THE Dr GABRIEL OGBECHIE WE KNOW.
PART 2.
By EA Uzumnism.
Few days ago I stumbled on an article captioned “Owners of gold don’t wear gold”. The realization to stay humble always struck harder than usual. Life’s stride should be taken as it comes, devoid of the many troubles that pervades the entire space.
The place of a healthy mindset cum hard work is essential in equipping our youths with the right sense of sustainability tools.
This article will be channeled at juxtaposing the unseen musings and real life examples that will activate our youths and keep the posture real.
Dr Ogbechie stands tall in the hall of fame in every ramification. The productive lifestyle of Dr Ogbechie is a reflection of hard work having paid his dues to scale through. He made great use of the opportunity to learn from other businesses and organizations that he was a part of, built capacity and developed skills that facilitated his understanding of business and strengthened his entrepreneurial capabilities. This brings us to mentoring and internalizing life changing principles.
Who mentors our youths especially within our Anioma context? Are we mentored by the tragedy of a one-sided story, Negative energy or pure application of time-tested principles that can emancipate our inner minds? Truth be told, a strange silence pervades the airwaves. How far have we drawn from the wealth of experience around us? What we are looking for in Sokoto is right in our Shokoto.
Dr Ogbechie’s experiences from Pricewaterhousecoopers (PWC), Ascon Oil as a sales and operations personnel and Sharada Edible Oil Company Limited as a senior a factory Engineer made his mentoring and leadership instincts spiral as he was able garner needed skills to promote his own idea when the time came.
As the opportunity presented itself, Gabriel grabbed it and launched his idea birthing Rainoil in 1997.
The reality is that our society is not lacking people who think like Gabriel and can mentor effectively. The challenge however, is that we do not celebrate, appreciate and tap into this assets enough.
Now the question is what are we doing about this?
It is imperative that we appreciate these social assets and acknowledge their hard work and generosity to the society.
One may need to approach the banks and read through the stringent conditions they put out for young and aspiring entrepreneurs to meet before obtaining a loan. When it’s obvious there is a system gap, our youths cannot as well fail themselves by not doing the needful. We exude negative energy churning out blackmails, fanning the embers of monumental insignificant issues.
The paramount question now is do we also need to fail our own compatriots? We are not doing enough to support their strides irrespective of the socio-political misgivings in the land.
The future of this great Anioma belongs to us all. Victimhood, criminalizing of our very best will have no space in Anioma. Trust my judgment, the progressives will suffocate it. Can we just refrain from media aggression and embrace a more productive life circle?
Let the man not die in us all, that is why some of us will dare to dare.
Corporate social responsibilities should as well flow into our communities, individual human capacity building should be the goal rather than developing idle minds to ignorantly wreak havoc on social media for a morsel of porridge.
We must occupy our minds with creative tendencies. This brings to the fore the annual tennis competition hosted by Rainoil Limited to foster youth and sports development in Nigeria. A whooping NGN 100 million fund has been set aside for this initiative that will run for ten years. The annual tournament is done in partnership with the Nigerian Tennis Federation (NTF) and this is the 4th year running with over 1,000 Nigerians supported. Rainoil will spend NGN10 million this year to making sporting dreams becoming reality and institutionalizing creative sports in young people. In addition to the attractive prize money.
Through the Gabriel Ogbechie Foundation, AGAM Foundation, Rainoil Limited has financially supported the education and welfare of communities through the refurbishing of school buildings, donation of school supplies, provision of free medical care, cash donations and so on. The annual philanthropic activities of the company are centered around empowering the youths and communities.
The above tradition is most worthy of emulation as history and posterity will be kind to Dr Ogbechies progressive mindset at all levels.