Chinemerem thinks beyond certificate obsession

QUALITY of ideas makes the difference between a conventional status quo maintainer and an unconventional avant garde radical. While the earlier thinks that a faculty is clearly defined the latter sees a variety of opportunity to explore and expouse in his area of study.

   The avant-garde who thinks outside the box innovates and breathes fresh air unto his field of research while the conventional researcher is afraid of breaking eggs though he craves to make omelette.

He dutifully does his best to do his works the way it ought to be done – crossing his ‘t’s perfectly and dotting his ‘i’s well. He is comfortable with sticking to methods and winning approvals for doing things without wrankling fethers or reinventing the wheel.

With the conservative, the world is sentenced to marking time or at best be on slow march forward in snail pace. His outputs leave society with nothing or just mere activity without concrete change. His works seldom make those who encounter them dare or aspire.

Young author, Chinemerem Oguegbe chooses the avant-garde path. Instead of writing to please he opts to stir new thinking in the minds of those who encounter him or his writing. This weekend, the writer will unveil his new book, actually, his first, entitled, ‘From Certificate To Success’ in Awka, capital of Anambra State.

The book flagged as “a practical philosophy on self realisation and self-actualisation for the younger generation” is intended to spur new thoughts on the way our society nudge young persons towards careers and businesss.

With a focus on youngsters and the not-so-young but yet-to-be-established operators in professional fields, Oguegbe’s new book seeks to make the reader reappraise the carrer choice he has irrespective of the study certificate or grade he has acquired in school.

“The book,” states it’s promoter and publisher, Geoserve Renaisance Academy, “offers a practical solution to living above educational certificates and achieving successful living through your dreams.”

The blurb further states thusly: “the mindset that limited the potentials of young people is the ideology of going to school to acquire good grades so as to be able to get a good job and start enjoying success”.

Therefore, the book is packaged to give ideas of how to succeed beyond acquired certificates and the status society makes such rolls of parchment bestow on their bearers.

But the real grit in Chinemerem’s content is how he draws from his personal experiences to enrich his discourse.

The Umuchu, Aguata, Anambra State born graduate of Geology who since leaving Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka in 2004 had spent epochs working such fields as the solid mineral mining sector; safety and oil and gas industries is also social mobiliser.

He lifts experiences from those his varied ventures to evolve resourceful information that make his book not only relevant but exclusive and unique. He advocates paradigm shift, adjustment of mindset and brave leap foward. While afirming that there is no paricular clue to excelling in any venture he however hints that relying on the person’s passion is a faster way to the top.

For the author, a person’s passion and his potentials not really the course he studied in school or the grades he made in examinations are the lader life has provided him for the top. “Discover your passion”, he emphasises. And turn them to wealth.

He also trumpets “planning within” which is about tuning the mind to drop some mindset about life that, according to him has “limited the potentials of the young generation.” The achiac mindset must be killed.

Also listed for elimination is the thought that no one can redirect the wheel. In the view of the author, in Chapter Two “the need to look inwards and identify talents that one can turn into a source of livelihood so as to excel in life” is crucial.

“Our ability to define our passions beyond school certificates and job descriptions will reveal who we are and the vigour and vision we need to explore our new selves in life,” he writes.

Reading through the clearly printed 80-page book ,what strikes is the pace of the writing which makes it possible for a fast reader to gobble it in one night. Unlike many of such motivational literature that are often heavy-ladden with anecdotes and references from other books.

Chinemerem’s mostly rely on his personal encounters with life and those of people he knows – a lot of them, young people. His,is still a ‘ how to’ book but he puts it out as: this is what I have found out about breaking through.

 Yet he did not write a biography in ‘From Certificate to Success’. Rather, the author presents an engaging account of a young man who has spent over three decades of life, striving to live up to the expectation of parents, guardians, uncles, aunts, sibling, peers and society until he realised the hard way, the wisdom of Socrates’ Maxim that “an unexamined life is not worth living” and looked inwards.

 Upon the introversion, he observed the need to raise the gear farther from where socrates left it. Hence, the real impetus from the book is that after self examination, the next vital thing is to take a bold work towards your horizon. There is where your sun shines.

The author writes: “The major factor in clarifying one’s life purpose is desire. What is it that you desire in life? What are you supposed to do to achieve your desires? A deep-rooted desire ignites the whole body to the point that it becomes a reality. Turning one’s desire into reality is what distinguishes achievers from loosers”. (P35).

Making ‘From Certificate to Success’ handy and not bulky is a plus for the new book. It makes it fit for the main audience of the author. The all-black cover design makes the book come across as serious which could be good for the budding author’s profile but may scare some readers in his catchment audience.

Beyond the use of North American English Spellings (the book’s imprint States “Made in USA Columbia SC, 15 September 2019”) and occassional long (sentence-like) subtitles.

The new work of  seven thought-provoking chapters is a convincing first foot forward for a writer who shows promise in every sentence therein. More remarkable about the work is that it hits the nail on the head of a development  that has kept our society backward and will continue to cripple it until we kill it: “There is more to success than acquiring certificates.”

Indeed, there are more to success than what many in our society deem it to be. Beyond certificates, self agrandising grades, financial increament and social honours, success means a total advancement in a person’s fortune.

What Chinemerem needs to dwell more on in another book that should follow ‘From Certificates to Success’  is what success actually means apart from financial advancement.