It Takes 5 Minutes To Know A Man That Will Succeed by Apostle Femi Lazarus: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Five Minutes Is Enough

After decades of mentoring students and professionals across multiple continents — from the United States to Siberia to Brazil to China — a simple observation has emerged: it takes five minutes to recognise who will do well and who will not.

The most successful people encountered were never the most talented. The determining factor was never intellect alone. It was why they wanted to succeed. When someone comes and the first thing they say is, Professor, I am here, we have to make money — that mindset immediately reveals everything. If the goal is personal accumulation with nothing to give back, nothing to expand into society, why invest resources in that person?

Contrast that with a young man in Brazil — a second-year student, struggling academically because no one had ever told him he could go far. He was spending his Saturdays in downtown São Paulo serving soup to the poor. That boy became the Dean of Engineering at a major American university. The success was not in the grades. It was in the heart.

• Those who succeed are not always the most gifted — they are the ones who understand that their work must outlast them.
• Individualism is not inherently wrong, but individualism with no plan to give back is simply self-consumption.

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• The Jews built Harvard and MIT. Initial accumulation was the preparation. The question is what you do with it eventually.

What Is Wrong with Nigeria's Education

Nigeria's educational crisis is not simply a funding problem — it is a structural and philosophical one.

• Most universities were designed for populations of 10,000 and now hold 60,000 students. Sustainability has never been part of the model.
• Vice chancellors are often appointed by state of origin or rotation, not by merit — this guarantees mediocrity at the highest level.
• An average mass communication graduate cannot write a coherent story, does not know the key textbooks in the field, and cannot operate basic tools. The comparison with Chinese or Brazilian students of the same discipline is stark.
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Apostle Femi Lazarus
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The solution requires a pyramidal educational structure:

1. The base: well-trained technicians and craftsmen — secretaries, welders, tailors — who can earn a meaningful living without a degree, as they do in Germany.
2. The middle: technologists from polytechnics and colleges of technology who run the machinery of the country.
3. The top: bachelor's, master's, and doctoral graduates who generate research, data, and innovation.

Every primary school should own a farm or a carpentry workshop. Students work there as part of their curriculum. Income from that enterprise feeds the school and feeds the students who cannot afford three meals a day. This is not a new idea — it is what works in countries that have chosen to develop.

The Six Elements That Define a Nation

Any country that wants to compete must function well in six areas:

1. Regulations — having them is not enough; they must be coherent and fit the environment.
2. Policies — derived from regulations, targeted at agriculture, education, energy, health, and other sectors.
3. Market incentives — governments should be the first buyers of what is produced locally to stimulate domestic industries.
4. Research, monitoring, and data generation — planning without data is guessing. No country can develop without knowing its own numbers.
5. Enforcement — having laws and policies without enforcing them produces exactly what Nigeria has: gas flaring for 50 years, road deaths that could be halved with functional infrastructure.
6. International liaison — diplomacy, trade agreements, and regional cooperation require serious preparation, not sentiment.

Countries that rise first enforce discipline, then slowly liberalise. You cannot liberalise a people whose social consciousness has not been formed. The fruit seller revolution in North Africa happened because those people knew what they deserved. Nigeria cannot have that revolution yet — because too many Nigerians do not know what they deserve.

What the Future Demands

The fourth industrial revolution does not reward degrees. It rewards demonstrated competence. The person who cannot show what they have built, what problems they have solved, what patterns they have identified — that person will be bypassed, credential and all.

The future belongs to those who can answer: what have you actually done? And the path to getting there is not waiting for capital — it is starting from where you are, with what you have, solving a problem someone needs solved right now.

Talent is everywhere. Discovery of that talent, and the nurturing of it to find opportunities to thrive — that is what is rare. And that is what mentorship, rightly done, provides.