₦airaland Forum

The family of Otamayomi Ogedengbe, pastor of Deeper Life Bible Church, who was kidnapped on Monday in Akure, the Ondo State capital, has begged Nigerians and the security agencies, to help secure the release of their breadwinner.

Wife of the kidnapped pastor, Yinka Ogedengbe with Businessday on Wednesday, in Akure, appealed to the security agencies in the state to rise up and rescue her husband, saying her husband is the only son of his parents.


Narrating how it happened, the woman said her husband was kidnapped by some gunmen as the church service was about to close. She added that her husband was driven away in a car by his abductors who shot sporadically into the air to scare church members away.

“I beg all Nigerians to help the release of my husband. He is a man who cannot hurt a fly. They should release him because he is always on medication. I beg security agents to rise to the occasion and help me to secure his release.


“He is the only son of his parents, please I beg you all to help me; I can no longer sleep. He is my companion of over 37 years,” lamented Yinka.

Meanwhile, Bolaji Salami, the Commissioner of Police (CP) in the state, has vowed to rescue the pastor.

The spokesperson of the state police command, Tee-Leo Ikoro, who spoke on behalf of the CP, said they would do everything within their power in collaboration with other security agencies to arrest those behind the pastor’s abduction.

“We do hope that this man of God will come out safely very soon. As I am talking to you right now, our men with other security agents are in the forest to rescue the man,” Ikoro said.

“Ninety percent of all millionaires become so through owning real estate. More money has been made in real estate than in all industrial investments combined. The wise young man or wage earner of today invests his money in real estate.” - Andrew Carnegie, billionaire industrialist

“Ninety percent of all millionaires become so through owning real estate. More money has been made in real estate than in all industrial investments combined. The wise young man or wage earner of today invests his money in real estate.” - Andrew Carnegie, billionaire industrialist

“Ninety percent of all millionaires become so through owning real estate. More money has been made in real estate than in all industrial investments combined. The wise young man or wage earner of today invests his money in real estate.” - Andrew Carnegie, billionaire industrialist

We don’t want special status like Lagos, but special consideration

Mohammed Sani Idris, Niger State Commissioner for Information, in this interview with LEO SOBECHI and AHMED IDRIS, narrates the security challenges confronting the state.




Niger State has become a haven for insurgents. Do you think the Federal Government is doing enough?
In Niger State, we are facing competing challenges in the midst of meagre resources. The first major challenge is the issue of security, but a lot of things gave rise to the challenge of security.

First, our land mass is turning almost into a curse, because it is supposed to be a blessing to the state. We have over 76,000 square kilometres of land making up the landmass of about five, six or even seven states. As a result of this huge landmass, we have a large expanse of forests and bushes, which provide a hideout for the bandits to perform their nefarious activities.

Aside from the issue of banditry, some time ago we were faced with the issue of bad roads that we are still contending with. People from outside the state may not really understand what is happening in Niger State. If you leave the Abuja axis and say you want to travel to an area like “Ongu” that means you are embarking on a journey farther than Abuja to Kano in distance, while in some states, when the state governor constructs about 100 or 200km of road, you will see them as an achievement.



For instance, the boundary we share with Kebbi and Zamfara States is a large expanse of bushes that begins from inside Niger and reaches the border. This makes it easy for bandits to perform their nefarious activities in Niger State and when you pursue them, they escape into another state. We have cried out several times and our governor has visited the Presidency on several occasions to weep.

We are not saying that the FG or the security outfits are not doing enough, but we expect that because of our peculiar situation in Niger State, they should do much more than they are doing in other states. Going by the fact that Niger State has made lots of sacrifices for this nation; for instance, about 70 to 80 percent of the FCT was obtained from Niger State. The name Abuja was donated to the Federal Capital from a place in Suleja Local Government headquarters in Niger State.

Our state has done so much, but we have got so little from the Federal Government because we are being seen as any other state without due consideration to the immense contributions of our state to the wellbeing and unity of Nigeria as a nation. You will realise that even in the deployment of security personnel to states, the number of security personnel we have in Niger State today is nothing to write home about.



This is why the government under the leadership of the governor, His Excellency, Sanni Bello, has decided to be proactive. Not that we are not relying on the central security outfit we have in the nation, but we decided to come up with a strategy by ensuring that we recruit our vigilantes, provide logistics for them and continuously empower them. This is to complement the police and the army in the fight against bandits. But, as we know, putting an end to this menace may not come at once as people expect, but gradually. We know we are succeeding, though every now and then, we hear about attacks here and there.

Many people, especially from the Southern part wonder how with such big names as Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, Abdusalami Abubakar and other former top military leaders, Niger State is hit by insecurity. Why?
We know that even the military is sometimes incapacitated, but they are still doing their best to assist us. That I can categorically tell, because I know we are able to succeed because of the deployment of heavy military presence in some areas towards the Kotangora axis and to some parts of Mariga. \There are areas where we have been able to push the bandits out of the forests. Definitely, the military is doing its best, but because of the situation we are in, the best is actually not good enough. We have also deployed some other strategies. Just as you have mentioned, when you have a large expanse of land that is virgin and not used for anything agricultural or so, you provide a haven for terrorists to start some things that may also reduce this virgin land. For instance, we have a large expanse of land, we have the Igbobi grazing reserve, today it is being occupied by multinational companies like WAMCO.

Our government is trying to ensure it invests heavily in livestock. We are currently pursuing six grazing reserves that are about to be carved out. By so doing you will have lots of activities in those bushes and there are loads of activities going on to reduce these areas, where bandits use as their fortress. In the long run, it will complement what the security is doing in fighting these bandits and by the time we have a combination of the two then we think we will see the end of the menace.


x


During the kidnap of the students at Kagara, there were issues about Gumi’s negotiation and controversy over whether money was given to the kidnappers…?
Let me not interrupt you, but let me categorically say that our governor came out to state that we are completely averse to the payment of ransom to kidnappers or bandits, because by paying the ransom, you are strengthening them. So, as a government, we are averse to the payment of ransom. But, where there was confusion was that we are not averse to discussing if we look at them and realise they are genuine, but to pay the ransom, our state government is completely averse to paying the ransom.

A lot of people intervened in talking to those people. You will fuel vehicles, but not taking money to pay the ransom before those captives were released. Aside from the security personnel that are working, we are also thinking. For instance, there is the claim that a large number of the bandits are herders and that is why in Niger State we have developed a plan to engage herders in the Anchor Borrower’s scheme.

We are not saying that anybody has the right to take up arms against fellow Nigerians, but there is a fundamental problem. The fundamental problem is that you have policies right from the central government that take care of the farmers and hardly any policy that caters for others because if you do this, we know that we can now put them in a place and make them feel that we are also thinking about their welfare.
Unlike in the Northeast, IDP camps here in Niger State are not provided for. How do you go beyond keeping them in camps to fending for them?



The government is trying. A lot of resources is being sunk in there. Of recent, we have decided to come up with a strategy to assist the government. It started with us in the Commissioners’ Forum. We came together and said, let us start something that will draw the attention of others in assisting the government because we were facing an additional challenge with the IDPs.

When schools are in session, you will find women with kids that will be lingering around. So, we came up with the idea of having transit camps for the IDP. Each of us made a contribution as commissioners and agreed, for instance, to contribute individually by erecting one structure that can conveniently provide shelter for a family of four.

We started with that and got people that have now shown interest in coming to assist. We are spreading our tentacles to ensure that we reach out to multinationals, aside from what the government is doing, because it is trying to create independent camps. We are pushing that vigorously.




Talking about infrastructure, the failure rate of roads here is high and when students in Kagara were abducted Nigerians saw the nature of the school. Why are roads so bad here?
It is unfortunate that the incident happened in Kagara before our programme reached that school, but I want to tell you that we are doing things systematically.

Let me start from the area of education, over time, you have successive governments come in and intervene in schools, but in parts, may be renovating a structure or construct the additional structure, but we realised that such things do not last. So, when this government came on board, we came in with the whole school development approach, where everything about the school, from the road network within schools to the fencing, to physical structures like classrooms, offices, laboratories and what have you.

It includes furniture and even facilities required to make learning conducive like provision of water and for those in the urban centres, electricity. Our idea is that governance is a continuous process. By the time we face a school squarely, we are able to rebuild the entire school, because the government’s coming may take a very long time without any intervention in that school. As a result, attention might be diverted to other critical issues. We have selected three big schools in each of the zones and these nine schools have been completely transformed.

We are doing this systematically and in doing so, we also take care of other competing demands, such as roads. Sometimes people just look at the urban settings, we have gone beyond that, but what we are doing is to open up areas in the hinterland so that people can feel that there is government. So, we are deploying lots of resources into such areas and we are doing well in such areas.

“I still think buying a home is the best investment any individual can make.” - John Paulson, billionaire

“I still think buying a home is the best investment any individual can make.” - John Paulson, billionaire

“I still think buying a home is the best investment any individual can make.” - John Paulson, billionaire

“I still think buying a home is the best investment any individual can make.” - John Paulson, billionaire

“Don’t wait to buy real estate. Buy real estate and wait.” - Will Rogers, actor

“Don’t wait to buy real estate. Buy real estate and wait.” - Will Rogers, actor

“Don’t wait to buy real estate. Buy real estate and wait.” - Will Rogers, actor

“Don’t wait to buy real estate. Buy real estate and wait.” - Will Rogers, actor

The ultimate productivity hack is saying no.

Not doing something will always be faster than doing it. This statement reminds me of the old computer programming saying, “Remember that there is no code faster than no code.”

The same philosophy applies in other areas of life. For example, there is no meeting that goes faster than not having a meeting at all.

This is not to say you should never attend another meeting, but the truth is that we say yes to many things we don’t actually want to do. There are many meetings held that don’t need to be held. There is a lot of code written that could be deleted.

How often do people ask you to do something and you just reply, “Sure thing.” Three days later, you’re overwhelmed by how much is on your to-do list. We become frustrated by our obligations even though we were the ones who said yes to them in the first place.

It’s worth asking if things are necessary. Many of them are not, and a simple “no” will be more productive than whatever work the most efficient person can muster.

But if the benefits of saying no are so obvious, then why do we say yes so often?

Why We Say Yes
We agree to many requests not because we want to do them, but because we don’t want to be seen as rude, arrogant, or unhelpful. Often, you have to consider saying no to someone you will interact with again in the future—your co-worker, your spouse, your family and friends.

Saying no to these people can be particularly difficult because we like them and want to support them. (Not to mention, we often need their help too.) Collaborating with others is an important element of life. The thought of straining the relationship outweighs the commitment of our time and energy.

For this reason, it can be helpful to be gracious in your response. Do whatever favors you can, and be warm-hearted and direct when you have to say no.

But even after we have accounted for these social considerations, many of us still seem to do a poor job of managing the tradeoff between yes and no. We find ourselves over-committed to things that don’t meaningfully improve or support those around us, and certainly don’t improve our own lives.

Perhaps one issue is how we think about the meaning of yes and no.

The Difference Between Yes and No
The words “yes” and “no” get used in comparison to each other so often that it feels like they carry equal weight in conversation. In reality, they are not just opposite in meaning, but of entirely different magnitudes in commitment.

When you say no, you are only saying no to one option. When you say yes, you are saying no to every other option.

I like how the economist Tim Harford put it, “Every time we say yes to a request, we are also saying no to anything else we might accomplish with the time.” Once you have committed to something, you have already decided how that future block of time will be spent.

In other words, saying no saves you time in the future. Saying yes costs you time in the future. No is a form of time credit. You retain the ability to spend your future time however you want. Yes is a form of time debt. You have to pay back your commitment at some point.

No is a decision. Yes is a responsibility.

The Role of No
Saying no is sometimes seen as a luxury that only those in power can afford. And it is true: turning down opportunities is easier when you can fall back on the safety net provided by power, money, and authority. But it is also true that saying no is not merely a privilege reserved for the successful among us. It is also a strategy that can help you become successful.

Saying no is an important skill to develop at any stage of your career because it retains the most important asset in life: your time. As the investor Pedro Sorrentino put it, “If you don’t guard your time, people will steal it from you.”

You need to say no to whatever isn’t leading you toward your goals. You need to say no to distractions. As one reader told me, “If you broaden the definition as to how you apply no, it actually is the only productivity hack (as you ultimately say no to any distraction in order to be productive).”

Nobody embodied this idea better than Steve Jobs, who said, “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”

There is an important balance to strike here. Saying no doesn’t mean you’ll never do anything interesting or innovative or spontaneous. It just means that you say yes in a focused way. Once you have knocked out the distractions, it can make sense to say yes to any opportunity that could potentially move you in the right direction. You may have to try many things to discover what works and what you enjoy. This period of exploration can be particularly important at the beginning of a project, job, or career.

Upgrading Your No
Over time, as you continue to improve and succeed, your strategy needs to change.

The opportunity cost of your time increases as you become more successful. At first, you just eliminate the obvious distractions and explore the rest. As your skills improve and you learn to separate what works from what doesn’t, you have to continually increase your threshold for saying yes.

You still need to say no to distractions, but you also need to learn to say no to opportunities that were previously good uses of time, so you can make space for great uses of time. It’s a good problem to have, but it can be a tough skill to master.

In other words, you have to upgrade your “no’s” over time.

Upgrading your no doesn’t mean you’ll never say yes. It just means you default to saying no and only say yes when it really makes sense. To quote the investor Brent Beshore, “Saying no is so powerful because it preserves the opportunity to say yes.”

The general trend seems to be something like this: If you can learn to say no to bad distractions, then eventually you’ll earn the right to say no to good opportunities.

How to Say No
Most of us are probably too quick to say yes and too slow to say no. It’s worth asking yourself where you fall on that spectrum.

If you have trouble saying no, you may find the following strategy proposed by Tim Harford, the British economist I mentioned earlier, to be helpful. He writes, “One trick is to ask, “If I had to do this today, would I agree to it?” It’s not a bad rule of thumb, since any future commitment, no matter how far away it might be, will eventually become an imminent problem.”

If an opportunity is exciting enough to drop whatever you’re doing right now, then it’s a yes. If it’s not, then perhaps you should think twice.

This is similar to the well-known “Hell Yeah or No” method from Derek Sivers. If someone asks you to do something and your first reaction is “Hell Yeah!”, then do it. If it doesn’t excite you, then say no.

It’s impossible to remember to ask yourself these questions each time you face a decision, but it’s still a useful exercise to revisit from time to time. Saying no can be difficult, but it is often easier than the alternative. As writer Mike Dariano has pointed out, “It’s easier to avoid commitments than get out of commitments. Saying no keeps you toward the easier end of this spectrum.”

What is true about health is also true about productivity: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

The Power of No
More effort is wasted doing things that don’t matter than is wasted doing things inefficiently. And if that is the case, elimination is a more useful skill than optimization.

I am reminded of the famous Peter Drucker quote, “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”

written by James Clear....

The ultimate productivity hack is saying no.

Not doing something will always be faster than doing it. This statement reminds me of the old computer programming saying, “Remember that there is no code faster than no code.”

The same philosophy applies in other areas of life. For example, there is no meeting that goes faster than not having a meeting at all.

This is not to say you should never attend another meeting, but the truth is that we say yes to many things we don’t actually want to do. There are many meetings held that don’t need to be held. There is a lot of code written that could be deleted.

How often do people ask you to do something and you just reply, “Sure thing.” Three days later, you’re overwhelmed by how much is on your to-do list. We become frustrated by our obligations even though we were the ones who said yes to them in the first place.

It’s worth asking if things are necessary. Many of them are not, and a simple “no” will be more productive than whatever work the most efficient person can muster.

But if the benefits of saying no are so obvious, then why do we say yes so often?

Why We Say Yes
We agree to many requests not because we want to do them, but because we don’t want to be seen as rude, arrogant, or unhelpful. Often, you have to consider saying no to someone you will interact with again in the future—your co-worker, your spouse, your family and friends.

Saying no to these people can be particularly difficult because we like them and want to support them. (Not to mention, we often need their help too.) Collaborating with others is an important element of life. The thought of straining the relationship outweighs the commitment of our time and energy.

For this reason, it can be helpful to be gracious in your response. Do whatever favors you can, and be warm-hearted and direct when you have to say no.

But even after we have accounted for these social considerations, many of us still seem to do a poor job of managing the tradeoff between yes and no. We find ourselves over-committed to things that don’t meaningfully improve or support those around us, and certainly don’t improve our own lives.

Perhaps one issue is how we think about the meaning of yes and no.

The Difference Between Yes and No
The words “yes” and “no” get used in comparison to each other so often that it feels like they carry equal weight in conversation. In reality, they are not just opposite in meaning, but of entirely different magnitudes in commitment.

When you say no, you are only saying no to one option. When you say yes, you are saying no to every other option.

I like how the economist Tim Harford put it, “Every time we say yes to a request, we are also saying no to anything else we might accomplish with the time.” Once you have committed to something, you have already decided how that future block of time will be spent.

In other words, saying no saves you time in the future. Saying yes costs you time in the future. No is a form of time credit. You retain the ability to spend your future time however you want. Yes is a form of time debt. You have to pay back your commitment at some point.

No is a decision. Yes is a responsibility.

The Role of No
Saying no is sometimes seen as a luxury that only those in power can afford. And it is true: turning down opportunities is easier when you can fall back on the safety net provided by power, money, and authority. But it is also true that saying no is not merely a privilege reserved for the successful among us. It is also a strategy that can help you become successful.

Saying no is an important skill to develop at any stage of your career because it retains the most important asset in life: your time. As the investor Pedro Sorrentino put it, “If you don’t guard your time, people will steal it from you.”

You need to say no to whatever isn’t leading you toward your goals. You need to say no to distractions. As one reader told me, “If you broaden the definition as to how you apply no, it actually is the only productivity hack (as you ultimately say no to any distraction in order to be productive).”

Nobody embodied this idea better than Steve Jobs, who said, “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”

There is an important balance to strike here. Saying no doesn’t mean you’ll never do anything interesting or innovative or spontaneous. It just means that you say yes in a focused way. Once you have knocked out the distractions, it can make sense to say yes to any opportunity that could potentially move you in the right direction. You may have to try many things to discover what works and what you enjoy. This period of exploration can be particularly important at the beginning of a project, job, or career.

Upgrading Your No
Over time, as you continue to improve and succeed, your strategy needs to change.

The opportunity cost of your time increases as you become more successful. At first, you just eliminate the obvious distractions and explore the rest. As your skills improve and you learn to separate what works from what doesn’t, you have to continually increase your threshold for saying yes.

You still need to say no to distractions, but you also need to learn to say no to opportunities that were previously good uses of time, so you can make space for great uses of time. It’s a good problem to have, but it can be a tough skill to master.

In other words, you have to upgrade your “no’s” over time.

Upgrading your no doesn’t mean you’ll never say yes. It just means you default to saying no and only say yes when it really makes sense. To quote the investor Brent Beshore, “Saying no is so powerful because it preserves the opportunity to say yes.”

The general trend seems to be something like this: If you can learn to say no to bad distractions, then eventually you’ll earn the right to say no to good opportunities.

How to Say No
Most of us are probably too quick to say yes and too slow to say no. It’s worth asking yourself where you fall on that spectrum.

If you have trouble saying no, you may find the following strategy proposed by Tim Harford, the British economist I mentioned earlier, to be helpful. He writes, “One trick is to ask, “If I had to do this today, would I agree to it?” It’s not a bad rule of thumb, since any future commitment, no matter how far away it might be, will eventually become an imminent problem.”

If an opportunity is exciting enough to drop whatever you’re doing right now, then it’s a yes. If it’s not, then perhaps you should think twice.

This is similar to the well-known “Hell Yeah or No” method from Derek Sivers. If someone asks you to do something and your first reaction is “Hell Yeah!”, then do it. If it doesn’t excite you, then say no.

It’s impossible to remember to ask yourself these questions each time you face a decision, but it’s still a useful exercise to revisit from time to time. Saying no can be difficult, but it is often easier than the alternative. As writer Mike Dariano has pointed out, “It’s easier to avoid commitments than get out of commitments. Saying no keeps you toward the easier end of this spectrum.”

What is true about health is also true about productivity: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

The Power of No
More effort is wasted doing things that don’t matter than is wasted doing things inefficiently. And if that is the case, elimination is a more useful skill than optimization.

I am reminded of the famous Peter Drucker quote, “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”

written by James Clear...

“Buy on the fringe and wait. Buy land near a growing city! Buy real estate when other people want to sell. Hold what you buy!” - John Jacob Astor, real estate and business mogul

“Buy on the fringe and wait. Buy land near a growing city! Buy real estate when other people want to sell. Hold what you buy!” - John Jacob Astor, real estate and business mogul

“Buy on the fringe and wait. Buy land near a growing city! Buy real estate when other people want to sell. Hold what you buy!” - John Jacob Astor, real estate and business mogul

“Buy on the fringe and wait. Buy land near a growing city! Buy real estate when other people want to sell. Hold what you buy!” - John Jacob Astor, real estate and business mogul

“Buy on the fringe and wait. Buy land near a growing city! Buy real estate when other people want to sell. Hold what you buy!” - John Jacob Astor, real estate and business mogul

“Buy on the fringe and wait. Buy land near a growing city! Buy real estate when other people want to sell. Hold what you buy!” - John Jacob Astor, real estate and business mogul

“Buy on the fringe and wait. Buy land near a growing city! Buy real estate when other people want to sell. Hold what you buy!” - John Jacob Astor, real estate and business mogul

“Buy on the fringe and wait. Buy land near a growing city! Buy real estate when other people want to sell. Hold what you buy!” - John Jacob Astor, real estate and business mogul

“Buy on the fringe and wait. Buy land near a growing city! Buy real estate when other people want to sell. Hold what you buy!” - John Jacob Astor, real estate and business mogul

“Buy on the fringe and wait. Buy land near a growing city! Buy real estate when other people want to sell. Hold what you buy!” - John Jacob Astor, real estate and business mogul

“Buy on the fringe and wait. Buy land near a growing city! Buy real estate when other people want to sell. Hold what you buy!” - John Jacob Astor, real estate and business mogul

“Buy on the fringe and wait. Buy land near a growing city! Buy real estate when other people want to sell. Hold what you buy!” - John Jacob Astor, real estate and business mogul

“Buy on the fringe and wait. Buy land near a growing city! Buy real estate when other people want to sell. Hold what you buy!” - John Jacob Astor, real estate and business mogul

“Buy on the fringe and wait. Buy land near a growing city! Buy real estate when other people want to sell. Hold what you buy!” - John Jacob Astor, real estate and business mogul

“Buy on the fringe and wait. Buy land near a growing city! Buy real estate when other people want to sell. Hold what you buy!” - John Jacob Astor, real estate and business mogul

“Buy on the fringe and wait. Buy land near a growing city! Buy real estate when other people want to sell. Hold what you buy!” - John Jacob Astor, real estate and business mogul

“Buy on the fringe and wait. Buy land near a growing city! Buy real estate when other people want to sell. Hold what you buy!” - John Jacob Astor, real estate and business mogul