YOUTHS OF TODAY, POWER IS NOT SERVED A LA CARTE... Power Is Not Given On A Platter Of Gold. By Tagbarha Malcolm (FHNR)

"If we cannot do great things, we should do small things in a great way".... Tagbarha.

"You have to struggle for power. How you struggle or manuever your way to get it may vary from individual to individual".

Power is truly not served a la carte (without struggle), it requires serious hard work to get it.

Cutting across all spheres of life, you have to struggle for power. How you struggle or manuever your way to get it may vary from individual to individual.

You can either lobby for it, scheme for it, or better still showcase your track record of competencies to get it....whichever way, by all means get power. The acquisition of power gives you the opportunity to positively impact on a larger part of the society.

Someone has said that if we cannot do great things, we should do small things in a great way. This is so true because for example, as a young politician, there is no problem with starting out on a local scale, like I did when I came back home from the United States to Sapele, with the sole aim of building my political profile from the foundation even though I had previously been in politics, serving as political aides to two Honourable members of the Federal House of Representatives at different times. However, just as it is always important to keep a global view. It is also important to start local while thinking global as well! This was exactly what I am doing since I assumed office as the pioneer Chief Press Secretary to Sapele Local Government Council. And I am very committed to work my way to the top, diligently with a track record of competence and excellent performance, wherever I find myself in the line of service.

I believe we should always seek to serve our society with what we’ve got. In whatever capacities we occupy.

In this era of internet technology and all the amazing leverages that it offers us, it behooves on us to create impactful services and products wherever we find ourselves. Services that have a universal appeal and a global bearing. Since the internet provides a level playing field and a place on the starting block for all of us. Therefore, we have all got to make the most of it in the political terrain as well.

If you have decided to serve your people through politics, you just have to serve with a keen sense of what it is truly worth (because the best of us is worth the attention of the world, even in our localities), we should do it well. We should show up and show up BIG…show up with altruistic intents and mindfulness...anything less will amount to self-sabotage. We’ll be selling ourselves short if we don't play BIG!

Anyone who desires to make it BIG and consequently make a difference in this "murky waters of politics" will be required to answer this question, whether he or she likes it or not. 

Life will ask you and society will point its fingers at you and challenge all of your assumptions and beliefs. 

There's nobody who does BIG things just like that. You must win the war, first from within and then without. (It is always inside-out). A mindset to truly serve the people diligently with your natural giftings.

That's why I always say and insist that people who do not believe in themselves are twice defeated - defeated within and defeated without and that is a waste in my opinion; a massive waste of all the immense potentials and possibilities of the human spirit. I need not tell you what we have done as 'mere humans' in other fields - with all of the heavy odds and oppositions that are stacked against us. 

We have invented merchant banking, mobile telephony, organized philanthropy, world wide web, artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing to name but a few. We have gone and still visiting the moon and we are conquering other planets at the moment. These are impossibilities that have become possible. 

In other climes like France and Canada just to mention but a few, power has been conquered by young men like Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau. And we can replicate same here in Nigeria if we are focused, passionate, dedicated, and disciplined enough to work it out.

However, the caveat is that, these feats(and many others) have been accomplished only by people who believed in themselves first, even when no one else did. And people who believe that, our personal vote is the principal and critical success factor that we are required to meet, before they can conquer the world.

On the road to political relevance in 2023, everything else is secondary without tactics and strategies.

A lot of times we confuse the both of them. Tactics is not the same as strategy.  Normally, strategy should be defined first, and that in turn should inform what our tactics will be. If you put many efforts on executing tactics on a wrong strategy, it will fail.

That is the jobs CEOs and management do...politically, you have to ensure that you are making ascent on a political ladder that's leaning on the right wall. To decide what to climb & tools to use, is strategy and the actual mode of climbing is the tactics - how to climb to the top in fastest possible time, deploying your creativity in the line of duty and according to spec is the tactics. If you are efficient in doing the latter, only to find out that the overaching parameters and vision are wrong, then it’s a waste altogether. In the way that, when you are headed the wrong way, speed automatically is an enemy.

Let me share an insight – for example, I have two notepads that I use for mapping and planning while doing my job. One of it I use every Sunday nights to do a helicopter planning of the different aspects of my job and what I should be doing per time, what adjustments to make and what to do and what not to do. And the other notepad I use daily in the week for execution and for tweaking tactics to achieve what I have set out for on the job. It is more like the operational manual. And it takes wisdom to be able to draw a line between the two levels of engagements.

It is very important you know the difference!

In conclusion, today, while most political leaders are deliberately holding on the power, paying little attention to our constituency as youths, we can only build a strong network amongst ourselves, then distinguish ourselves wherever we are with a track record of competence and excellent performances, and continue to push hard consistently to state our case for an all inclusive opportunity to serve our people.

My thoughts!

~ Malcolmatically speaking

Malcolm Tagbarha is the Pioneer Chief Press Secretary To Sapele LGA Council