible to those who need it? Why should the poor be poorly diagnosed and poorly cared for? Diseases that affect the poor or the world’s poorest populations especially the third world countries are called ‘neglected tropical diseases’ and everybody is ok with that title. Isn’t that an indictment on us?

I have lived and worked in three countries (in three continents) so I will be looking briefly at those systems to make my points. In Nigeria, the health system at the rural communities is anything but systematic. There is high level of self medication because most people cannot afford the cost, luxury and/or inconvenience of going to a doctor’s clinic. Also, regulatory frameworks are poorly structured and poor executed. Lack of trust in the quality and usefulness of service and the products undermine the clinical training of the providers.

If you manage to show up at a doctor’s clinic, you have to buy medical card before anybody will talk to you. Certain persons have died because the family was not able to gather enough money in time to deposit before the doctor would do his thing.

It is not entirely the doctors faults also, because people don’t go to the doctor until they are already convinced they are dying. Many people that show up at a doctor’s private clinic are actually emergency department cases but lack of emergency department and lack of adequate systematic referral and logistic arrangement mean that even quark nurses stand in for a doctor who is rarely on duty. The result is that more people die of poverty and of no health care than of poor health care. The rich have a way of making the system work for them if they don’t want to hop into the next available flight. However, coronavirus changed all of those dynamics. Nigeria is overdue for a law against medical tourism by government officials and politicians.

The last time I checked, I saw my NHS card and it reminded me about my days as Clinical Audit and Clinical Effectiveness Facilitator over a decade ago. For the benefit of those who are not familiar, the NHS is designed to provide health care for everybody in the UK with an arrangement that assigns everyone a GP within a reasonable distance from his postal code. The idea is to make sure that primary health care is as close to the people as possible. When you do need care, you could see your GP pretty soon and it has nothing to do with ability to pay. Although the NHS has its own numerous challenges, at the primary care level it serves those who would otherwise not be able to pay for care. Even wellness check for a newborn was part of the package those days when my daughter was born. What is more noteworthy was prescription copay…no outrageous charges at point of care as could be the case in the Americas. Even though I had to wait a year in line to see a dermatologist.

Here in the United States it is pretty much survival of the fittest so to speak. Although there is Medicaid and Medicare, most people are either on private insurance or no insurance at all. The average hardworking middle income family would not qualify for Medicaid and may not be able to afford private insurance. They just fall through the cracks of society. Even Obamacare seems to have made it harder for certain categories of people to procure coverage. What then happens is that the hardworking poor suffer and live with a more than proportionate amount of unmet health needs. Over this period of coronavirus, the situation has been unusually escalated to the point that people refuse to refill their prescriptions because they have to buy food. Some people have nothing or almost nothing else left in the house but toilet papers. I still don’t understand the rational behind stockpiling of toilet papers. But the poor still suffer more from the ‘rona virus’ than everybody else. The people that catch and those that die of the “rona virus” are predominantly, (you guessed right) middle or lower class. One could blame that on low immune system probably from not eating healthy. But eating healthy is costly. We all want to eat healthy but we all cannot afford to eat healthy and we all don’t know how to eat healthy. That’s why we initiated “Start Healthy Magazine” to help people understand that you are what you eat.

Many people don’t know that the best form of health care is care about your daily routines which includes what you eat. Time and space will not permit us to talk about the effect of chemical additives in food and on our body. But we must quickly say that if you don’t check what you eat you will soon be checked for what you eat. Many people eat themselves to obesity, others drink themselves to cirrhosis and yet others smoke themselves to bronchitis. Who suffers more from these diseases? The poor of course.

So back to our question, ‘who cares for the health of the poor?’ Ironically not even the poor themselves care for the health of the poor. When the poor suffer ill health from poor choices, that is triple jeopardy. If we could hardly survive one, how would we deal with three? That explains the decline in quality and quantity of life in contemporary society. Total reorientation, personal responsibility and leadership are needed to change this ugly trajectory. At the intersection of health and leadership, blessed is he that considers the poor…he lends to the lord. May he be handsomely rewarded on the day of reckoning.

@MezieOkolo is a leadership analyst and can he reached at www.mezieokolo.com

Health has been defined as a state of “complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”(WHO, 1948). This will be the basis of our discussion.

Health is considered a state of ‘complete…’, that sets the bar high right there. If indeed ‘complete’ is important to that definition, then we have to look hard to find persons who are ‘healthy’ in most ecosystems, in the right sense of that word. If one interprets that definition as a state of complete physical well-being, complete mental well-being, and complete social wellbeing…now we begin to see the challenges not only in achieving a state of heath but in maintaining it on an ongoing basis, given the present economic realities.

Someone may have complete physical well-being, but incomplete mental well-being and one may have complete physical and mental well-being but incomplete social well-being. Look at it differently, most times the physical and mental well-being are affected and determined by the social environment and social factors within the individual’s ecosystem. So instead of looking at heath today through the physical and mental lenses (micro-level), we would look at it from the social (macro-level) perspective, but more definitively, through all of them taken as a composite measure. The social (or sociological) aspect of health appears to be a major determinant of the physical and mental states of health in modern day society, and this is where the effect of leadership on health is most pronounced, because it goes beyond the individual and extends to the community. Public health is about the health of human populations in their communities.

If an individual has physical Ill-health, a doctor or a team of doctors will try to definitively determine by way of diagnosis, using modern technologies, the cause of the ill health, the prognosis, and the clinical treatment regimen. This is typical and depending on the diagnosis, the illness could be medically addressed. Maybe the individual recovers in time, disease is cured, and life continues uninterrupted. This is the most simplified scenario for health and health care. He is considered healthy because there is now absence of physically noticeable illness. Right? Let us say this individual suffered from a highly stigmatized ill health or has a mental health situation which may have been caused by the disease or by myriads of other determinants of health. Now he is no longer experiencing a state of complete mental well-being, and we see lots of this scenario in society today. Remember, mental health is a person’s condition with regard to his psychological and emotional well-being. These are conditions that affect mood, thinking and behavior. Mental health takes into consideration the emotional and behavioral adjustment of an individual as he goes about his daily activities. If any of these cognitive aspects of human life and living situation is off, mental illness is queried, and then maybe clinically diagnosed.

Some of these are cases like anxiety (worry, ‘idiopathic’ fear), depression (low mood or loss of interest in activities) and bipolar (mood swings from high to low), or a combination of these to mention but a few. We see that to be in a state of complete mental well-being is a big deal, especially at such a time like this when the USA has been jokingly referred to as the United States of Anxiety. Imagine what the situation is in Africa even though strangely, Africans are an incredibly happy people, maybe due to what we already referred to as “leprosy”. An individual who is mentally healthy is adequately able to cope with the demands of daily activities while someone who is mentally unhealthy is unable to do so. That takes us to the third part of that definition, a state of Social well-being. This is broad and more encompassing. It refers to the achievement of balance (equilibrium) of the interplay between the individual’s health (physical and mental) and his physical, social/sociological, economic, ecological or geographical environment. It means that ill-health is not just about physical and mental impairment but also socioeconomic impairment. This leads us to what has been described as “the social determinants of health”. These are environmental conditions in which people are born, live, learn, work, play, age, worship; and which exposes them to health risks, quality of life and even health outcomes. The social determinants of “physical” health are not very different from the social determinants of “mental” health which also include racial discrimination and social exclusion, adverse early life experiences, poor education, unemployment, underemployment and job insecurity, poverty, income inequality, and neighborhood deprivation; poor access to enough healthy food; poor housing quality, and the list goes on. Can you see how any of these can impact your health status and health behavior?

So leadership affects health directly and indirectly through its effects on the determinants of health. Leadership and leadership policies affect your health behavior too. For example, a leadership policy in place can determine who dies or survives from corona virus. An executive order from the leadership could make all the difference between life and death for you and your loved ones. The way heath care is organized, delivered, paid for, accessed, or utilized can make all the difference in the life of a given community, especially those who are disproportionately unable to overcome the barriers. Where you were born, where you live, where you work, even your zip code can be determining factors on the quality and “quantity” of your life. Think about air, water and environmental pollution from oil spillage and their effects on quality of life, both for man and for livestock. As mild as it is, here in Andrews the water in certain areas is known to stain the teeth of persons that have lived here long enough. Imagine what lead and asbestos do to people in the construction industry. How about ordinary allergic reaction to pollen in certain places of West Texas.

Can you imagine the impact of poverty on heath status and access to care among the poor people of the world? In my study of certain African countries (Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad, Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire) using the principal components analysis to categorize study samples into quintiles of wealth, it was consistently shown that the poor suffer more from diseases of poverty and live with unmet health needs. Let us consider the effect of poor education on health or on healthcare? We need to make a quick clarification here on the differences between heath and healthcare. Health is a state of general well being (physical, mental, psychological, emotional, socioeconomic) while healthcare is the maintenance, restoration, and improvement of general well being through medical and ancillary services.

Looking at the inter-connectedness of these things in the communities helps us to see how bad road is connected to health; how poor education is connected to health, how pollution is connected to health, how lack of basic amenities in the neighborhood is connected to health, how job insecurity is connected to health, how unemployment affects your health, how income inequality is related to health, how racial discrimination is related to health and how all the above are related to health behavior. Then do you see how leadership is related on all these factors that determine health? When next you vote, you have to vote for good health by voting someone who would prioritize education, jobs, social equality, green energy, poverty alleviation among minority populations, good roads and social networks.

@MezieOkolo is a Leadership Analyst

www.mezieokolo.com

05/26/2020.

I like the way Facebook always asks ‘what’s on your mind?’. Well this morning I woke up thinking about Romans 8:28 that I spoke with someone about yesterday. What interested me was how she paraphrased it ‘ find the good in all things’…

I never thought about it like that. Thinking is good. There is great creativity and insight hidden in thinking. Please think…it is healthy. We know the verse above as ‘all things work together for good of them that love God…’ A commentary says God works together with those who love him to bring about the good in all things. Now you know why 1 Thessalonians 5:18 says ‘In all things give thanks..’

As I got into thinking mode, it occurred to me that – there is something good in everything bad – those who love God cannot fret when things appear to be bad – a bad event cannot truncate the good purpose for which God has called those that love him – weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning; after thunder comes rain – things may not go the way you want them, but all things are working together for your good – in all things give thanks…even when it is bad, it could have been worse; you have no idea what battles are waged on your behalf – Again give thanks…be thankful…say thank you…instead of being mad with God or cursing people out say ‘thank you’ even to the person that did you wrong…they may have intended it for evil to hurt or stop you but God may be using them to bring you the best of circumstances ever…look for the good in that ugly situation and be thankful. This is deeper than you think. It means whatever the situation, even if it means the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, the loss of a friend….there is gain in all of your losses.

Go and be successful. It is another day that the lord has made and we must be glad and joyful in thanksgiving…have a blessed day folks

@MezieOkolo

01/25/2020