A SPECIAL BIRTHDAY MINI BOOK ON PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN:THE GRASS TO GRACE EPIC OF A LEGEND
IF Dr Jonathan can get there ………………. YOU CAN TOO
By
Mike Cerutti Osagiie
Email:
youngchief@yahoo.com
'Fellow Nigerians, if I could make it, you too can make it'
It is a true fact that it's not where you are born or whom you are born to that determines how your life will be. It’s what you do with your life that determines how your life will be.
It is a true fact that it's not where you are born or whom you are born to that determines how your life will be. It’s what you do with your life that determines how your life will be.
A
perfect case study is that of Nigeria’s Head of State Dr. Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan, GCFR, GCFR,BNER,GCON who today, 29th November 2014
will be celebrating his joyful birthday
In our usual style, WORLD INDUSTRYLEADERS/CERUTTI MEDIA here presents a special tribute on the man of immense grass to grace
fairy tale story, and send a warning to global youths and the elders alike,
that is…..IF THE President CAN DO IT, YOU CAN DO
In what is perhaps greatest ever speech till date the man who had power and greatness bestowed on him once confessed: 'I
was not born rich, and in my youth, I never imagined that I would be where I am
today, but not once did I ever give up. Not once did I imagine that a child
from Otuoke, a small village in the Niger Delta, will one day rise to the
position of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I was raised by my
mother and father with just enough money to meet our daily needs.
'In
my early days in school, I had no shoes, no school bags. I carried my books in
my hands but never despaired; no car to take me to school but I was never
despaired. There were days I had only one meal but I never despaired. I walked
miles and crossed rivers to school every day but I never despaired. Didn't have
power, didn't have generators, studied with lanterns but I never despaired.
'In
spite of these, I finished secondary school, attended the University of Port
Harcourt, and now hold a doctorate degree.
'Fellow
Nigerians, if I could make it, you too can make it', he said historically
No
doubt, there must be great hand of favor in Dr Jonathan life story. The man who
was born
On November 20, 1957, in Otueke, Bayelsa State of the Ijo (Ijaw) ethnic
group and a devoted Christian, he was born and raised in Niger delta which is
now Bayelsa state. He went to Christian primary and secondary schools in the
area and later attended the University of Port Harcourt.
He graduated with a B.S. in zoology in 1981, an M.S. in hydro-biology and
fisheries biology (1985), and a Ph.D. in zoology (1995). During his university
education, he also taught at Rivers State College of Education from 1983 until
1993. He then served as an assistant director at the Oil Mineral Producing
Areas Development Commission, a now defunct government agency, from 1993 until
1998.
Jonathan Goodluck’s political career began when he became involved with the
nascent People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the late 1990s. He was elected
deputy governor of Bayelsa state in 1999 under the party’s banner. He served in
the position until year 2005, when he was elevated to the governorship after
the incumbent was charged with corruption and impeached. In 2007 he was
selected to be the vice presidential running mate of the PDP’s presidential candidate,
Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. He and Yar’Adua were elected in April and inaugurated in
May. He became vice-president of Nigeria in the year 2007 and as faith will
have it, the people’s outcry made him to assume position as the Country’s commander-In-chief
till date.He is happily married to Dr Dame Patience Jonathan and are both blessed with children
SOME
GLOBAL BRAND WHO WERE BORN POOR LIKE JONATHAN BUT BECAME GREAT
1)
Net
worth:
over $53 Billion -William
Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate,
philanthropist, and popularly known as chairman of Microsoft, the software
company he founded with Paul Allen. Gates is one of the best-known
entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution. His family was upper middle
class; his father was a prominent lawyer, his mother served on the board of
directors for First Interstate Bank System and the United Way. Early on in his
life, Gates' parents had a law career in mind for him
2)
Most
people knew Nelson Mandela as the first black president of South Africa, a man
who became a symbol of the anti-apartheid movement, and one who gave up nearly
30 years of his life in prison. He remains a hero to South Africans as well as
to the international community, and will continually represent the struggle for
freedom. But it’s easy to forget that even legends are human. – he was born
poor but through dint of hard work, struggle and faith is still regarded one of
the greatest brand on earth, even in death
3)
Lakshmi
Mittal Net Worth: over $28.7
billion Billionaire Story: The CEO and founder of
ArcelorMittal, Lakshmi Niwas Mittal was born on June 15, 1950 at Sadulpur, in
Churu district of Rajasthan, in a poor family. Laxmi Mittal belongs to Marwari
Aggarwal caste and his grandfather worked for the Tarachand Ghanshyam Das firm,
one of the leading Marwari industrial firms of per-independence India. Laxmi
Mittal lived with the extended family of 20 members on bare concrete floors,
slept on rope beds and cooked on an open fire in the brickyard in a house built
by his grandfather
4)
Roman Abramovich
Net
Worth:
over $18.8 billion Billionaire Story: The celebrated Chelsea
boss started his multi-billion-dollar business during his army service where he
sold stolen gasoline to some of the commissioned officers of his unit. Also
worked as a street-trader and then as a mechanic at a local factory. But it all
got going for him by 1996, at the age of 30, Abramovich had become so rich and
politically well-connected that he had become close to President Boris Yeltsin,
and had moved into an apartment in the Kremlin at the invitation of the Yeltsin
family. In 1999, and now a tycoon, Abramovich was elected governor of Russia's
remote, far eastern province of Chukotka, and has since lavished £112 million
(€ 132 million) on charity to rebuild the impoverished region. 8.
Mikhail Prokhorov
Oprah Winfrey is no doubt one of the world’s
greatest women on earth, a top notch media
proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist.
Winfrey is best known for her multi-award-winning talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show which was the
highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from
1986 to 2011 Dubbed the "Queen of All Media she has been ranked the
richest African-American of the 20th century the greatest black philanthropist
in American history and is currently North America's only black billionaire.
She is also,
according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world in 2013,
she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President
Barack Obama[and an honorary doctorate degree from Harvard.
Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi
to a teenage single mother and later raised in an inner-city Milwaukee
neighborhood. She experienced considerable hardship during her childhood,
saying she was raped at age nine and became pregnant at 14; her son died in
infancy Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee,
Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring
the local evening news at the age of 19. Her emotional ad-lib delivery
eventually got her transferred to the daytime-talk-show arena, and after
boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place,]
she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated.
Credited with creating a more intimate confessional
form of media communication she is thought to have popularized and
revolutionized the tabloid talk show genre pioneered by Phil Donahue
which a Yale study says broke 20th-century taboos and allowed LGBT people to enter the
mainstream. By the mid-1990s, she had reinvented her show with a focus on
literature, self-improvement, and spirituality
6) Another lady born poor but now great is: Ursula M. Burns
who became the first black lady to become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company in
July 2009. The 51-year-old Burns started her career as an engineering intern in
1980. Burns led several business teams including the office color and fax
business and office network printing business. In April 2007, Burns was named
president of Xerox, expanding her leadership to include the company's IT
organization, corporate strategy, human resources, corporate marketing and
global accounts. Burns ranked 10th in the Fortune list of 50 Most Powerful
Women in America. Her salary package for 2008 stood at $887,500, but total
compensation stood at a whopping $6,003,126. In an interview with the New York
Times, she described growing up poor with "lots of Jewish immigrants,
fewer Hispanics and African-Americans, but the great equalizer was
poverty." Burns' mother used to run a home day care center.
6)
John Paul
DeJoria, the man behind a hair-care empire and Patron Tequila, once lived in a
foster home and his car.
Net worth: $4 billion
(as of Sept. 2013)
Before the age of 10, DeJoria, a
first generation American, sold Christmas cards and newspapers to help support
his family. He was eventually sent to live in a foster home and even spent some
time in a gang before joining the military.
With a $700 dollar
loan, DeJoria created John Paul
Mitchell Systems and sold the shampoo door-to-door while living in
his car. He later started Patron Tequila, and now invests in other industries.
7)
Ralph
Lauren was once a clerk at Brooks Brothers dreaming of men's ties.
Net worth: over $7.7 billion (as
of Sept. 2013)
Lauren graduated high school in the
Bronx, N.Y., but later dropped out of college to join the Army. It was while
working as a clerk at Brooks
Brothers that Lauren questioned whether men were ready for
wider and brighter designs in ties. The year he decided to make his dream a
reality, 1967, Lauren sold $500,000 worth of ties. He started Polo the next
year.
PART 2: 100 WISE
SAYINGS OF DR JONATHAN
·
. *Our
dear nation, Nigeria, has certainly come a long way and made notable progress
since our first Democracy Day on May 29, 1999 when the military finally
relinquished power and handed over to a democratically-elected government,
marking the true beginning of a government of the people, by the people, for
the people.”
· *
*We
must give thanks to God, for on my
watch, we have witnessed high national economic growth rates, steady
improvements and expansion of national infrastructure including airports and
roads, the restoration of rail transportation, the efficient implementation of
a road map for improved power supply, a revolutionary approach to agricultural
production, as well as advances in education, sports, youth development,
healthcare delivery, housing, water supply and other social services.
·
*Nigeria has also gained recognition as the
largest economy in Africa, the most preferred investment destination in the
continent and in terms of returns on investment, the fourth in the world. We
are pleased that the world has noticed us
· *
Our
dear country, Nigeria is facing a new challenge. A war has been unleashed on
us. Extremist foreign elements, collaborating with some of our misguided
citizens, are focused on an attempt to bring down our country and the democracy
and freedom we cherish and celebrate today.
·
. *The
despicable abduction of school girls from Chibok in Borno State has brought to
the awareness of the entire world, the heartless brutality of these terrorists
who want to instigate a descent into anarchy and balkanize our nation.
·
·
*There
can be no doubt that what we are witnessing in Nigeria today is a manifestation
of the same warped and ferocious world view that brought down the Twin Towers
in New York, killed innocent persons in Boston and led to the murder of
defenseless people in the Southern Russian city of Volgograd.
·
· *
Terrorist
activities have brought war and pains to Mali, Somalia, Yemen, Syria,
Afghanistan and Pakistan. These agents of evil continue to brainwash and incite
ignorant young men and women to attack the innocent. We cannot allow this to
continue.
* I call on every Nigerian to remain steadfast, because our nation is indeed making progress. I call on every Nigerian to rediscover that special spirit that enables us to triumph over every adversity as a people.
* We are working hard and making progress on many fronts. We have cleaned up our electoral process; our elections are now globally acclaimed to be free and fair. Nigeria is now on a higher pedestal regarding elections.
·
'I
have come to preach love not hate, I have no political enemies to fight, I see
other opponents with similar interest as friends and we have a common destiny'.
.
·
'I
was not born rich, and in my youth, I never imagined that I would be where I am
today, but not once did I ever give up. Not once did I imagine that a child
from Otuoke, a small village in the Niger Delta, will one day rise to the
position of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I was raised by my
mother and father with just enough money to meet our daily needs.
·
·
'In my early days in school, I had no shoes, no school bags.
I carried my books in my hands but never despaired; no car to take me to school
but I never despaired. There were days I had only one meal but I never
despaired. I walked miles and crossed rivers to school every day but I never
despaired. Didn't have power, didn't have generators, studied with lanterns but
I never despaired. In spite of these, I
finished secondary school, attended the University of Port Harcourt, and now
hold a doctorate degree.
·
·
'Fellow Nigerians, if I could make it, you too can make it',
·
'My story is the story
of a young Nigerian whose access to education opened up vast opportunities that
enabled him to attain great
height’’
·
As I travel up and down our country, I see a nation blessed
by God with rich agricultural and mineral resources and an enterprising people.
I see millions of Nigerians whose potentials for greatness are constrained by
the lack of basic infrastructure.
·
I see Nigerians who can make a difference in the service of
their country but are disadvantaged by the lack of opportunities.
·
'My story symbolizes my dream for Nigeria. The dream that any
Nigerian child from Kaura- Namoda to Duke town; from Potiskum to Nsukka, from
Isale-Eko to Gboko will be able to realize his God-given potentials, unhindered
by tribe or religion and unrestricted by improvised political inhibitions.
·
'My story holds out the promise of a new Nigeria. A Nigeria
built on the virtues of love and respect for one another, on unity, on
industry, on hard work and on good governance.
· *
I have come to say to all of you, that Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe
Jonathan is the man you need to put Nigeria right. I have come to launch a
campaign of ideas, not one of calumny. I have come to preach love, not hate. I
have come to break you away from divisive tendencies of the past which have
slowed our drive to true nationhood.
·
* I have no enemies to
fight. You are all my friends and we share a common destiny'.
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