In the first week of January 1979, I took my letter of resignation to the departmental manager of my company. He was not surprised that I was resigning because our working relationship had become frosty. But he was shocked to know what I was planning to do. He asked me, “Are you going to Glaxo?” I replied no. “Pfizer?” I said no. “Then where are you going?” I simply replied that I will start publishing a pharmaceutical newspaper. He laughed mockingly as if I was a crazy man. After the jeering laughter, he asked me how I planned to take care of my wife and young kids.
I replied that I would make money from the newspaper to take care of my family. He laughed the more and told me, Ifeanyi, I know you well. You can’t make money from that paper. You will even be begging people to take copies free of charge. You must think seriously about your future. Have you discussed with your wife? As soon as I left him, he invited the national sales manager to discuss the foolish decision I was taking instead of getting a marketing position in another pharmaceutical company.
The next time I met him was at the PSN conference in Umuahia in November 2017. That’s 38 years after. He was officially invited to the conference as a traditional ruler. On arrival, he met me and my wife at the entrance of the venue and we heartily greeted ourselves and took nice photographs. I gave the above narration to show you what you can experience when God gives you a vision of what he has planned for you to do.
Your vision is your personal calling. It is not for any other person. When my boss was mocking me, I pitied him because of his ignorance. He did not know what God had already revealed to me about my future. I allowed him to express his mind and then left him with my letter of resignation. He was not the right person I could have shared my vision with. He did not know that God had already given me the idea of what He would want me to do for Him.
When God gives you a vision, you are not expected to share it with everybody. Joseph did it with his brothers and parents and created some problems for himself. There are vision killers who can destroy your future. May God direct you to choose who will support you and encourage you to fulfil God’s plan for your life. I realised this very early and tactfully kept away from certain colleagues.
Of course, God led me to Prince Julius Adelusi Adeluyi, Juli as he is popularly called, who was very excited and we looked critically at the dummy I presented to him for comments. I had the idea of the name Pharma News, two words, but Julius suggested one word, Pharmanews.
On house colour, we considered some colours and arrived at process blue. One great thing that happened in the last quarter of 1978 when some ideas were flowing into my mind was that I wrote them in a notebook with hardcover. I did not allow any idea to evaporate.
That was on Wednesday 21 December 1978. At that time, I was not reading the Bible and did not know that even God instructed us to write down the vision He gives us. It was when I became an active Christian and started reading Bible that I saw it in Habakkuk 2:2 & 3 which says, “And the Lord answered me and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.
For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it will speak, and not lie, though it tarry. Wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry. ” Implementing God’s vision requires focusing on the assignment.
Luke 9:62 says, “No one, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” He has to carry it out as instructed. When God gave instruction for building of His temple in
Jerusalem, He gave details of dimensions and materials. When Noah was to build an ark, He gave very clear instructions. When God through Prophet Samuel gave King Saul instructions on how to vanquish Amalek, Saul did it his own way and that led to the end of his kingship in Israel.
