Stop Obeying Your Emotions, Rather Let Them Obey You

THE ALTERNATIVE

By Reno Omokri

Unexpectedly, on Monday March 21, 2022, I was nominated by probably the world’s top business-focused magazine, Business Insider, as the Business Influencer of the Year, 2022, along with four other distinguished personalities, viz. Tony Elumelu, Dr. Ola Brown, Vusi Thembekwayo, and Victor Asemota.

A week after the nomination, I have emerged the front runner, having garnered about 65% of the total votes cast thus far.

I am indeed humbled and honoured at the same time (I do not even know how it is possible to experience both these feelings, but I do).

As a thank you to those who voted for me, this week’s #TheAlternative is going to be a chapter (Chapter 5) from my upcoming book (due out late summer 2022).

Please enjoy it.

Stop Obeying Your Emotions and Let Your Emotions Obey You.

Everyone has an unconscious memory and intelligence, but the world is full of noise that keeps you unaware of your unconscious memory and intelligence. It is why you must wake when the world is asleep, and calm yourself, until you can access your subconscious mind.

You are capable of having the Mind of Christ as Philippians 2:5 states. But if you constantly wake up and refuse to use your theta state to immediately connect to God, by stilling your mind and insulating it from the carnal until the spiritual infuses it, you will have the mind of crisis.

Look at the words from Scripture:

“Be still and know”-Psalm 46:10.

Unless you are still, you cannot know.

There are just too many stimuli in this world and your human brain and mind responds to stimuli and gets agitated. That is why you do not know.

But if you can calm yourself.You will know. Know what to do. Know why to do it. And know how to do it.

God’s Voice has been described in Scripture as the:

“Still small Voice”-1 Kings 19:12.

If you are not capable of calming yourself and separating yourself from the world to a place of quietness, where you can be alone with God, you may never hear that still small Voice.

The whole idea of prayer is that it is to be a communication. A conversation. Not a soliloquy, or a monologue. For communication to exist, there must be a two-way traffic. You talk, God listens. Then God talks, and you listen. Sadly, most of us just talk. We do not listen to God!

Job 13:12 says:

“I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread.”

Notice that it refers to the words of God’s Mouth. It is not referring to the written word of God.

Job treasured hearing from God’s Mouth. More so than he treasured food. Some scholars believe that this means that Job would not even eat until he had heard from God’s Mouth.

God talks to us, but many of us are too busy to hear His still small Voice, because of the rat race of modern-day living. That is why if you read Scripture, you will notice that many of those who heard from God, heard from Him when they were alone and far from the world.

Abraham heard from God while he was alone in a mountain having bound his son, Isaac-Genesis 22:11.

Jacob had a speaking encounter with God while he was alone in the wilderness-Genesis 31:24-27.

Moses heard from God while he was alone in the wilderness-Exodus 3:1-2.

David heard from God while he was alone in the fields tending sheep-1 Samuel 17:34-37.

And if you read Luke 5:16, you would see that Christ made this a lifestyle:

“So He Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed.”-(NKJV).

If Christ, the Son of God, had to withdraw Himself to pray, yet He was fully connected with God, then how do you think you can survive and thrive spiritually without doing it?

If you do not take out time to hear from God, your spirit man will not grow. Because “man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the Mouth of the LORD.”-Deuteronomy 8:3.

Notice the use of the word “Mouth”. The same word used in Job 23:12.

And it is when your spirit man does not grow that your soul-ish man starts to control you. That is when you find yourself being controlled by your emotions.

Your mind tells you to be angry and you obey it, because it is stronger than your spirit man, which is malnourished, having been starved of the presence of God.

When you go to the gym to work out regularly, your body becomes stronger and you are able to lift heavier loads that you could not lift before. When you isolate yourself to hear from God, your spirit becomes stronger and more able to lift those heavy burdens that previously weighed you down.

Your body eats physical food. How did physical food come into existence? They were spoken into existence by the Mouth of God-Genesis 1:11. Your spirit also eats spiritual food that again proceeds from the Mouth of God-Deuteronomy 8:3. Do not be physically full and spiritually starved!

Almost all the trouble in the world today is caused by people who are physically strong, but spiritually weak. Because the physical is the carnal part of man, and “to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”-Romans 8:6.

Why do you think the world today is devoid of peace? It is precisely because of the reasons stated above.

The most productive time for your mind is when you have just woken up. At that time, your mind is in a semi-spiritual daze state. Don’t waste that theta state by grabbing your phone or doing something carnal. Use that time to spiritually connect to God in prayer.

From Phantom Coup to Presidential Pardon and the Long Wait for Justice

Bayo Akinloye

It is 27 years today. They are convinced of getting justice. Their wait has been described as a lifetime of waiting. Some believe they are waiting for Godot. Convicted of crimes they repeatedly deny committing, the so-called phantom coup plotters of 1995 and 1997 have yet to get the justice they insist they deserve.

Arrested and tortured by the late Gen. Sani Abacha regime, the soldiers in various interviews in 2017 recalled the horrors and indignities they had endured, the shame, deprivations, and disillusionment of giving their all to their country but getting absolutely nothing in return. Not that they did not try to hope. They claimed they did. They pointed to the Oputa panel that exonerated and compensations that came with it. That reprieve remained a mirage for more than a decade.

They looked up to one of their own, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, also jailed for planning a coup during the Abacha reign. It was an endless wait.

Once upon an Oputa panel

When asked in 2017 in an interview about Obasanjo’s failure to implement the recommendations of the Oputa panel that the ex-president set up, one of the soldiers convicted in 1995, Col Jibrin Isa, said: “You know when you are in power you look at things differently. Perhaps, my thinking is that since he was in power as of that time (between 1999 and 2007), if he implemented the recommendations, people might have made a noise about it; which is natural. Maybe, he was waiting for an appropriate time after he had left office. But since he had left office as the president, I believe he should have taken more interest in the plight of people with whom he suffered unjustly in the hands of the Abacha junta. He should have pushed the case further; what is remaining is the implementation of the recommendations.”

He had added that the matter went to the industrial court, and the court ruled that “all the recommendations of the Oputa panel should be granted.”

Since 2017, the so-called phantom coup plotters have renewed their struggle to get justice in the full sense. Death and incapacitations have visited some of them. With time dulling the collective memories of many, the soldiers remain adamant. With Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua, and Goodluck Jonathan’s emergence and exit as presidents, the soldiers’ hope seemed hopeless. Then, President Muhammadu Buhari won the 2015 presidential election. Their hope was renewed.

President Buhari as the last hope

Many often allude to the SDP campaign mantra of the acclaimed winner of the 1993 presidential election, MKO Abiola, ‘Hope ’93’ as hope dashed. Yet, the ex-soldiers who see themselves as immediate victims of the fight for democracy see hope in the incumbent.

“I will urge President Muhammadu Buhari, who has come to make some changes in the country, to reconsider the recommendations and implement them,” noted Isa in 2017. “I learnt that the report is in the attorney general’s office. I hope someone can whisper it into the president’s ear to take action on our behalf.”

Fast-forward to 2022: as time ticks away, the ageing process, though, has not weakened the resolve of the soldiers.

THISDAY checks reveal that a whisper has gone into the incumbent president’s ears, and he is genuinely eager to right those who have been wronged for decades. Justice has not come swiftly in the eyes of the public, but the soldiers feel deserving of it, and not a few Nigerians are pleading on their behalf that they enjoy the fruits of their labour. Their families and friends bear their trauma and yearnings for full compensation. No more, no less, they say. They are seen as victims of the June 12, 1993, presidential election annulment and the phantom coup allegation.

For those close to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, he is a man of integrity with a deep sense of justice. Understandably, the unfortunate soldiers look up to him. Their families and friends believe in Malami and that he has got the president’s ears.

The goal is simple: the swift implementation of the Oputa panel’s recommendation. In Malami, many people trust the goods will be delivered.

What the ex-soldiers are seeking

Among other things, they seek the promotion of military victims to their appropriate higher ranks in line with their coursemates in the Armed Forces. They stated that they were high-flyers before their lofty careers were truncated. Added to that by the panel’s recommendation is a letter of apology for wrongful detention, torture, deprivation, and ruthless rights violations and comprehensive rehabilitation of all military and civilian victims caught in the web of the phantom coup. There are other recommendations by the Oputa panel. The ex-soldiers await their full implementation eagerly before this year runs out.

Basis for hope

Major-General Domkat Bali was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general long after retiring from the Nigerian Army without the mandatory retirement notice. In addition to that, military officers had been promoted posthumously.

Observers have also cited the example of the Biafran soldiers reabsorbed into the Nigerian Army at the end of the Civil War and promoted to their appropriate higher ranks before voluntary retirement.