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KUJE PRISON ATTACK

Fleeing Terrorists Regroup in N/Central State *May Launch Fresh Deadlier Attacks *Anger, Frustration Trail Jail Breaks *Nigerians Demand Accountability, Knock Buhari For Inaction

Soyinka @ 88: Seen From a Distance & Up Close

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About a year ago, I had a long conversation about slavery and its origin with my friend, Kola. I learnt that day that the original idea behind slavery was not to enslave people but, in fact, as a means of showing wealth, and it was commonplace for wealthy African men in those days to gift their slaves to a guest on their return home. These slaves were treated well, not necessarily as equals, but they were allowed to marry and have kids. Those kids became the master's responsibility to care for just as they did their parents.

How, then, did it become such a lucrative business?

The Caucasians who travelled by sea came to Africa and saw these people who were stronger than they were.

And for the Africans, although these 'white men' seemed pale and looked sick compared to the Asians (Middle East) they were used to doing business with, they felt it was safe to gift them some of their slaves, as they did with Asians. And because they were used to travelling by land, they didn't know how these 'white men' crossed to their own land by sea and, of course, could not witness the horrific conditions they put their slaves through on their journey to and when they reached their new homes.

Photo: Kola Oshalusi @insignamedia Makeup: Zaron

IS NOW WHOLLY DIGITAL

On the other hand, the white men had found strong, hardworking people to pick cotton on their cotton farms. Soon enough, the demand for these strong people increased, so they came more often and eventually began kidnapping Africans from their homes to a faraway land, making them work under horrible conditions without pay.

In modern times, there is a mix of how exactly human trafficking, or being enslaved, operates. While some do it for money, others are cases of vulnerability. Some are lured under the guise of a better life when they get there (a job, etc.); for others, it's more a willing decision.

Regardless of the victim's reason, at the end of the day, you will not shoot someone in the head just because they ask you to, will you?

And so the point remains: Trafficking is a crime, and whether or not someone willfully agrees to be trafficked does not make it any less one.

Until next week, enjoy your read.

Onah Nwachukwu Editor, THEWILL DOWNTOWN @onahluciaa +2349088352246

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COVER

KUJE PRISON ATTACK

Fleeing Terrorists Regroup in N/Central State *May Launch Fresh Deadlier Attacks *Anger, Frustration Trail Jail Breaks *Nigerians Demand Accountability, Knock Buhari For Inaction

BY AMOS ESELE WITH ADDITIONAL REPORTS FROM SEGUN AYINDE, UDEME UTIP AND UKANDI ODEY

reunite with their fellow travellers in order to set the stage for their next attacks.

The Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Awwal Gambo, was represented at the meeting.

here is definitely more to come from the daredevil terrorists running riots in Nigeria. Thrilled and emboldened by their accomplishments in executing deadly attacks on soft and hard targets in Nigeria, THEWILL gathered authoritatively, the terrorists have regrouped in a North-Central state close to Abuja shortly after Tuesday’s attacks on Kuje Maximum Correctional Centre, Abuja and the presidential convoy in Dutsinma in Katsina State same day.

Their mission? To launch more coordinated attacks across the country.

The abandoned construction site, THEWILL was further told, had been a formidable fortress for the terrorists, who have been operating several cells around the area for some time.

But Nigerians are not amused. It is a familiar path they have come to identify with the country’s leadership in similar situations.

The terrorists think that, as the next line of action, they would have to work together to sustain the upper hand they have gained against the Nigerian state by their intimidating attacks.

“It is this kind of predictable reaction from the authorities that embolden the terrorists,” a source told THEWILL. “We expected to hear from the President that those he condemned for being lax in intelligence gathering during his visit to Kuje after the attack had been either fired or redeployed. Nothing and then the attacks would continue.”

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Dependable security sources told THEWILL that immediately after executing their combined attacks on Tuesday, the leaders of the terror squads from Ansaru, Islamic State of West Africa (ISWAP) and Boko Haram have become emboldened to assert their claims to remake the country in their Islamic image. The capacity to strike and hold on to acquire enclaves has boosted their morale and they can see that the scale of power has tilted in their favour, the source said.

THEWILL investigations further revealed that many of the 69 officially declared wanted escapees from the Kuje jail break comprising confirmed Boko Haram commanders and hardened criminals, were ferried into an abandoned construction site in the North-Central state early on Wednesday morning to THEWILLNIGERIA

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The choice of the North-Central state, according to the sources, is simply for convenience and strategy. Many of their members have become entrenched in the state where they levy communities with audacity, raid and rape their women and confiscate poultry and foodstuff unchallenged.

UNCHANGED LANDSCAPE After summoning an emergency National Security Council on Friday in the heat of the Tuesday attacks, President Muhammadu Buhari and his lieutenants gave no indication that salvation was on the way for Nigerians.

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, some cabinet ministers and all security and service chiefs attended the meeting.

Others present at the security meeting were Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha and Chief of Staff to the President, Prof Ibrahim Gambari.

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A retired military officer, criminologist and criminal justice expert, Sir Olatunde Okelana, JP, confided in this newspaper: “It is unfortunate that our security architecture has been compromised. Our intelligence gathering has failed as a nation. The planning of the attack on Kuje Correctional Centre and the presidential convoy must have taken not less than six months and then the attackers struck within 24 hours of guard rotation. They had an insider.”

A United Kingdom-based security expert, Temitope Olodo, imagines two scenarios from the Kuje Prison attack, even as he described mixing high and low risk criminals as a threat to the country’s prison system.

Olodo, who spoke on an international news channel monitored

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COVER

...Fleeing Terrorists Regroup In N/Central State

by THEWILL on Friday, said the fleeing jail birds would either melt into the society and continue what they are used to doing or go back on a revenge mission. His views came as Sola Fasure, spokesperson of the Minister for Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, concurred with Okelana, in a statement last week.

He said, “After the Abolongo, Oyo State attack on a correctional facility in October last year, it became apparent that a new form of attack for which our system was not prepared had emerged. Our system was primed to prevent and foil internal disturbance and riots, not external attacks/ invasions since the facilities were usually built around police and military formations.”

NIGERIANS WANT BUHARI TO SIT UP This unpreparedness by the government to tackle the issue headlong has led to fear for the survival of the country.

Nigerians from all walks of life think that the Buhari-led Federal Government has failed woefully in its constitutional duty to protect the citizenry and provide for their well-being.

In Akwa Ibom State, respondents who spoke with THEWILL expressed the opinion that the only solution to insecurity in the country would be voting the right candidate as President of Nigeria in 2023. They are calling on Nigerians to be patriotic and take 2023 as a deciding factor to determine if the country would survive.

A political stakeholder in the state, Mr George Worthsword, said that what played up in the attack on the presidential convoy was clear evidence that the leadership of the country has failed in its duty to protect the lives and property of citizens.

A youth leader, Ubong Okon, sees unemployment as a major cause of insecurity. He believes that if youths are meaningfully engaged, insecurity will reduce and gradually become a thing of the past.

“The adage ‘an idle mind is the devil’s workshop’ is very true.

When an idle mind is indoctrinated negatively, it will yield but if the mind is occupied with meaningful and profitable engagements, it is difficult to contaminate,” Okon said.

For the National Publicity Secretary of the Labour Party (LP), Comrade Abayomi Arabambi, the recent attacks on the presidential convoy and Kuje Prison, Abuja, showed that the current All Progressives Congress-led Federal Government has failed woefully in its duty to secure the nation.

Arabambi said that with ISWAP claiming responsibility for the attack on the prison where 600 inmates escaped, it shows that the APC-led government is incapable of ensuring the safety of lives and properties of Nigerian citizens.

Arabambi, who expressed disappointment in the Police and Army, said Buhari was not only unfit in securing the nation but also failed to manage the economic affairs of the country and the result is poverty and unemployment.

He said: “Why should Buhari say he is really disappointed in the security apparatus of the country, disappointed in the army, disappointed in the police? Was he not the one who appointed them? When they throw caution to the wind by using ethnic considerations to appoint people to man the affairs of our security network, what do you expect?

“This has shown that APC is not only fraudulent, but also grossly incompetent and incapable of managing the affairs of Nigeria, as far as we are concerned...

“Buhari told us that he was going to change Nigeria from bad to better, but today we are at the bottomless pit of poverty and unemployment as a result of his incompetence. For bandits to attack the presidential convoy shows that our security architecture has collapsed. Nobody is guiding anyone; everybody is just running helter-skelter for the safety of their lives.

“The way forward (solution) is for a competent man to take over the mantle of leadership.’’

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The general view from a poll in Plateau State is that before the Kuje incident and the attack on the presidential convoy, there was a festival of insecurity in Nigeria, especially since the Muhammadu Buhari Administration entered a second term.

Jail breaks, banditry, insurgency, kidnapping, and all manner of high profile crimes including an attack on a moving train, have distorted peace as much on the highways as in individual homes. From Plateau State in Central Nigeria to Zamfara State in the North-West to Yobe and Adamawa in the North-East, the story is that of shared misery and melancholy, no thanks to the heinous wave of organised crime.

Many are of the view that the Federal Government has been insincere and noncommittal in tackling insecurity in the country. This feeling is worsened by the belief that most of the crimes being perpetrated, especially insurgency, banditry and kidnapping on the highways, are carried out by Fulani elements who have become daredevils because one of them is at the helm of affairs. The Buhari Administration is perceived to be protecting criminals of Fulani stock, hence a widespread apprehension that even last week’s jail break in Kuje was done with official connivance and is only one example of statesponsored terrorism under Buhari.

Two solutions are being considered by respondents very quickly as Nigerians desire to vent their frustrations over insecurity and worsening poverty. One solution is political and gaining general acceptance: Stop a Fulani and northern presidency in 2023 by acquiring PVCs and turning out en masse to vote a Christian and southern president. Secondly, there is a need for state police and community policing, including regional security interventions like Amotekun in the South-West in the desperate search to redefine, redirect and reload Nigeria’s federalism and unity of its component ethnic groups.

men and women with gadgets like cameras and drones to work.

Meanwhile, the international community has reacted negatively to the developments. The United Nations and the United States Embassy in Nigeria have issued advisories warning their officials and citizens, respectively, to stay out of troubled spots in Nigeria, including Abuja.

FG REACTS The Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, said that an alert has been sent to all checkpoints across the country. The Nigeria Immigration Service, Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps, besides the military, have been put on notice.

In a statement on Thursday, Aregbesola admitted that correctional centres across the country could only contain internal attacks but cannot withstand external force.

“As we speak, security personnel are combing the whole area, up to a distance of 100km radius, looking for them. All checkpoints nationwide have been put on alert. More than 400 escapees have been brought in and more are still coming,” he stated.

With the disclosure by the government that 443 prisoners escaped after the Kuje attack, the country now has no fewer than 4,443 inmates on the run after nine successful jailbreaks in the last one year alone. According to Aregbesola, in an update last December, 3,906 inmates were still on the run.

Also, 18 jailbreak incidents have been reported since the inception of the Muhammadu Buhari Administration with nine successful attempts in Benin-City, Ibadan, Jos, Owerri, Abuja, Bauchi, Kano and Kabba.

The Chairman, Senate Committee on Army, Ali Udume, blames the three arms of government for the country’s security challenges.

Between October 2020 and July 5, 2022, correctional centres in 11 states and the Federal Capital Territory have witnessed several jailbreaks.

“What happened in Kuje (correctional centre) is unfortunate.

It is a clear indication of failure on the part of those who should take care of the security and welfare of the citizens. The priority of the government is the security and welfare of its people,’’ he said and blamed President Buhari for the situation in the country.

According to the Ministry of Interior, a total of 1,993 inmates were freed from two Nigerian Correctional Service Custodial Centres in Benin City and Oko in Edo State in October 2020.

Ndume frowned at the de-radicalisation policy of the government meant to reintergrate ‘repentant terrorists’ into the society and called for better trained, better equipped security

“

Why should Buhari say he is really disappointed in the security apparatus of the country, disappointed in the army, disappointed in the police? Was he not the one who appointed them?

When they throw caution to the wind by using ethnic considerations to appoint people to man the affairs of our security network, what do you expect?

WAY FORWARD Sir Okelana said we cannot continue in the past ways that have yielded no results. “We need technology for crime detection and prevention. We have to circularise our security system, improve on our human resources, intelligence gathering and equipment. Fighting crime doesn’t rely on human efforts alone. Artificial intelligence is recommended.`` The question of leadership under the situation is also the solution Senator Shehu Sani has offered.

Taking a bird’s eye view of the overwhelming security situation in the country following Tuesday’s attack of the presidential convoy and Kuje correctional center, he tweeted on Thursday: “THE Attacks on military formations, Police Stations, Prisons, Election commission offices are attacks on symbols, institutions and pillars of the state. They are not soft targets.

The nation is at war with multiples of organised guerrilla terror groups aiming at power. WE NEED A LEADER!” For complete solution to the pervading terrorism, Ndume suggests that the executive, legislature and judiciary must operate inter-dependently with transparency and accountabilty law making, their execution and interpretation all work for the common good of Nigerianns.

“The president ought to sit people down and get results. He should be talking to Nigerians and not his advisers. You mean people can come in here in Abuja, attack and get away with it.? The President should give marching orders to the National Security Adviser, NSA, the Security Chiefs to get the Kuje prison escapees.

The present scenario has also made the call for state and community policing to be timely as the government will be doing Nigerians a lot of good if the call is revisited.

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NEWS Civil Registration: Nigeria ID4D to Support Population Commission

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he Nigeria Digital Identification for Development (ID4D) project has said that it concluded plans to support the National Population Commission (NPC) towards digitising its civil registration processes.

ID4D’s Project Coordinator, Musa Odole Solomon, disclosed this during a courtesy visit to the Chairman of the National Population Commission, Alhaji Isa Kwarra, at the Commission’s headquarters in Abuja.

Solomon described the National Population Commission a critical partner in the ID4D project implementation, assuring the Commission of the project’s support.

L-R; Director General, DSS, Yusuf Bichi; Director General, NIA, Ahmed Rufai; Maj-General Mohammed Babagana Monguno ( Rtd), and Chief of Army Staff Lt Gen Yahaya Faruk during the National Security Council Meeting held at the Council Chambers State House Abuja, on July 8, 2022.

Eid-el-Kabir: NCWS Felicitates Muslims, Urges Continuous Prayers For Nigeria

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he National President, National Council of Women Societies (NCWS), Hajiya Lami Lau, has felicitated Nigerians and the Muslim Ummah on the occasion of Eid-el-Kabir.

pageantry of the Sallah celebration, but as mothers, we should use the occasion to reflect and extend our gestures and hands of support to the needy in the society.’’ she said.

Lau in her Sallah message, said every true Muslim, especially women, should be grateful to God for the privilege to celebrate the 2022 Sallah, regardless of all challenges.

Lau emphasised the importance of peace, unity and tolerance amongst the diverse people of the country for growth and development to take place, noting that Nigeria diversity should be a source of strength rather than conflict.

She said that the best way to show gratitude to God was to share His blessings with neighbours and show love and kindness to all.

“I want to use the occasion to urge all Muslim faithful to be steadfast in working and praying for the peace, unity and progress of our beloved country.

“The current challenges are painful, but this is a passing phase in our historical process of nation-building.

“Please do not be carried away by the

“As we join the rest of the world to celebrate this year’s Sallah, I enjoin you to replicate and demonstrate in your daily lives the lessons and virtues of sacrifice, forgiveness, piety, self-denial and genuine love toward one another which you learnt during the month- long fasting.”

“I urge you to also take out opportunity, cashing on the spirituality of this festive period to offer special prayers for the nation against the backdrop of the current security challenges.

Nigeria Prize For Literature: NLNG Shortlists 11 Entries

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he Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas has announced 11 shortlisted authors for the Poetry category of its prestigious Nigeria Prize for Literature.

The announcement was made in the afternoon of Friday, July 8 from the gas company’s headquarters in Port Harcourt.

The prize is worth $100, 000.

The long list includes entries by poets, such as Ogaga Ifowodo, Chidi Amu Nadi, Obari Gomba, Iquo Diana Abasi and Remi Raji. Others are James Eze, Olusegun Adekoya, Romeo Oriogun, Su’eddie Agema, Joe Ushie and Sodiq Dzukoji.

The list was presented to the Advisory Board by the Chairman of the Judges panel for this year’s prize, Sule Emmanuel Egya, a professor of African Literature and Cultural Studies at Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai, Niger State.

Other judges are Toyin Adewale-Gabriel and Dike Chukwumerije. AdewaleGabriel is a poet and fiction writer. Dike Chukwumerije is a spoken word and THEWILLNIGERIA

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performance poet, as well as an awardwinning author.

The judges described the long list as “the best of contemporary Nigerian poetry, rich in experimentation with language, style and theme.”

Accepting the recommended long list, the Advisory Board commended the thorough work done by the judges.

Reacting on behalf of the Board, Professor Akachi Adimora- Ezeigbo, the chairman, said the quality of work in the list shows that “a lot of scrutiny and work went into selecting deserving poets who have distinguished themselves by the quality of their submissions.”

The 11 poets and their collections are as follows in alphabetical order: Augusta’s Poodle by Ogaga Ifowodo, Coming Undone As Stitches Tighten by Iquo DianaAbasi, Dispossessed by James Eze, Ife Testament by Olusegun Adekoya and Memory and the Call of Waters by S. Su’eddie Agema.

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Benue 2023: I Have Capacity to Turn Around People’s Fortunes – Oyigeya FROM KAJO MARTINS, MAKURDI

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he governorship candidate of the Accord Party (AP) in Benue State, Dr Mathis Oyigeya, has assured Benue people of his ability to turn around their fortunes and make life better for all if voted into power.

He pointed out that his educational background and work experience as former Chief Medical Director at the Federal Medical Centre, Makurdi and a member of the boards of several institutions has sufficiently prepared him to occupy the position of governor and to work for the benefit of the people.

While hosting members of Iponu Welfare Association in Makurdi, the state capital, to intimate them of his decision to run for governorship as part of his consultation with diverse groups in the state, Oyigeya called for support from all stakeholders in the Benue project.

According to him, he intends to make a difference in the governance of the state and so, promised to tackle insecurity in the state and to chase out criminals, as well as to pay attention to the rural populace.

“I will reduce the internal tension occasioned by non-payment of salaries, pensions and gratuities, as well as create jobs for the teeming youths in the state,” the governorship aspirant said.

The Accord Party candidate further pointed out that his records in public service indicates how much he provided employment for people of the state, promising to replicate same in a greater dimension.

Oyigeya also promised to look beyond the present and embark on industrialisation of the state by granting loans to youths and encouraging them to set up cottage industries.

He solicited the support of Iponu Welfare Association to actualise his dream in 2023.

Responding, the leader of the association, Dr Bob Echikwenya, endorsed the candidature of Dr Oyigeya and thanked him for the sacrifice he is making for the Idoma people.

The visit was marked by a symbolic pouring of water on the forehead of Dr Oyigeya by elder Odeh Ogbe, signifying endorsement and blessing.

He said, “Nigeria Digital ID4D is a Nigerian project, jointly funded by the World Bank, European Investment Bank and the French Development Agency. The Project Development Objective is to increase the number of persons with a National Identity Number (NIN), issued by a robust and inclusive foundational identity system that facilitates their access to services.

“The project is designed, following an Ecosystem model and not limited to any single organisation. It therefore involves different agencies of government, the private sector and civil society. The project had since identified the National Population Commission as an important ecosystem partner, hence this visit.”

Continuing, Solomon explained that the Nigeria Digital ID4D project would finance technical assistance to create the enabling legal and regulatory environment for the development of a digital civil register and to strengthen its role in the country’s foundational ID ecosystem, including the digitisation of existing birth registration processes.

On training, he said, “The project has made adequate provisions for financing institutional capacity development, aimed at building trust and credibility within the country’s ID ecosystem.

“We are determined to invest in the Civil Registry system to reinforce the foundational ID ecosystem by delivering National Identity Numbers at birth, as part of the birth registration process through links with the digitised Civil Register. We therefore seek your collaboration and active participation in the implementation process,’’ he said.

Responding, the Chairman, National Population Commission, Alhaji Nasir Isa Kwarra, stated that the Commission is a willing partner in the country’s Identity project, even as he pledged the support and cooperation of the Commission to the Nigeria ID4D project.”

Kwarra expressed delight at the project’s readiness to support the digitization of the civil register, as well as capacity development, describing them as critical needs of the commission.

“We are trying to modernise our civil registration systems. We register births and deaths. We are supposed to be registering marriages and divorce, etc. Modernising and digitising our processes is very important and that is where you come in. We are willing to partner with you 100 per cent. We are also involved in national identity coverage. I assure you of our total support and collaboration,” he said.

Speaking on the planned National Census, Kwarra said the NPC was planning to conduct the first Digital Census in Nigeria.

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POLITICS

BY AYO ESAN

Gregory the Great). There is the possibility that pairing him with Tinubu will resonate with the predominantly Catholic South-East and probably make the ticket more appealing to those who are demanding for fairness,” he added.

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he selection of Kabiru Masari as placeholder cum tentative presidential running mate to the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has made many interest groups to continue to push forward their preferred candidates.

KASHIM SHETTIMA Kashim Ibrahim Shettima was born on September 2, 1966. He is currently a member of the Senate and former governor of Borno State.

With a few days to the deadline for replacement of placeholders with substantive vice presidential candidates, the leaders of the party are meeting and deliberating on many names. Also many individuals, who are interested in the position, are already scheming and making moves to push their ambition.

Shettima is a very intelligent and outspoken Muslim politician from the Kanuri tribe of Borno State and is generally seen as extremely hospitable to other faith and ethnic groups. In the last seven years of his service as governor, some of his closest aides include an Igbo Christian from Anambra State in the South-East, an Urhobo Christian from Delta State in the SouthSouth, a Christian from Edo State in the South-South, a Yoruba Christian from the South-West, a Fulani man from Gombe in the North-East and a Hausa man from Zamfara State in the North-West

It has been settled that the vice presidential candidate should come from the northern part of the country. One contentious issue that has not been agreed upon is the issue of religion of the person who will replace Masari as the substantive vice presidential candidate. While many people are saying that since Tinubu is a Muslim, his deputy should be a Christian from the North, Tinubu and many other chieftains of the APC are however saying that the issue of religion should not be a yardstick to pick the best candidate for the position of Vice President.

The proponents of a Muslim-Muslim ticket are also citing the fact that Tinubu is a moderate Muslim and that his wife, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, is not only a Christian but a Pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, (RCCG), a well known pentecostal church.

Those that are jostling to replace Masari include the Plateau State Governor, Simon Lalong; former Borno State Governor, Ibrahim Shettima; Borno Governor Babagana Zulum; Abubakar Bagudu and Boss Mustapha.

SIMON LALONG Lalong has come up as a likely vice presidential candidate of the APC. He is the Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum and he is serving a second term as the Governor of Plateau State.

Lalong was born on May 5, 1963 in Shendam, Plateau State. He attended Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, graduating in 1990 with a Bachelor’s degree in Law. This was immediately followed by the Law School in Lagos, where he was also called to the Bar. He later obtained

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Shettima speaks fluent English and Hausa language and enjoys a close relationship with Tinubu. He was the Director General of the Tinubu campaign during the APC primaries.

El-Rufai

Tinubu and those others who believe there is nothing wrong in having a Muslim as presidential candidate and Muslim as vice presidential candidate have expressed the opinion that the North where the VP’s slot is zoned has more Muslims than Christians.

Zulum

Shettima

Lalong

Those Aspiring to be Tinubu’s VP

a Master’s degree in Law from the University of Jos in 1996.

He is favoured by the religious consideration, being a Christian. He however comes from the North-Central, which also produced the national chairman of the party, Senator Abdullahi Adamu. His candidacy will run contrary to the fairness that the APC is known for.

The Commissioner of Lands, Survey and Town Planning in Plateau State, Mr. Yakubu Dati has stated that the Plateau State governor is the best to be chosen among Christian aspirants jostling to be Tinubu’s running mate.

Dati said the support Lalong has enjoyed from the Northern Governors Forum (NGF) and his track record for promoting peaceful coexistence in the country has distinguished him as a great leader who could be trusted with a higher responsibility.

He said that a Tinubu/Lalong ticket will bring regional and religious balance and ensure equity and justice.

“Lalong is a Catholic and a KSGG (Knight of Saint

As Governor of Borno State, he has efficiently managed challenges arising from the Boko Haram insurgency which he inherited in 2011. With the approval of the National Security Adviser and the Nigerian Army in 2013, his government formalised the establishment of youth volunteers called the Civilian JTF. BABAGANA ZULUM Babagana Zulum was born on August 25, 1969 in Mafa Local Government Area of Borno State. He is a professor and politician. He is the current Governor of Borno State and has won a second term ticket. He is favoured because of his youthfulness. But like Tinubu, he is a Muslim and a Muslim-Muslim ticket may be hard to sell to the majority of the APC leadership.

ABUBAKAR BAGUDU Abubakar Atiku Bagudu was born on December 26, 1961.

He is the current Governor of Kebbi State. Previously, he served as a Senator for Kebbi Central Senatorial District.

He is the Chairman, Progressives Governors Forum. He wields a lot of influence among the governors.

NASIR EL-RUFAI Mallam Nasir el-Rufai is the Governor of Kaduna State. He is also eyeing the Vice President’s slot and his chances brightened recently with the endorsement of his aspiration by the Tinubu Support Organisation (TSO).

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POLITICS INTERVIEW

APC Prioritises Political Power Over Security, Welfare – Onovo The presidential candidate of the National Conscience Party (NCP) in the 2015 general election, Chief Martin Onovo, In this interview with AYO ESAN, speaks on the worsening insecurity in the country and the monetisation of the presidential primaries by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as well other issues of national importance.

Excerpts:

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hat is your reaction to the worsening insecurity in the country, particularly the recent attacks on the advanced convoy of the president and Kuje Prison in Abuja?

The level of insecurity is unprecedented. In 2015, before President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn in, Boko Haram terrorists were confined to the fringes of three States viz, Borno, Yobe and Adamawa. We were outraged at the inability of the Dr Goodluck Jonathan’s government to stop terrorism.

Now, with Buhari in office, terrorism has increased in ferocity and spread to all the geopolitical zones of Nigeria. Currently, terrorists control large areas in Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Zamfara, Niger, Kaduna, Katsina and other states in the North.

The attack on Buhari’s advance convoy took place in Katsina State and the Kuje Prison attack occurred in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory. It is clear that these attacks have increased in ferocity and have also spread to all geopolitical zones of Nigeria under Buhari who is leading a completely incompetent, Islamist and corrupt government. This has led to the International Foreign Policy magazine publication titled, Nigeria is a Failed State. So we can correctly conclude that Nigeria became a ‘failed state’ under Buhari.

Can the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) successfully conduct a credible general election under the prevailing insecurity?

Definitely not and that provides more openings for the dysfunctional ruling party to rig the elections by collaborating with the leadership of INEC to publish fake results. We must understand that the ruling party has prioritised control of political power over the security and welfare of Nigerians.

So, they can allow insecurity to continue in order to create an environment that is suitable for rigging. According to Senator (Alhaji) Rufai Hanga, “They don’t do elections in Borno and Yobe States, they only write results there.” Insecurity in any state allows the ruling party to collude with INEC and write fake results for that state.

What does the monetisation of the presidential primaries by the APC and PDP say about our democracy?

It means that the APC and PDP are not major political parties.

They are two sides of the same corrupt coin. Corruption and electoral fraud do not portray major parties; they typify criminal organisations. We say no to PDP. Fortunately for all Nigerians, the PDP is dying and the APC will scatter very soon.

The highly monetised primaries of these parties is their celebration of corruption and impunity. These two parties have promoted a transactional pseudo-democracy that is funded with proceeds of corruption. Many Nigerians, particularly those in the mass media, are passively liable for tolerating THEWILLNIGERIA

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Onovo

At a Catholic Church in Owo, Ondo State (South-West) terrorists killed over 40 persons and wounded many others, Benue State is the focus of terrorist attacks and the attacks in Plateau State (Middle Belt) have increased, the Auchi areas of Edo State (South-south) have suffered many attacks like Ebonyi State (South-East).

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We must understand that the ruling party has prioritised control of political power over the security and welfare of Nigerians. So, they can allow insecurity to continue in order to create an environment that is suitable for rigging this level of corruption and impunity. According to Section 22 of the Nigerian Constitution, “The press, radio, television and other agencies of the mass media shall at all times be free to uphold the fundamental objectives contained in this Chapter and uphold the responsibility and accountability of the Government to the people”.

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Democracy cannot thrive without press freedom and the mass media must hold the government accountable to the people to promote democracy.

What is your take on the idea of a Muslim-Muslim ticket?

Any attempt at a Muslim-Muslim ticket is an insidious push to move Nigeria to a collapsed state from its current situation as a failed state. We will reject any Muslim-Muslim ticket as senseless, insensitive, unpatriotic and unconstitutional. We will challenge it spiritually, legally and politically. Nigeria is a diverse country and every ticket must be balanced in the spirit of our constitutional ‘Federal Character’. When I ran for President in 2015, we had Alhaji Ibrahim Muhammed, a very brilliant Muslim from Kebbi State, as the vice presidential candidate.

As we get set for the 2023 general election, what is your advice to INEC? INEC is one of the major enemies of democracy in Nigeria.

INEC has continued to violate the integrity of the ballot and the rule of law in many ways. INEC must not push Nigeria from a failed state to a collapsed state. In the past, INEC disenfranchised voters, registered underage voters, allowed underage voters to vote, allowed voting without accreditation, falsified election results and frustrated the audit of election results. My advice to INEC is to maintain its independence and follow the highest paths of integrity and transparency at every stage of an election.

How would you assess President Buhari’s government and what do you want him to accomplish before leaving in May 2023?

Buhari has led the worst government ever in Nigeria. His government has failed catastrophically on every major index. The level of insecurity is unprecedented and Nigeria is now a failed state. The economy is completely ruined and Nigeria currently has the highest rate of people living in extreme poverty. The unemployment and inflation levels are unprecedented. Corruption is massive and widespread with impunity across all sectors and Nigeria has received its worst rating (154) on Transparency International’s ‘Corruption Perception Index. The Muhammadu Buhari Administration pushed Nigeria with its incompetence and corruption from a weak state to a failed state. The only thing he can accomplish now to mitigate his loathsome legacy is to ensure a free and fair election.

Vote-buyin was witnessed on a high scale during the recent Ekiti state governorship election. What is the way out of this?

Vote-buying can be treated as a crime. Considering the very cheap manner in which the ruling APC bought votes at the Ekiti governorship election, it is clear that the party can easily manipulate the 2023 general election. The arrangement is simple. Corrupt politicians steal public funds and deploy it for vote-buying to take over power or to remain in power. Using the Ekiti governorship election as an example, INEC claimed that the winner got 187,057 votes. At N10, 000 per vote, only about N1.87 billion was required to buy the governorship of Ekiti State. This amount is too small to many corrupt politicians that wish to seize the governorship of a state. In this way what we have is a gathering of corrupt politicians who steal public funds and deploy it for vote-buying to get to office to steal more and deploy it again for vote-buying to return back to public office.

Similarly, if you have N600 billion, you can buy 20 million votes at N30, 000 each to become the President of Nigeria.

We must break this vicious cycle. To break it, we must use a multi-dimensional approach that will include advocacy against vote-selling, anti-corruption steps to check the supply of slush funds, improving the secrecy of balloting to prevent the votebuyer from knowing the party a voter voted for, monitoring polling units to arrest vote-buyers and confiscating the funds, etc.

What is your general advice to the electorate ahead of the general election?

The electorate must realise that they are the sovereign and they should take responsibility and control. We must register to vote, we must vote, we must defend our votes and ensure that the right results are transmitted to the collation centres. We must shield underage children from registration and voting.

We must insist on the rule-of-law and the integrity of the ballot. We must resist any attempt to manipulate the elections.

We must vote for competent candidates with high integrity, clear vision and physical vigour.

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POLITICS

BY AYO ESAN

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he Osun State governorship election will hold on Saturday July 16, 2022 and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said that it is ready to conduct a free, fair and credible election in the state.

INEC’S PREPARATION While expressing its readiness for the election, INEC through its National Commissioner and the Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Barrister Festus Okoye, said that Osun polling units stand at 3,763, while the number of registration areas for the election is 332 in the 30 local government areas of the state.

Okoye added that the number of political parties contesting in the governorship election is 15 out of 18.

He assured that the Osun Election will be conducted with constitutional rights and legal instruments in order to achieve the needed Election result and also give credit to the entire Osun Election process.

Speaking further on the preparation, Okoye urged the political parties to make arrangement for transportation of their polling units agents on Election Day, saying that past experiences had shown that stranded party agents would be struggling with the ad-hoc staff of the commission for space in buses hired by INEC. He said, “It is important that political parties make provisions for the polling agents. We don’t want a situation where party agents will be dragging spaces with our presiding officers in buses we hire.

“The bus we provide carries sensitive and non-sensitive materials and the presiding officers and sometimes, with the security agents. We don’t want a situation where polling agents will insist on getting into our vehicles at the detriment of our workers. It is highly unacceptable for the type of materials we carry. This is why we are calling on the political parties to get vehicles for their agents.”

Okoye called on the parties to ensure that their agents wear only accreditation tags provided by the commission.

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Oyetola

Yakubu

INEC, Parties, Security Agencies Set

As part of its preparation for the election, INEC also carried out a two-day mock accreditation in selected polling units in Osun State, with reports stating that the process was seamless, fast and without hitches, especially with the use of Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines

As part of its preparation for the election, INEC also carried out a two-day mock accreditation in selected polling units in Osun State, with reports stating that the process was seamless, fast and without hitches, especially with the use of Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines.

The accreditation was done with the use of BVAS machines, with either the fingerprints or facial recognition of voters.

On the issue of insecurity, the INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, has said that though it is generally calm at the moment, the commission is concerned about reports of clashes in some places. In one recent example, the collection of Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) was disrupted in Erin Oke and Erin Ijesha Wards of Oriade Local Government Area, resulting in the loss of 46 PVCs. Yakubu noted that while the matter was being investigated by the police, the collection of PVCs for the affected Wards was already taking place in the INEC office in Ijebu-Jesha. “Meanwhile, the State office has compiled the Voter Identification Numbers (VINs) of the cards and the commission has already reprinted the PVCs for the affected voters,” he says.

He assured all valid registrants in Osun State that no one would be disenfranchised on account of such an incident.

“It is futile for anyone to attempt to vote using another person’s PVC. The BVAS biometric accreditation will expose such fraud and persons apprehended will be prosecuted under the law,” he says.

The INEC Chairman also expressed disappointment over the incident of vote-buying that trailed the recent Ekiti State governorship election. He promised that the commission would follow up on the prosecution of alleged votes buyers apprehended in Ekiti State.

“We appreciate the role played by the anti-corruption and security agencies in apprehending some of the perpetrators of this brazen assault on our democracy. In particular, we are working with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to ensure the prosecution of persons arrested in the recent Ekiti governorship election,” he said.

He promised that cases of vote buying would not resurface in Osun State during the election.

TWO-HORSE RACE The governorship election in Osun State will be contested by 15 political parties and their candidates that have been certified by the INEC to contest.

The listed candidates are Adegboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who is the incumbent governor of the state; Ademola Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Omigbodun Akinrinola of the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

Others include Lasun Yusuff of the Labour Party (LP); Adesuyi Olufemi (ZLP); Adeleke Adedapo (BP); Adebayo Elisha (APP); Awoyemi Lukman (APM); Awojide Segun (AAC); Akinade Ogunbiyi (Accord); Kehinde Atanda (ADP); Rasaq Saliu (NNPP); Ayodele Adedeji of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) and Ademola Adeseye of Young People’s Party (YPP).

However of these 15 political parties and their candidates, four stand out and they are Accord Party, PDP, LP and APC. Political analysts are of the opinion that the Osun Governorship THEWILLNIGERIA

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POLITICS

For Osun Governorship Election

TOP, which is headed by Aregbesola, also parades notable politicians and leaders who are capable of pulling a surprise and causing a serious setback for the governor at critical moments.

There is also the challenge posed by the governing party’s failure to announce the results of the State and National Assembly primaries. Many fear this may lead to disenchantment and anti-party sentiments going into the election.

ADEMOLA ADELEKE (PDP) Ademola Adeleke, the candidate of the PDP, represented the Osun-West Senatorial District between 2017 and 2019. He is from the Adeleke family of Ede in Osun State.

A businessman and administrator, he served as an Executive Director at Guinness Nigeria Plc between 1992 and 1999. He started his political career in 2001 alongside his late brother, Senator Isiaka Adeleke, who died in April 2017. He contested in the Osun-West 2017 by-election after the death of his brother, emerging as the winner under the PDP.

Adeleke

Baba-Alkali

On July 23, 2018, Adeleke emerged as the governorship candidate of the PDP in Osun State after defeating Akin Ogunbiyi by seven votes. He contested in the Osun governorship election on the platform of the PDP against top contenders like Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola of APC and Chief Iyiola Omisore of SDP on September 22, 2018. The election was declared inconclusive by INEC and a supplementary election was held on September 27, 2018. The candidate of the APC, Oyetola, was declared winner after a run-off election.

election will be a two-horse race between the incumbent governor and candidate of the APC, Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola; the PDP candidate and runner-up in the 2018 governorship election, Senator Ademola Adeleke.

Two other candidates, Lasun Yussuf of the LP and Akin Ogunbiyi of the Accord Party will come distant third and fourth, respectively.

The incumbent Governor Oyetola of APC will have another date with the candidate of PDP, Senator Ademola Adeleke, whom he (Oyetola) defeated four years ago after a controversial rerun.

The electoral commission had declared the September 2018 governorship election inconclusive when Adeleke was in a narrow lead. It took the former Deputy Governor of Osun State, Senator Iyiola Omisore to defect to APC before the ruling party could win the election. Even at that, the Election Tribunal ruled in favour of Adeleke, but the Supreme Court later reversed the decision in favour of Oyetola.

Many Nigerians had assumed that Adeleke won the election but that the process was allegedly tampered with to favour Oyetola. The rivalry between Oyetola and Adeleke will come to the open again on July 16 when the duo battle for the soul of the Osun.

GBOYEGA OYETOLA (APC) Adegboyega Oyetola, the candidate of the APC, contested the Osun State governorship election on the platform of the same political party in 2018 and he won. On March 23, 2019, an election tribunal declared that he was not legally returned and ordered INEC to issue a Certificate of Return to Senator Ademola Adeleke of the PDP, but it was overturned by the Supreme Court. Prior to his emergence as governor, he was the Chief of Staff to former Governor Rauf Aregbesola, his predecessor.

Oyetola was born in Iragbiji, Boripe Local Government Area of Osun State on September 29, 1954. He attended the University of Lagos and graduated with a Bachelor of Science honours degree in Insurance in 1978. He obtained a Master’s degree in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Lagos in 1990.

Oyetola, is currently at loggerheads with some members of APC in Osun, which forced the former Deputy Speaker of THEWILLNIGERIA

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The Osun Governorship election will be a two-horse race between the incumbent governor and candidate of the APC, Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola; the PDP candidate and runner-up in the 2018 governorship election, Senator Ademola Adeleke the House of Representatives, Yusuf Lasun, to leave APC to contest on the platform of Labour Party (LP).

Adeleke is also facing a similar fate as Dr Akin Ogunbiyi, the candidate of the Accord Party (AP), also defected to AP after he lost out in the parallel primaries conducted by the PDP to elect its candidate Oyetola emerged as the APC flag bearer in a congress that witnessed parallel exercise with the immediate past governor openly declared support for a faction in the party, The Osun Progressives, following a frosty relationship with Oyetola.

To date, there has not been a serious resolution of the crisis that led to the division in Osun APC. Oyetola has said several times during the campaign that his achievements in office will get him the second term ticket.

Analysts believe the incumbent governor has recorded modest achievements in critical areas like road infrastructure, education, health and added to this, he has ensured regular payment of salaries to workers.

Political watchers in the living spring state, as Osun is called, have commended Oyetola for being an easygoing personality.

The hindrance on his way to victory may be the adamant position of The Osun Progressives, (TOP) who have refused to identify with his campaign.

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Adeleke, who narrowly lost to Oyetola in 2018, is seen as a hot contender for the governorship ticket. With the backing of his multi-millionaire brother, Deji Adeleke, many believe he may spring a surprise in the election, if the PDP in Osun resolves to unite ahead of the election.

Also to Adeleke’s advantage is the fact that the people in Osun West, where he hails from, have been clamouring to take another shot at the governorship. Apart from the late Senator Adetunji Isiaka Adeleke from Osun West, the people say it is their turn to produce a governor for the state. Aregbesola is from Osun East, other past governors including Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Chief Bisi Akande and Oyetola, are from Osun Central. This development may favour Adeleke next month.

The 62-year-old politician has continued to enjoy the goodwill of his brothers – late Senator Isiaka Adetunji Adeleke and Dr Deji Adeleke. The late Senator Adeleke was the first civilian governor of the state, while Dr Adeleke is a businessman and father of popular musician, David Adeleke, also known as Davido.

Ademola’s late brother, Senator Adeleke was before his death, a prominent politician in the state with a lot of followers.

Majority of those supporting Ademola Adeleke now are doing so because of the late Isiaka Adeleke, given their relationship with the deceased.

POLICE/OTHER SECURITY AGENCIES Still basking in the euphoria of its performance in Ekiti during the Ekiti State governorship election, the Nigeria Police Force has vowed to continue the good work in Osun State during the July 16 governorship election.

As part of efforts to ensure there is no bias, Commissioner of Police in Osun, Olawale Olokode, has been temporarily moved to the Force Headquarters, pending the conclusion of the governorship election when he would return to the state.

The Police headquarters said they have to do this to ensure “transparency, professional and proactive as possible in all our engagements and operations in the Osun governorship election, hence the deployment of senior officers from the Federal Headquarter to oversee the election security in the state. The IG has ordered necessary deployment of both human and material assets to fortify the state for the exercise.”

With a high level of preparation by the INEC, political parties and the security agencies, one is looking forward to an interesting governorship election in Osun State.

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EDITORIAL

Wanted: A Truly Independent INEC

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emocracy, which is government of the people by the people and for the people, usually involves making a choice out of many options. It is in recognition of this that election is an important element of any democratic setting. An election, when conducted in a transparent manner, remains the fairest method of leadership recruitment ever. In order to be acceptable, it must be credible as this would strengthen its acceptance not only by the people participating in the election but also by citizens who, for one reason or the other, could not vote at a particular time.

Also, the independentmindedness and the tendency to adhere to the enabling law, by whoever heads the agency supervising the election is very crucial to enhancing its credibility.

It is therefore expected that whoever that is going to be at the helm of the institution that would be saddled with the responsibility of supervising the election process must be someone that is quite independentminded and honest, in addition to being above board. Perhaps the Federal

Government had this in mind when it decided to change the name of the country’s electoral umpire from National Electoral Commission (N EC) to Independent National Electoral Commission (I N EC).

the conduct of free, fair and credible elections for sustainable democracy in Nigeria. The vision of I N EC is to be one of the best Election Management Bodies (EM B) in the world that meets the aspirations of the Nigerian people.

The word ‘independent’ in this context connotes freedom. It suggests that the electoral body is not being teleguided and will not be teleguided by anybody.

It also means that it will have the freedom to carry out its assignment without interference.

We must commend the I N EC for its laudable strides under the leadership of Prof Mahmood Yakubu and for its efforts to improve the electoral system in the country.

The question is how independent can an organisation be, if its chairman and his executives are appointed by a President who is a partisan politician working through a National Assembly that is clearly dominated by his political party or highly influenced by him?

As the 2023 general election draws nearer, many Nigerians are saying that I N EC should not only be independent in name but also prove to the electorate that it is not dependent on any arm of government, any political party or the President.

I N EC’s mission is to serve as an independent and effective electoral management body that is committed to

There is, however, a need

The question is how independent can an organisation be, if its chairman and his executives are appointed by a President who is a partisan politician working through a National Assembly that is clearly dominated by his political party or highly influenced by him?

to warn both I N EC and Prof Yakubu to remain steadfast in their resolve to conduct a credible, free and fair general election in 2023.

They should also be wary of the machinations of Nigerian politicians, who as a group are always desperate for power. Politicians are ready to do anything to achieve their selfish interests. There is the need for a total demonstration of forthrightness by I N EC’s boss, in a situation where his resolve as a man and a professional is being tested.

To many people, the extension of the deadline for the conduct of party primaries by I N EC after stating several times that it would not be changed, even when the PDP had begun the process, is a confirmation that the electoral umpire is involved in a relationship with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

While we would not want to insinuate that the I N EC favoured the APC, which had found it very difficult to organise its primaries close to the deadline, we want I N EC to weigh the implication of its actions and inactions in future.

As an electoral umpire, I N EC must not only be independent, it must also be seen to be independent.

Publisher/Editor-in-Chief

Austyn Ogannah Editor – Olaolu Olusina Deputy Editor – Amos Esele Politics Editor – Ayo Esan Business Editor – Sam Diala Copy Editor – Chux Ohai Cartoon Editor – Victor Asowata Entertainment/Society Editor – Ivory Ukonu Photo Editor – Peace Udugba Head, Graphics – Tosin Yusuph Circulation Manager – Victor Nwokoh Nigeria Bureau: 36AA Remi Fani-Kayode Street, GRA, Ikeja. Lagos, Nigeria. info@thewillnigeria.com / @ THEWILLNG, +234 810 345 2286, +234 913 333 3888.

EDITOR: Olaolu Olusina @OLUSINA [Letters/Opinions: opinion.letters@thewillnigeria.com]

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OPI N ION

2023: Atiku, June 12 And Keyamo’s Attempt to Rewrite History

BY PAUL IBE

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he events of the June 12 crisis are too well documented for anyone to seek to distort it. Keyamo told a blatant lie when he said Atiku Abubakar “abandon(ed) June 12”. Atiku never abandoned June 12.

The truth is that the former Vice President was marked for assassination because of his strident opposition to military rule. Indeed, Abacha actually appropriated his INTELS company, tried to kill him in Kaduna and he managed to escape only after some of his security aides had been killed.

Flashback to the events leading up to the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) primaries in Jos that threw up Abiola as its presidential candidate. What Keyamo will not say is that it was Atiku’s sacrifice of historic stepping down for Abiola that metamorphosed into his victory in the primaries and subsequent success in the June 12, 1993 election.

I wish to remind Festus that the same Atiku that he is in a hurry to malign was approached to serve as the Head of the Interim National Government (ING) while he was in London. And it may interest him also to know what Atiku’s response was: “(I said) I am not going to be part of a brief administration.”

We know those who participated in the Abacha government which dealt a death knell to the revalidation of the June 12 mandate. Some are late, some are still alive. Atiku was one of those who did not want to have anything to do with the Abacha military rule, not even with a long spoon.

“We decided not to participate in Abacha’s government because we did not want any more military rule,” Atiku was quoted on page 237 of his biography by Dr Adinoyi Ojo Onukaba of blessed memory.

Even after prominent members of the political class among them, those close to Abiola, were picked to serve in Abacha’s government, no member of the Yar’Adua group wanted to serve in that regime ostensibly because of their commitment to democracy.

Consequently, leaders like Yar’Adua and Atiku were marked down. And in continuation of its struggle to restore democratic rule, the People’s Democratic Movement (PDM), the group that Atiku belonged to, addressed a press conference in Lagos on January 12, 1994 and asked the military to exit from the governance of the country by December 31, 1994. The aftermath of that was the arrest and detention of Yar’Adua in February 1994. Atiku and other PDM leaders challenged the detention in court.

Atiku, it was, who was worried about the protracted political crisis in the country and decided to do something about it by sending an open letter to Abacha in 1994, in which he proposed a seven-point solution to the crisis, the highpoint which was the hand over on January 1, 1995 to a democratically elected government. Atiku’s position was eventually adopted by a resolution of the 1994 Constitutional Conference to set an exit date for the military.

Abacha eventually hatched a plot that implicated Obasanjo, Yar’Adua and others in a coup.

Shortly after his mentor’s arrest in the phantom coup plot, Atiku narrowly escaped an assassination plot in his Kaduna home in which seven lives were lost in the bid to foil the plot to kill him because of his opposition to Abacha’s government and military dictatorship.

But Abacha was not satisfied with the imprisonment of Yar’Adua and the intimidation of Atiku. His next move was to seize his lucrative business, NICOTES, renamed it INTELS (now you know how the name came into being and how in his legendary magnanimity the Waziri Adamawa did not revert to its original name) and appropriated Atiku’s and Yar’Adua’s shares in the logistics company he co-founded with Gabriel Volpi.

Following the bloody attack in Kaduna, Atiku was persuaded to proceed to exile. The import of this thread is to put a lie to Keyamo’s baseless claim that Atiku abandoned June 12 and was not consequential in the struggle to enthrone the democratic rule of today.

But Abacha did not find this move funny. He caused the detention of Yar’Adua and sought to separate him from Atiku. He wooed Atiku to dump Yar’Adua and pave the way for him (Abacha) to work with Atiku. But Atiku is not one to sell anyone for a mere porridge. He didn’t return to Abacha after he was asked to go think over the proposal to dump the Tafida, the man who helped him cut his teeth in politics.

Atiku was instrumental in birthing June 12, following his stepping down for MKO Abiola to emerge as the SDP candidate and eventual winner of that historic election.

It was to his credit that the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) worked assiduously for the exit of the military and enthronement of the democracy that he is still actively involved in deepening. History is stubborn, and not even Festus Keyamo or any other can erase it.

Even though Abacha was determined to neutralise Yar’Adua and his PDM, Atiku was not going to be a willing tool.

•Paul Ibe is a journalist and Media Adviser to Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the PDP.

APC’s Search For Running Mate And Nigerian Women

BY RAMATU ATTA

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he seemingly arduous search for a suitable running mate for the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu should be a source of concern to many who are committed and loyal members of the party as well as all lovers of democracy.

Following Tinubu’s victory at the party’s presidential primary election, it is expected that by now, he should be engrossed with his team jointly coordinated by himself and his running mate (not a placeholder) on the strategies for winning the forthcoming presidential election.

I feel obliged to draw the attention of the coordinating teams, the think-tank and other strategic groups within the APC, including Asiwaju and his inner team, governors elected on the platform of the party and the party’s National Working Committee to take a look at one area of possible search for a viable vice presidential candidate that can perfectly match the presidential candidate to win the presidential election in 2023.

This area, which has often been overlooked, is the nonconsideration of the female gender by the party. With the benefit of hindsight and drawing from my personal field interactions with women during my campaign as a senatorial aspirant, my honest suggestion and appeal is that a female should be considered as the running mate to Tinubu in order to create a sense of inclusion and balance.

Tinubu is known to be a man of uncommon wisdom and courage, one who sees fartherand better, who also has the ability to see beyond bends and corners. The pathfinder of Lagos can create wider political footprints and usher in another vista in his gigantic political credentials and footages if he gives this suggestion and idea the serious thought and consideration it deserves.

There is a growing feeling that our women have been neglected in political considerations and balance as if gender equity does not count. The womenfolk could attract victory if they form part of the matrix of the APC presidential team with one of them as running mate to the party’s presidential candidate.

of Liberia who went on to stabilise a war-ravaged nation and literally nursed the nation back to survival. Her innate abilities were put to task, rather than her gender.

Women are natural builders, nurturers and managers who easily do well when saddled with high responsibilities and offices. Thus, the women who have held high offices in Africa have contributed so much to the overall development of their respective countries and to our admirations, too.

Now is the time for us to have a female vice presidential candidate, not tomorrow. The level of enthusiasm this topic will generate will be such that it can become the next national topic in the political space and favourably so. This unique and sagacious decision can also be game-changing in the political duel ahead. The differentials and pressure points for victory could come from tapping into the opposition’s blind spots.

Despite her catastrophic and avoidable genocidal atrocities, Rwanda is leading in women inclusion in governance in the areas of legislative operations to the satisfaction of many nations.

In Nigeria, we are still moving at snail speed, pacing slowly towards the actualisation of 35 per cent affirmative action agreed at the Beijing Conference.

The configuration of voting patterns can be changed drastically and beat the contentions and imaginations of the opposition.

This should be given the momentum it deserves. This is the time for women to fill that slot and deservedly so, when the men seems to be confused as to whom to choose as Tinubu’s running mate.

Competent women with good pedigrees and qualifications abound across the length and breadth of this country, such that meets our quest for their inclusion in governance.

This position is meant to be an eye opener to the top echelon of APC whose responsibility it is to help the presidential candidate in making choices and options of the party in the search for a credible woman that will match the opposition and attract sympathy votes as well as swing votes to outwit the opposition come 2023 presidential election.

It is a truism that the female proportion of votes cast at all elections across the country form a sizeable share, yet they are not adequately appreciated, motivated and compensated by adequate and equitable representation.

Women are naturally loyal to men as heads in leadership positions. The tempering of political power and high office with a simple human touch and ability to multi-task makes the female gender a great political complement. This unique ability is often overlooked and untapped. A good example is happening in Kaduna State where Governor Nasir El Rufai and Dr Hadiza Balarabe are working harmoniously and striking a good balance seamlessly.

There is also a growing awareness, though not on a positive note among women of African descent, of their long neglect across the globe in democratic governance. It is only proper to recognise their importance and give to Ceaser his dues.

After over 60 years of independence and over 36 years of democratic rule, no woman in Nigeria has ever been elected in a governorship and presidential capacity. Why is that so? Being the giant of Africa, Nigeria should provide leadership instead of copying examples and templates of smaller African nations.

Now is the time for women to be properly recognised, for they have often borne the brunt of all conflicts in Africa. We need to balance the equation of inequitable treatment and poor representation, particularly in political offices. This will encourage more participation in political processes and electioneering. The burden women carry as deputy heads of the families is equal to that of a Vice President.

Whereas Liberia, Tanzania, Malawi and Ethiopia, all have Africa female heads of government at one time or the other, Nigeria is yet to replicate this, despite her strategic position in the Economic Community of West African States. The great example is Madam Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the Harvard-trained former President

Another undeniable fact remains and that only women are experienced enough to discuss the experiences and challenges of their fellow women when it comes to aggregating gender issues and policy formulation that are geared towards providing effective solutions. It is only natural that we address this critical

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segment to fit into the global trend in democratic practice.

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It is naturally appropriate to give women that role as an honour in submission to the will of our creator. We would have also honoured the memories of our matriarchs and heroines of democracy and nation building. Late madam Magarette Ekpo, Hajia Gambo Sawaba, Hajia Laila Dogonyaro, mama Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, Kudirat Abiola, Saadat Ahmadu Bello and others too numerous to mention, who made enormous sacrifices even to the point of laying down their lives for country and democracy.

Asiwaju should have a female Vice President* to complement his effort at boosting the indices of our performance as a nation. This is not about being politically correct but politically expedient in the face of a political choice that electorates will face.

The opposition is very formidable this time around and APC must do things differently to outwit the opposition with substantial margin. It is a possibility that some eligible female supporters in the opposition may even be swayed by the adoption of this suggestion to cast their votes in honour of a female VP Candidate.

Far from a feminist agenda, this is about doing the right thing to ensure that victory at the polls in 2023 will be a mere walk in the park. Women of colour are evolving in the developed world climbing very fast as they are being considered for offices hitherto considered the exclusive preserve of whites and the male folk.

•Mrs Atta is a former Registrar-General of the Abuja Multi-door CourtHouse, FCT-High Court.

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JULY 10 - JULY 1 6, 2022 T H E W I L L N E W S P A P E R

Local Content: NCDMB’s Road Map to Boost Empowerment as New NNPC Begins

BY SAM DIALA

Global Air Cargo Volume Soars As Industry Recovery Continues

BY ANTHONY AWUNOR he International Air Transport Association (IATA) has released the May 2022 data for global air cargo markets, indicating that the easing of Omicron restrictions in China helped to alleviate supply chain constraints and contributed a

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performance improvement in May. IATA represents some 290 airlines comprising 83 per cent of global air traffic.

In the data, Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director-General stated that Continues on page 17

Among the schemes is the promotion of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education in Nigeria in partnership with stakeholders.

Speaking at the commencement of the training of teachers under the scheme, championed by Siemens Energy Nigeria, NCDMB, and Empowering Africa Through Education Initiative, EATEI, in Yenagoa, Bayelsa state in July 2021, the Executive Secretary, NCDMB, disclosed that the promotion of STEM education in Nigeria, would impact the nation’s 10-Year Strategic Road Map which has impacted many Nigerians. The scheme is vigorously pursued among tertiary and research institutes across the country with the objective of empowering Nigerian operators towards technological development and the transformation of the oil and gas sector.

The Niger Delta University (NDU) confirmed that it is exploring closer collaboration with NCDMB particularly in Research and Development following the Board’s various capacity development interventions which it had initiated in the university, including the donation of Econometric Centre, staff capacity building among other support initiatives. According to the Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof. Samuel G. Edonmiekumo, the partnership will deepen NCDMB’s pursuit of effective implementation of the Strategic Road Map. In 2016, NCDMB, NNPC, Imperial College of London and four leading universities in Nigeria unveiled a framework for developing world class research for Nigeria’s oil and gas industry.

MORE INSIDE Sanwo-Olu Commissions GAC Ultra-Modern Showroom, All-New GS4

Continues on page 17

Nigeria’s Financial Inclusion Climbs By 45% – World Bank

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Zenith Bank Sustains Leading Position as Nigeria’s Best Bank For Three Consecutive Years PAGE 19

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igeria’s 10-Year Strategic Road Map, anchored by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) will impact the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which transforms to a limited liability entity this month (July 18, 2022). The evolution of the NNPC to a Company and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) firm coincides with the NCDMB Road Map to fast-track the Local Content Act created about 12 years ago.

The Local Content Act is a vital instrument that empowers Nigerian Companies to contribute tremendously towards the development of the Nigerian economy by encouraging value addition, job opportunities, and furthermore the award of different oil contracts and undertakings.

The Act established the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) with the mandate to oversee the implementation of the provisions of the law. It is seen as a revolutionary step towards enhancing Nigeria’s launch into the league of technology-driven economies spurred by the huge opportunities in the oil and gas industry.

The Road Map is targeted at the retention of over $14 billion out of $20 billion estimated industry spends in-country, creation of over 300,000 direct and indirect jobs for Nigerians and growing Nigerian Content from 27 per cent from 2017 to 70 per cent by 2027. To achieve this, the NCDMB has created a series of short-, medium- and long-term plans bordering on research, production and human capital development with well-articulated delivery and evaluation processes that are practically time-bound.

he proportion of Nigerians with accounts at regulated institutions – such as banks, microfinance organizations and mobile money service providers – rose from 16 percent to 45 percent in 2021.

This was disclosed by the World Bank in a report titled, “The Global Findex Database 2021: Financial Inclusion, Digital Payments, and Resilience in the Age of COVID-19.”

The bank stated that the overall account Continues on page 18 THEWILLNIGERIA

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JULY 10 - JULY 16, 2022 T H E W I L L N E W S P A P E R • www.thewillnigeria.com

AVIATION/OIL & GAS Global Air Cargo Volume Soars As Industry Recovery Continues

Local Content: NCDMB’s Road Map to Boost Empowerment as New NNPC Begins

Continued from page 16

Continued from page 16

May offered positive news for air cargo, most notably because of the easing of some Omicron restrictions in China.

Walsh said, “On a seasonally adjusted basis, we saw growth (0.3 per cent) after two months of decline. The return of Asian production as COVID-19 measures eased, particularly in China, will support demand for air cargo. And the strong rebound in passenger traffic has increased belly capacity, although not always in the markets where the capacity crunch is most critical. But uncertainty in the overall economic situation will need to be carefully watched.

“Still in May, African airlines also had a 134.9 per cent rise in Revenue Passenger Kilometres (RPKs) flown versus a year ago. RPK is the standard measure of actual passenger traffic used in the air transport industry. In addition, May 2022 capacity was up 78.5 per cent and load factor climbed 16.4 per cent points to 68.4 per cent, the lowest among regions.

“The recovery in travel markets is no less than impressive. As we accelerate towards the peak summer season in the Northern Hemisphere, strains in the system are appearing in some European and North American hubs. Nobody wants to see passengers suffering from delays or cancellations. But passengers can be confident that solutions are being urgently implemented.

Airlines, airports and governments are working together,however, standing up the workforce needed to meet growing demand will take time and require patience in the few locations where the bottlenecks are the most severe.

“In the longer term, governments must improve their understanding of how aviation operates

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and work more closely with airports and airlines. Having created so much uncertainty with knee-jerk COVID-19 policy flip-flops and avoiding most opportunities to work in unison, based on global standards, their actions did little to enable a smooth rampingup of activity. And it is unacceptable that the industry is now facing a potential punitive regulatory deluge as several governments fill their post-COVID-19 regulatory calendars.

“Aviation delivers its best when governments and industry work together to agree and implement global standards. That axiom is as true post-COVID-19 as it was in the century before.”

Worldwide cargo growth started gradually as of January, but at a slower pace due to supply chain disruptions and capacity constraints, as deterioration in economic conditions for the sector dampened demand.

Global demand, measured in cargo tonnekilometers, was up by 2.7 per cent, compared to January 2021. This was significantly lower than the 9.3 per cent growth witnessed in December 2021.

“Demand growth of 2.7 per cent in January was below expectation, following the 9.3 per cent recorded in December. This likely reflects a shift towards the more normal growth rate of 4.9 per cent expected for this year. Looking ahead, however, we can expect cargo markets to be impacted by the RussiaUkraine conflict. Sanction-related shifts in manufacturing and economic activity, rising oil prices and geopolitical uncertainty are converging. Capacity is expected to come under greater pressure and rates are likely to rise. To what extent, however, it is still too early to predict,” Walsh added.

Meanwhile, aviation experts have opined that the Russia-Ukraine conflict will have a negative impact on air cargo.

According to them, airspace closures will stop direct connectivity to many markets connected to Russia. Overall, the impact on global markets is expected to be low as cargo carried to/from/within Russia accounted for just 0.6 per cent of the global cargo carried by air in 2021. Also several specialised cargo carriers are registered in Russia and Ukraine, particularly those involved with heavy lift operations.

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The collaboration, which is spearheaded by NCDMB as part of the Road Map, aimed to establish a Centre of Excellence (CoE) for oil and gas research at the Federal Universities of Technology, Minna, Niger State; Federal Universities of Technology in Akure, Ondo State, and Owerri, Imo State, as well as the Niger Delta University, Yenagoa.

According to NCDMB, the project is geared towards solving oil and gas industry problems in Nigerian universities and local research centres thereby growing local research capacities and retaining huge spend which stakeholders normally spend on research overseas.

Linkage with New NNPC By the provisions of the Petroleum Industry Law which came into effect in August 2021, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited from July 1, 2022 became a limited liability company, but with the official unveiling scheduled for the 18th of the month.

The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) had on September 21, 2021 completed the incorporation of the NNPC Limited in accordance with the new PIA. Floated with an initial capital of N200 billion and with the required regulations in place, anchored by the PIA transition committee, stakeholders say the stage had been set for the formal take-off of the new NNPC. The NCDMB Road Map will assume a seamless linkage with the New NNPC to activate the huge potentials of the oil and gas industry which have been tied to the bureaucratic apron-string of government.

“Being now a commerciallyoriented and profit-driven entity, the NNPC is expected to be managed like a private sector enterprise, hence the need for active linkage with the NCDMB Road Map. In fact, the NCDMB is expected to effectively support the New NNPC to actualize the objective of the privatization of the nation’s oil company,” said Ben Amadi, an oil and gas expert.

“In addition, like every other company in the country, NNPC will pay taxes to the government and eventually be able to pay dividends to its shareholders, represented by the government in its teething stages and then the public when it decides to have an Initial Public Offer (IPO).

“Furthermore, the new NNPC will serve as a holding company for all its subsidiaries, over a dozen of them, in the post-PIA era, which explains the optimism concerning the role of NCDMB in the new operations of NNPC,” Amadi added.

Amadi further explained that since the NNPC does not and cannot operate without partners or third parties, those of them with subsisting contract(s) and joint operating agreements with the NNPC, will also have their fate determined by the PIA. This development is based on

“

We have expanded our business beyond measure; we now do virtually everything locally without the help of expatriates; this is part of the benefits of the Local Content Policy

Section 54 of the PIA, which provides that all assets and liabilities of the NNPC will be transferred to NNPC Ltd within the first 18 months of the PIA coming into effect.

As a business under CAMA and with the relevant guidelines of the PIA, the NNPC Ltd, the new NNPC will enter new investments and partnerships in upstream assets to increase gas production. It is also expected to expand its downstream operations, while modular or smallscale refineries will be developed in addition to current investment in rehabilitation of existing refineries to ramp up in-country refining.

Experts believe that this is why the linkage with the NCDMB Road Map becomes more imperative.

Era of Local Content The last 12 years has revolutionised the oil and gas sector by strategic capacity development in a way that has positively impacted on the nation’s GDP through job creation, skill acquisition, tax revenue and economy. It also enhanced the absorption of local communities who now have ownership of the projects in their communities.

“We have expanded our business beyond measure; we now do virtually everything locally without the help of expatriates; this is part of the benefits of the Local Content Policy,” a Port Harcourt-based oil and gas service operator, who would not want his name published “because of these tax people,” told THEWILL. He applauded the NCDMB’s role in its monitoring of the industry.

Credit goes to the man at the helm of affairs at NCDMB, Engr Simbi Wabote, who assumed office as the Executive Secretary in 2016. In a recent interview with THEWILL Downtown, Wabote stated that the Board had recorded significant milestones.

“The idea is that in Nigeria, we’ve made a lot of progress with regard to the local content development in the oil and gas sector. Before we started, the oil industry used to spend about 21 billion dollars year on year in our activities and less than 5 billion of that remained in the country.

•Continues online at www.thewillnigeria.com

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JULY 10 - JULY 16, 2022 T H E W I L L N E W S P A P E R • www.thewillnigeria.com

BUSINESS NEWS Elon Musk Makes U-Turn on Twitter Acquisition

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L-R: Deputy, WHO Country Representative, Alexander Chimbaru; Technical Adviser, The Federal Ministry of Trade and Investment, Kamar Bakrin; Representative to ECOWAS & Regional Director, UNIDO, Jean B. Bakole; National Project Coordinator, UNIDO, Oluwaseyi Ladejobi; Programme and Inclusion Analyst, UN Women, Uzoamaka Anita Asiegbu and Gender & Women Empowerment Expert, UNIDO, Emem Umana, at the Project dissemination event for the strengthening of capacities of MSMEs to produce high quality PPEs and other health related products, in Abuja on July 4, 2022.

Nigeria’s Financial Inclusion Climbs By 45% – World Bank ownership rate in developing economies increased by 30 percentage points, from 42 percent in 2011 to 71 percent in 2021 – a rise of more than 70 percent The World Bank stated that global account ownership increased by 50 percent from 51percent in 2011 to 76 percent in 2021. Nigeria’s account ownership growth increased from 30 percent to 45 percent throughout the time period under consideration.

It stated, “Individual economies saw different rates of growth over the past decade. Between 2011 and 2021, economies such as Peru, South Africa, and Uganda drove up the average with account ownership increases of 25 percentage points or more.

The Bank added, “Other economies saw much smaller increases over longer periods. Pakistan, for example, grew by just 10 percentage points over the past decade, from 10 per cent in 2011 to 21 per cent in 2021. The Arab Republic of Egypt and Nigeria increased ownership by 18 percentage points and 16 percentage points, respectively—from 10 per cent to 27 per cent in Egypt, and from 30 per cent to 45 per cent in Nigeria.”

The World Bank stated that having an account is a key indicator of financial inclusion and opens the door for both men and women to use financial services in a way that promotes growth.

Owners of accounts, whether they are with a bank or a regulated organization like a credit union, microfinance institution, or mobile money service provider, were able to store, send, and receive money, allowing them to invest in their health, their children’s education, and their businesses, according to the report.

According to the lender, It is harder for account holders to slide into poverty because they can easily rely on savings or receive financial resources from friends or family in the event of a financial emergency.

The global bank further said the growth in account ownership in Nigeria and other Sub-Saharan African nations was because of the adoption of mobile money.

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It stated, “In Sub-Saharan Africa in 2021, 55 per cent of adults had an account, including 33 percent of adults who had a mobile money account—the largest share of any region in the world and more than three times larger than the 10 percent global average of mobile money account ownership.

To underscore its importance, Emefiele, in his second term agenda as the CBN Governor in 2019, put Financial Inclusion at the forefront of his 5-point agenda. He set a target of 2024 to achieve 95 percent financial inclusion.

“Over the next five years, through initiatives and policy measures such as the Shared Agent Network (SANEF) and the payment service banks, we intend to broaden access to financial services to individuals in underserved parts of the country. Our ultimate objective is to ensure that 95 per cent of eligible Nigerians have access to financial services by 2024. We will also intensify our financial literacy and consumer protection programs such that current and eligible bank customers are fully aware of the financial services being offered to them as well as the cost of utilizing these services, which will enable them to make well-informed choices,” Emefield stated in his world press conference on June 24, 2019.

The CBN, thereafter, fired from all cylinders, especially by embracing the Payment Service Bank (PSB) initiative.

The move was different from the seeming lackluster, or wait-and-see attitude, it had adopted before then – since 2018 when it rolled out the Guidelines (revised in 2020) for the Licensing and Regulation of Payment Service Banks (PSB) with little results. It eventually embraced the PSB approach after several years of “pressure” from members of the public who urged it to tow the path of successful African countries like Kenya, Ghana and Ethiopia that had become role models in the financial inclusion.

The COVID-19 pandemic sparked financial inclusion and led to a significant rise in digital payments as people opted for alternative payment platforms to comply with COVID-19 restrictions.

Sanwo-Olu Commissions GAC Ultra-Modern Showroom, All-New GS4

BY ANTHONY AWUNOR

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overnor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State has commissioned the ultramodern GAC Motor showroom on Victoria Island, Lagos.

The governor, who was impressed with the drive of the company in Nigeria, stated that Chief Diana Chen (Chairman of CIG Motors, franchise holder of GAC in Nigeria) had done a great job.

Sanwo-Olu expressed delight in the fact that GAC and the Lagos State Government had entered into a partnership to build a car assembly plant, which is expected to be ready for commissioning before the end of 2022 in the Ogba area of Lagos.

The governor also unveiled the newly improved award winning GS4 Crossover SUV, which is a very popular model on Nigerian roads.

The General Manager of CIG Motors, Jubril Arogundade, explained that the GS4, which is in its second generation, comes with ample leg room, three driving modes, amazing comfort and fuel economy as well as seamless navigation system.

Sanwo-Olu was conducted on a tour of the newly re-built state-of-the-art GAC workshop, which is located right behind the ultra-modern showroom and equipped with different sections such as Express maintenance, general repair, four wheel alignment, spray booth, metal repair, polishing and body mechanical.

In her remarks, the Chairman of CIG Motors, Chief Diana Chen, stated, “We are so proud to open our showroom and workshop. We plan to open five of such facilities across the country”.

She explained that with the opening of the G-Style showroom, the company would offer the G-Elite, G-Star and G-Family packages to different segments of the society.

The company had earlier signed a memorandum of Understanding with Wema bank, as the bank undertakes to finance another batch of 1000 GAC units. The event was graced by top government functionaries, diplomatic corps and captains of industries.

Musk

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he world’s richest man, Elon Musk has said he is no longer buying Twitter, effectively killing a $44 billion deal that has been in the works for months.

Elon Musk had tendered an offer to buy 100% of Twitter for $44 billion back in April at $54.20 per share in cash which at the time was a 54% premium on the price the day he began investing in Twitter.

The offer, which was initially rejected by the Twitter board was eventually accepted leading to a series of condition precedents and triggers on both sides for the deal to have culminated.

Elon Musk notified Twitter of its decision to back out from the deal via a disclosure to the US Security and Exchange Commission stating a number of reasons why he was backing out from the deal.

Elon Musk claims Twitter has not complied with its contractual obligations to provide Mr. Musk and his advisors with all data and information that Mr. Musk requests “for any reasonable business purpose related to the consummation of the transaction,”.

He also claims that for nearly two months, he has sought the data and information necessary to “make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform”.

He maintained that the information was fundamental to Twitter’s business and financial performance and is necessary to consummate the transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement because it is needed to ensure Twitter’s satisfaction with the conditions to closing, to facilitate Mr. Musk’s financing and financial planning for the transaction, and to engage in transition planning for the business.

He also claims Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information. Sometimes Twitter has ignored Mr. Musk’s requests, sometimes it has rejected them for reasons that appear to be unjustified, and sometimes it has claimed to comply while giving Mr. Musk incomplete or unusable information.

Elon Musk also disclosed that his financial advisors at Morgan Stanley have been requesting critical information from Twitter as far back as May 9, 2022—and repeatedly since then—on the relationship between Twitter’s disclosed mDAU figures and the prevalence of false or spam accounts on the platform.

Twitter responded swiftly, denying the claims made by Musk and stating that it will do anything within its power to follow through with the deal.

Twitter said its board was “committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and will seek legal action to conclude the transaction.

Elon Musk is expected to pay Twitter $1 billion if he walks away from the deal.

However, this is subject to conditions in the agreement which Elon Musk believes does not require that he pays any money to Twitter.

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JULY 10 - JULY 16, 2022 T H E W I L L N E W S P A P E R • www.thewillnigeria.com

BUSINESS NEWS Polaris Bank Sustains Support For SMEs, Partners ‘Eventful’ on 6th Fashion SOUK

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L-R: Commissioner for Industry, Trade and Investment, Ogun State, Mrs Kikelomo Longe; Vice President, LCCI, Prince Abimbola Olashore, and Chairman, Printing, Publishing and Allied Group, LCCI, Princess Layo Okeowo-Bakare, during a courtesy visit by the leadership of the group to Ogun State Commissioner for Industry, Trade and Investment in Abeokuta, Ogun State on July 5, 2022.

Zenith Maintains Leading Position as Nigeria’s Best Bank For Three Consecutive Years

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corporate professionals as the most coveted and credible awards in the banking industry, with winners chosen in 150 countries and territories across Africa, AsiaPacific, the Caribbean, Central America, Central & Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, North America and Western Europe.

Founded in 1987, Global Finance regularly selects the top performers among banks and other financial services providers, and the awards have become a trusted standard of excellence for the global financial community.

Joseph D. Giarraputo, publisher and editorial director of Global Finance, said: “With the financial world in a state of turmoil from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, corporate leaders face a new set of challenges concerning the choice of their banking relationships.”

According to him, “following on the enormous difficulties wrought by the pandemic, these changes demand increased attention to global commercial relationships. Our awards support decision-makers in selecting the best financial partners.”

Onyeagwu

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enith Bank Plc has emerged as the Best Bank in Nigeria in the Global Finance Magazine’s Best Banks Awards 2022, retaining the award for a third consecutive year. The Bank was among other banks from 36 countries in Africa recognised as the prestigious Global Finance announced its 29th Annual Best Bank Awards Winners.

The editors of Global Finance made the selections after extensive consultations with corporate financial executives, bankers and banking consultants, and analysts worldwide.

Global Finance considered factors that ranged from the quantitative objective to the informed subjective in selecting the top banks. Objective criteria considered included: growth in assets, profitability, geographic reach, strategic relationships, new business development and innovation in products. Subjective criteria included the opinions of equity analysts, credit rating analysts, banking consultants and others involved in the industry.

Commenting on the award, the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive of Zenith Bank, Mr Ebenezer Onyeagwu said: “This award is a testament to our tenacity despite a very challenging macroeconomic environment.

Indeed, being recognised, for the third consecutive year, is an acknowledgement of the resilience of the Zenith brand as the leading financial institution in Nigeria.”

He lauded the contributions and efforts of the Bank’s key stakeholders – the Founder and Chairman, Jim Ovia, CON, for his pioneering role in building the structures and laying the foundation for an enduring and successful institution, the Board for the outstanding leadership they provide, the staff for their commitment and dedication as well as the Bank’s customers for their unwavering loyalty and support.

Global Finance’s “Best Banks Awards” are recognised amongst the world’s most influential banking/finance and

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SITA Signs $400m Syndicated Credit Facility

BY ANTHONY AWUNOR

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ITA, a global IT provider for the aviation industry, has signed a $400m inaugural sustainability-linked revolving credit facility over a minimum three-year term.

The backup facility will support the company’s general business needs, such as developing new solutions and strategies to alleviate the air transport industry’s challenges of today and in the future.

The syndication was oversubscribed. As part of the arrangement, four new banks have signed up to support SITA in addition to the company’s five existing banking partners, underlining investor confidence in the technology provider. Stakeholders believe that SITA’s robust cost control, effective cash management, and strengthening green credentials are factors contributing to investor interest.

This new backup syndicated facility will supersede the company’s previous bilateral committed lines and is now directly linked to pre-agreed environmental KPIs and yearly targets, with a bonus or a malus on the interest margin depending on SITA’s performance.

In recent years, SITA has ramped up its emission reduction efforts, achieving CarbonNeutral status under The CarbonNeutral Protocol in 2021. More recently, the company announced its commitment to setting science-based targets via the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) to join other leading companies to combat climate change aligned to net-zero and the 1.5oC scenario of the Paris Agreement.

The syndicated credit facility linked to environmental performance is an innovative step forward in the company’s ongoing sustainability efforts. It includes significant reduction targets relating to Scope 1, 2, and 3 greenhouse gas emissions to align with SBTi frameworks. SITA’s performance against these targets will be externally audited.

Nicolas Husson, CFO of SITA, said: “Sustainability is high on our agenda and we are deeply committed to ensuring a sustainable future for all, including for our employees, customers, and partners. We are delighted to secure financing that is directly linked to the performance of our sustainability ambitions.”

olaris Bank has reaffirmed its commitment to the growth of Nigeria’s Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) as it announces the sponsorship of the 6th Lagos Fashion Souk 2022. The event is organized in partnership with Nigeria’s foremost event management company, EVENTFUL Limited.

The two-day Fashion Souk/business fair will be held on Saturday 9th and Sunday, July 10, 2022, at the Harbour Point facility on Victoria Island, Lagos.

Announcing the event, Polaris Bank’s Group Head, Strategic Brand Management, Nduneche Ezurike, said, “As an SMEs-friendly Bank, it is always our delight to explore opportunities to grow Nigeria’s Small and Medium Enterprises.

Polaris Bank’s lead sponsorship of the 6th edition of the Fashion Souk, underscores our acknowledgment of the SMEs as the catalyst for Nigeria’s economic growth.” Continuing, he noted that “this year’s Fashion Souk is unique as it provides an opportunity for Eid-el-Kabir holidaymakers with an unforgettable shopping experience as visitors will behold the creativity of the Nigerian entrepreneurs, especially in the beauty and fashion space.”

Mr Ezurike further stated that Polaris Bank’s continued partnership with EVENTFUL Limited in the last two years stimulated the entrepreneurial spirit of many Nigerians, especially the new-age innovators in the key sectors of the national economy. He commended Eventful Ltd for blazing the trail in showcasing the enterprise amongst Nigerians.

Commenting on the essence of the SOUK, Founder and Chairman of Eventful and Convener of the Fashion Souk, Yewande Zaccheaus, said: “Eventful Limited has been deliberate in using the platform of the Fashion Souk to create the muchneeded road to market for budding fashion entrepreneurs whilst also expanding the target market of the more established designers. In partnership with Polaris Bank, we are proud to once again contribute to the growth of the nation’s economy.”

More than 130 SMEs in Nigeria’s fashion industry, cutting across manufacturers, retailers, and dealers, are billed to showcase their creativity and product lines at the Fashion Souk.

According to a December 2021 industry report, the Sub-Saharan African fashion market is worth $31 billion, with Nigeria holding an expanding share of 15 percent.

In line with its SME focus, Polaris Bank has partnered with and supported businesses in critical sectors of the Nigerian economy, including health, education, manufacturing, agriculture, export, and others. The Bank has advanced credits to these sectors in excess of N20bn for the acquisition of medical equipment, machines, distribution and logistics of medical products; stationaries, furniture, classrooms, school bus; working capital for businesses, expansion, etc.

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ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Nigeria’s Informal Sector And Economic Development

BY TIMI OLUBIYI

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he term “informal economy” covers a vast array of circumstances and events throughout the country.

In contrast, working in the informal economy (IE) is frequently based on small or undefined workplaces, unsafe and unhealthy working conditions, unregulated, low levels of skills and productivity, low or irregular incomes, long working hours, and a lack of access to information, markets, financing, training, and technology.

Informal activities are those that occur outside of the legal framework and the government regulation. The informal economy can be viewed as either the nature of the enterprise’s operations or the nature of its employee relationships. Consequently, millions of Nigerians, particularly those residing in the economic centre of the country, Lagos State, live, work, and trade in the informal sector and also employ the most vulnerable residents.

In terms of employment and output, the informal sector in Nigeria is larger than the formal sector in terms of employment and job creation, according to contextual observations.

In certain instances, the informal economy is referred to as a “shadow economy” if it is involved with unlawful and criminal activities such as online scams, black markets, crime, manufacture and smuggling of illegal items, or money laundering. One thing is certain regarding the informal economy: informality provides crucial economic possibilities for the poor and disadvantaged.

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the informal economy employs approximately 5.5 million people in Lagos State alone—roughly three-quarters of the state’s 7.5 million labour force—and in the country as a whole, with nearly 200 million people, over 80 percent of the population works in the informal sector (IMF). Given the labour intensity, there is little doubt that the bulk of businesses and entrepreneurs are in the informal sector. Unlike the formal economy, the informal economy’s operations are not included in the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

As a result, the GDP figure computation is a significant underestimate of the country’s GDP when the massive informal economy is excluded. Meanwhile, the country’s informal sector continues to flourish in various situations and, based on demographic and economic data, may be the biggest in Africa. Agreeably, across the country, it is easy to notice street traders, artisans, vendors, nano and microbusinesses, commercial buses, tricycles, and motorbikes (Okada riders), domestic workers, market traders, among others, all operating informally. Broadly speaking, you can easily see informality all around the country.

In the country, the informal economy has grown dramatically over the last two decades, with the root causes including elements related to the country’s economic context; decreasing levels of market regulation; weak policy frameworks; and socio-demographic drivers such as population growth, urbanisation, rising unemployment, widening inequality between rich and poor; and lowlevel education, including poverty. The major driver of the informal economy, on the other hand, is that such enterprises do not need to register with any relevant government authorities.

When citizens cannot find job in traditional wage employment, the requirement for sustenance forces them to look for labour elsewhere. The alternative is mainly in the informal sector of the economy, where there is no minimum wage and workers are unlikely to pay taxes, have no holiday or labour rights, and frequently work in unsafe conditions. Most of the time, it is difficult for them to obtain microcredit since they lack economic stability and concrete employer-employee ties.

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Overall, the informal economy is enduring, but suitable regulations and policies are required to improve the sector and introduce formalization

In the middle of all of this, it merely provides a footing for survival for the most vulnerable and frequently ignored Nigerians. The majority of the elite view the enlarged and vast informal economy to be at the bottom rung of the economic system, whereas in fact, they are the key drivers of the economic system because they are too large, significant, and relevant to be ignored.

For example, it is unclear whether the country has reliable data on the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) activities in the country or the volume of transactions in Ladipo auto spare parts market in Oshodi, Lagos State, and the popular computer village in Ikeja, Lagos State, Balogun Market, and Alaba International Market, to name a few. This sector of the economy is notably significant in Nigeria, yet it is not subject to comprehensive government controls.

Meanwhile, employment in the industry is appealing owing to the simplicity with which operations are carried out as a consequence of the absence of a bureaucratic regulatory framework and little or no formal educational qualification requirements. There are multiple perspectives on the informal economy. Some associate it with unfair competition, low productivity, human rights abuses, and

environmental degradation, while others associate it with entrepreneurship, flexibility, and resilience.

Overall, the informal economy is enduring, but suitable regulations and policies are required to improve the sector and introduce formalization. The decision for these businesses to formalise depends on the benefits that are derived from formalisation over the risks of remaining in the informal economy. If the former outweighs the latter, only then does formalisation seem like a viable option to the operators.

Clearly, there is a need for the government to embark on a series of measures, interventions, and support to encourage the formalisation of these businesses to sustain economic growth and development. As mentioned earlier, this informal sector is too large and important to be ignored. A concerted effort to identify and protect them is crucial for sustainability and economic development because huge potential tax revenue is lost yearly to this informality.

In recent times, the consequences of novel coronavirus (COVID19) pandemic, inflationary pressures, insufficient electricity, high fuel cost have negatively impacted these informal businesses greatly. In this context, careful attention must be paid to the informal economy, and policy solutions need to be in place to encourage and induce formalization. Besides, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is urging national statistical agencies to gather information on the informal economy to help in policy formulations and to gather reliable data for economic planning.

Therefore, the government may wish to have mass registration and identification and equally reach out to them through social interventions and palliative care.

These suggestions, if efficiently considered, might, in turn, reduce the size of the informality in the country.

•Dr Olubiyi is an Entrepreneurship and Business Management expert.

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SHOTS OF THE WEEK Photo Editor: Peace Udugba [08033050729]

L-R: Chief Digital Officer, Nigerian Exchange Limited, (NGX), Dr. Femi Oyenuga; Divisional Head, Business Support Services, NGX, Irene Robinson- Ayanwale; Deputy Managing Director, Ghana Stock Exchange, (GSE), Ms. Abena Amoah; Divisional Head, Capital Markets, NGX, Mr. Jude Chiemeka; Director General, Securities and Exchange Commission, Ghana, Rev Ogbarmey Tetteh; Chief Executive Officer, Central Securities Depository, Ghana, Mr. Michael Mensah, and Divisional Head, Business Services and Client Experience, Central Securities and Clearing System, (CSCS) Plc, Mrs. Onome Komolafe, during a Closing Gong Ceremony hosted for a delegation of Ghana Capital Market leaders, at NGX in Lagos on July 5, 2022.

L-R: Education Officer, Basic Education Unit, Federal Ministry of Education, Bisi Adigun; Senior Nutrition Officer, Federal Ministry of Health, Eunice Kodak; Public Affairs Specialist, Nestlé Nigeria Plc, Edidiong Peters; FCT Chapter Chairman, Nutrition Society of Nigeria, Dr Florence Uchendu; Dep. Director, School Health, FCT Universal Basic Education Board, Alhaji Aboki Danladi during Nestlé kids competition program, organised for schools in Ogun State on July 8, 2022.

L-R: Managing Director, Wema Bank Plc, Mr. Ademola Adebise; Consular General, People’s Republic of China, Lagos, Mr. Chu Moaning; Chairman, GAC Motor, Chief Diana Chen; Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu; Director General, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Dr. Chinyere Almona and Vice President, CIG Group, Mr. Linus Idahosa, during the GAC Motor’s opening and unveiling of the All New GS4 Car, in Lagos on July 4, 2022.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, SAN; (right) Chairman, Diaspora Commission, Hon. Abike Dabiri- Erewa (left) and L-R: Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi; Project Manager CCECC Construction company, Simon Hu; Mr. Kunle Adeyanju, middle, (who rode his bike from London to Lagos) during his visit to the Vice President Yemi Commissioner for Works and Transport, Mr Sola Adebayo; MD/CEO, Axxess International, Mr John Olajide and Osinbajo at the Statehouse, Abuja July 7, 2022. others during a tour of the airport project in Ado-Ekiti on July 6, 2022.

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ENINNAYA NWIGWE

The Leading Man PAGE 22-27

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Eninnaya Nwigwe has had a smooth ride as an actor, taking lead character roles in some blockbuster movies. A humanitarian who also enjoys cooking, he speaks with Ivory Ukonu about his life as one of the most sought-after Nollywood actors. Excerpts:

I’M INTENTIONAL ABOUT MY ACTING CAREER – ENINNAYA NWIGWE I

s acting for you a means to an end or a dream come true?

It is both for me actually.

How did your journey to the acting world begin?

It was by accident, which I like to call serendipity. I was in the right place at God’s ordained time.

How easy or difficult was your acceptance in the industry?

Like every career journey, there will always be obstacles. Some set by self, some by others and some by the system. But in all, I’ll say the universe has navigated me over time through what I do or drop.

I can say I have enjoyed a level of grace such that acceptance has never been a concern.

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wand fell on my photo. So the universe confirmed it.

What went through your mind then you were approached and were you at any point hesitant about playing the lead role, considering Babangida’s antecedents?

I was actually super excited. I mean, it is a biopic and not just that, that of our most controversial military president.

It is an actor’s dream role really.

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Why did the movie only premiere in London after several postponements and not in Nigeria?

I believe the producer will be in a better place to answer the question.

Which movie gave you your big break and launched you to the group of A list actors?

That would be between Black November and The Wedding Party 1 & 2.

Do you have a dream role in your bucket list?

Not really. But I have a few exciting international roles in the works and excited for what the future holds for our industry. God leads, I follow.

You have played quite a number of roles over the years. What determines the kind of roles you take on in movies?

Whichever role speaks to me on the first script read I go with, if the terms of the project work for me.

Like some of your colleagues who have ventured into movie production, are you looking in that direction as well?

Yes, I am. At some point, we have to evolve from the show to the business of the show to come full circle in show business. I have been producing in the shadows collaboratively, but I have kept focus on the acting aspect.

Do you sometimes have an input into the kind of roles you play?

Yes, I do. It is always important to learn from experience as an actor, beyond acting, as sometimes you find that you have a better understanding or experience with the character’s experience or work exposure, than the director/producer you are working for. Let me put it this way, a working actor is constantly working across projects with different directors, cast and crew, not forgetting the travel experiences and exposure to cultures and people, behavioral patterns and past character research. The actor also knows better what kind of actor he/ she wants to be seen as and should have some level of control over their choices.

Did you ever think in your wildest imagination that you would be as big and as recognized as you are today?

In all sense of modesty, I was confident about my vision for success in the space, reading it from the start.

Which role and in which movie would you say challenged your craft as an actor?

Quite a number, but I’ll leave that between BADAMASI, the biopic on former military Head of State, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, which I was shooting alongside Living in Bondage due to scheduling clash and a recent movie I just finished in the Caribbean island of St Maarten titled CHOKEHOLD. Speaking of BADAMASI, why do you think you were approached to play the role of IBB? In the director, Obi Emelonye’s first words when he ran into me one early morning while jogging around 1004 Housing Estate where we were both living at the time, “I woke up from a dream to make a biopic on the controversial Military President General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida and no other person came to mind that would be able to carry such a role as you. So get ready. I don’t know when, but it will be made.”

Three years later, we were on set. And to add, he had taken 10 photos of Nigerian actors home, across regions and abroad to give the man a chance to pick who plays the role in this all-telling story and the THEWILLNIGERIA

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If you had to change one thing about your industry to take it to another level, what would that be and how would you go about it?

So many things can be structured better, including the work of the guilds in protecting the industry players. Also constant capacity building, especially now that we are encroaching more into the global audience space with the influx of the big platforms like Netflix, Amazon, Apple TV and others.

What would you consider to be your greatest challenge as an actor?

It would be finding work/life balance. I believe I’m getting a better hang of that now. Choosing what I do and when, to allow me time to focus on other business priorities and personal life.

What was growing up like for you, did it in any way impact on your acting career?

Not at all, I had a normal childhood like the average child in Nigeria and like I mentioned earlier, I did not go into acting intentionally.

Intentionality came after I started.

What would you say must have significantly shaped you to be who you are today?

It would be my upbringing and other influences like books, associations and travel.

Who are some of the people you look up to in Nollywood and why?

Richard Mofe Damijo easily tops the list from the acting perspective.

He has been able to sustain a brand, transcending time. Also Ramsey Noah’s transition from leading man to one of the top directors today is also admirable.

You seem to be adventurous when it comes to food and you enjoy cooking. How did that aspect of you evolve?

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I believe it must have been my mother using our hands and company in the kitchen growing up. I think that demystified the kitchen space early for me as a male child. Also my older and only brother had some interest in cooking during our teenage days and that also must have further pushed the normalcy of it. So when I got into the university it was normal for me to make my own food whenever I felt like it. So during the lockdown, the passion grew as it became a sort of therapy for me.

You have a YouTube channel showcasing your prowess and that of others in the kitchen. Are you dreaming beyond YouTube and perhaps having your own cooking show on TV? Absolutely, cooking shows, competitions and beyond that, I am working on merchandising as well.

Who in your honest opinion do you think are the best cooks, men or women?

I can’t say categorically, but I can tell you there are more successful male chefs in the world today than women. It could be different on the home front. It is a woman’s place to be in the kitchen, but without knowing it, a man’s default love language is ‘Act of service.’

If you think of the saying “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” then you might catch the drift. When men take cooking as ‘work’ and earn from it, they do magic. However, for women, it is part of their nurturing nature.

You also run your own foundation. What is it all about?

Enyinna Nwigwe Foundation is focused on helping the less privileged children and the physically challenged in our communities. We have on our own done a few outreach programmes.

Some were held during the COVID-19 lockdown and recently we donated several wheelchairs and cash to the physically-challenged community in Karamajiji Abuja. By God’s grace, we hope to do more while seeking support, volunteering and collaborations from bigger organisations and well-meaning people.

When did you set it up and how would you assess its impact since inception?

It’s been three years since it was set up and considering my schedule, I believe I have done the much I could within the time and I am looking to do more with more help.

Has there ever been a time you thought of quitting as an actor?

Of course, every actor in the world has been there one or more times on their journey.

How do you let off steam when you aren’t working?

I either go to the gym or stay indoors, figure out a new recipe, try out a new dish and perhaps binge watch a trending series. Also I find time to connect with friends since my work routine isn’t the most conventional.

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STORIES BY IVORY UKONU

Ego Boyo’s Son Weds Justice Belgore’s Daughter

REIGN OF OSIBODUS AS NIGERIA’S CORPORATE POWER COUPLE ENDS

he reign of businessman and socialite, Victor Osibodu and his corporate titan wife, Funke, as one of Nigeria’s power couples has come to an inglorious end.

At the height of their reign, they both bestrode the corporate and society scenes like true titans. On the social scene, they only attended A-list shindigs as most high profile individuals considered them worthy to be on their guest list. On the business scene, they both did well for themselves individually and as a couple. They combined their professional callings; Victor as a pharmacist and Funke as an economist/banker, to become one of Africa’s leading power couples, until things began to fall apart.

Victor and Funke are the brains behind Vigeo Holdings LTD. Although Victor is the founder of the multi-billion naira business empire, he co-owns it with his wife. She is a director in the group and the chief executive officer of Vigeo Capital Limited. The company’s operations are organised in five distinct business divisions operated through subsidiaries: Capital, marketing and distribution, oil and gas, power and shipping. Funke’s experience in the banking sector came in handy at the capital market operations where the company offers stock brokerage, asset management and advisory services in estate planning, insurance, finance, property acquisition, construction and project management, marketing, and sale of properties, off-plan real

estate ventures and property and facility management.

At some point, the company provided marketing management services, such as corporate services, including corporate rewards, award services, accessories and memorabilia.

Other services included various aspects of brand management, including merchandising, channel development, promotional materials, experiential marketing services, road shows and product launches. The outcome of their combined expertise and business leadership drive made Vigeo Holdings occupy a place of pride in the corporate sector.

Before setting up Vigeo in 1985, Victor worked in Boots Company Nigeria Ltd and Bodmat International Company. Funke on her part has almost 30 years of cumulative working experience in the banking industry where she started her career at NAL Merchant Bank and later moved over to Continental Merchant Bank. She is the first female to attain the height of managing director/ CEO of a bank in Nigeria. She has the distinctive position of heading MBC International Bank Limited, Ecobank Nigeria Plc and finally, Union Bank Plc. Funke was once named one of the World’s 50 leading business women by the Financial Times of London. The global jury of experts chose her in recognition of her role in strengthening the management of the bank, improving discipline and ensuring transparency.

Unfortunately, all that shine and exuberance they exuded as a power couple soon began to dissipate.

First, it took Ecobank dragging Victor and his company to court for owing a whooping sum of N8.7 billion for members of the public and society watchers to realise that

Afolabi

here is no stopping serial entrepreneur, Taiwo Afolabi, who keeps manifesting his winning streak in virtually every sector of the economy. Just when everyone thought he would take a breather from making deft business moves, the astute businessman has once again expanded his business tentacles to include the energy sector.

His company, Sifax Energy, a sister company to his conglomerate, Sifax Group, was among 15 other firms that were shortlisted as pre qualified bidders by the Bureau of Public Enterprise for the privatisation of the five National Integrated Power Projects (NIPPs) namely, Benin Generation Company Limited at Ihovba, Edo State; Calabar Generation Company Limited, Cross River state; Geregu Generation Company Limited, Kogi State; Olorunsogo Generation Company Limited, Ogun State and Omotosho Generation

The Osibodus

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the power couple has been battling with a monumental debt and only managed to keep it under the lid for as long as they could. The debt was almost going to make him lose two of his prized properties, one of which is the building housing Vigeo Holdings Limited on Osborne Road worth N800 million, as well as another building on Milverton Road, Ikoyi worth N700 million. While that was still on, his wife got kicked out of Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) by the Federal Government for underperformance.

Although Victor is the Chairman of Vigeo Power Limited in charge of BEDC, his wife until her unceremonious exit was the Chief Executive Officer of the company.

Other Electricity Distribution Companies taken over by the Federal Government were the electricity distribution companies of Kano and Kaduna. Like Kano and Kaduna, BEDC was considered to be technically incapacitated, and financial insolvent after its loan facilities from Fidelity Bank became moribund, landing them in trouble with the bank.

The Boards of the three companies have since been dissolved and replaced. With the Osibodu led Benin DISCO, KC Akuma was appointed Chairman while Adeola Ijose and Charles Onwere were appointed members of the board. Also, the Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE nominated Yomi Adeyemi as an independent director to represent the government’s 40% interest in the BEDC during the transition.

Reacting to the takeover, BEDC management said there is no contractual, statutory or regulatory basis for such and therefor no legal basis for the takeover of the company.

It also said that its shares have not been given as security to Fidelity Bank or to any other party and therefore warned that any attempt by Fidelity Bank or BPE to intervene will be considered illegal, unlawful and will be resisted.

Hopefully, the power couple is able to gather the pieces of what is left of their empire and trudge on.

Taiwo Afolabi’s Sifax Group Eyes Energy Sector

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Company Limited, Ondo State.

SIFAX Group is one of the leading conglomerates in Nigeria with offices in Tema, Ghana, Durban, USA, Rotterdam, Belgium, Gambia, Malabo and England. It started operation as SIFAX Nigeria Limited, a freight forwarding agency in Lagos rendering services such as haulage and warehousing operations. The company later metamorphosed due to its rapid growth to several subsidiaries, such as, maritime, aviation, logistics, oil and gas, financial services and hospitality.

As chairman of the group, Afolabi has built SIFAX to such enviable heights that he was recently named the Vanguard Businessman of the Year for his immense contribution to the business sector through the establishment of conglomerates, which has largely contributed to the economic and financial growth of the country.

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ast weekend, Ilorin, Kwara State came alive as dignitaries stormed the town for the first leg of the line-up of wedding ceremonies with the traditional wedding/Nikkai ceremony of Keji Maryam, the daughter of Justice Alfa Belgore, a former chief Justice of Nigeria to the love of her life, Eyisan Boyo, son of veteran actress and movie producer, Ego Boyo and Omamofe Boyo, the deputy group, chief executive officer of Oando PLC. During the ceremony, Eyisan was given a Muslim name, Abdulrahman, perhaps in accordance with the Muslim/

Kwara culture. The bride, Keji, is a UK-trained physician who graduated from the University College, London. She is also based there. Emisan is also based in London and that is where his and Keji’s love story began.

While the Belgores known for hosting big parties had their creme of influential guests around for the wedding, movie personalities like Ego’s on screen lover, Richard Mofe-damijo, Joke Silva, Kate Henshaw, Rita Dominic and movie producer, Mildred Okwo, honoured the entertainment entrepreneur with their presence.

The Bellos

OLUBADAN ABSENT AS DAUGHTER WEDS IN LONDON

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eju, one of the daughters of the Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Lekan Balogun, last weekend, got married to her lover of several years, Ayo Olugbenle Bello in London. Unfortunately, her father was conspicuously absent from the ceremony that was graced by a few prominent Nigerians who flew out to make the day memorable for her and on behalf of her father. No reason was given for the royal father’s absence at his daughter’s wedding.

The wedding, which was held within the stipulated time, between 2.pm to 2.am, started out with a church wedding ceremony at Harmony Christian Centre at Kemp Road, Dagenham, RM8 1ST. Reception began immediately after at Oasis Banqueting Hall at Thames Road, Barking, IG11 0HZ. While the men wore white native with gold fila as aso ebi or preferably, black suits, the women wore emerald green aso ebi or emerald green/gold English dress.

Although the invite stated that the ceremonies would strictly be by invitation only, devoid of kids and frowned at a plus one, Nigerians in their characteristic manner flouted the rules. The couple met in 2018 and kicking off a relationship was made quite easy as the groom’s family and the bride’s mum were already friends. Temi revealed that she made the first move on her now husband and she has not regretted it one bit.

The Boyos

Cleric Welcomes Child With Second Wife

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ontroversial Nigerian pastor, Prophet Joshua Iginla, the General Overseer of Champions Royal Assembly, Abuja, is no doubt savouring the joy of his marriage to a new wife after divorcing his wife of 10 years, Yemisi. His new wife was delivered of a new baby boy, his second son with her, about two weeks ago. Iginla has been over the moon since the arrival of the tot. He has since named him Majemu Majesty Iginla and dedicated him at the South Africa branch of his church.

In 2020, Iginla had personally announced the breakup of his marriage to Yemisi on the pulpit. Both of them were not only adulterous in their marriage, they both had children outside of wedlock. Iginla fathered a child named Rhema with his now second wife, Zimasa Ndamase, a wealthy South African,

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while still married to Yemisi and she in turn bore a child for another man.

In fact, court documents allege that Iginla may have married Ziamasa in 2014 in a civil ceremony that they both kept secret. While Iginla forgave Yemisi, hoping to continue living with her as man and wife, she refused to forgive him and made life unbearable for him.

Thus began the end of their marriage. Like her ex husband, Yemisi has also moved on and remarried.

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Where is Lanre Ojora?

AMOSUN ABANDONS A LOYALISTS, BETRAYS ADEKUNLE AKINLADE

t over 70 years, Lanre Ojora has obviously paid her dues as a socialite of note and one of the matriarchs of high society.

A very stylish grand dame who still oozes sexiness at her age, Lanre has managed to remain as stunning as she was when she first met her late husband, multimillionaire, Ajibade Ojora who was the younger brother to Otunba Adekunle Ojora, board room guru and father in-law to former Senate President, Bukola Saraki.

At some point, the grandmother had to put her social life on hold when she lost her daughter, Bimbo Babalola, in the Bellview Airplane crash of 2015. She

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he sad thing about betrayal is that it doesn’t come from an enemy. It is always those closest to you, those you look up to and those who vow to remain loyal despite all odds. These are the ones always quick to hit the betray button. This much is exactly the kind of scenario that has played out in the case of Senator Ibikunle Amosun, a former governor of Ogun State and his protege, Adekunle Akinlade, a former member of the House of Representatives. Amosun Akinlade who was the flagbearer of the Allied Progressives Movement (APM) in the 2019 governorship election in Ogun State, would never forget his experience with Amosun in a hurry.

In fact, the period between 2019 and 2022 will remain indelible in his mind for the rest of his life.

When Amosun picked Akinlade in 2019 as his anointed candidate to succeed him towards the twilight of his tenure, many kicked against it.

But the two remained focused or so it seemed and trudged on. When it looked like the party wasn’t going to give Akinlade the ticket, Amosun advised him and his loyalists to move to APM where he clinched the party ticket. However, he remained in the All Progressives Congress (APC) on the pretext of making Akinlade’s wishes come true by fighting for it as an insider in APC. Unfortunately, Dapo Abiodun trounced Akinlade at the polls.

On Amosun’s advice, Akinlade took Abiodun to court and pursued the case up till it got to the Supreme Court, where he lost. While Amosun who remained in APC got a Senatorial position at the end of the day, Akinlade was left out in the cold.

To pacify him, Amosun wooed him

Akinlade back to APC, promising to help him fulfill his political aspirations, come 2023. Amosun asked him to bury his grievances and display the same courage and high sense of responsibility that kept ‘them, on the course of justice for two years.’

Believing Amosun, who was his mentor and political godfather afterall, Akinlade returned to the APC. A few months to the governorship primaries, rather than fulfill his promise to his protege with some early ground work, Amosun busied himself with obtaining a N100 million presidential form and declaration of interest form for a position he had no business contesting for. But Akinlade kept his eyes on the ball. He was certain 2023 was his time and he would emerge the flagbearer of APC in the governorship race. Alas, his plans boomeranged in his face. He reportedly scored no point in the primary. Feeling disenfranchised, Akinlade blamed the national leadership of the party for refusing to quell the internal crisis rocking the party that cost him his victory and allowing injustice to reign.

Reacting to his protege’s defeat shortly after renouncing his

presidential aspiration for Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Amosun wished Akinlade and his other loyalists well, saying that he would not stop any of his followers from achieving their political ambitions in any political party of their choice. He however maintained that he won’t go against the party, despite the perceived injustice meted out on ‘him’ and his loyalists adding that he plans to maintain his friendship with President Muhammadu Buhari, no matter what happened and promised to stay with him till the end of his administration on May 29, 2023 and even following him to Daura.

Also Amosun said he was preoccupied with making sure that the APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, emerged President of Nigeria in 2023. He therefore cautioned Akinlade and his other loyalists against using his name or that of his party structure as a bargaining chip in whatever sharing formula is being proposed by the party’s reconciliation committee.

Akinlade has however moved on and is now the running mate to Ladi Adebutu, the governorship candidate of a faction of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Ogun state.

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Ojora

On Shina Pellers’ Dramatic Bid For The Senate

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espite has come for socialite and night club entrepreneur, Shina Peller. The politician, who dumped the ruling All Progressives Congress for losing the ticket for Oyo North Senatorial district, has finally

Atedo Peterside’s Daughter, Tokini, Gets Married ot too long ago, Tokini, the first daughter of investment banker, Atedo Peterside, founder of Stanbic IBTC Bank, Anap Business Jets Limited and the Atedo N. A. Peterside Foundation, tied the nuptial knot with her Caucasian lover at the Balmoral Event Centre, Lagos. It was a very colourful and beautiful event with cultural dancers from Peterside’s native Rivers State adding flavour to the ceremony. And to further spice things up, super star David Adeleke aka Davido thrilled the guests from his repertoire of songs.

Expectedly, the guests list was made up of mostly people from the corporate world where the bride’s father operates. Tokini’s inlaws equally swarmed the event venue in their numbers to celebrate with their son.

A very cerebral being, Tokini is the founder

refused to be consoled.

She only managed to put her grief on hold when she made a brief appearance in 2019 during the 25th memorial thanksgiving and remembrance of her late husband who was an executive at Mobil Oil Nigeria.

Thereafter she went back into her shell. When her in-law, Otunba Ojora joined the nonagenarian club a few weeks ago, many expected to see Lanre at the birthday celebration, but she was no where to be found. Although she isn’t particularly close to her inlaws, one wonders if it wouldn’t have been a decent thing to put sentiments aside to celebrate the partriach of the Ojora family.

of Arts x Lagos, the first international art fair in West Africa. A graduate of INSEAD and London School of Economics, Tokini choose a career in marketing, and subsequently became Head of Marketing at Moët Hennessy, part of the LVMH group, in Nigeria.

She founded TP-Collective in 2012, providing strategy, business planning and marketing consulting to luxury and culture businesses in Nigeria. A recipient of several awards, her most recent recognition was being included in Apollo magazine’s 40 Under 40 list. Her husband, Gregoire Victor Schwebig, a French national is the founder of Africa Works, a panAfrican flexible workspace provider chain, operating in nine cities across eight countries and counting. He also runs Haussmann Africa, a corporate real estate company.

secured the same ticket on the platform of Accord Party.

Shina’s journey to securing the ticket was dramatic, no doubt.

Most people had expected him to return to the House of Representatives for a second term, but Shina didn’t. He claimed that he opted to run for a senatorial seat to satisfy the overall benefits of his constituency. He said he wanted to give room to the people of Kajola and Iwajowa Local Government Areas to produce a federal representative in the constituency as they haven’t presented a representative for almost 16 years. So, he couldn’t run for a second term as his integrity was at stake. Instead, he opted to go for the Senate.

But he got trounced at the primary by the incumbent, a two time senator, Fatai Buhari.

Shina got only five votes.

He did not take his defeat lightly. He alleged that there were irregularities in the form of illegal accreditation,

registration of names with no passports etc. at the primary.

In simple terms, He claimed that it was a kangaroo primary that took place and conducted with the close supervision of the former Oyo State Commissioner for Works and Transport, Alhaji Wasiu Dauda Azuzu and the winner of the primary, Fatai Buhari.

Not done, Shina also claimed that there were attempts to assassinate him because he voiced out his dissatisfaction with the kangaroo election. He alleged that the assassination plot was hatched by Senator Teslim Folarin, a three time Senator and the APC governorship candidate in Oyo State. Folarin didn’t find this allegation funny especially because Shina asked for President Muhammadu Buhari’s intervention to keep him alive.

Folarin threatened to sue Shina for defamation insisting that he is not an assassin and does not operate a death squad and therefore could not have sent hired killers after Shina Peller or anyone.

Eventually, Shina dumped APC, citing the undemocratic conduct of some party chieftains particularly in Oyo State, who wanted to impose their preferred candidate on the people, as his reason. He made a show of his defection when he got a camera crew to video the removal of the APC flag from his office. Now he has berthed at Accord party but at an alleged cost. The initial candidate of the party, Demola Ojo, ‘willfully’ withdrew from the race for him. Giving reasons for stepping down, he said he took the decision in the interest of the people of the zone.

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Meet Morenike Ademiju-Daniel, Otunba Gbenga Daniel’s Daughter In-Law

MITCHELL ELEGBE BAGS ECOSYSTEM LEADERSHIP AWARD M

itchell Elegbe, the founder and Group Managing Director of Interswitch, one of Africa’s leading integrated payment and digital commerce group, has been honoured with the Ecosystem Leadership Award at the FintechNGR Platinum Award held in Lagos State. He was presented with the award in acknowledgment of his pioneering role as one of the trail blazers in Africa’s Fintech landscape, paving way for the growth and expansion of the ecosystem.

The award was organised by the Fintech Association of Nigeria.

It is a celebration of exceptional innovators and organisations that leverage technological innovations to change the lives of Africans.

Elegbe, who has been managing the affairs of Interswitch for a while, has developed multi-channel payment platforms and commerce solutions that enable innovators and entrepreneurs across the continent to implement new products, ideas and develop unique business models. He was formerly with Schlumberger Wireline and Testing before he started

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Afolabi is so fond of his lover that he has become a deadbeat father as he shunned his financial obligation to his children. The actor is not yet married, but he has grown up children from different women.

He allegedly loves anything in a skirt that is why he has different children from women. One of his daughters, Fisayomi Amodemja is a kid actress. Her mother, Bukola Amodemaja is also an actress in the Yoruba movie genre but not as active as her baby daddy. The girl they both had together bears her mother’s name because the actor has not been financially involved in her upbringing. But he would

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ormer Ogun State governor, Otunba Gbenga Daniel celebrated his son, Debola’s wedding on Saturday, July 2, 2022 in Lagos State. The event, attended by dignitaries, friends and family of the erstwhile governor, was indeed a colourful ceremony.

Debola walked down the aisle with his beautiful partner, Morenike Ademiju-Daniel. The couple was engaged in April, 2022.

Debola and Morenike made their first public appearance in August 2021 at Kehinde, Debola’s elder sister’s wedding

Elegbe Interswitch Group. The graduate of Electrical Engineering from the University of Benin has received many accolades in his career.

He is a Bishop Desmond Tutu’s fellow of the African Leadership Institute; Harvard Business School Association Leadership Award in General Management Category; Forbes All African Business Leader (AABLA) for West Africa.

to Debola Williams, the Group Chief Executive Officer of RED Africa. Morenike is a law graduate from the University of Lagos and was called to Bar in 2014. She works at Vetiva Capital Management Limited as the Head, Legal Operations.

Morenike was once shortlisted among the Rising Stars, 40 under 40 Nigerian Lawyers.

Daniel was first engaged to Natasha Morrison, who is a Jamaican but the relationship didn’t stand the test of time before it packed up. A few years after parting ways with Morrison, Daniel found love in the arms of Morenike.

Ooni of Ife Names Erelu Abiola Dosunmu Yeye Oodua

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ocialite and businesswoman, Erelu Abiola Dosunmu, has been named as the Yeye Oba Odua (Queen Mother of the House of Oduduwa)

by His Imperial Majesty, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja II. Erelu Dosunmu, who is well known in the social circles, is now the queen mother for all Yoruba traditional rulers who claim Ile-Ife and the House of Oodua as their source.

Dosunmu is stepping into the shoes of late Chief Mrs Hannah Dideolu Awolowo, the late Yeye Oba of Ife and wife of the first Premier of the defunct Western

Romance Tale Trails Murphy Afolabi, Eniola Ajao he duo of Nollywood thespians, Eniola Ajao and Murphy Afolabi are allegedly entangled in a romantic relationaship. The two have tried as much as possible to keep the relationship away from the public, but some of their colleagues are aware of it. The two have acted in a few movies together. Ajao was in one of her lover’s recent movies titled, ‘Alani, Omo Iya Osogbo’ and they have been seen together at different events. It was gathered that the actor is partly responsible for Ajao’s lavish lifestyle. The actress had a low key birthday celebration earlier this year and her actor lover was allegedly footing the bills.

Afolabi

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Ajao

always celebrate her and his other children during their birthdays on social media. Afolabi’s other grown-up children, Olamilekan and Moyosore, are also from different women. It was alleged that his youngest daughter, Okikiola who is about five years old was dropped at his mother’s place in Ikorodu and he has not been taking full responsibility of her welfare.

Ademiju-Daniel

Dosunmu

Region, late Chief Obafemi Awolowo. She was chosen because she has proved herself to be an outstanding woman of integrity and far-reaching influence.

When she was just 26 years-old, she was crowned as the Erelu Kuti of Lagos by late Oba Adeyinka Oyekan, the traditional ruler of Lagos State who was her uncle.

The ageless woman is planning a grand reception on Friday, July 29, 2022 to celebrate her title. Dosunmu also holds other traditional titles and honorary titles, she holds a national honor of the Royal Kingdom in Belgium. She is also an Erelu in Egbaland.

Oworonshoki Chiefs Make U-Turn, Seek Support For Oloworo of Oworonshoki

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hiefs and elders in Oworonshoki, Kosofe Local Government Area, are no longer singing discordant tunes as they are now drumming up support for the new traditional ruler of the community, Oba Babatunde Saliu, Elebo II. With this move, it seems an end has finally come to the crisis rocking the Oworonshoki kingship stool and the new traditional ruler can rule in peace.

The Governor of Lagos State, Babajide SanwoOlu, through his deputy, Dr Obafemi Hamzat, had crowned Oba Babatunde

Saliu as the new king of Oworonshoki in a private ceremony held in his office a few weeks ago.

Disgruntled members of the ruling family claimed that there was foul play in the emergence of the new king. They alleged that the king was imposed on the kingdom forcefully.

The Elders in Council had chosen Nurudeen, the eldest son of the late king to fill the stool but his brother, Babatunde allegedly used his political influence as a former Senior Special Adviser to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and a former chairman of Kosofe LGA

in 2021.

However, Chief Isiaka Lateef, the Alapini Oje of Oworonshoki and Chief Yusuf Lawal, the Aare Oje Oworonshoki kingdom, claimed that they both consulted the oracle and discovered that Oba Babatunde Saliu, Elebo II is truly the chosen one. They also revealed that they followed the kingdom’s guidelines and interviewed all the people who signified interest in the throne. However, Babatunde Saliu emerged the best candidate. The chiefs also denied the existence of any crisis in the community.

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STORIES BY SHADE WESLEY-METIBOGUN

Dele Philip Accused of Bribery

CLIENTS CALL OUT FUNKE AKINDELEBELLO, ESTRANGED HUSBAND, DEMAND REFUND OF SUBSCRIPTION FEE

The Bellos

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arely two weeks after Abdulrasheed Bello, otherwise known as JJC Skillz, announced his separation from his wife, Funke AkindeleBello, SceneOne production, their jointly owned company, is already facing some challenges.

JJC Skillz had announced the end of his six-year marriage to the actress about two weeks ago. He

revealed that the past two years have been extremely difficult for them and he has tried to resolve the issue but his wife didn’t give him a chance to discuss the future of their marriage. From the tone of his speech, it was evident that the marriage is over.

The challenges their company is battling with is allegedly an aftermath of the marital crisis

the Bello’s are passing through, with regard to Jenifa’s Diary, the TV drama series produced by the SceneOne production.

A few weeks ago, subscribers complained that episodes of the TV series were being repeated.

The couple neither alerted its subscribers of any changes nor apologised to them. The company was called out as customers made their grievances known.

Two weeks after the first scenario, a notice was sent to subscribers that the company would take a break and that subscribers shouldn’t expect the series. They were however not informed about how long the break would last, even though some subscribers had paid in advance for the series.

It was gathered that the marital crisis facing the Bello’s necessitated the break, at least to resolve how operations in the company will be handled and probably to shoot new scenes, which will be uploaded on the online TV. But aggrieved subscribers are not happy. They argue that the company should have clearly stated what will happen to the money paid by subscribers during the period of break and the possibility of having a refund of the advance money paid.

Obi Cubana, Cubana Chief Priest End Rift a Second Time

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ascal Okechukwu, otherwise serving Obi Cubana diligently known as Cubana Chief and lifting the Cubana brand Priest and his former boss, to the height it has attained.

Obi Iyiegbu, also known as Obi Friends tried to resolve their rift Cubana have resolved their and finally succeeded after a lot differences and embraced peace. of efforts. Both men shook hands This will be the second time with the understanding to bury they will be burying the hatchet. the hatchet and let bygones be Judging by a video posted on bygones. However, a few months Cubana Chief Priest’s social later, a deep crack developed in media, an end has finally come their relationship. Obi Cubana to the sour relationship between launched Odogwu Bitters, but the two close buddies. In the video, the two were obviously having fun at an event. They hugged while smiling and exchanging banter as they sipped their drinks. The two also took to the comment section to exchange pleasantries as Cubana Chief Priest hailed his former boss.

Fans and well-wishers have been applauding the two businessmen for sheathing their sword and resolving to move on for good.

The two accommodated their feud which lingered for 10 months last year after Obi Cubana refused to grant him freedom after Iyiegbu THEWILLNIGERIA

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his former employee who many thought would assist him in promoting it as a sign of honour and friendship to his former boss looked the other way and became a brand influencer to a rival bitter, Kolaq Alagbo Herbal Bitters. The act got people wondering if truly they made peace with each other last year. All seems to be in the past now as the two have finally reconciled.

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Okechukwu

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Ayodele

QUINCY AYODELE ADDS ANOTHER FEATHER TO HER CAP

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he founder of Quincy Wellness and Naturopathic Centre, Quincy Sumbo Ayodele, is one of the African delegates chosen by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to deliberate on how remedies and traditional medicine can be developed to tackle COVID-19 in Africa. Out of the 8,000 members who constitute the advisory team of WHO, a few were chosen by the organisation to meet in Congo Brazzaville to find a remedy and medicine to the management of COVID-19 in Africa.

When the world thought COVID-19 was dying down and normalcy returning to different parts of the world with relaxation on the strictness of observing the pandemic rule, Nigeria and some other parts of the world announced the return of the Coronavirus. The return of the virus necessitated the meeting organised

by WHO in Congo for the traditional Herbal Practitioner Advisory Group of WHO. Ayodele left the shores of Nigeria last week to join other delegates from across Africa. This is the second landmark the ageless traditional expert will be recording within the year.

A few months ago, the center introduced medical aesthetics to the operations of the company. Dr Tobi Ayodele-Keeney, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the company, was certified as a medical aesthetician by the Canadian Board of Aesthetic Medicine that makes the center qualified for conducting cosmetic injectables as part of its advocacy for natural and herbal wellness. Ayodele is a world health expert on African Traditional health, she belongs to different organisations such as WHO, National Association of Nigeria of Nigerian Traditional Medicine Practitioners. She has been an advocate of the integration of African traditional into the healthcare system.

House of Representatives aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Ekiti State, Dele Philip, has been accused of bribing the chairman of the party in the state, Paul Omotosho, and secretary, Ogunsakin Kayode with a sum of N50 million so that he can win the primary election in the state. Unfortunately, things did not work in his favour as thugs disrupted the process of the primary election which led to it ending abruptly. Philip was disappointed as his hard earned money seemed to have gone down the drain. It was in the process of confronting the chairman and the secretary of the party, who collected money from him that their best kept secret was exposed.

It was gathered that Philip tried to recover the money since he wasn’t sure of his standing in the party.

The politician quickly denied the allegation when the secret Philip

was leaked out. According to his special adviser on media, Iyiola Oluborode, the tale was sponsored by Philip’s political enemies who are hell bent on causing division among party members as the allegation against the politician is untrue.

He added that Philip was never involved in any financial transaction with party leaders as he only shared a political and formal relationship with all party members.

Abdulrahman Abdulrasaq Rescues Community From Hazards of Asphalt Plant

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overnor AbdulRahman environment they were staying AbdulRasaq of Kwara State in. Tenants and landlords vacated has rescued residents their houses for other locations of Progressive Government just to avert the health hazard Reservation Area, Gaa Imam, created as a result of the wrong along ICT in Kwara State from decision made by the past the dilemma the administration administration. They battled the of his predecessor, Abdulfatai challenges till 2022 when the Ahmed kept them in. present administration heard The former governor had granted their cries and ordered that Asphalt plant, a company that the Asphalt plant should shut generates a mixture of dark down operation. Residents had bituminous pitch with sand stomach the challenges for the gravel used for surfacing rods, past three years. They complained floors and roofs, the permission to the previous administration to operate within an area in the but nothing was done about community. The plant constitutes their plight. Residents revealed a health hazard to the residents their desire to return to their who started visiting hospitals for abandoned home since the treatment, coupled with the fact governor has intervened and that the disturbing noise of the stopped what would have sent engine and dark smoke from the them to their early graves. engine also covered all the areas making residents shut their windows and doors even during the day.

The residents could not hang their clothes outside to dry as the smoke would change the colour of the clothes. They had to stop hanging outside their residences to reduce the volume of fumes they inhale.

People became regular callers at the hospital with similar symptoms, such as running nose, throat and lung irritation leading to coughing, wheezing, and shortness of breath associated with dizziness, nausea and vomiting which were as Abdulrasaq a result of the unhealthy

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TRIBUTE

Soyinka @ 88: Seen From University College Ibadan in the fifties was a harmonic convergence for the famous four and pioneers of modern Nigerian literature – Chinua Achebe, JP Clark, Christopher Okigbo and Wole Soyinka. They all attended Government Colleges before then, straight from homes stocked with masterpieces some of their peers were not even aware of let alone read. They found a common interest in literature/ writing, stuck together for years until the civil war drove them apart and even consumed one of them. (Okigbo was killed at Enugu in August 1967 while fighting on the Biafra side.) The imminent execution of a soldier poet reunited the remaining three almost two decades later. Achebe died in 2013. JP followed seven years later. The last man standing of these rare breed of Nigerians will be 88 on July 13. THEWILL examines the extraordinary life of this extraordinary man.

Michael Jimoh reports…

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any of us in literature class beheld Professor Wole Soyinka from a distance in secondary school in the seventies and early eighties. Some didn’t even know what he looked like at the time but we fell in love with his immortal poem “Telephone Conversation,” read, memorised and discussed under the masterful guidance of Mrs. Ebiyemi S. Gadimoh our literature teacher.

Unlike some of his denser poems, TC opened itself to us straight away, a home-seeking African student in the English capital, conversing with his potential landlady from a public telephone booth.

“The price seemed reasonable, location Indifferent,” TC begins innocuously enough setting some kind of amicableness between renter and landlady. “The landlady swore she lived/ Off premises.

Nothing remained/ But self-confession. “Madam,” I warned,/ I hate a wasted journey - I am African.”

The silence that follows this declaration of his race shows the indecisiveness of the landlady after realising that a Black person was going to be her tenant. The verbal joust between the two is vintage Soyinka at his best. He is at once teasing and mocking, delighting in his knowledge that the landlady in question may not be so informed about things the black person already knows. All that gets the white woman mad, as she bangs the phone hard on the caller.

Did the poet himself experience what he described in TC? We may never know. But what we do know is that racism against black Africans was prevalent at the time and even now although in different guises thus giving TC an everlasting appeal. Drawing from his imagination and in a mocking tone, Soyinka presented the plight of those Africans in a lyrical, rich verse with unforgettable imageries: the African student in the glass booth reeking of rancid breath, the ubiquitous red-coloured Omnibuses plying London streets and the landlady herself sitting, smoking and carrying on the conversation with her would-be tenant.

Some of us became Soyinka fans from then on such that one or two opted to go to what was University of Ife then if only they could sit and listen to Soyinka in class. I remember one particularly. His uncle read History at Ife in the seventies. A distant cousin followed as an Economics undergrad years later.

So, for two years beginning from 1984, he applied to study Philosophy at the institution. He failed at both times. He failed not so much because his JAMB score was too low but because his state

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of origin, Bendel, was considered an educationally advantaged state.

His first score was 239 and in 1985, he upped his beat by 17 marks to 256. The school authorities were not impressed even at that.

Instead, based on the quota system that favoured educationally disadvantaged states at the time, a JAMB candidate from the north, say, with lesser score might possibly get the school authority’s attention and a possible offer of admission. Thus did the chap in question miss two opportunities consecutively to sit before a lecturer he wanted so much to listen to.

It is true the lecturer himself was not in Philosophy department but the University of Ife hopeful reckoned he could somehow choose one or two elective courses where his hero/ teacher was Head of Department.

“Look,” his father told him one day after his second try at JAMB, “what’s your fixation with Ife? Why not choose a university in your state?” His mates by then had gained admission to Bendel State University Ekpoma leaving him at home gobbling up great quantities of food to his father’s dismay but to his mother’s delight.

He was offered admission at University of Benin the same year Soyinka won the Nobel Prize in Literature and began registration in the same month not in Philosophy this time but Theatre Arts.

To welcome the freshmen, the department staged a production of

Death and the King’s Horseman directed by Mr. Tom Onyonyor with 300-level students acting. Kesse Jabari was Elesin Oba, Patrick Aburime was Simon Pilkins and Pedro Agbonifo now known as Don Pedro Obaseki was Olude.

It was a great performance of a great play by a great dramatist. Of course, the chap’s fascination with Soyinka deepened. Some of the dramatist’s works would be required reading for the undergraduates: The Swamp Dwellers, The Strong Breed, The Road, Kongi’s Harvest and his almighty essay that has become something of the Bible of Theatre Arts/ Dramatic Arts students in most Nigerian universities – “The fourth Stage: Myth, Literature and the African World.”

From the tentative steps taken in secondary school through TC, he was now taking surer footsteps and getting ever so close to knowing Soyinka better through his other works. After university, he became a journalist on the Arts beat with a national newspaper. It was inevitable that, in that position, the chap and Soyinka would meet. They did.

First time was his fellow poet Odia Ofeimun’s 50th birthday in 2000.

Venue was 20, Sanyaolu Street, Oregun where Ofeimun resided at the time. Sitting among his younger co-writers, Soyinka was not only at home but was also a delightful presence that night – seeping, as usual, from a choice champagne.

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a Distance & Up Close Kingsway Road, Ikoyi. Big Brother Nigeria had just debuted and much of the scenes were quite distasteful leading to public outcry.

Instead of being witty conversationalists, the housemates were more inclined at butt baring acts and even groping. In something that was a postmortem at the FCC, Soyinka offered his opinion to the audience on BBN. “We are not prudish,” he said, “but we are also not prurient.”

In as much as we do not wish to be like the sex police in censorious theocracies, Soyinka suggested that day, we cannot carry on as the Hugh Hefners and Larry Flynts of this world.

Next was a chance encounter at Freedom Park Broad Street, Lagos.

The reporter was a tag-along with senior journalist, novelist and poet, Uzor Maxim Uzoatu. Right there before them was the man himself, hands clasped behind his back and pacing. “Oh Maxim,” he said.

And turning to the reporter after introduction, he asked: “How are you?” “Fine,” the reporter replied.

In a birthday tribute published in Premium Times a year ago, Maxim, who was one of Soyinka’s brightest student at Ife wondered, like so many have done, how his former teacher has made it to 87.

“It beggars belief that Soyinka has made it to the heavy age of 87 after a life of multiform dangers: an unknown gunman invading the broadcasting house to replace the premier’s tape, going to Biafra in a season of anomie, enduring imprisonment and solitary confinement, bearing the wounds of exile, daring Abacha…In short, way beyond the claims of the evangelical churches, the only miracle I see is Wole Soyinka’s life,” Maxim wrote.

Continuing, Maxim confesses that Soyinka was “so daring early in life that nobody gave him any chance of living up to 87 years on this earth.”

In the same piece, Maxim wrote of his fascination with Soyinka starting from his secondary school days at Onitsha. “I did not want anything to do with schooling anymore, being much of a tear-away in my youth – then I saw the name of Professor Wole Soyinka as the Head of the newly created Dramatic Arts Department at the then University of Ife.” Unlike the chap who failed twice to gain admission to Ife, Maxim had his way. “My plans had been to head into the bush to change the system as a guerrilla fighter,” Maxim recalls, “but once I learnt of the Soyinka school at Great Ife, I applied and was taken.”

If there is any former student of the professor who knows him so well, it has to be Maxim, detailing in the said tribute Soyinka’s love for humanity, insisting that “aside from his genius in literature, Soyinka ranks amongst the greatest freedom fighters ever, a foremost defender of the sanctity of the human life.”

Maxim himself is a living example of Soyinka’s spontaneous generosity. Hear him: “After my degree exams, I was totally out of cash. I needed money badly, and I ran to Soyinka in his office. I told him I had no money to go home. He gave me all the money he had.

In a show of bravado I told him I would pay him back his money when I came for convocation. Soyinka had a healthy laugh and said: “How am I sure you will not run through the money and come back with another sob story?”

Though not his student at Ife, accomplished and award-winning author, Helon Habila could not resist adding his voice to the growing Soyinka myth. “Soyinka is one of the greats, the last of the greats of African and black literature,” the professor of Creative Writing at George Mason University, Virginia, USA, told THEWILL via email last Friday evening. “I’d say the most successful of his generation, and not because he won the Nobel and others didn’t, but because of his sheer body of work and versatility: poet, novelist, dramatist, singer, actor, activist. It is a pity that sometimes his politics overshadows his writing, because then people are distracted and they don’t get to appreciate the full diversity of his oeuvre, from his engagement with African mytho-poetics in plays like A Dance of the Forest or The Strong Breed or in his well observed, child’s eye-view portrait of a world in transition from the traditional to the modern in his brilliant memoir, Ake: Years of Childhood, or in his engagement with religious hypocrisy in the Jero plays, or the more directly political works like King Baabu where he mocked the late dictator, Sani Abacha; or in what for me is his best work, the poetry collection Idanre. His work is visionary. In a play like A Dance of the Forest, for instance, he offered a different way of interpreting the newly created country Nigeria, he calls it “a gathering of the tribes,” presaging the bickering and sectarian squabbles that now dominate our national politics. The same play is also an engagement with the precolonial, pre-modern vision of a time when man and nature lived in harmony, an environmentalist reading of the environment around him, in which he decentered the human, placing the human on a level with the rest of nature, the trees and hills and rivers and animals, an THEWILLNIGERIA

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“

In a play like A Dance of the Forest, for instance, he offered a different way of interpreting the newly created country Nigeria, he calls it “a gathering of the tribes,” presaging the bickering and sectarian squabbles that now dominate our national politics.. A writer like that comes only once in a hundred years, if we are lucky. We have been blessed to have him among us

animist reading of the world. A writer like that comes only once in a hundred years, if we are lucky. We have been blessed to have him among us.”

Apparently some bankers in Nigeria did not think so pre-Nobel.

The story has been told of Soyinka approaching one or two banks in Lagos for a loan to build his own house since he had none at the time.

They turned him down. But then, precursor to the Nobel came from Agip in Italy. The prize was worth thousands of dollars. Incredibly, the same bankers who refused him loan started approaching the Prof to become his bankers.

Irritating as they may be to him, that piece of indiscretion has not diminished Soyinka’s consistent struggle against repressive military regimes and wasteful, unconscionable civilian governments. Witness his constant run-ins with Nigerian governments, starting from Independence. “The man dies in him who keeps silent in the face of tyranny,” goes the maxim famously attributed to Soyinka.

He is still speaking up to the authorities and, lately, to marauding herdsmen, terrorists and bandits roaming free like vermin and tearing apart the social, economic and political fabric of the country. In a recent interview with BBC Pidgin, Soyinka lamented that swathes of land that were his sole preserve before have been taken over by terrorists, bandits and herdsmen. “My children and others told me that the forest is shrinking,” Soyinka said, meaning that he can no longer go on the hunt as he used to.

There have been other human losses as well and, being who he is, Soyinka is not one to make public a private grief. Only last month, his youngest sib, Professor Femi Soyinka, died. A renowned researcher and former provost of the College of Health Sciences, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife, he was 85.

Days after Christmas of 2013, Soyinka’s eldest daughter, Iyetade, died at University College Hospital Ibadan. She had, according to Jahman Anikulapo aide to Soyinka, died after a brief illness. Another loss would follow barely six months later. It was not the demise of a relation or kin but a colleague. It was that of fellow Nobel laureate and colleague, Nadine Gordimer of South Africa. She died on July 13, 2014 when Soyinka was exactly a year older.

People do not choose when to die except patients with terminal cases.

Like capricious fate, death can call at any time. But the old man must have wondered severally: how come death rears its ugly head just about when something good has arrived or is just around the corner?

Soyinka is as strong as they come – mentally and physically – even well north of 80. Just last year, he published a fictional work, Chronicles of the Happiest People on Earth, a subtle dig and satire at the supposed pride of place his countrymen and women hold in that regard.

He is as sprightly as ever with very brisk steps, more than some men in their fifties, sixties or seventies and with a disciplined physique to match. If you happened to have seen him at any public function recently in Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt or his homestead in Abeokuta, there’s no way you won’t admire him – his flying mane, his unique sartorial preference and the whole process of aging gracefully.

“Youth would be an ideal state,” an English wit once said, “if it came much later in life.” It is a graceful combination in Soyinka’s case. Advanced in age, he seems to be getting younger by the day, a glowing, healthy skin with tender palms like one who has never experienced any form of hard labour under the sun.

The truth is that Soyinka has done his bit in harsh weather conditions and almost always alone in the process. True, his leonine features remind one of the great scholar of the Russian revolution of 1917, Leon Trotsky – the greying goatee with fancy-framed spectacles balanced on his nose bridge.

There is another image of him not much seen by the public: WS in his hunting gear with his rifle and roaming the forests of Ogun state, squinting, aiming and bringing down a bird, two or three for the pot or to be barbecued. Indeed, he was on one of his hunting expeditions in 1986 when JP paid him an unscheduled visit at his home in Abeokuta. They had not seen or spoken since the end of the civil war in 1970.

It is very much public knowledge now that JP had met and spoke with Achebe concerning the imminent execution of soldier/ poet Mamman Jiya Vatsa implicated in a coup against Ibrahim Babangida in 1986. Next was to coopt Soyinka whom neither had spoken with for decades. JP took it upon himself to surprise his formerly comradely colleague in his Abeokuta hideout. Soyinka was out hunting on that very day, bringing to mind another celebrated hunter, Ernest Hemingway, who spent much of his time during his vacation bringing down buffaloes and some such beasts in the African safari.

In a special dedication by TheNews magazine on WS’s 80th birthday, readers got to know more about his family, his relationship with his wife and partner, Folake Doherty Soyinka, whom he met when she was a student at Ife, then African Guardian in the eighties. Those were the halcyon days of female journalists such as Amma Ogan, Juliet Ukabiala and Louisa Aguiyi Ironsi.

Though a wide age gap separates Soyinka and his current wife, it is a union some see as a carefully calibrated companionship that should add more together than apart. It has, spawning four children in the process.

“It is not my fault,” Fidel Castro famously declared, “that the CIA has been unable to kill me.” In the same vein, you could say that it is not Professor Soyinka’s fault that he has enjoyed this much longevity.

For one, he is the oldest living Nobel laureate in Literature. Gordimer is gone, so is Naguib Mafouz and even some in Europe and the Americas.

After pitching the story idea to the editor last Monday during our editorial meeting, Olaolu Olusina readily approved. Sitting opposite was Cartoon Editor Victor Asowata. “Victor, will you accept a lunch or dinner invitation from WS if he asks you?” Yes, he said emphatically. “What about you?” indicating the guy sitting next to him. “I won’t,” he said, shaking his head from side to side. We thought he was joking or just wanted to be seen to be different. “He won’t even invite you,” someone told him and then we had a good laugh at his expense.

Nigerians of a certain generation still remember the bitter-sweet feeling following the announcement by the Swedish Academy in 1986 that Soyinka had won that year’s number one prize in Literature. In the same month October 19, Nigerians woke up to the shattering news that the dashing editor of Newswatch Dele Giwa had been parcel-bombed at his Opebi home in Ikeja. He did not survive it.

His death, Soyinka later rued, has turned the sweetness of the Nobel into “ashes in our mouth.”

The same laughter will peal around the world on Wednesday July 13 when WS will be one year older. From the inscrutable and inner recesses of the Swedish Academy in Oslo to donnish offices in Harvard or Cambridge, at home in Nigeria with family and friends, in the U.S. with his great friend, Henry Louis Gates and other likeminded intellectuals, you can be sure that hundreds will raise a toast to Soyinka with flutes of his favourite tipple.

For someone who survived solitary confinement for more than two years by a military regime, assassination attempts by another, Soyinka has survived it all, probably arming himself with Nietzsche’s quip that “out of life’s school of war – what doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.”

You can be sure, also, that a handful of governors and politicians, traditional rulers, the media and even his foes (the last with grudging admiration) will raise that flute to his health and better years ahead.

But more than anything is that, without exception, one thing will be running parallel in their minds on that day – what a man!

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HEALTH

Nigerians Struggle to Understand Preventive Medicine – Dr Menakaya UK and one in Nigeria, while the patient sits in his Nigerian home and gets the best treatment surrounded by family. This is not virtual or mobile app consultations. We identify what is available in Nigeria and make up the deficit with our international collaborators. Our ultimate goal is to build such a cohesive team that ensures optimum care to Nigerians and others living in developing countries.

United Kingdom-based Nigerian Trauma/ Orthopaedic Surgeon and CEO of Annomo Health, Dr Chichi Menakaya, speaks with Anthony Awunor on the challenges facing the Nigerian health sector and the way forward.

Excerpts:

Quite a number of countries do come to Nigeria to poach medical practitioners such as nurses and doctors. What are the implications of such a development?

The brain drain is sad but I cannot blame the doctors or nurses because unless Nigeria starts recognising that the bedrock of nations are built on health and take their doctors and nurses seriously, we will continue to experience this mass emigration.

A

s an international premium medical concierge, which services does Annomo Health offer?

Creating Annomo Health as a leading premium healthcare concierge company, we set out with the aim to offer health services that connects the best doctors or hospitals in a saturated healthcare market to the client, based on experience, competency, efficacy, quality and at same time luxury.

Other countries recognise the value of our health workers and therefore, pay them the appropriate wages on time, give them a conducive environment and encourage their career growth. With a population of over 200 million people, Nigeria has a doctor/patient ratio of 1:4,250 against the recommended 1:600 by the World Health Organisation. This is mindboggling and distressing. The nurse/ patient ratio is even worse than this. At some time, we will be so short of health workers.

We have been able to create the luxury of healthcare today. Our lifestyle partners have been thoroughly vetted, we understand discretion and confidentiality. We are the upper echelon in the business. We have an inhouse dedicated concierge company that handles travel, accommodation, private education, property wealth, holidays, tailored food services and much more. Our service was born so that people concentrate on their busy lives while we sort out things that matter the most. There’s no mistaking the sense of assuredness that when it comes to healthcare, having total confidence in one’s chosen doctor is of utmost importance- even more so when we are seeking healthcare outside our home countries.

As a medical doctor, what is your advice to Nigerians in terms of making health care their priority?

I always ask why people don’t worry about the cost of designer bags or an expensive holiday or data for social media as much as they worry about paying for healthcare. Nigerians struggle to understand preventive medicine. In most people’s mind, their health is pretty good because they feel completely “well” in themselves. However, one day, they go to sleep and not wake up the next day. When the cause of death is announced to be due to a heart problem, everyone around is too perplexed to realise that a simple health screening may have meant that the deceased could have received life-saving treatment.

Still in the same family, another person would have an annoying cough and after months of self-prescribed antibiotic treatment for “pneumonia,” a reluctant visit to the doctor will reveal that that cough was Stage 4 lung cancer and they only have six months to live. In the blink of an eye, the world around them comes crashing. I tell people that only a healthy person can enjoy their achievements.

If we can invest in fashion, asoebi for parties, properties, cars and other things, despite our economy, how do we struggle to invest in health; the very foundation of our lives. As Nigerians, we need to rethink our health priorities fast.

How do you see the future of health care in Nigeria?

I truly believe that the future of healthcare in Nigeria can be very bright. I say this because the experience of COVID-19 exposed the fragility of health services all over the world and Nigeria was not left out. I believe that the government saw clearly how it is no longer acceptable to just have looming healthcare inequalities since disease is no respecter of social status, age or tribe. We all saw how, even though people had the funds to afford things, the pandemic limited the services they had access to. It was indeed a very sad time.

As the nation continues to exist, we have to upscale our healthcare delivery services and the time is now. It is impressive to build a nice shiny edifice of a hospital with the latest technology in every corner but, if we lack the expertise, experience or the dedication to deliver that service, then the building will lose its’ shine after a period.

Nigeria needs to ask for an arm of friendship and invite national and international collaborators with the experience and expertise to offer us initial support while we rebuild our health facilities. Nigeria has to ensure that health is rooted in our communities, so that as a nation we contribute to ensuring that health facilities are properly utilised, maintained and that we build a sustainable institution.

In Nigeria of today, most Nigerians do travel overseas for medical tourism. The reasons some cite for such action is lack of quality medical facilities. What do you think can be done to stop it?

People need to have the free will to seek healthcare anywhere

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Eight years on, we have built a 360-degree personalised service dictated by the needs and wants of our clients. We provide an exclusive and bespoke priority access to the world’s best doctors, hospitals and lifestyle. The stakes were high when we started, so we found the best of the best and brought them to our clients. Our doctors are experts who have honed their skills to perfection.

“

Nigeria needs to ask for an arm of friendship and invite national and international collaborators with the experience and expertise to offer us initial support while we rebuild our health facilities. Nigeria has to ensure that health is rooted in our communities, so that as a nation we contribute to ensuring that health facilities are properly utilised, maintained and that we build a sustainable institution

they desire. It is their health and they should be able to control it.

However, if our government, private organisations and individuals modernise our existing healthcare institutions with the appropriate medical experts, Nigerians will have an easier choice. I believe a lot of Nigerians who seek medical help abroad would rather be treated in their home countries surrounded by loved ones. At the same time, we can also welcome international medical teams who do not mind coming to Nigeria to help out once, train and build with us.

A nation without health workers might as well pack up shop and stop existing. Medicine is a rigorous and lengthy career, so after long years of studying, the wages and living conditions needs to be commensurate. This is the incentive to keep health workers in Nigeria. The government needs to realise that health workers are not magicians, they need the right tools, education and support to offer the best care to their patients. We can curb emigration if we change our priorities as a nation. Also, if we get the security right, then diaspora health workers can also begin to give back more to their motherland. COVID-19 is an eye opener to most countries across the globe.

Applying lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, how do you think Nigeria can build a resilient health system that reflects the reality of the times?

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown many vulnerabilities in our global health systems. It has also made nations and people rethink how we see health and our priorities. It caused a rude shock and had profound implications on health, economic progress, trust in the government and social interactions. If we have learnt anything we will realise that for the first time, the entire world realised that “health” controls the world.

Nigeria needs to allocate more funds to our health system. These funds must be accounted for and the impact of its use clearly visible to Nigerians. They need to modernise health institutions, while ensuring that policies are put in place to checkmate our standards.

We must introduce robust clinical governance policies in Nigeria to ensure that we maintain any changes we make. We have to increase health education and champion health prevention on a large scale.

Only a healthy nation with healthy citizens can truly prosper.

There is no better time than this to build a private and public sector partnership. We must have measures where the highly equipped private hospitals are able to work with the public hospitals for service delivery. Our goals need to be aligned to achieve our dreams.

As a Nigerian practising in UK, do you face any challenges in the course of your duty?

My mother always say that when you face challenges, you must pull up your trousers and keep going. She would add that tough times never last, but tough people do. I was taught from very early stage that challenges should not break you but build you. So I started my job as a doctor in the UK with that as a foundation. As a doctor in the UK there are different challenges. First, there is the issue of acceptance by colleagues and patients. You walk into a job and as an international graduate, everyone looks at you with doubt of your knowledge and skills.

The healthcare space is a global village and more than ever, healthcare collaboration is paramount to grow our own healthcare.

I get countless requests from experts who want to go to Nigeria and offer their services, but we must get our security right to ensure that their work is impactive. It is no longer acceptable to just do medical missions, take pictures and then leave without continuity of care.

These collaborations need to be ongoing and not just one off picture opportunities.

I learnt very early that I do not need to convince anyone of my skills or worth and so I bent down and worked hard so that my actions answered the doubts for me. It can be funny when I see the shock on patient’s faces when I introduce myself as their surgeon. I still get that look till today, decades later. I just smile, reintroduce myself and focus on providing the clinical care they require. It’s not an identification exercise or job interview, it is about saving lives and delivering the best. I have been told that because I was “foreign” that I would never get a job as a surgeon. I have also been told that as a woman, I am too weak to be a surgeon too. These comments are meant to introduce fear and doubts, but hey, as my woman Michelle Obama would say, when they go low we go higher.

In Annomo Health, although our parent company is based in the UK, we recognise the importance of national impact and involvement and therefore work with doctors and allied health professionals based in Nigeria to provide a mirror service in Nigeria where possible. We have clients whose treatments are jointly done by a professor in the

I focus on my goals and let their words mix with the air and fly away.

I am a very lucky girl. If you grow up in a home where you are allowed to dream as big as you want and you are constantly reminded that you can achieve anything if only you put yourself through the mill and focus on the end game.

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SportsLive

Can Super Falcons Win a 10th Continental Trophy?

BY JUDE OBAFEMI

W

hen Africa’s must successful female national team, the Super Falcons of Nigeria were once again drawn against arch-rivals South Africa’s Banyana Banyana at the TotalEnergies 2022 Africa Women’s Cup of Nations currently underway in Morocco, fireworks were expected to go off at the clash of two of the most exciting teams on the continent. Yet, more than beautiful football, the old themes of rivalry, continental dominance and bragging rights were on the line. More than those, however, was a quest for vengeance on both sides.

In their most recent competitive encounter in September last year at the maiden edition of the Aisha Buhari Invitational Cup, organised by the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to celebrate the girl-child and encourage more girls to take to football, South Africa upset their Nigerian hosts in the final game of the competition as the Super Falcons fell to a disappointing 4-2 defeat at the hands of the increasingly impressive ladies from South Africa, who lifted the maiden trophy at the Mobolaji Johnson Arena in Lagos.

The ladies from the Rainbow Nation had sounded a note of warning of their rising superiority on the continent to the entire set of invited countries when they soundly beat the Black Queens of Ghana 3-0 in their first game in the competition, while Nigeria was struggling to get a 2-0 win over Mali. Goals from Linda Motlhalo, Gabrielle Salgado, Mamello Makhabane and Michelle Alozie’s early own goal ensured Desiree Ellis’ side outscored the African champions despite a maiden brace from Vivian Ikechukwu.

However, just as the Super Falcons were attempting to get one back against the South Africans, Banyana Banyana were targeting to steal the shine off Nigeria in the most prestigious tournament on the continent, the Cup of Nations. The Super Falcons have the distinguished record of winning nine of the 11 continental tournaments since inception and are defending champions of AWCON. In the last competition played in 2018, which Ghana hosted from November 17 to December 1 and which featured eight teams, Nigeria picked up her 9th overall AWCON title by defeating South Africa via penalty shootouts as the final tie ended goalless after extra time. It coincidentally featured Nigeria and South Africa in the group stage and Nigeria lost that initial tie before going on to win their remaining matches all the way to lifting their 9th trophy after the victory via penalties.

It was a victory that once again denied the South Africans their first ever continental title. So far, the Banyana Banyana have been the most unfortunate in their quest for an African trophy. They have reached the final of the competition no less than five times but have left without success every time. Three of these finals, in 1995, 2000, 2018, the South Africans met Nigeria and lost to the Super Falcons. In 2008 and again in 2012, they clashed against Equatorial Guinea in the final and also lost. The best result they have taken from their 10-time participation in the African football showpiece is two third place finishes in both 2006 and 2010.

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The women from the Rainbow Nation have also finished in fourth place thrice on 2002, 2014 and 2016. According to their coach, Desiree Ellis, this is a sequence they are determined to change and the South African Football Association has backed that desire up with monetary incentives to spur them to a victorious run. Last month, Danny Joordan, the SAFA President, revealed that each member of the squad will go home with R400,000 (about N10 million) if they win the trophy.

South Africa’s preparations for the competition may not have been as stellar as they could have hoped for. In setting up their team formation, strategy, tactics and squad for the 2022 AWCON, the Ellis-led Banyana Banyana engaged in a friendly against top international female side the Netherlands and were roundly beaten 5-1 by the rampaging Dutch ladies.

Nigeria did the same in their friendlies against Canada, as they participated in the NAmerican country’s Women’s National Team Celebration Tour to celebrate the Canadian Ladies Olympic gold medal victory at the Tokyo Games in Japan. It was a high-calibre, double-header friendly with which the Super Falcons lost 2-0 in the first tie, but the Nigerian team dominated the second leg and only a late Shelina Zardowsky equaliser denied the Nigerians a memorable win over the sixth best team in the world and reigning Olympic champions in the 2-2 finish.

This set the stage for their encounter at AWCON building up feverish excitement for fans of the ladies game only for the Super Falcons to play one of their worst ever performances in recent memory and lose to a more disciplined, tactical and superior South African side 2-1.

Ifeoma Onumonu for the struggling Oshoala.

The poor tactics of the Waldrum bench put the team’s title defense in peril. They lacked of a proper midfield coordinating movement from defense to attack and the substitutions to change the poor display came late. Ahead of the Thursday second group game against Botswana, the team was hit with the unfortunate story of another Oshoala injury. According to tests, the player, who was left to continue playing after a seventh minute knock until she was substituted in the 82nd minute had sustained a Grade 2 Medial Collateral Ligament Strain, which was going to keep her on the sidelines for nothing less than six weeks. Her AWCON was effectively over. In her absence, Waldrum turned to Onumonu for the central striker position in the game against Botswana. The latter had beaten the other team in the group, Burundi, 4-2 in their opening game and was expecting to scalp Nigeria and follow South Africa to the next round but an improved overall display by the Super Falcons saw the Nigerians prevail 2-0 and keep up with group leaders Banyana Banyana at this stage of the competition.

Aside from Oshoala, Ashleigh Plumptre, and Tochukwu Oluehi, who participated in the opening match against South Africa, were absent from the team. Waldrum changed his starting lineup for the match against the Botswana Mares, with Francisca Ordega and Ajibade cutting in from the flanks. Unlike the long-ball strategy against Banyana Banyana, the flanking tactic allowed the Falcons a strong start to the game. They kept up the pressure, and the Botswana team conceded in the 21st minute from Onumonu’s goal, after she latched onto a defence-splitting pass from Halimatu Ayinde.

The scoreline did not exactly portray the true story of the game because were Banyana Banyana more clinical, the goal difference could have been much more embarrassing. Quickfire goals from Jermaine Seoposenwe and Hilda Magaia in the 60th and 62nd minutes gave South Africa a 2-0 advantage. But, late in the ensuing extra minute of the second half, Rasheedat Ajibade halved the deficit as the Nigerians made some half-spirited efforts to level the scores albeit unsuccessfully.

Knowing maximum points were crucial to their chances of moving on to the quarterfinals, the Falcons maintained their dominance to finish the first half with a narrow 1-0 advantage.

Waldrum made early substitutions this time too and, just after replacing Chikwelu, at the start of the second period, Christy Ucheibe quickly extended the Falcons’ advantage with an incredible header to make the score 2-nil. To avoid slipping up like they did against South Africa, the Super Falcons kept control of the game until the final whistle.

What stood out was that, unlike continentally successful Nigeria’s womens’ teams in the past managed by ex-Super Falcons’ players like Ngozi Eucharia Uche and Florence Omagbemi, the game plan of the Randy Waldrum-led Super Falcons appeared to be long balls in for Asisat Oshoala to run at and find the goals the Nigerian team needed but this was well-read by their opponents and the Falcons were never able to get beyond the coordinated and stiffened defence of Banyanya Banyanya. Ellis’s ladies showed that they were undoubtedly well-prepared to hem Oshoala in and it did not help that she got a knock early in the game. While most reactions post-match appeared to heap most of the blame for the loss on the Barcelona forward, the technical bench ought to have seen her struggle and observed how well Banyana Banyana was keeping the Nigerians at bay for a necessary changes of strategy with early substitutions to bring in a runner like Rita Chikwelu to operate as a linkup between midfield and forward, and bring in

The result increased their chance of making it beyond the group stage with a crucial game against Burundi up next on Sunday.

There were some shaky moments in defense against the Mares of Botswana as there were against the more superior Banyana Banyana. The difference was that South Africa took full advantage of every chance and punished Nigeria for it while Botswana could not. Their nippy attacker Refilwe Tholakele occasionally proved a handful for the ladies from Nigeria and also tested the Super Falcons from set pieces. She had two good strikes on target but each one was effectively handled by the Nigeria goalkeeper Cynthia Nnadozie, who has remained a reliably consistent performer between the sticks. The chance for a 10th title will, at the very least, depend on the Super Falcons improving on clinical finishing, erasing complacency, firming the defense and a technical bench that can change the tactical game plan right when it needs changes during a game to get results.

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Security Threats: Why is Buhari Not Holding Anyone Accountable?

I

feel frustrated and disappointed with President Muhammadu Buhari over his inability to fully take charge and deal with the threats of insecurity and economic sabotage enveloping our country. Why is no one being held accountable for these multiple lapses before us today?

On Thursday, July 8, when questions about the character of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his fitness for high office became too loud to ignore, the blondhaired former two-term Mayor of London, who helped push for Brexit in the 2016 EU referendum, was forced to step aside.

Although Johnson was initially hailed for the overall success of the vaccine roll-out in the country, which was the fastest in the developed world and which helped the UK economy to re-open earlier than most, it was around the subject of the COVID-19 pandemic that cracks began to open in the Johnson premiership.

filiated offshoot group known as the Islamic State’s West Africa Province in terms of size and power. It is currently one of the most active IS affiliates.

A combination of herdsmen, unknown gunmen and Boko Haram terrorists have taken the nation hostage, grounded the security apparatus of the country and placed everyone on high alert such that Nigerians now sleep with one eye open. Everyone is scared. No one feels safe, no matter where they are in Nigeria. It does not matter where you are, at school, at home, on the road, in the marketplace, in churches or mosques, while performing the sacred duty of communing with one’s God, at the airport as happened on March 26 at the Kaduna International Airport, on the railway as some Nigerians unfortunately discovered when they came under attack on March 28 on the Abuja–Kaduna track in Katari, Kaduna State, you are a walking target to any of these criminals and terrorists.

It began when it was reported that the Prime Minister was responsible for the thousands that died needlessly because he had delayed lockdowns and ignored scientific advice. There was a concurrent investigation into his lavish upgrade of 10 Downing Street, where he was resident with his family as is customary of the UK Prime Minister.

As a politician upon whom the charge of cronyism had been targeted, he demonstrated very poor judgement in attempting to rewrite the disciplinary code for MPs to help his ally Owen Paterson, who was facing suspension for breaking lobbying rules. This was followed by the indiscretion of holding drunken house parties, when the COVID-19 restrictions of gatherings was still in place and one of such parties taking place on the eve of the burial of the Duke of Edinburgh.

The Johnson government initially did not admit to all of these before hard evidence forced it to admit that it flouted COVID regulations. In June, despite 41 per cent of the Members of Parliament (MPs) voting against him, Johnson scaled through a vote of confidence.

However, in less than a month after that vote, it was over for Johnson. It happened that the government sent some ministers to defend the Prime Minister in a dispute over an MP who was being accused of sexual misbehaviour.

These ministers were equipped with false information from Downing Street that was immensely scandalous when uncovered. Johnson’s insistence on continuing as PM finally buckled under the pressure of accountability, responsibility and the need for the highest values required for the highest office in the land and he was found wanting in terms of character and fitness for office.

In a society where leaders are beholden to the led, Johnson had no other choice but to resign and vacate the office for a more suitable leader.

On the same Thursday that Johnson resigned his premiership on account of all the improprieties of his time as PM, a women’s group, the League of Women Voters, officially asked President Buhari to resign over his undeniable inability to protect the country and mitigate economic suffering that the majority are enduring.

Predicating their charge against the President on recent attacks on Christian worshippers at St Francis Catholic Church, Owo, Ondo State and the freeing of terrorists’ inmates at the Correctional facility in Kuje after a prolonged, unhindered and successful break-in, the women remarked in their statement: “Nigerians are sick and tired of sleeping with one eye open, with no hope of a better tomorrow from this government. It is obvious that the government has collapsed and it has nothing other than pain and sorrow to offer Nigerians.

“We therefore call on President Muhammadu Buhari and his government to resign and return our nation to

The most distressing part of the breakdown of securing lives and property is that there is no accountability and no one is holding the individuals entrusted with security responsible for the lapses that have led to deaths and kidnappings to the point where the commercialisation of kidnapping for ransom is a fledgling business. us instead of swearing in new ministers. He should hand over to the civil servants with the mandate to conduct elections within the next six months as we are sure that this government is incapable of conducting any meaningful election. We are sure that our call is guided by the principle of reality and the need to keep Nigerians in one piece before the general election.”

Indeed, the frightening level of insecurity is dragging the country to the precipice of descent into a full-blown failed state. Before coming to the most dastardly acts at Owo, Kuje and Katsina, there are more than sufficient examples to demonstrate what is truly a nationwide failure of the security apparatus in the current administration.

Killer herdsmen have become a subject of daily news reports because, at a time when the world is innovating and engaging in rocket science and possibility of founding colonies in Mars, there are still those who wish to keep to the ancient practice of nomadic herding of cows across the country. Knowing they have a sympathetic cattle-rearer in charge, who will let sentiments blind his constitutional charge to ensure the welfare and safety of all Nigerians, irrespective of creed, tribe or origin, these killer herdsmen have become emboldened to carry out all manner of violent acts in their nomadic sojourn.

In early December of 2020, more than 300 students were abducted from the Kankara Government Science Secondary School in Katsina State. It was wildly reminiscent of the 110 girls abducted at the Government Girls Science Technical College in Dapchi, Yobe State, in 2018. These school attacks were mostly orchestrated

by Boko Haram and are calculated to discourage school attendance and capture students to use in exchange for ransom money.

Nigeria’s economic and security issues are being exploited by terrorists to further their radical ideas. The UN estimates that the Boko Haram crisis has killed around 350, 000 people, displacing millions of people from their homes as the group conducts lethal raids, hoisting their flag to rule the locals with extremism. Farms and the sale of agricultural goods are subject to taxes. The organisation now has total control over the once-thriving international fish market in the Chad Basin. In recent years, Boko Haram has been outclassed by an Islamic State-af-

Between 2016 and 2022, Nigeria spent over $19.9 billion (over NGN 8 trillion) in total on security alone. Clearly, a huge chunk of the monies has been misappropriated or stolen and how is it that heads have not rolled and there is no one taking the fall for it? Where is the proof of a fraction of that amount to justify the expense?

That a correctional facility holding terrorists elements could be taken without crossfire and the DSS flatly claimed to have shared intelligence without yielding any positives is absolutely unacceptable. The facility did not even have security cameras! I still don’t get this!

And then the President’s advance team was attacked by terrorists. Still, no one has been held accountable for this security lapse. It sure appears that President Buhari does not understand the magnitude of the threat.

Kuje is about an hour and 30 minutes drive from the National Assembly. It is not too much of a distance from the Presidential Villa. These two hallowed properties are within striking distance of a now much-emboldened group of dare devil terrorists that perceive the former Army general and now President as weak and incapable of summoning the will and determination to act swiftly and decisively. It is this same weakness that characterised the worst parts of the Goodluck Jonathan Administration and it made the former President come across as incompetent. It is once again our fate to see that level of weakness displayed by Buhari, whose hands appear to be tied in tackling this insecurity head on. Once again, mediocrity has been put ahead of competence and Nigerians are paying the price with sleepless nights, troublesome days and everything in between.

Yet, the time has come to act before it devolves further.

The Buhari government must muster the political will and the burning zeal to stop this security threat from escalating further. The President must declare a state of emergency on insecurity immediately. He is to follow this declaration with bold and aggressive steps that will deploy all resources, human and material, to getting the security of lives and property back on track. Those who are complicit in the failures so far must be brought to book and set as vivid examples of deterrence going forward.

The Federal Government must wake up to its duties and responsibilities to defend the rights of every Nigerian to life, peace, security and the pursuit of happiness. It is the least we deserve.

A combination of herdsmen, unknown gunmen and Boko Haram terrorists have taken the nation hostage, grounded the security apparatus of the country and placed everyone on high alert such that Nigerians now sleep with one eye open.

Everyone is scared. No one feels safe, no matter where they are in Nigeria PAGE 32

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