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Okowa to Lawan: Elected Leaders Must Echo the Voices of Their People Says govs shouldn’t be vilified over call for restructuring Udora Orizu in Abuja Delta State Governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, has condemned the statement made by the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, following

Southern Governors’ call for restructuring, ban on open grazing and fiscal federalism, saying, “If your people are talking and you’re an elected person but you shy away from giving further voice to their

voices, then, you ought not be in the position that you occupy.”

Okowa, who spoke at an empowerment scheme by the minority leader of the House of Representatives, Hon.

Ndudi Elumelu, yesterday in Asaba, Delta State, also said it was utterly wrong to vilify the southern governors for heeding to the voices of the people and seeking to promote unity in the country.

The Senate President had after observing the Eid prayers at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, Thursday, faulted the Southern Governors’ resolutions, asking them to first start the restructuring in

their respective states.

But Okowa noted that restructuring has been talked about for so long, with voices of PDP and APC endorsing Continued on page 5

Online Voter Registration Doesn’t Automatically Imply Electronic Transmission of Results, Says INEC… Page 8 Sunday 16 May, 2021 Vol 26. No 9533

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PEAC: Nigeria Lost $10.3bn to Boko Haram, Armed Insurgency in 2020 Gboyega Akinsanmi The activities of banditry, Boko Haram insurgency, farmersherdsmen conflict, separatist

agitation and organised violent groups, among others, cost the federation a whopping sum of $10.3 billion in 2020, the Presidential Economic

Advisory Council (PEAC) has disclosed.

The economic council gave the figure in a document presented during its sixth

regular meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House, Abuja penultimate Friday, detailing the socio-economic

cost of insecurity across the federation.

Buhari had constituted the council under the chairmanship of Prof Doyin

Salami to replace the Economic Management Team (EMT), which Vice-President Continued on page 5

Campbell: How Buhari Can Save Nigeria from Implosion Canvasses true devolution of power Bayo Akinloye A former United States Ambassador to Nigeria, John Campbell, has said President Muhammadu Buhari must urgently take a number of steps that could immediately help to salvage the country from collapsing, otherwise, if the current situation continues to deteriorate, the imminent implosion would be an "unmitigated disaster."

In an exclusive interview with THISDAY, Campbell described the 1914 amalgamation of the Southern and Northern protectorates as an idea by the British colonial rulers for mere administrative convenience, which failed to factor the fault lines into proper account.

Listing some of the immediate steps to include addressing the police and military's age-old issue of human rights abuses, he added that the agitations in some quarters for secession

could be also addressed if the federal government considered the logic in power devolution.

"Right away, it would be those steps that could be taken that would show Nigerian people that the government is moving to address the issues that bedevil the country. I would start with police reform and also, seeking to address the question of human rights abuses by both the police and the military," Campbell told THISDAY. The former US ambassador and the Ralph Bunche senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations also recommended that the federal government should seriously consider a constitution that addresses the aspiration of the masses and endorsed by them.

He argued that the previous as well as the current constitutions used by the Nigerian government were

Female Drivers of Fintech Solutions in Nigeria...See story on pgs 19 & 20

Adia Sowho

Damilola Odufuwa

Eloho Omame

Odunayo Eweniyi

Oluwaseun Runsewe

Yewande Akomolafe-Kalu

Continued on page 10

Omotoso: Sanwo-Olu’s Investment in Education Paying Off… Page 10

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Warning Strike: El-Rufai, NLC Poised for Showdown Unions threaten to shut Kaduna airport John Shiklam in Kaduna and Chinedu Eze in Lagos Kaduna State Government and the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) are poised for a showdown on Monday at the commencement of a five-day warning strike by the latter.

The state chapter of NLC had last week issued notice of the warning strike, commencing on Monday, to protest the sacking of workers by the state government.

But the government warned civil servants against participating in the strike, accusing NLC of plotting to cause violence in the state.

However, several labour organisations directed their members to participate in the action, with aviation workers threatening to close the Kaduna airport in compliance with the NLC protest.

At a press conference on Saturday in Kaduna, the Commissioner for Local Government Affairs, Mallam Jafaru Sani, alleged that some trade union leaders, led by President of NLC, Mr. Ayuba Wabba, were planning to cause mayhem in the state. Sani also accused Wabba of causing the

destruction of government property in 2017 during a protest against the sacking of over 20,000 workers by the Governor Nasir el-Rufai government. He alleged that there was a subsisting warrant for Wabba’s arrest “for vandalisation of government facilities, in violation of the Miscellaneous Offences Act and other laws of the land.”

According to the commissioner, “Security agencies have been notified of the plans of some trade unionists to recruit hoodlums, including from other states, to create a destructive spectacle and further their self-serving narrative about public service jobs and insecurity.”

Sani alleged, “The Kaduna State Government has been made aware of plans by some trade unionists, led by Ayuba Wabba, to reprise the mayhem they visited on Kaduna during their rampage of 8 November 2017.”

Wabba and other trade union leaders on November 8, 2017 led a protest against the sacking of 21,780 schoolteachers in the state, said to have failed a competency test organised by the government.

Sani warned that besides the restriction on imposed by the COVID-19 protocols, a ban on public processions subsisted in this state.

He said the state government would “protect its facilities and the right of its staff to access and work in their offices,” warning, “It is unlawful for anyone to try to deny them access or exit.”

He said, “Government offices are not the property of any trade unionist and none of them should entertain thoughts of locking up or vandalising any facility.

“As in 2017, the Kaduna State Government will not subject its policy to the veto of a mob.

“This government did not campaign on a platform of tired populism and it was not elected to practice timidity as public policy.

“It is not about to create the mistaken impression that it has much fiscal wiggle room as a subnational or that it is the supreme goal of government to pay 100,000 people while ignoring the larger public welfare of 10m citizens.

“The trade union laws of this country are not a cover for irresponsibility, and therefore

everyone concerned should be rightly guided.”

The state government had earlier in the week issued a circular directing civil servants to disregard the NLC strike notice. The circular by the Permanent Secretary, Establishment, Amina Abdullahi, on behalf the Head of Service, and addressed to all chief executives of government agencies and parastatals, directed all civil servants to report to work and sign a register.

“I am directed to request you to inform all civil servants in your MDAs and other arms of government to disregard the notice issued by the NLC and report to work,” the circular said.

However, the state chapter of NLC, in a statement, called on workers to disregard the threats by the government. The statement signed by the state secretary of NLC, Comrade Christiana Bawa, said no worker in the state civil service in the El-Rufai administration had job security.

NLC accused the Kaduna State government of sacking over 30,000 workers in 2016 and refusing to pay their

entitlements.

It said, "Since the history of Nigeria there's no government that disengaged workers like the present government of Governor Nasir Elrufai.

"This is the time to tell the world that Kaduna State government is antiworker and want to destroy the civil service in the name of reform.”

Meanwhile, several bodies affiliated to NLC directed their members to participate in the five-day warning strike. The unions include Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), National Union of Electricity Employees of Nigeria (NUEE), National Union of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institution Employees (NUBIFIE), Nigeria Union of Railway Workers, National Association of Nurses and Midwives, Aviation Workers Union, and Local Government Employees.

Aviation workers under the aegis of the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), Association of Nigerian Aviation Professionals (ANAP), and National Association of Aircraft Pilots

and Engineers (NAAPE) threatened to shut down the Kaduna airport in compliance with the strike action declared

by NLC The unions made this known in a statement on Saturday addressed to the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and copied to the Kaduna Branch Chairman/Secretariat of NUATE, ANAP and NAAPE. The unions said they would proceed with the industrial action from midnight of Sunday, May 16 to midnight of Friday, May 21.

The statement dated May 14, 2021 and titled, “Notice of Strike Action at Kaduna Airport,” was jointly signed

by General Secretary, NUATE, Comrade Ocheme Aba, Secretary General, ANAP, Comrade Abdulrasaq Saidu, and Deputy General Secretary, NAAPE, Comrade Umoh Ofonime. It said, “All workers at the Kaduna airport have been directed to withdraw all services at the airport within the stipulated period. In effect, there will be no operations of any kind into, at or out of, the airport within the period.”

BORBDA, Koster Keunen West Africa, Others Sign MoU on Honey Bee Production in Nigeria Adibe Emenyonu in Benin City In an effort to boost honey production in Nigeria and the West African subregion, the Benin Owena River Basin Development Authority (BORBDA) has signed a memorandum of Understanding with off-takers of honey and bee products.

The MOU was signed in Benin City at the weekend by the Managing Director, Mr. Saliu Osifuemhe Ahmed, the representatives of Koster Keunen West Africa and Old Levi Multibiz Services Ltd. Another co-signatory in the agreement was the Managing Director of Dino Trust Global

Company Ltd, Mr Innocent Odigie, a bee keeping expert, who signed on behalf of his company.

The corporate bodied agreed to collaborate in the business of providing the necessary platform to buy off all honey and bee products in the state especially, by those produced by the graduate trainees on bee keeping under the auspices of BORBDA in its catchment states of Edo, Delta, Ondo and Ekiti.

Speaking at the ceremony, which took place at the corporate headquarters of BORBDA, the Managing Director of BORBDA, Saliu Ahmed said the agreement was a further proof of the agency’s

commitment to providing a ready market to the honey and bee products, produced by bee farmers trained under the agency’s Youth Empowerment and Entrepreneur Scheme.

According to Armed, "The involvement of the off-takers with the bee farmers, will from now onwards boost the confidence and trust of the bee keeping business knowing full well that whatever they produce would be off taken in the most competitive price."

He urged the stakeholders especially, the state governments and traditional rulers to encourage modern bee keeping and honey production given its suitability in the local

environment.

In his brief remarks, representative of Koster Keunen West Africa the foreign lead agency in the MOU, Mr. Nasser Bembah Bahisa, expressed confidence that the agreement would provide the tonic needed to grow the honey and bee products business in Nigeria and indeed the West African sub-region.

He urged the bee farmers to take advantage of the market to expand their respective bee colonies for increased yields.

Also, representatives of Old Levi Multibiz Services Ltd, Femi Awoyemi while speaking on behalf of other foreign partners, expressed their commitment to

the agreement with BORBDA, with a view to increasing the production of honey and bee products in Nigeria and indeed, the West African sub-region through an effective marketing strategy of the products.

Awoyemi, however, expressed concern that Nigeria is yet to get its optimum in the production of honey and other bee products due to some environmental factors such as pre-harvest theft and destruction of honey fields by unauthorised persons, and poor processing of the bye-products, which reduces their market value.

On her part, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Water

Resources, Edo State, Mrs. Akongie Oboh commended the BORBDA for the concept of modern bee keeping in the state and expressed the state governments determination to key into the programme with a view to expanding the current scheme to accommodate more youths in the state in line with the state government efforts at empowering more youths through agribusiness.

Highpoints of the ceremony was the formal signing of the MOU by the managing director of BORBDA, and representatives of Koster Keunen West Africa, Old Levi Multibiz Services Ltd and Dino Trust Company Limited.

is against the unity of this country. ''As elected governors, we believe in the unity of our country, but it will help us also to advance the need for certain things to be done in order to give strength to that unity. That cannot be a

reason for us to be vilified. So, I thought that it was time for other leaders across the country to thank the southern governors for uniting to give a voice to the conversations, because all those conversations coming at

of production to security related violence between 2007 and 2019, a period of 16 years.

The council analysed the impact of human capital, which according to its slide presentation escalated the population of out-of-school children to over 13 million and significantly reduced life expectancy nationwide.

While it claimed that extreme poverty in the conflict zones was accentuated by conflict, the council observed that unemployment rate, currently standing at 33.33%, had steadily increased since 2014, in line with worsening insecurity, thus

adding to the population of persons that had fallen below the poverty line.

At large, the council said: “Conflicts and heightened insecurity reduce business confidence, manifested in declining foreign and domestic investment, deteriorating financial sector performance, higher fiscal cost and security spending.”

Consistent with PEAC’s report, as shown in complementary data obtained from the NBS, the volume of the FDI inflow dropped from $2.28 billion in 2014 to $1.03 billion in 2020, accounting for 54.83%.

OKOWA TO LAWAN: ELECTED LEADERS MUST ECHO THE VOICES OF THEIR PEOPLE it, saying that Nigerians must gather at a table to discuss for the good and future of the country.

While agreeing that there might be different views and approaches to restructuring, the governor opined that when they sit at a table to

dialogue, they would be able to agree best on what’s good for Nigeria.

He warns that if the leadership continued to shy away and ignores the voices of the people, it would give room for further crisis.

Okowa said, ''Unfortunately,

I read in the papers that somebody (Lawan) said we ought not to talk about certain things being elected people. If your people are talking and you’re an elected person but you shy away from giving further voice to their voices, then, you ought not be in the

position that you occupy.

“So, I must thank our people in the House of Representatives, who have responded to the speech made by their colleague in the National Assembly. All the things that the southern governors discussed, nothing

Continued on page 10

PEAC: NIGERIA LOST $10.3BN TO BOKO HARAM, ARMED INSURGENCY IN 2020 Yemi Osinbajo earlier set up to advise the National Economic Council.

The council, at its sixth regular meeting, dissected the country’s economic environment with a strong indication that insecurity resulting from Boko Haram insurgency, political violence, resource-based violence, organised violence and farmers-herdsmen conflicts had crippled economic activities nationwide and contracted the country gross domestic product (GDP) by 2.6% in 2020.

The council cited the grievous consequences of

ethno-religious conflicts mostly caused by suspicion and distrust among various ethnic groups and among the major religions in the country.

Examples of such conflicts, as the council documented in its 33-slide presentation, are Boko Haram, conflicts in Southern Kaduna as well as farmers-herdsmen clashes in the Middle Belt, especially Benue State.

The council observed that there was a general consensus of a worsening of the security situation in Nigeria, which it said, included competition for power and ultimately resources, usually around

the general election.

Resource based violence, according to the council in its presentation, comprised competition for economic opportunities driven by illegal mining in some states, kidnapping for ransom, Niger Delta militants and pirates and recent farmer-herder conflicts.

The council dissected the dynamics of violent farmers-herdsmen conflict, mainly among groups that peacefully co-existed previously, exacerbated by infiltration of foreigners on the one hand and climate change and environmental challenges on the other hand.

Citing incontrovertible statistical evidence, the council claimed that nationwide insecurity had multidimensional implications, especially for economic and human development.

In terms of economic cost, the council disclosed that insecurity had cost Nigeria $10.3 billion or 2.6% of the GDP, which dropped $568.5 billion in 2014 to $375.75 billion in 2017 and rose to $448.12 billion in 2020.

The presidential council equally cited a study by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimating that Nigeria lost $141.9 billion

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Campbell: British Museum Holds over 700 Pieces of Benin Bronzes

Gboyega Akinsanmi

The British Museum, the world’s first national public museum, currently holds 700 pieces of the Benin Bronzes collection, more than any other museum and other institutions globally, a former United States Ambassador to Nigeria, Dr. John Campbell has said.

Campbell, however, acknowledged that the authorities of the British Museum had agreed “to return the Benin Bronzes collection once the Edo Museum of West African Art, currently under construction in Benin City is completed.”

He gave this figure in a blog post titled “Germany to Return Some African Art to Nigeria” published on the website of Council for

Foreign Relations (CFR), a US non-profit think-tank specialising in international affairs on Wednesday.

More than a century after British soldiers looted a collection of priceless artifacts from the Kingdom of Benin, some of the Benin bronzes are heading back to Nigeria - with strings attached.

Consequently, more than 1,000 of the bronzes are held at museums across Europe, with the most valuable collection at the British Museum in London despite that the federal government had canvassed the return of the artifacts since the country gained independence in 1960.

The Benin Dialogue Group (BDG) had struck a deal to return some of the most iconic pieces in the historic collection

on a temporary basis to form an exhibition at the new Benin Royal Museum in Edo State within three years.

But in his blog post, Campbell wrote that the German Minister of Culture, Monika Grütters had announced plan to return hundreds of art objects to Nigeria.

Campbell, currently Ralph Bunche Senior fellow for Africa Policy Studies said the origin of the artifacts “is the Benin Royal Palace—located in Benin City situated in Southern Nigeria—looted and destroyed by the British in 1897.

“The Germans, however, were not in Edo and, presumably, the objects from there were looted objects purchased on the international art market and then donated

to German museums.

“The German decision has raised pressure on London’s British Museum—which holds seven hundred pieces of the Benin Bronzes collection, more than any other museum—and other institutions to lend or return bronzes to Nigeria.

Perhaps, according to the former ambassador, as few as 50 pieces of the iconic artifacts remain in Nigeria at present after the looting of the Kingdom of Benin in 1897.

He said: “Calls for the return of art acquired by Western countries during the colonial period is an old song. Some countries, especially where national identity is weak, see the return of art as a dimension of nation-building.”

Since the nineteenth century,

the former US envoy noted that the Greeks had agitated for the British return of the Parthenon sculptures (the "Elgin Marbles").

He added that the Greek perspective “takes for granted that the art produced in a particular locale uniquely belongs to the people who live there now, hence the importance of its physical repatriation.

“Another perspective is that art belongs to humanity as a whole. What matters in that case is the art’s accessibility to all who wish to see and study it and its conservation and security, not its physical location.

“An issue with respect to the return of African art to Africa has been the lack of places where it could be

exhibited, stored securely, and curated. That appears to be changing. The Edo Museum is designed to be a world-class facility.”

However, Campbell observed that the museum was located in “a poor, increasingly unstable country.

Where sustainable funding will come from or how security of the art can be maintained is unclear.

“The sponsors of the Edo Museum are looking toward rotating exhibits of artwork to be borrowed from European and American collections and then returned.

“Such an approach might satisfy those who see the art as a badge of their ethnic or national identity and those who see the art as belonging to all of humanity.”

Online Voter Registration Doesn’t Automatically Imply Electronic Transmission of Results, Says INEC Warns burning of its offices inimical to early preparation for 2023 polls Diri: e-voting will ensure rancour-free polls Chuks Okocha in Abuja The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said its decision to embark on an online registration of voters next month does not guarantee an automatic transmission of election results.

The commission, which claimed that the automatic transmission of election results must be approved by an amendment to the current Electoral Act, also expressed concerns over the burning of some of itsoffices by hoodlums in different states, describing it as a great danger to the early preparations to the 2023 general election.

This is as the Bayelsa State Governor, Senator Douye Diri, has said the hitch-free conduct of the recent Ijaw National Congress (INC) election was an indication that Nigeria could hold rancour-free national elections if only she embraces electronic voting.

But INEC, in an apparent reference to the PDP, said online registration of voters was different from the amendment of the electoral act.

The PDP had in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, noted that since INEC said it was now in a position to deploy technology to conduct online registration of voters, which included electronic transmission of voter’s data to its central server, the commission could also conduct an electronic transmission of results directly from the polling unit to its central server.

"Our party calls the attention of the commission to the fact that it no longer has any excuse not to employ the direct transmission of results from polling units, which will ensure credible elections by

eliminating manipulations, alterations, switching and disappearance of election results during manual collation processes," the PDP said.

The opposition party, however, insisted that if INEC could use the electronic platform for registration of voters, it could as well deploy the same technology for electronic transmission of results in future elections, including the 2023 general election.

But, in an interview with THISDAY, INEC national commissioner in charge of Publicity and Voter Education, Festus Okoye said, "The amendment of the Electoral Act has nothing to do with online registration of voters. The Commission does not share this power within any agency or organ of government. Our voters’ register is already in electronic format. There is no section of the Constitution or the law that forbids or prohibits the Commission from online voters registration.

"The register of voters does not vote. Amendments to the law will focus on Electronic Voting and Transmission of Results. We are simply compiling, maintain and updating the register of voters", Okoye stated.

Addressing the spate of arson at INEC properties in the states, Okoye said, "We are worried and concerned that our electoral materials are being burnt. We are worried that our generators, electoral materials in terms of cubicles, ballot boxes and other sensitive materials are going up in flames.

"We are worried, because we just finished auditing our materials in all the local governments and states preparatory to off-cycle

elections and the Continuous Voters Registration. We are worried,because we resolved to start early preparations for elections and these spates of fire incidents are a setback to our preparations. We are worried because of the anxiety and fear being created in relation to these incidents", Okoye stated.

The INEC National Commissioner further said, "Our offices are national assets and symbols of democracy.

Our offices are staging posts for the conduct of elections and delivery of electoral services. The offices enable the Commission to understand the local peculiarities and dynamics of Registration Areas and Polling Units.

Our Electoral Officers are the Managing Directors of elections in the 774 Local Government Areas of the country.

“Our Local Government Offices are indispensable in our preparations for elections.

It is the Local Government Offices that carry out the conversion and relocation of polling units. The local government offices and the local government staff of the commission will be the prime movers of the Continuous Voters Registration. The local governments are the staging posts of the bulk of electoral activities.

“Burning down the offices of the commission at the local governments will prevent the commission from domiciling non-sensitive materials at the base level and prevent early deployment on Election Day. Burning down the offices of the commission is a clear and present danger to the early and professional preparation for elections and is an attack on our democracy and democratic institutions. The

Commission is one of the symbols of democracy and a national asset and must on no account be targeted for destruction.”

However, he explained that the commission would not be intimidated as the national commissioners and the chairman are courageous in the conduct of their duties, adding that INEC would remain focussed despite what looks like acts of intimidation.

Okoye said, "We will remain focused and committed to our responsibilities to the Nigerian people. The offices were built with the taxpayers’ money. Due to dwindling resources, their reconstruction may take sometime.”

On the planned Online Voter Registration, he said the commission was the only federal executive body empowered by the constitution to arrange and conduct the registration of persons qualified to vote and prepare, maintain and revise the register of voters for the purposes of any election under the Constitution.

According to him, "Section 10(1) of the Electoral Act gives the Commission the power and mandate to carry out continuous registration of persons with the qualifying criteria to be registered as voters. Proactively, the Commission, as part of its efforts to deepen the use of technology in the electoral process retired the Direct Data Capture Machines and in its place are a new generation of voter enrolment device known as IVED. "The Commission will also deploy online registration portals that enable registrants to start their registration online and complete their biometrics and facials at the Registration Centers. This duality is in

conformity with section 10(2) of the Electoral Act that provides that each applicant for registration under the continuous registration system shall appear in person at the registration venue.

"This duality will decongest the registration venues and enable the Commission play a commanding role in the observance of COVID-19 protocols. Presently, the voters’ register is in electronic format. The Commission is not jumping the gun or doing anything in contravention of the law. The Commission should be commended for being creative, innovative and proactive,” Okoye explained.

On his part, Diri, who spoke during the inauguration of the new INC leadership at the Ijaw House in Yenagoa, urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to adopt electronic voting to avoid conflicts during elections.

A statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Daniel Alabrah, noted that the failure of the country's electoral body to adopt e-voting has led to the politicisation of revered state institutions and disrespect to such institutions.

The governor also said the adoption of e-voting would provide an opportunity for Nigerians in the Diaspora to choose their leaders through the ballot.

His words: "I am an advocate and supporter of electronic voting system. Many Nigerians have been denied the right to vote, because they are not in Nigeria and cannot participate in choosing their leaders. It is a challenge to Nigeria. Let the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) be challenged. If the Ijaws can do it, the federal government can also do it.

"If Ijaws can enfranchise Ijaws in Europe and America to be part of deciding, who leads them, INEC can equally do it. It will check violence, criminality and state institutions being politicised."

Giving his charge to the new executive council of the apex Ijaw socio-cultural body, the governor stressed the need for the body to advance the cause of Ijaws to achieve equity and fairness in Nigeria.

In his inaugural address, the new INC President, Professor Benjamin Okaba, assured the people that the body would work for the progress of the Ijaw people.

Prof. Okaba also said the INC fully supported the recent pronouncement by governors of southern Nigeria prohibiting open grazing in the region, saying the organisation would provide the necessary support to ensure adherence to laws aimed at protecting the people and their land against invasion from external forces.

Okaba, who stated that INC would collaborate with other ethnic minorities that share the same experiences with the Ijaws to achieve their dreams, said the ethnic group was aware of surreptitious moves by some groups to annex territories in the Niger Delta, because of its resources, but that no part of Ijaw would be ceded or conquered.

"The INC wishes to use this special occasion to and in an unequivocal term remind and warn such characters that the Ijaw territory was never and will never be ceded or conquered. We belong only to the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Should there be a compelling necessity to pull out of the present Nigeria, we shall go our separate ways in fulfilment of the dreams of our ancestors," he said.

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Omotoso: Sanwo-Olu’s Investment in Education Paying off Says govt has completed over 1097 school projects The Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Gbenga Omotoso has said Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s investment in the education sector has begun to yield positive result.

Omotoso, who disclosed this at the commissioning of completed school infrastructure projects at Ogudu Junior Grammar School, Ogudu on Friday, said the government has completed more than 1,097 school projects, covering 970 schools across the state, just as it has ensured the upgrade and rehabilitation of 322 dilapidated public schools and the furnishing of Primary Schools with 87,000 dual composite unit of chairs and desks in two years.

Th commissioner who represented the Lagos State governor at the event said, the project being commissioned was in line with the “Education and Technology” pillar of the present administration’s T.H.E.M.E.S Agenda, saying, “If we must actualise our greater Lagos vision, quality education must remain one of our most solid building blocks”.

While commenting on the vital role of education in the growth and development of a megacity like Lagos, Omotoso stated that it has become imperative for the government to ensure that children have access to quality education and an enabling environment for excellent learning.

His words: “In order to accelerate our children's access to world-class pedagogical learning, we have aggressively embarked on the provision of blocks of classrooms, administrative offices, school furniture, laboratories, modern toilet facilities and security across the six Education Districts and Local Government Councils.

Therefore, our children have access to quality education irrespective of their location”.

The Commissioner averred that the Lagos State government was convinced that teaching and learning could only take place effectively in an atmosphere that is conducive to learning, hence the government’s commitment to the provision of new infrastructure and the rehabilitation of existing ones.

“I am glad to note that our investment in the education

sector has been yielding positive results. Our students’ performance has improved tremendously in examinations, national and international competitions. They have also improved in morals, etiquette and confidence in public speaking,” he said.

Omotoso further noted that other gains of the investment in the education sector by the Sanwo-Olu administration include the Lagos State team emergence as winners at the 2021 National Junior

Engineers, Technicians and Scientist (JETS) competition, which took place at the National Mathematical Centre, Kwali between February 21 and 27, 2021.

He, therefore, urged community leaders, school administrators, staff and students of Ogudu Junior Grammar School to take ownership of the project and ensure that miscreants do not destroy or cart away the property of the school.

In her welcome address, the

Commissioner for Education, Mrs. Folasade Adefisayo, represented by Mrs. Oluranti Olagbaju, stated that the school infrastructure projects were evenly distributed across the Local Government and Local Council Development Areas.

“There is hardly any school in the state that was not touched by either a new school building, new classroom block, hostels, security structures, school fence, toilets, furniture and

boreholes among others,” she said.

The vision for the actualisation of the education sector was made possible through the effective collaboration of the Lagos State Ministry of Education, Lagos State Universal Basic Education (LASUBEB), the Special Committee on Rehabilitation of Public Schools (SCRPS), and the Lagos State Infrastructure and Assets Management Agency (LASIAMA).

ON-THE-SPOT ASSESSMENT Enugu State Governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi (left), during a rescue operation at an accident scene at Ekulu Bridge, Abakpa Nike, Enugu, involving a truck that lost control and fell into a ditch...yesterday

OKOWA TO LAWAN: ELECTED LEADERS MUST ECHO THE VOICES OF THEIR PEOPLE large level and it is given in the interest of larger majority of the people that we can have a truly united nation in which there’s fairness and equity and trust amongst our people and the leadership.''

Okowa said an attempt must be made to take some actions at the national level to put a stop to open grazing and therefore advised the federal government to spend part of the national resource to help to start new pilot schemes for ranching and grazing reserves.

According to him, ''Today, in

the developing world things are changing very fast and I think we are ready to begin to look futuristically, we may not be able to get ourselves out of where we are at the moment. There are several grazing reserves that have been abandoned, why were they abandoned?

“We have asked that the federal government let us spend part of the national resource to help to start new pilot schemes for which those of us in the south do support that some federal resource be

spent to start up some of these ranching, grazing reserves or whatever you call it, in order to slow down and eventually put a stop in years to come. ''I don’t think that’s a wrong decision; it’s in the best interest of our nation and our people.

I urge that all leaders in the country, stakeholders to log into the good salvations that have been put forth by southern governors and it’s time to embrace it as a people. It is in the interest of the country, otherwise,we will get to a stage when there will

be food insecurity in the land.''

On the upcoming gubernatorial election in Delta State, the governor chided politicians and citizens jumping the ship due to promises made to them in the scramble for who will replace him as governor. ''We are politicians and politics will have to be played.

I can see that a lot of things are going on in our dear state, especially, as the scramble for who will replace Dr. Okowa comes. Unfortunately, some were not even patient right

from the very first three months that we came into office for our second tenure, they have started their campaign. That ought not to be. Beyond all these, I want to charge our leaders and our people to be cautious, because politics, if you don’t play it rightly, you can throw your people into quietness. ''Whoever is coming to rule over this state by the special grace of God must be somebody, who is ready to ensure that there is fairness, justice and equity in everything.

We want somebody, who will come to Asaba and see Asaba as his own and not somebody who will come in here and feel that Asaba as headquarters is misplaced.

“We must make the people happy and together, because collectively when we speak as one people and endorse somebody that has a life line, somebody who will be fair to all Deltans, then, we can be happy and go to sleep. I will not have a governor that will put a ban on Anioma people,'' he added.

might end up in what he described as an "unmitigated disaster."

According to him, "Well, implosion of the country would be an unmitigated disaster. Whether that occurs or not is very largely up to Nigerians themselves and to their political leadership. The issue, the specific issue that I think is most dangerous at present is the deterioration of security across the country.

"Jihadism in the North, conflict over water and land use in the Middle Belt, conflicts that often assume an ethnic and religious dimension, growing

separatism sentiment in the South-East and even in Yorubaland the emergence of new institutions, which are not federal. I am talking in particular of the sort of quasi-security force that a number of the Yoruba governors have put together."

Insisting on a constitution that reflects the aspirations of Nigerians and the current realities, Campbell noted that true federalism where the states are less dependent on the central government would serve the nation better.

"I think if there were genuine federalism in

Nigeria, much of the agitation for ethnically based separatism would go away.

What are the elements of genuine federalism? First of all, the entities that make up a federal republic need to be able to raise their own revenue and not be dependent on the central government for revenue, and now, almost all of the states are. I think only Lagos state, in fact, is able to raise much, though, not all of the revenue it needs," he further explained.

CAMPBELL: HOW BUHARI CAN SAVE NIGERIA FROM IMPLOSION imposed and did not address Nigeria's genuine political faultlines and aspirations, including its various ethnic nationalities, and urged those in power to pursue a course of rewriting the constitution that genuinely takes into consideration current issues and realities.

Campbell explained: "The amalgamation of Nigeria by the British was done for their own administrative convenience without any consultation of Nigerians and without even very much thinking about what the consequences might be of putting together in

a single unit 350 different ethnic groups that had little in common with each other.

“But, I would suggest that that approach has continued.

Nigeria's constitutions had been imposed first by the British, later by various military regimes, and was never submitted to the Nigerian people for a vote or for ratification."

The senior fellow at the CFR think-tank maintained that Nigeria's current constitution mimicked that of the U.S. but is generally relics of the British colonial rule and military regimes that had superintended

Nigeria.

"The current constitution, in many respects, mimics that of the United States.

In the immediate postindependence period, the country's constitution essentially mimicked that of the Westminster way of governance. Maybe these western models have shortcomings, when they are imposed on 350 different ethnic groups," Campbell observed.

He, however, warned that if the government and the political class remained indifferent to the current nationwide crises, Nigeria

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EDITORIAL

Editor, Editorial Page PETER ISHAKA Email peter.ishaka@thisdaylive.com

AVERTING T HE LOOMING A NARCHY Insecurity is spreading and deepening the crisis across the nation. The authorities must act fast and stem the drift

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n a joint public statement last week, 253 civil society organisations said Nigeria has lost over 2000 citizens to the worsening security crisis across the country in the first quarter of 2021.

Many other stakeholders have voiced similar concerns. “Let’s not deceive ourselves; Nigeria is at war,” said Professor Pat Utomi, a political economist. “Unfortunately, the victims of that war, preponderantly, are the powerless, so we don’t count its toll well enough.”

For more than a decade, Nigeria has been grappling with a ruinous Islamist insurgency in the North-east. It has laid waste almost every economic activity in the zone, cost more than 100,000 innocent lives, and displaced millions of others.

Despite the best efforts of the military, the insurgency is spreading to neighbouring regions and beyond. The For more than a Northwest, hitherto decade,Nigeriahas isolated from terrorist beengrappling with activities, is now home to all kinds of a ruinous Islamist heinous crimes. In a insurgency in the slew of attacks across North-east. It has laid the region particularly in wastealmostevery Katsina, Sokoto, Zamfara and Kaduna States, economicactivity bandits armed with inthezone,cost more than 100,000 sophisticated weapons, regularly invade villages innocent lives, and and communities, killing displacedmillionsof and rustling cattle at will. others Kaduna is plagued by incessant kidnappings and communal violence. In recent months, armed groups have attacked several communities and schools, killing and abducting students for huge ransom.

In the last few weeks, Niger, in the North central area, has become a haven for the terrorists. They have captured some communities, hoisted their flag and are reportedly collecting taxes from their captives to further their criminal activities. The Governor of the state, Abubakar Bello recently alerted the nation that the insurgents have slashed parts of his territory and they could indeed threaten Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja. More worrying is

Letters to the Editor

as entrepreneurs of violence spread their tentacles across Nigeria the security agencies seemed overwhelmed. In Benue State, for instance, Governor Sam Ortom has repeatedly advocated the carrying of arms by everyone for self-defence. He was talking from experience. Benue is the vortex of criminality.

Thousands of innocent people have been killed and thousands more displaced through farmer-herder’s crisis over grazing land. Only last week, some 11 people were killed in Gwer West local council of the state.

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S U N DAY N E W S PA P E R EDITOR SHAKA MOMODU DEPUTY EDITORS OLAWALE OLALEYE, TOBI SONIYI MANAGING DIRECTOR ENIOLA BELLO DEPUTY MANAGING DIRECTOR KAYODE KOMOLAFE CHAIRMAN EDITORIAL BOARD OLUSEGUN ADENIYI EDITOR NATION’S CAPITAL IYOBOSA UWUGIAREN MANAGING EDITOR JOSEPH USHIGIALE

T H I S DAY N E W S PA P E R S L I M I T E D EDITOR-IN-CHIEF/CHAIRMAN NDUKA OBAIGBENA GROUP EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS ENIOLA BELLO, KAYODE KOMOLAFE, ISRAEL IWEGBU, IJEOMA NWOGWUGWU, EMMANUEL EFENI DIVISIONAL DIRECTORS BOLAJI ADEBIYI , PETER IWEGBU, ANTHONY OGEDENGBE DEPUTY DIVISIONAL DIRECTOR OJOGUN VICTOR DANBOYI SNR. ASSOCIATE DIRECTORS ERIC OJEH, PATRICK EIMIUHI ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR SAHEED ADEYEMO CONTROLLERS ABIMBOLA TAIWO, UCHENNA DIBIAGWU, NDUKA MOSERI DIRECTOR, PRINTING PRODUCTION CHUKS ONWUDINJO HEAD, COMPUTER DEPARTMENT PATRICIA UBAKA-ADEKOYA TO SEND EMAIL: first name.surname@thisdaylive.com

ven the relatively secure Southwest is increasingly being drawn into the cauldron of violence with communal crisis and growing cases of kidnapping for ransom. The Southeast and the South-south are experiencing a surge of violence. Separatists attacks are widespread as gunmen seemed to have declared war on law enforcement agencies.

From Imo to Abia, Rivers and Akwa Ibom States, policemen have become sitting targets for extermination. Yet, beyond mere statements of appeal, President Muhammadu Buhari is yet to come out with any winning strategy to deal with the war being unleashed on Nigerians. This is emboldening all kinds of agitations in the polity – from restructuring to outright secession.

In response to the deteriorating security situation in the country, governors of the southern states last week met in Asaba, Delta State after which they urged President Buhari to address the nation to douse growing tension and restore the confidence of citizens. In a 12-point communiqué, the 17 governors of South-west, South-east and South-south expressed grave concerns over the incursion of armed herders, criminals and bandits into the southern part of the country and resolved to ban open cattle grazing in the region. As a lasting solution to the socio-economic challenges plaguing the nation, they recommended restructuring the country, creation of state police and the review of revenue allocation formula.

We share the position of the governors on the need to tinker with our skewed federal structure.

Not only do these regional coalitions give the states a better opportunity to work together to wrestle more powers from a centre that has continued to entrap enormous resources, it also offers perhaps a more effective way to tackle the security challenge that is increasing leading the country on the path to anarchy. While there is an immediate need to arrest the slide, we must also acknowledge that we have a serious structural problem.

TO OUR READERS Letters in response to specific publications in THISDAY should be brief (150-200 words) and straight to the point. Interested readers may send such letters along with their contact details to opinion@thisdaylive.com. We also welcome comments and opinions on topical local, national and international issues provided they are well-written and should also not be longer than (950- 1000 words). They should be sent to opinion@thisdaylive.com along with the email address and phone numbers of the writer.

THE IMPERATIVE OF COMMUNITY POLICING

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ore than any other time in the history of Nigeria, the civil war of 1967 to 1970 inclusive, the challenges of insecurity have never deteriorated and overwhelmed the citizens and the authorities than now. The menace of terrorism, banditry and kidnapping have in reality becomes rampant, fierce and consistent, making life nasty, brutish and short.

In the prevailing circumstances, it is rather unfortunate to state that there existed the traits of the Jacobins of the French dynasty which reigned in the middle of 1546, full of terror and impunity on the French nationals by the aristocrats and from where the word terrorism stems from.

It is, however, instructive to note that bad governance in most cases

forms the basis of terrorism and criminality in most societies. Notably, dissenting and disgruntled elements that are not pre-disposed to the impunity of their leaders become aggressive, resenting the character of the rulership due to obvious frustrations.

Although there are various factors which trigger elements of terrorism, kidnapping and arms struggle such as human theory, conspiracy theory and biological theory, all of them have one thing in common which may be social, economic, political and psychological factors. For instance, social factors ignite “date kidnappings,” political factors trigger “ransom kidnappings,” economic factors trigger “gang kidnappings” and psychological factors trigger “serial kidnappings” to agitate or rebel against the system. In most cases with the connivance of shadow

actors, internal and external forces.

However, people-oriented and selfless leadership remains the most effective means and panacea of discouraging all sorts of terror groups that are often inclined towards secession, disintegration, extremism and parochial ends.

However, to keep all traits of organised crime and general insecurity in any given society, there must be an institutional framework geared towards the promotion of good governance and effective community policing at the grass root level.

This is because most of the terror inclined networks do their recruitment and indoctrination at the rural communities due to the absence of basic education, sensitisation and basic social amenities in such localities and hardly any terror network gets followership at urban centres.

In essence, to tackle the rising wave for futile intent of violent crimes in of general insecurity in Nigeria today, the country. On this note, it will not the entire local government authorities be out of place to briefly enumerate should as a matter of necessity be some of the laudable interventions of engaged, liberated from the undue Hon. Chief Yusuf Mahanen Machen, interference of state executives politically the Executive Chairman of Bokkos and financially as an integral unit of Local Government Area of Plateau government due to their proximity and State, for his patriotism, dedication affinity with the locals at the grass root. and accountable disposition towards If these variables are guaranteed good governance and ensuring secure the local government chairmen and environment within and around all the traditional rulers, they would communities of his local council. undoubtedly become more viable to On assumption as the elected gather intelligence for the benefit of executive chairman of the council, our security, and as well be in vantage Hon. Machen had pledged to ensure position to provide the much needed the safety of lives and property of people-oriented projects, policies and the inhabitants under his jurisdiction, programmes which shall in turn and as well providing the much eliminate frustration from the minds of needed social amenities in the area. the beleaguered local inhabitants and For instance, in the area of security, to restore their confidence and loyalty to ensure the safety of the rural populace. the state. More profoundly, community –––Mohammed Isa Bilal, Jos, policing will then be an effective means Plateau State. of checkmating and obliterating tendencies of insecurity and the quest Read full article online - www.thisdaylive.com

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OPINION

A N ATION IN DIRE NEED OF PATRIOTS Nigeria is our collective responsibility, writes Fredrick Nwabufo

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he Chinese did not build their prosperous country by abandoning ship when it was turbulent. In fact, it was at a time of great tribulation and uncertainty that the Chinese forged the path for a glorious future. The successful nations today hurdled through moments of topsyturvy in their history. The strongest steel is forged in the hottest fire. If we abandon Nigeria in its time of adversity, who will save it?

Nigerians want a better country, but some are unwilling to work for it. The buck is passed, traded and discarded. There is always someone else to blame for the societal hebetudes. We await a messiah who by the wave of his wand will magic all our troubles away. We hang on to the illusion that someone somewhere will begin to put humptydumpty together. We wait for Godot.

A better Nigeria begins with me. It begins with you. It begins with us. We cannot outsource the development of our country. We must put our hands on the wheel to move it forward. We only make the country we deserve. The Chinese did not entrust their development to the Americans or anyone.

Singaporeans as well did not consign their progress to any external agency. They built their country through tempest and hailstorm.

Nevertheless, the place of leadership in the progress of these countries is unimpeachable. For China, the leadership tapestry of Mao Zedong saw the country evolve from an agrarian economy to an industrial nucleus. In the case of Singapore, the reformist deportment of Lee Kuan Yew is a classical story. Yes, we cannot excuse the place of leadership in transforming society.

However, leaders are not made on Mars. They come from the community pool – with the same flaws and contours as everyone else. A society only gets the leaders it deserves. When a people select certain persons to steer their affairs among a cluster of choices, they are not inculpable when their leadership option fails. The led is as guilty as the leader.

No one is without blemish in the rotting of Nigeria.

In our small stations, we contribute to the rot. In Abuja, it is usual to see foreigners in vehicles with diplomatic licence plates beat traffic lights. A video of a purported diplomat peeing on our road rippled on social media at the weekend. These people cannot conduct themselves in such an abhorrent manner in their own countries. But we are bad examples. ‘’The Nigerian way of anything goes’’ taints even the pristine. We must set the right examples from top to bottom.

Again, no one is coming to save the night. No one is coming to save us. If we all elect to abandon Nigeria at this moment of trial, what happens to our kith and kin who cannot afford to escape the country? Our roots in Nigeria are deep and run through the core of the earth. We cannot yank off the radicles without hurting ourselves.

We can only create a better country if we work at it.

Citizenship is a right that comes with a burden. Why should we resort to ‘’Plan B’’ and abandon our country to those who will gut it and discard its carcass?

A better Nigeria begins with me. Our Plan B should not be to leave Nigeria in the kerb. Nigeria is salvageable. The traditional crotchets of inveterate pessimists and disbelievers in the Nigeria project are that only a rupturing of the entity can save its peoples. But this is an escapist’s way of avoiding responsibility to do the actual task of building the country.

Nigeria is our collective responsibility. We all have an equal share in the task of nation-building.

We must begin and not stop crocheting the national fabric. Nigeria is not an option. Nigeria is the option.

Nation-building cannot succeed in vacancy of the citizens. Nation-building is largely citizenship building. And really, the process starts with those we elect into office. If we elect leaders on the shade of their religious and ethnic complexions or some provincial permutations, do we expect them to protect the interest of all Nigerians or of only those with the same native identities? We have to do better. What we give is what we receive. We cannot make appreciable progress if religion and ethnicity remain the in situ conditions for electing leaders in Nigeria.

So, it all comes back to us. A better Nigeria begins with me. Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US president, famously said: "The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his own weight." Ralph Nader, American activist and author, expressed my sentiments when he said: "There can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship." By the same token, Paul Collier, award-winning author, when he said: “You are a citizen, and citizenship carries responsibilities.”

We can only create a better country if we work at it. Citizenship is a right that comes with a burden.

Why should we resort to ‘’Plan B’’ and abandon our country to those who will gut it and discard its carcass? Nigeria is worth fighting for.

Nigeria needs fixing. We are the fix.

––Nwabufo is a writer and journalist.

Avoiding The Descent To Anarchy Onyedikachi Edeh argues that government must be open minded about all suggestions, including a restructured federation

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igeria has been a struggling giant. A giant because it is the most populous black nation as well as the most economically capitalized (measured in GDP) black nation. It is struggling because it has not been able to attain a reasonable fraction of its potential.

In this piece, I seek to interrogate the current agitations threatening the continued existence of the Nigerian Republic. Some of the questions raised are: Are these agitations justified and what are the realities fuelling them? Are these agitations capable of plunging the country into some bloody clashes or even a full-blown war? Should such unthinkable consequence be avoided and how?

Nigerian history dates back at least to the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Regions of the country in 1914 by the colonial administration. That is however not the problem.

The real problem has been the pattern of political relations amongst the constituents since the pre-independence nationalist protagonists who had foregrounded the differences amongst the numerous ethno-cultural units to the detriment of a true nationalist philosophy. One of the historic misadventure of these ethno-nationalist attitudes was the unfortunate civil war of 1967 to 1970. Let me highlight some of the factors that made that war inevitable: One, in January 1966, there was a military coup d’état which toppled the civilian regime of the time and introduced military rule in Nigeria. Because of its outcome, this coup was labeled an “Igbo Coup,” a label which proved very costly for the nation.

Two, in July, 1966, there was another military coup but this time it was clearly a coup against the Igbos. The coup consumed prominent Igbo officers in the military and brought to power General Yakubu Gowon as the new Head of State. General Gowon was however unable to curtail the massive killing of Igbo officers in various military barracks in the country.

Three, in September, 1966 there was massive killing of the civilian Igbos in major commercial cities in the north. Four, in

January, 1967, there was the Aburi meeting between Gowon and Ojukwu but Gowon jettisoned all the agreements reached in that meeting.

Five, in May, 1967, Ojukwu declared the Republic of Biafra apparently in protest to the inhumanity of the Northdominated Nigerian government against the Igbos. Six, in July, 1967 the war broke out as the Nigerian government sought to prevent the secession of the Igbo-dominated Eastern Region (the Biafra) from the Nigerian union.

What is the relevance of the foregoing to the present discuss? one may ask. I am worried that we might be walking the same path that led to that valley of death in 1967. We might be repeating the error of history which if not checked might take us to another avoidable disaster. According to Fredrick Forsyth in his book “The Biafra Story,” “Biafra was a mistake; it should and need never have happened,” and I will add there should never be a repeat.

Various groups today are singing the song of secession.

From Boko Haram and Arewa in North to Oduduwa in the West and to Biafra in the East. One thing common to all these agitations is that they all represent a protest against the status quo. In the case of the Igbos, they feel aggrieved that the error of the civil war (which was by all reasonable standard a national aggression directed at the Igbos) was not sufficiently redressed. They have continued to feel excluded from the national scheme of things where it appears as if certain areas of national life have been declared a “No Igbo Zone”.

What is of paramount importance is not necessarily the reasons or justifications for these agitations, but how the government respond to and deal with these agitations and the agitators. For good or for bad, Biafra as a concept has entered into our national vocabulary and the mere use of the word should not be seen as a treasonable felony. The concept shares some connotative affinity with “Oduduwa” and “Arewa” but evokes more hatred and reprehension than these two; why?

The government must first of all deal with this semantic bias before it can objectively address the issue.

The Nigerian government as a benevolent father must learn to love all its citizens irrespective of their ethnic affinity. Such love would naturally dictate that in dealing with these agitators, the first approach should not be to unleash full military might against them. Force should only be used as the last option especially when all other efforts is manifestly seen to have failed.

It is squarely at the doorstep of the government to do everything humanly possible to avoid a descent to anarchy.

Gowon is an ex-Head of State just as Goodluck Jonathan is an ex-president. Between the two, however, every objective mind will give more credit to Jonathan as a national hero than Gowon because Jonathan averted a catastrophic outcome in 2015 when he conceded defeat and handed over to his political opponent. He had declared that his personal ambition was not worth anyone’s blood. If Gowon had adopted such liberal mindset in 1966/67, perhaps that pogrom might have been avoided.

Open mindedness would allow the government consider the merit of all the available alternatives including a restructured federation without shutting out any option.

It will allow government to go into a genuine national dialogue aimed at finding pragmatic solutions to the problems fuelling these agitations. It will allow government aggregate all genuine suggestions irrespective of where they are coming from and objectively analyze them for merit and relevance. Open mindedness would allow the government to take a closer look atthe Constitution of Nigeria, which is the grundnorm with a view to making it an instrument of peace and nation-building rather than an instrument of repression and oppression. Above all, the government must act very fast to arrest the mounting tension in the polity.

–– Edeh wrote from Abuja.

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PERSPECTIVE

Udom’s Healthcare Programme for Sustainable Development George Inwang

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ealth is wealth. This time-worn adage must be the philosophy that drives the unprecedented transformation of the health sector in Akwa Ibom State under the leadership of Governor Udom Emmanuel.

It is a transformation, which is bringing healthcare delivery closer to the people through increasedaccessibility and availability regardless of their social class or area of residence.

This includes rural areas, which had no health facilities, thus forcing residents in those areas to travel long distances for medical care in hospitals that were ill-equipped to serve that purpose ab initio.

The exercise has so far seen the revamping of health institutions that were dilapidated in structures, which were in rundown conditions and unable to provide services to the sick, even in the most common ailments like malaria and typhoid fever, or maternity services – with preventable deaths, including high infant and maternal mortality rates, as consequence.

Those institutions have had life breathed into them by way of remodeling, reconstruction and rehabilitation of critical structures like emergency and accident departments, wards, theatres and dispensaries as the case may be, as well as upgrade or replacement of equipment, to be able to meet the challenge of providing modern healthcare delivery in a state that is being primed to be Nigeria’s industrial hub.

The government has created an environment that is conducive for investments to thrive – a peaceful and secure state, critical infrastructure like good road network and power, as well as incentives that investors find attractive and irresistible. This is in addition to the traditional hospitality for which the people of Akwa Ibom are well known, which contributes to creating awelcoming environment where people can visit, live and work.

The creation of the right environment has so far yielded results in form of industrial establishments which have been set up in the state in the last six years – about 16 in all. These industries are collectively employing thousands of people.

With the oil and gas free zone the federal government is planning to set up in the state, and the futuristic Ibom Deep Sea Portwhich is going to be the biggest investment in that part of the country, Akwa Ibom indigenes in other parts of the country

Emmanuel are going to find it attractive to return home to seek employment and business opportunities.The state will no doubt appeal Nigerians in neighbouring states and other parts of the country in search of greener pastures.

With more people coming into the state – local investors from other parts of the country, foreign investors and Nigerians seeing to take up employment – there is going to be pressure on social services, including healthcare delivery. The government has acted proactively by investing in healthcare to build a state where health would translate to wealth – a state with a healthy population that would create individual and collective wealth for present and future generations of Akwa Ibomites.

The government has strengthened healthcare delivery at the primary level by building more health centres, rehabilitating old ones and upgrading some to the level of full hospitals. For instance, the Awa Primary Health Centre has been remodeled, reconstructed and equipped to join the list of general hospitals that are located in the three senatorial districts of the state – to make secondary healthcare delivery available even where there

are primary health facilities.

Other hospitals on this list are the Immanuel General Hospital, Eket; Iquita General Hospital, Oron: St. Luke’s General Hospital, Anua, Uyo; Etinan General Hospital; General Hospital, Ikot Okoro, Abak; General Hospital, Ikono and the Methodist General Hospital, Ituk Mbang, in which premises the state’s 300-bed COVID-19 isolation and treatment centre is located.

The capacity to deliver quality healthcare to the people of the state has been strengthened with the setting up of the Akwa Ibom State Primary Healthcare Development Agency (AKSPHCDA). This is in line with thepractice at the federal level and some states of the federation.

The AIPHDA, which comes under a special project christened, Primary Healthcare Under One Roof, is charged, among others, with the responsibility to improve access to quality and basic healthcare, putin place a high performance team of healthcare providers, control preventable diseases and guarantee universal health coverage of all parts of the state.

The importance of an agency like the AKSPHCDA is evident at this period when the Coronavirus pandemic is still very much around, despite several measures like testing and treatment, nonpharmaceutical safety measures and massive vaccination that are being carried out in all the states of the federation to stem its spread. Primary healthcare development agencies are the ones that are effectively taking charge of the vaccination campaign, as we have seen in all parts of the country. The AKSPHCDA has therefore come at the right time.

Improvement of the quality of healthcare delivery in Akwa Ibom would, apart from guaranteeing quick and easy access to health services at all levels and in all parts of the state, controlling the spread of diseases and reducing the rate of preventable deaths, also create a general state of wellbeing that would engender an enthusiastic embrace of Governor Emmanuel’s Dakkada philosophy that challenges every Akwa Ibomite to rise to greatness.

The philosophy has already begun to yield fruits, as the people of the state have now come to terms with the roles they can play, individually and as a people, in building the Akwa Ibom Project – a state with a solid industrial base that would guarantee sustainable socio-economic development that outlives the present generation.

–––Inwang, a public affairs commentator, lives in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

Lagos: How to Revamp Public Schools Ayodeji Mayokun Ayopo

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hen the Lagos State Government earmarked 143.66 billion naira for public education in the 2021 budget, many people are of the opinion that the government is poised to change the education landscape in the state. This implies that the government is strongly focused in pursuing an holistic agenda of transforming the education sector in Lagos State.

It should be pointed out that the huge investment in infrastructural development in the education sector is very critical to effective learning, Indeed the quote from the sage Allan Bloom who says; “education is the movement from darkness to light” is indeed the current scenario in Lagos state. The Sanwoolu government is indeed dispelling the works of darkness in the education sector by heralding a new dawn through its holistic agenda to accelerate infrastructural development in the sector. It should be noted that public schools suffer from environmental degradation and infrastructural kwashiorkor. It has been a pitiable sight as students learn under pathetic and life threatening atmosphere.

However, things have started taking new dimensions when Governor Babajide Sanwoolu ascended the podium of governance in Lagos State. With an irrepressible desire and a gargantuan zeal, Sanwoolu swung into action and today, the tides have indeed changed positively concerning infrastructural decay in public schools. It should be emphasized that the strong focus of the Sanwoolu administration is premised on a strategic blueprint.

Sanwo-Olu

This aptly tagged T.H.E.M.E.S. THEMES focuses on Traffic Management, Transport, Health, Environment, Education and Technology. The Education part of this strategic process has received enormous attention with the huge investment in infrastructural development. Governor Sanwoolu on assumption of office had decried the poor state of infrastructure in public schools. He immediately declared zero tolerance on the poor state of infrastructure in public schools.

Fulfilling The Agenda To accelerate and actualize the core vision of revamping schools’ infrastructure, Governor Babajide Sanwoolu inaugurated the Special Committee for the Rehabilitation of Public Schools (SCRPS). The committee headed by Mr. Hakeem Smith has since been the veritable channel through which public schools have experienced massive transformation and growth.

The Governor set the stage with the

inauguration of SCRPS with the mandate to ensure that public schools are conducive for learning. The Hakeem Smith led committee remains the cynosure of public spectacle as the populace watched in utter astonishment the beautification of public schools in Lagos.

Since its inauguration, SCPRS has rehabilitated close to 150 schools while over 300 classrooms at various stages of completion are being constructed and renovated.

Construction of hostel blocks with a target of over 1,000 beddings are also almost completed in the model colleges. According to John Dewey, “Education is not preparation for life. Education is life itself”. This quote sums up the focus of the Sanwoolu administration in creating conductive learning environment for students in public schools.

The facilities that are being installed in the schools attest to the fact that fact that the Lagos State Government is making education a life in its own right for both teachers and students.

State of The Art Furniture The intervention is not only limited to infrastructural develpemnt but also the provision of modern furniture. The fabrication and supply of dual single composite student benches and tables with underneath compartments for books and bag storage are being supplied to public schools especially to those with furniture deficit.

The provision of state of the art furniture for both students and teachers align with the above that education is life in Lagos State.

SCRPS has provided over 100,000 student furniture as part of its intervention in public schools.

The ICT Angle Giant stride shave also been made in infusing technology into schools and into the learning process.This is a welcome development in view of the huge role ICT

plays in leraning.It is the innate resolve of the Sanwoolu administration to build new schools and incorporate ICT to drive teaching and learning through infrastructural needs.

Improving Teachers’ Capabilities A critical focus of the transformation in public schools is improving the compentencies and capabilities of teachers through continuous training. The skills of teachers are being updated through modern technology. A total number of 2,500 teachers were trained in scenario planning based on remote leraning,teaching nd classroom co-ordination post COVID.

The Security Angle The governments’ intervention is not only limited to infrastructure but the innovative dimension of security.There is the Security Improvement Programme(SIP).This was introduced especially in the model colleges and boarding schools.

The government factored the critical issue of security into its school infrastructural development project. Some watch towers with alarm belts and perimeter fences in order to enhance security have also been constructed. This is a noble feat as it addresses the concerns of parents about the safety of their children in public schools. This major intervention will also eliminate the insecurity incidences where hoodlums invade schools to cause mayhem and threaten the lives of both students and teachers.

The government should however ensure regular maintenance of the infrastructural facilities. The monitoring of the assigned contractors is also key as the schools have remained in a decrepit sate for too long.

It is expected that the Sanwoolu administration will remain focused in sustaining qualitative education in Lagos State.

––Ayopo lives in Lagos.

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MA ͹;˜ ͺ͸ͺ͹ ˾ THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER

INTERNATIONAL Hypothesis-building in the Governance of Nigeria: The Danger of a PMB’s Coup Against Nigeria

H

ypothesis-building is generally believed to be reserved for academic research projects.

Researchers are required to, first of all, reflect on critical questions or problematic, then come up with observations and thrusts that are to be tested in light of further empirical investigations and exegesis. Thus, like German Foundations and other types of cornerstones are required in solid building constructions, so is hypothesis required in building theories in various social science disciplines.

Grosso modo, hypothesis is the first stage of research reflections, after collation of data and preliminary study. The ultimate in the continuum of research processes is the theory, the final outcome of research finding, which, under normal situations, should guide political governance. It is not hypothesis, to begin with, that should be the foundation of or drive public governance.

Most unfortunately, however, allegiance is not showed in practice to government, but not to Nigeria as a country. Political governance is also increasingly predicated on hypothesis-building, which is often presented to the Nigerian public as hard facts, and by so doing, giving the impression that President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) may be planning a fresh coup against himself and Nigeria in order to retain power by all means beyond 2023.

This observation or hypothesis is largely informed by many of PMB’s public statements on his beliefs and agenda of governance of Nigeria, but to which he has not visibly been faithful. He has flagrantly worked against what he publicly professed.

For instance, in 2011, ever before he was elected, he told all Nigerians why he would not want to serve beyond one term in office because of his old age, which he believed would limit his performance. As he put it then, ‘I wish I became a Head of State when I was a Governor... Now at 72, there is a limit to what I can do (The Punch, June 12, 2011, p.2). Besides, PMB told Nigerians, following his re-election, that ‘we have got the opportunity to serve again for additional four years, and Nigerians will know the difference.’

In fact, the ruling party talked about carrying Nigeria to ‘The Next Level.’ Nigerians are at the desired level and they can know the difference. It was on the basis of the need for a revamped economy, anti-corruption fighting and ensuring national security that PMB campaigned for election and re-election.

As at today, Nigeria has become the terra cognita for institutional corruption and transnational terrorism. PMB is a General of the Nigerian Army. He was formerly a military Head of State and most Nigerians believed that his military background would be quite useful in the battle and war against the boko haramic insurgency. Unfortunately, the contrary has been the case. The current situational reality cannot but permit one to hypothesize that PMB’s attitudinal disposition points to an intention to remain in power by non-use of force, but by a doctrine of necessity, or force of necessity, or force majeure

Hypothetical Dynamics of PMB’s New Coup Aformer US envoy and a spokesperson to four US Ambassadors to the United Nations, Mr. Richard Grenell, predicted in 2015 that ‘electing the APC candidate president, will be a disaster for Nigeria and Africa’ (The Guardian, Monday, March 23, 2015, front page). Has his prediction been proved wrong? Or is it too early to embark on an evaluation of PMB’s administration? What really informed such a prediction by him and by other international observers?

He warned the Obama administration of the impending and deepening situation of insecurity in Nigeria. In his words, ‘Western foreign policy observers pre-occupied with the rise of ISIS in the Middle East should wake up to the reality unfolding in Nigeria.

Opposition candidate General Buhari wants Sharia law throughout Nigeria. In fact, he wants it everywhere.’ (vide pulse.ng March 21, 2015). Can it not be rightly hypothesized that PMB’s silent approach to public complaints and quests for new responses to the deepening situations of insecurity in Nigeria not an expression to ensure that Sharia is installed everywhere? Is it not also a manifestation of the observation of a PMB agenda to Fulanise the whole of Nigeria as pointed out by Chief Olusegun Okikiola Obasanjo, former President and GCFR of Nigeria?

And perhaps more significantly, Mr. Grenell noted in his

VIE INTERNATIONALE

Bola A. Akinterinwa Telephone : 0807-688-2846

e-mail: bolyttag@yahoo.com

Buhari ‘’Nigeria on the Brink,’’ published in the Washington Times of Thursday, March 19, 2015 that the ultimate goal of all terrorist attacks in Nigeria and Africa is to establish an Islamic State and that ‘Boko Haram has pledged its allegiance and support to the ISIS. The Northern Nigerian-based Islamic terrorist group, Boko Haram, wants Sharia law throughout the country and beyond.

They are also actively terrorising Chad, Niger and Cameroon with their goal of Islamic State.’ This is why Mr. Grenell saw Nigeria being at a tipping point, PMB’s election as a disaster, and PMB’s election as a signal of trouble ‘for the West’s fight against ISIS and terrorism throughout the Middle East.’

Should PMB be solely held responsible for seeking an Islamic rule in Nigeria? Probably not. Sir Ahmadu Bello is on record to have said that ‘the new nation called Nigeria should be an estate of our great grandfather, Uthman Dan Fodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We use the minorities in the North as willing tools and the South as a conquered territory and never allow them to rule over us and never allow them to have control over their future’ (Parrot Newspaper, October 12, 1960).

If we admit of this quoted statement as valid, why should any other right-thinking Nigerian be expected to accept such a publicly declared policy of enslavement of others and particularly the permanency of the rule of Northerners? If Ahmadu Bello did not want Southerners to have control over their own future, who are the messengers, executors, soldiers, implementers, etc, to enforce the policy? Is PMB not one of the implementers if he believes that Sharia law should be everywhere?

When the Kano State Council of Ulamas sponsored the Sharia Bill that was passed by the State Assembly but was withdrawn by some Governors, PMB was asked in an interview what his own position was, especially being a member of the Kano State Council.

He refused to comment officially but as a Muslim and his response was very thought-provoking. In his thinking during the interview on the Hausa Service of BBC, ‘there is nothing like my position as a former Head of State. This is an issue of Sharia and so it should rather be my position as a Muslim. I am a Muslim.’

More significant, PMB added as follows: ‘if we as Muslims

Without any whiff of doubt, PMB is his own problem. The Presidency is also a major problem unto itself in many ways. Nigeria operates a presidential system of government and not even semi-presidential, meaning that PMB can only be removed by impeachment and not by passing of vote of no confidence. It is under a parliamentary system that the passing of confidence and no confidence can take place. Besides, a national dialogue is conceptually different from a national conference, and for that matter, from a sovereign national conference. The mere fact that there is a call for national dialogue necessarily implies a quest for solutions to identified national questions. A sovereign conference is not subject to any other superior authority. Even if the National Assembly is there, the delegated authority to it cannot override the attributed sovereignty of the conference. Consequently, the hypothesis of the presidency is uncalled for.

PMB’s hypothesis of possible coup to oust him is nothing more than a calculated propaganda to stay in power beyond 2023 in order to have more time to consolidate his alleged Fulanisation and Islamic agenda. After all, Muammar Gaddafi made it clear before he died that there would never be peace in Nigeria until Nigeria is partitioned into Muslim North and Christian South.

There is a serious danger ahead

want amputation or death penalty, we said we want it because it is our religion and the Constitution of the country has agreed that everyone has the right to practise the religion of his choice... Sharia does not affect Christians’ (Nigerian Public Opinion Page, ‘’How Buhari Encouraged Sharia Law Under Obasanjo,’’ in m.facebook. com).

What is particularly noteworthy about the unhappiness of the Kano State Council of Ulamas concerning the withdrawal of the Bill is its declared determination that it was fed up with the ‘fraudulent togetherness’ of Nigerians.’ In fact, Dr. Datti Ahmed, former SDP Presidential aspirant, who was the spokesperson for the Ulamas, put it bluntly as follows: ‘we are happy to inform our Yoruba fellow citizens of Nigeria that we too have now come to the same conclusion. Let there be a national conference - sovereign or otherwise - to determine the basis of our continued togetherness and the sooner all sections of Nigeria meet to determine our future co-existence, the better for all of us.’

And true enough, if the Muslims do consider that the ‘penal code was imposed on them as a guise to replace Sharia by the British administrators when they were leaving’ and the people of Kano State ‘do not see any reason why anybody should be so hysterical in opposing our legitimate effort at restoring the Sharia legal/ judicial system in our State who are more than 99% adherents of the Sharia system,’ why should this principle of true federalism be granted in the context of Zamfara State but non-readiness to allow the application of the same principle in other States? Is it because of Sir Ahmadu Bello’s dictum which does not want Southerners to have a control of their own future or who must not be allowed to rule Northerners? In fact, why has PMB refused to consider the report of the 2014 National Conference organised under President Goodluck Jonathan?

This is another critical dynamic that warrants special attention of its own. However, Nigerians are called upon to pray for Nigeria.

But is mere praying a solution to this type of well-calculated attitudinal disposition? Pastor William Folorunsho Kumuyi of the Deeper Life Christian Ministry called on all Nigerians in 1986 to change their minds to God and that it was only unity and cooperation of all ethnic groups within the country that could bring progress. He warned that Nigeria should guide against religious crisis (The Guardian, Thursday, April 10, 1986). In fact, General Yakubu Gowon had regular prayer sessions for Nigeria at a point in time. But to what extent is the usefulness of prayers if, for instance, a group of Nigerians believe that they should be masters and others should be their servants, and in doing so, their land should be forcefully taken from them?

Calls for National Confab and Coup-Making There have been several calls for national dialogue on several issues dividing the people of Nigeria. The decision of the Kano State Council of Ulamas to accept the idea of a national dialogue is only one of the desiderata. With the renewed and strengthened agitation for self-determination and possible separation from Nigeria, resulting in the destruction of public edifices, and attacks on security agents virtually in all parts of the country, the seventeen Governors of the Southern States met on Monday, May 11, 2021 in Asaba, Delta State, for more than four hours, to articulate how best to address the situation of insecurity, which, ridiculously, has not spared even the presidency where the official residence of the Chief of Staff to the President, Professor Ibrahim Agboola Gambari was reportedly burgled.

As noted in the Communiqué of the Governors, ‘the forum affirms that the people of Southern Nigeria remain committed to the unity of Nigeria on the basis of justice, fairness, equity and oneness and peaceful co-existence between and among its people with a focus on the attainment of shared goals for economic development and prosperity.’ And perhaps more important, the forum made it clear that ‘in view of widespread agitations among our various peoples for greater inclusiveness in existing governance arrangements, the Federal Government should convoke a national dialogue as a matter of urgency’ (The Punch, May 12, 2021, p.9) For long, there have been calls for national dialogue and restructuring of the polity but PMB has consciously or otherwise turned very deaf ears to them. PMB openly and in a don’t care fashion, disregarded public complaints about his policies of nepotism. The social media is always filled with the administrative structures of several Nigerian strategic institutions where only Northerners occupy virtually all the top positions. The complaints meant absolutely nothing to PMB. The economy has nothing to write home about. Corruption has become a house-hold name and tradition. Apprehended Fulani herdsmen and armed bandits are released on the beck and call of Commissioners of Police. The particular and very sorry case of the Governor of Akwa Ibom State speaks volumes (vide the social media). Governor Ortom of Benue State has drawn public attention to the many dimensions of complicity of the Federal Government in the attacks in Benue State.

General Theophilus Danjuma even directly accused the Nigerian military in the aggression against the people of Nigeria. It is against this background that other patriotic nationals have insisted on the need for an urgent national confab and that the presidency has hypothesized that the ultimate objective of such a confab cannot but be to plan a coup in which PMB would be accused, a vote of no confidence passed and PMB would be removed.

Read full article online - www.thisdaylive.com

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER MAY 16, 2021

17

SPECIAL INTERVIEW JOHN CAMPBELL U.S. and the World Not Paying Enough Attention to Nigeria’s Crises In this interview with Bayo Akinloye, a former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria and the Ralph Bunche senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, John Campbell, says the most dangerous issue Nigeria faces is the deterioration of security across the country. He prescribes urgent steps that President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration should take to help a country on the brink of disintegration turn the corner. Campbell has written copiously about Nigeria. He is the author of the new book Nigeria and the Nation-State: Rethinking Diplomacy with the Postcolonial World, and writes the blog Africa in Transition.

From 1975 to 2007, Campbell served as a U.S. Department of State Foreign Service officer. He served twice in Nigeria, as a political counsellor from 1988 to 1990 and as ambassador from 2004 to 2007. Campbell has also written Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know, co-authored with Matthew Page, and Nigeria: Dancing on the Brink. He edits both the Nigeria Security Tracker and the Sub-Saharan Security Tracker

F

or more than a decade now, Nigeria has teetered between stability and disintegration. Do you think an implosion of the country is a present danger or a future disaster waiting to happen?

Well, implosion of the country would be an unmitigated disaster. Whether that occurs or not is very largely up to Nigerians themselves and to their political leadership. The issue, the speciÀc issue that I think, is most dangerous at present is the deterioration of security across the country.

Jihadism in the North, conÁict over water and land use in the Middle Belt, conÁicts that often assume an ethnic and religious dimension, growing separatism sentiment in the South-East and even in Yorubaland the emergence of new institutions which are not federal. I am talking in particular of the sort of quasi security force that a number of the Yoruba governors have put together.

Holding on to that, you’ve always warned Nigerian elites and the government about the country ‘dancing on the EULQN · $QG WKDW·V WKH WLWOH RI \RXU ÀUVW book on Nigeria. Am I correct?

That’s correct.

You’ve always warned Nigeria. You’ve always warned Nigerian elites that the country is dancing on the brink.

That’s right.

But, it appears nobody is paying attention, or, what do you think, to those warnings?

Oh, I think in a sense it doesn’t really much matter whether Nigerians are paying attention to my warnings. What does matter, I think, is that increasing numbers of Nigerians, particularly within the elites, are seeing it and are concerned about the danger that increased insecurity is posing to the future of Nigeria.

So, were you to have an access to those in power in Nigeria today, particularly the president, what will you tell him to do right away?

Right away, it would be those steps that could be taken that would show Nigerian people that the government is moving to address the issues that bedevil the country.

I would start with police reform and also, seeking to address the question of human rights abuses by both the police and the military.

The question of restructuring, political

Campbell

18

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER MAY 16, 2021

SPECIAL INTERVIEW

Implosion of Nigeria Will be Unmitigated Disaster restructuring; you do not think that will also come to play?

The question of whether political restructuring, the role that political restructuring would play, that has to be a longer-term initiative. For example, there is a great deal of talk now amongst many, many Nigerians about the need for some kind of sovereign national conference that could look at rebuilding Nigeria as it were, from the ground up to make it a genuinely democratic and federal state.

Putting together a conference, a sovereign national conference, whatever you call it, is a process that has to be thought through. How, for example, should Nigerian stakeholders be represented?

How would they be chosen? Once the conference was in place, how would its recommendations be carried out? These are issues that require thought and require some time to work through. Whereas, I would suggest certain steps to reform the police and the security services could be taken more quickly.

Many people generally have preached an indissoluble Nigeria. But, some say Nigeria does not have to continue to remain what they describe as a contraption. Some feel, probably if some regions go their separate ways, things will be better. Do you think the answer may lie in some of these regions going their separate ways?

If you were to ask me, I think the future of Nigeria would be best served by federalism in which substantial political power is devolved to states or to regions.

Something rather like the Federal Republic of Germany in which the German states, in fact, have greater autonomy than the American states do. I think if there were genuine federalism in Nigeria, much of the agitation for ethnically based separatism would go away. What are the elements of genuine federalism? First of all, the entities that make up a federal republic need to be able to raise their own revenue and not be dependent on the central government for revenue, and now almost all of the states are. I think only Lagos state, in fact, is able to raise much, though, not all of the revenue it needs. Combined with that, there needs to be genuine, credible elections on the state level as well as the federal level. And then, questions of how justice is administered needs to be looked at very closely. For example, in some parts of the country, there are multiple judicial systems in place.

In the North, for example, there is Sharia law. But there is also Nigerian law that is based on the old British common law system. In many places, Nigerians go to traditional rulers for justice, outside of the judicial system altogether, in part because the former judicial system is very slow and it’s extremely expensive. But, under genuine federalism, there might well be considerable diͿerences from one part of the country to another, reÁecting the speciÀc values and history of the particular peoples that are involved.

In the meantime, are you worried that what seems to be at present, a domestic political crisis in Nigeria, is being ignored or overlooked by the African Union, the United Nations, and other power blocs in the world?

Yes, I do worry about that. My own view is that international attention to Nigeria is not commensurate with the importance of the country. I would argue that Nigeria is one of the most important countries in the world. It is well known that population experts expect that by the middle of the century, the country would be the third-largest in the world by population.

It will have displaced the United States as the third-largest country in the world by population. What happens in Nigeria is crucial for what happens in Africa but not just in Africa but rather around the world.

That being so, my view is that Nigeria should be near the top of the agenda for much of the world, and it’s not. You’re a journalist: if you were to have looked this morning (Thursday) at the New York Times and the Washington Post, as I did.

The two leading American newspapers.

They were full of what is going on in Israel and Palestine, and there was not a single article about Nigeria.

That pretty much tells a lot.

they’re a part, cannot provide for their security which is the minimum requirement of any state, then Nigeria is indeed living on borrowed time.

On the issue of insecurity which has become the staple news, almost everyone in Nigeria feeds on today. It is believed that no government should be paying ransom to terrorists or any criminal at that. But, the Nigerian government has been seen and heard to be paying ransom for the release of schoolchildren.

Indeed. You’re raising an extremely important question. The policy of the American government is that it will never pay ransom, and further, if individuals or groups attempt to pay ransom they are violating American law. But, here is the problem, if you are dealing with a highly emotional situation, hundreds of schoolchildren being kidnapped. How do you secure their release? When the state structures are weak, how do you do that? How do you balance it out? And it’s an open secret that some rich European democracies which also oppose the paying of ransom do so because of the outcry at home that their own citizens must somehow be rescued. So the question is extraordinarily hard. One might almost say that the United States can get away with the policy of never paying ransom because the United States is a very strong entity. But, if you don’t have the strength for variety of reasons and in a number of diͿerent areas then, how do you address the humanitarian requirement that these innocent children that have been kidnapped are somehow or another set free? This is really hard, and it’s why I’m not prepared to be critical of the Nigerian federal government or state governments or others that, in fact, pay ransom because the humanitarian dimension is so important and the options are so limited.

So, we’ve seen the country that is Nigeria negotiating with bandits, and we’ve heard of repentant bandits and terrorists going back to the trenches.

We have indeed.

Campbell

I think so.

Some might think it boils down to the fact that Nigeria is a paradox, promising on one side, pathetic on the other side.

And will you say this is by design or by just the ineptitude of leadership? We asked this question because many Nigerians have always argued that they were never consulted before the amalgamation took place.

Well, they were not. No, they were not consulted. The amalgamation of Nigeria by the British was done for their own administrative convenience without any consultation of Nigerians and without even very much thinking about what the consequences might be of putting together in a single unit 50 diͿerent ethnic groups that had little in common with each other.

But, I would suggest that that approach has continued. Nigeria’s constitutions had been imposed Àrst by the British, later by various military regimes, and were never submitted to the Nigerian people for a vote or for ratiÀcation.

You talked about the constitution so far in the country imposed on Nigerians. They’ve never had a say on how the constitution should be or what should be inside it.

Yes, that’s right.

What will you recommend if that is a big problem?

Well, if, in fact, there were a sovereign national conference that sought to rebuild Nigeria from the ground up, it would presumably or that process would presumably involve the writing of a new constitution which might well better reÁect Nigerian aspirations than the current one does. The current constitution, in many respects, mimics that of the United States. In the immediate post-independence period,

the country’s constitution essentially mimicked that of the Westminster way of governance. Maybe these western models have shortcomings when they are imposed on 50 diͿerent ethnic groups.

One other book you authored was titled ‘Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know.’

The purpose was to inform other citizens of the world regarding what they need to know about the country. I think that was the title of the book.

That’s right.

You talked about the world not paying enough attention to Nigeria. What about the Americans themselves? Are Americans, for instance, are they trying to know what they should know about Nigeria? Are they concerned about what’s happening in the country to the point of probably talking to their government?

Well, I wish they were more concerned about it than they are. This goes back to my original point that the international community does not give Nigeria the attention that a country as important as Nigeria both deserves and requires.

In your own opinion, do you think Nigeria is living on borrowed time?

It’s a good question. Is Nigeria living on borrowed time? The answer to that question is up to Nigerians themselves.

If Nigerians, their elites, their political leadership moves to address, particularly the security issues, if they move to associate Nigerian people with their government then, I think there is a bright future. But, if they do not, and right now, the security situation from an outsider’s perspective looks dire.

But, if they do not, if Nigerians feel that the government, the system of which

It’s argued that nothing seems to be working. You pay ransom; it’s a bad situation. You try to de-radicalise the terrorists; it ends up the same way. Not a few people have come to wonder: is this not a failing or a failed state?

Well, I mean it’s extraordinarily di΀cult because ransom is one of the major funders of terrorism of the various Jihadi groups and for bandits and other criminal groups.

It has made kidnapping extremely lucrative and therefore encourages more odds. So, yes, I mean in this particular area, Nigeria is indeed failing.

This is the crisis of conÀdence regarding a minister whose past seems to have caught up with him now. He has made very serious statements that linked him to the Taliban, the Al-Qaeda, and even Boko Haram. Some Nigerians have asked him to resign or that the president of the country should sack him.

Yes. Because he superintends over a very sensitive national asset, the country’s database, not a few Nigerians are worried. Should people not be concerned that someone who had demonstrated murderous intentions towards other tribes and other religious groups should continue to hold such a national position?

To me, it is not as simple as that. Many political Àgures in all countries of the world have made statements in the past which they regret. In the United States, for example, political and other Àgures have been forced by public opinion to resign because of things they did or said 30 years ago. What matters I think, are the minister’s current views on these issues.

And the person I think that is best positioned to determine what those are is the president because it is the president who has selected him to serve in the cabinet.

Any last words from you?

Just that, as a friend of Nigeria of long standing and some Nigerians, tell me that I am half Nigerian. As a friend of Nigeria for a very long time, I hope and pray that Nigerians can work through the current security crisis.

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER MAY 16, 2021

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VIEW FROM ABROAD

Female Drivers of FinTech Solutions in Nigeria In sub-Saharan Africa, women constitute about 30 per cent of the tech professionals. While most females see courses in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), as di΀cult dreadful, cultural background of African countries has deprived females from competing with their male counterparts in school, a development that has drastically reduced the number of female students taking courses in STEM education, which is the basis for Financial Technology (FinTech) skills. In spite of the setback, few females are making waves in the FinTech industry in Nigeria and in West African countries. In the past Àve years, West Africa’s tech scene has witnessed a boom, with a dramatic increase in innovators and tech entrepreneurs—aka ‘tech-preneurs’—using technology to provide simple and accessible solutions to everyday problems. From payment services to apps helping people grow their savings and making it easier for Africans to partake in the global scramble for cryptocurrency, West Africa’s tech scene is livelier than ever. Across the continent, tech hubs have emerged in places such as Egypt, Kenya and South Africa, with Nigeria—Africa’s most populous country, leading the pack. Tech-preneurs in West Africa have been focusing on ensuring that the area’s increase in mobile phone users also translates to a larger number of West Africans having access to easy and inclusive digital-banking solutions. While tech companies are tackling many issues—from making data on Africa accessible and providing health services to revolutionising African fashion—Ànancial technology companies are among the biggest in Nigeria As the Ànancial technology industry reaches new heights, the inclusion and participation of women is not quite where it should be. Only 10 per cent of the West African startups that have cumulatively raised $1 million in the past decade had at least one female co-founder. In sub-Saharan Africa, women constitute only 30 per cent of professionals in the tech industry. Despite many tech-preneurs stating their mission is to ‘provide inclusive or accessible solutions to everyday problems, it isn’t possible to truly do that when most apps and services are created by men, and the participation of women in their creation is at the background. This report x-rays six women from Nigeria who are rising to new heights in the global-tech industry and they are currently redeÀning the FinTech space

I

Odunayo Eweniyi n 2016, a picture someone shared of a wooden box, used to save money, inspired Eweniyi and her co-founders to create PiggyBank, now known as PiggyVest. Today, she is the CMO of this savings and investments app and also co-founded Feminist Coalition and FirstCheck Africa, an angel fund and community for African women in tech.

In 2014, Eweniyi co-founded PushCV to connect veriÀed employers to pre-screened candidates. She and her team spent two years raising venture funding and worked on several other products that failed. At that time, she worked as editor-in-chief at Techpoint, founding writer at Zikoko!, and then staͿ writer of Konbini.

According to her, “The lack of women in tech can’t be explained away with innate biological diͿerences. It’s really down to a combination of systemic bias, men funding men and a working culture that excludes women. When women are given an opportunity they excel.”

Yewande Akomolafe-Kalu With a degree in psychology from Birmingham City University and

Odunayo Eweniyi

Yewande Akomolafe-Kalu

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER MAY 16, 2021

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VIEW FROM ABROAD Female Drivers of FinTech Solutions in Nigeria experience working in the fashion and entertainment industries, today Akomolafe-Kalu is the head of storytelling and branding of Flutterwave, one of Africa’s largest Àntech companies.

According to her, “It’s safe to say that the state of the tech industry in Nigeria is advanced and innovative; we’re going above and beyond to provide solutions for everyday people to use and make their lives easier.”

Narrating her journey into the tech space, Akomolafe-Kalu said: “Two people believed in me when I didn’t have faith in myself: one, a friend who recommended me for a role that she couldn’t take, and Olugbenga Agboola, the CEO of Flutterwave whom she introduced me to. Before that, I’d worked in the entertainment space, the fashion industry, for a digital marketing agency and an e-commerce startup.”

Narrating her greatest challenges, she said: “One of the main stumbling blocks is that girls don’t realise tech is an option. We need to demystify the tech industry so people know that it’s an entire ecosystem. We need to be intentional in hiring more women and making them more visible; in presenting them with options; to show them that tech jobs are within reach and that they’re achievable.”

Damilola Odufuwa As co-founder of the Feminist Coalition, Odufuwa champions equality for women in Nigerian society with a focus on education, Ànancial freedom and representation in public o΀ce.

These values play out in her role as the lead PR at Binance, of one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency companies.

After completing her masters in international Ànance and economic development at the University of Kent, she worked in communications and media for years. She interned at Universal Music and MTV Viacom before graduating to editor-in-chief of Zikoko and Konbini, and then took up a position as social producer for CNN Africa. Initially she had no intention to work in tech, but as soon as she realised the impact crypto and blockchain technology can have on women’s rights and freedom, she was self convinced and decided to explore the FinTech industry.

According to her “There’s a lot of misinformation about what types of roles are available in tech—breaking them down will encourage more women to get into the industry. Every day, we interact with technology in a variety of ways and they all present opportunities to make a diͿerence. It doesn’t have to be about coding.”

Eloho Omame Oman’s is the co-founder of FirstCheck Africa, and a graduate of the London School of Economics, with an MBA from London Business School.

Her Àrst big job was Lagos Innovates, a portfolio of startup support programmes, after she pitched to the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund, which they then built. After that, she launched an entrepreneur support organisation called Endeavor before launching FirstCheck Africa with Odunayo Eweniyi in January.”

For her, having more women in leadership roles will attract more women to the top. On the investing side, she had liked to see more venture capital Àrms admit they have cultural issues that may be oͿ-putting or di΀cult for women to navigate. She is of the view that Aworkplace policies, entertainment

policies and gender-bias training should be on the table for re-evaluation, in other to give women more opportunity in the FinTech space.

According to her, “FirstCheck Africa is built with a mission to advance equity, capital and leadership for a generation of women in Africa through technology and entrepreneurship. We [want to close] the disturbing gender gaps in power, wealth and professional achievement across the continent. In the long-term, we hope FirstCheck Africa will be a platform through which the women in our portfolio pay it forward by helping other women in Africa do the same thing.”

Oluwaseun Runsewe Runsewe began her career as an analyst before joining Paystack as a business lead. Now the vice president of growth at SoftCom, she is committed to making Ànancial services accessible to everyone, especially single mothers such as herself.

She worked as an analyst for the Big Four consulting Àrm KPMG advising Ànancial service players on strategy and business planning.

She also coordinated an Africa-wide project to move the needle on banking, payments and Ànancial-risk management. In 2016, she was introduced to the CEO of PayStack, a company that helps businesses in Africa get paid by anyone anywhere in the world, and she joined PayStack as a business lead, where she worked and pushed the frontiers of Nigeria’s digital economy.”

She is currently working on a digital bank for mothers. Giving her journey, she said she became a single mother a month after she turned 25 with less than $15 as her personal savings. She then had to Àgure out how to make and manage money for her son’s future while working in a FinTech company. “My mission is to put the same tools and knowledge that have worked for me in the hands of as many mothers as possible—especially single mothers,” she said.

Adia Sowho Adia Sowho is the interim CEO of Thrive Agric and non-Executive Director of Hover Developer Services, and has built a reputation for being a problem solver within Nigeria’s business, tech and media space. With a career that spans developing mobile content, technology and Ànancial services, today she is focused on changing the tech culture in Nigeria and inspiring more young women to get into the industry.

According to her, “There are two Nigerias: the Nigeria you hear about [in the news cycle] with its corruption issues, and [the lesser reported] invigorating tech industry with young people coming up with new ways to solve old problems. The two Nigerias bump into each other now and then leading to blowback, I believe the young Nigeria will prevail.”

She has a strong belief that the structure of the tech industry is more receptive to masculine energy than female energy. She is therefore advocating the need to create a more inclusive industry.

According to her, “If a company is looking for a developer, a man can just throw his hat into the ring, whereas a woman has to consider things like the distance of her o΀ce from her home and whether she’ll be able to Ànish work in time to get home before it’s dark.”

Culled from Vogue Magazine

Damilola Odufuwa

Eloho Omame

Oluwaseun Runsewe

Adia Sowho

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER MAY 16, 2021

45

BUSINESS OUTSIDER

Brands Promotion

around your products by leveraging the Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn community groups related to your product. Solicit opinions, spark oͿ a discussion, and then provide information about your product to capture attention.

Use images to showcase your products and oͿerings. People respond faster to clear images than words alone.

Create a hashtag associated with your brand.

Use it for all your promotional content for a cohesive campaign

Tunji Adegbite

T

he focus of business branding has moved from only centering on the business entity itself, to also include promoting a personal connection by humanising the brand.

Global companies like NetÁix have reÁected this in their brand communications by speaking in a human voice, engaging with users in a simple ‘bants-like’ tone. Social identity is one of the ways emerging brands are positioning their business in the marketplace.

Leverage More on Video Content Video content is one sureÀre way to engage your audience- Analysis of consumer responses to content on social media channels reveals that people engage more with image carousels, motion graphics and videos. According to marketing director Zach Binder, whether your goal is a product advertisement, building trust, delivering information, or pure entertainment, deploying a proper video strategy can invariably improve your conversion rates and engagement. The diͿerent types of video content that you can share on social media as stated by Ashwini Pai include: Educational content, which tells your audience why they should buy your product/ service, highlighting its features, beneÀts and value.

Instructional content, mostly “how to’s” on using your product, understanding owner’s manual, navigating a software, and more.

Promotional content aimed at new buyers or reinforcing your brand proposition before existing customers.

Aspirational content, where you communicate brand value with customer testimonials and share positive brand experiences narrated by happy customers, to enhance the desirability of your product/service.

Building a social brand identity is the process of creating a speciÀc image of yourself in the mind of your ideal client or target audience so they can get to know, like and trust your company before they buy from or interact directly with the company. People respond to other people and the importance of developing relationships with customers can be overstated.

One of the ways of building a social brand identity is through Personal branding. This is not about fame; it is about being able to communicate your unique personal values in all that you do. Personal branding is just as much about determining internally what’s important to you, what your values are and what kind of work you want to do. Some international companies have beneÀted from their very visible leaders - Steve Jobs and Apple, Elon Musk and Tesla. As a small business owner, you are your brand, and your brand name is only as good as your reputation. If your reputation is questionable, then you have put your brand at risk. Let your reputation shine that people will see your good works.

“A good PR story is inÀnitely more eͿective than a front-page ad” – it leads to positive word-of-mouth referrals, increased top of mind awareness, builds strong consumer loyalty and increases their resistance to negative information about the brand.

Focus on the best platform that works for you.

With increasing internet penetration, most businesses require a digital or social media presence. Over 30 per cent of business transactions now originate from or conclude via social channels. Beyond that, your digital media expands your reach and builds a community around your company. It is a powerful tool for telling your brand story and impacts how the business is perceived.

But in order for it to be eͿective, businesses need to leverage the right digital/social media channels that best connect their message with the target audience.

Facebook or Twitter can be your main focus, it may be Instagram, LinkedIn or even Snapchat or a combination of any of them. A

fashion business primarily communicates via images and may Ànd its ideal social network on Instagram or Facebook. Irrespective of which channels a business chooses, focusing on its main platforms does two things, it makes you eͿectively communicate your brand’s ideas, and it makes you reach your target audience where they are.

Be Relatable This is not to suggest neglecting or throwing

away core business objectives but to deliver the intended message in a simple engaging manner.

What this means is, no matter how ‘serious’ the information you want to pass to your target audience is, let your communication materials and Ad copy be relatable and appeal to the customers functional, emotional and self-expressive needs. According to social media experts, this is how to do it: Start conversations with your customers

Lastly, Build to Last It is important to have longevity in minÅd when developing your social brand strategy.

In this age of digital media, it’s very easy for companies to go viral for a short while and then fade into obscurity. Engage the customer beyond closing a single sale and integrate strategies to retain and improve a customer’s lifetime value. An example is oͿering customers discount vouchers on their birthdays and not just sending happy birthday messages.

Whatever strategy a business deploys, play the long-term game.

Adegbite is a thought leader in Strategy and Supply Chain, who has worked with leading organisations like PwC and an IOC. He also founded Naspire, a business research platform using African business insights to help entrepreneurs and professionals succeed.

He can be reached via tunji@naspire.com

Adegunwa: Why We Continue to Produce World-Class Products

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ite Foods Limited, a Nigerian food and beverage company has stated that it will continue to produce world-class products for the beneÀts of its consumers, through the possibility of the state-of-the-art infrastructure and up-to-the-minute technology deployed in its production factory.

This was the submission of the Company’s Managing Director, Mr. Seleem Adegunwa, at the recent Rite Foods Brand Academy organised for content drivers at its Àrst-rate factory at Ososa, Ogun State, where hesaid the company which started with a humble beginning has set the pace for others in the industry through unique brands that are proven to be unrivalled by consumers.

He said the rapid success of the indigenous company can be attributed to its quality consciousness and technological advancement it has attained.

Adegunwa a΀rmed that the company’s exceptional brands are produced with

machineries that are the best from across the world, thus ensuring the most hygienic and global standardit has maintained since inception.

On a tour of the infrastructure, the content drivers were inundated with the Nigerianess and “I CAN, I AM” mantra of Rite Foods.

They were also amazed with the up-to-date technology installed in the factory, which are automated with little or no – human interference, with artiÀcial intelligence at all phases of the production processes, thereby ensuring the delivering of quality products at optimum capacity.

The Rite Foods MD explained that the factorygenerates its own source of electricity via the largest solar plant in West Africa, alongside its usage of gas and diesel induced plant connected to the National Grid that facilitates seamless, uninterrupted power supply to the highly sensitive, sophisticated technology infrastructure.

According to him,the global approach was induced to enable the company deliver unparalleled brands to meet

consumers expectation, which according to market survey, has been surpassed, with the largest market share in the sausage and beverage sector of the Nigerian economy.

Established in 2007, Rite Foods Limited is a subsidiary of Ess-Ay Holdings.

Its sausage brands have been the mark of excellence for the industry with the Rite Spicy, Bigi Beef and Rite Sausages.

On the company’s stables are the 12 leading Bigi soft drink variants which include the Bigi Cola, Bigi Orange, Bigi Apple, Bigi Bitter Lemon, Bigi Soda Water, Bigi Lemon & Lime, Bigi Tropical, Bigi Chapman, Bigi Tamarind, Bigi Cherry Cola, Bigi Ginger Lemon, and the Bigi Ginger Ale. Its Bigi Premium Table Water, which is produced with global best practices in puriÀcation, oͿers quality, freshness, conÀdence and reliability.

Rite Foods’ inventiveness has earned high recognition in the energy drinks market with the Àrst ever packaged polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle brands for the Fearless Red Berry and Fearless Classic. The eͿort of Rite Foods in

setting up such superlative factories was highly commended by the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, when he visited the place. He said “This is a testament to the true Nigerian spirit of hard work, bold entrepreneurship and commitment to world class standard.”

The leading company has also made inroad into the entertainment industry with the sponsorship of the Prophetess movie premiere which recently debuts in Oyo and Lagos States, as part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative.

Nigerian Idol, a platform for budding and talented singers to express themselves is also been sponsored by this emerging, friendly conglomerate, which also organised a prototype of the show for content drivers in Lagos recently, christened Bigi Media Idol.

In its environmental preservation programme, the organisation recently embarked on a clean-up of the Alpha beach in Lagos, and immensely supported the less privileged in one of the communities in the state with consumable household items, as part of its CSR programme.

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WEEKLY PULL-OUT

16.5.2021

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LADIPO ESO LONGING FOR A LASTING LEGACY Trends come and go. The hip-hop and rap artiste Ladipo Eso refuses to be caught in that trap. He tells Vanessa Obioha about making music that will outlive him

ou can arguably say that 2020 was the year many people discovered the music of Ladipoe. Even the rap and hip-hop artiste thought so. First was his single ‘Know You’ featuring Simi.

The single was released in April last year, just when the world was trapped in the gossamer of the coronavirus pandemic. The song would become a sort of distraction from the uncertainties that gripped many at the time. ‘Know You’ was Ladipo Eso’s first single to peak at number one on Apple Music and won him his first Headies.

By May, Ladipo Eso was one of the lined-up artistes who performed at the One Africa Global Foundation and MultiChoice ‘COVID-19 Hope for Africa Concert.’ He performed the emotional single ‘Voices’ featuring Ghanaian artist Efya from his 2018 album T.A.P. (Talk About Poe). His performance further raised interest in him, and by August, he was in the Big Brother Naija House, performing for the housemates.

Ladipoe, as he’s often called, was careful not to label the interest in him and his music as fame. To be sure, he has no qualms with the term ‘famous’ or any of its relatives. After all, popularity makes the music business.

But Ladipoe would rather not be disillusioned by the fickleness of fame.

He explained it this way: “It feels to me like discovery. A lot of people are discovering Ladipoe for the first time or putting the name and the face to a song that they’ve already heard,” he says. “So, I am under no illusions that this is ‘blown’ to me.

Maybe to some people. To me, it’s that place where you hammer home the point, where people have discovered you. But you need to let them know what you’re about. The work is on. This is not the time to recline.”

If you ask him what his music is all about, he’ll probably tell you it’s about connecting with the people, and that, he confessed, is not an easy task, particularly for a genre like hip-hop that is quite fleeting in Nigeria. One moment, it is the rave of the moment, and the next, it’s in obscurity such that people wonder if there are any good rappers or hip-hop artists left in the country. Not a few advised him to stick with the popular genre afro-pop when he returned from America after studying Chemistry and Biology at the University of North Carolina. It took him a while to be actively involved in music because of these ‘falsehoods’ as he described it.

By the time he started hanging out with people making music and seeing how things are done, he had a stronger conviction that rap music can sell in Nigeria. First, he joined a group known as the Collectiv3, formed by the Managing Director of Universal Music Nigeria, Chin Okeke. The group he said made something that Nigerians were not ready for.

By 2017, Ladipoe became the

ASSISTANT EDITOR OLUFUNKE OLAODE/funkola2000@gmail.com

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER MAY 16, 2021

47

COVER

How I Knew My Music Would be Great

ESO

first rapper to be signed to Mavin Records. It was a deal that both parties benefitted mutually. On the one hand, the record label was looking to diversify. On the other hand, was the artist looking to be ably represented beyond the shores of Nigeria. The union has lasted more than three years. This year, Ladipoe won his first Headies for his collaboration with Simi ‘Know You.’ The winning formula so far for the tall artiste from Osun was to understand what his listeners want.

“I have been making music as an artist since 2013, and I had to watch and observe because rap is a competitive sport. It is who has the best punchlines. But over time, I noticed that Nigerians love their melodies,” Ladipoe explains.

“Whether a rapper or singer, we’ve all come to realise that we love melodies. So I cannot ignore that, and I needed to incorporate that in my music. It took me some time.to get over the identity crisis that rappers

in Nigeria have and start connecting with people.”

By identity crisis, he meant the hunger of most rap artists to show themselves as the best rappers in the world. It is not uncommon to hear hip-hop artistes talk about their greatness in lyrics or sometimes engage in a rap battle to prove they have the best punchlines.

He points out: “I’m way past the point where I need to prove myself as an amazing rapper. People always think that rappers and punchlines come hand in hand. But for me, I want to create something a bit different. I want to be a great music writer, a great music maker, a great contributor to our culture. I just don’t want to write amazing rap verses. I want to make great songs. For example, when I’m making a song like ‘Jaiye’, it’s not about making strong punchlines. The song has to be amazing.

“The verse to bridge, the hook, the outro, the melodies. I think that’s one thing that a lot of rappers will grow into. It is not just

about punchlines in this part of the world, especially in Nigeria. You have to be patient with them. You can’t overload them in your music, give them a little bit but let them breathe with the melodies. My creative process takes into consideration the listeners a lot.”When creating music, Ladipoe works best in a vacuum. This enables his mind to run wild, immerse himself in the environment and listen to what is happening around him.

“My mind runs a mile in a minute,” he reveals.

He is drawn to stories. Whether he is reading, watching movies or having a conversation, his mind is always taking stock of what is being said and saving it up for a later date. This helps him to write verses that connect with people and immerse himself in their situations.

“It’s difficult for me to write without putting myself in the music.

Either writing about myself, my life or somebody that I’m connected to, or how I see things, there’s definitely an element of self-discovery in my music,” adds Ladipoe. “If you are really lucky and

a special artist, then people will discover something about themselves, listening to your music.”

He’s been lucky enough to have a fan tattooed his lyrics on his chest. “He tagged me in a video, and that just showed me that people are really connected to my music,” he says.

Ladipoe’s music is redolent of the American hip-hop sound of the 90s, the rhythmical flow, and the poetic lines. His videos also carry this trait, usually laid back, shot in places like a basketball court, as seen in the visuals of ‘Lemme Know’.

His creativity is often seen in his song titles, such as in his feature with Joeboy titled ‘Yoruba Samurai’, a play on his ethnicity and the legendary Japanese warriors. The love song talked about the extremes he would go for his love interest, which included going to war to win her heart. In ‘Rap Messiah’, he described himself as the genre Messiah saving Africa by “bearing all the crossfire, still an alltimer, in the shooting calibre.”

The appellations, in a way, speak to his conviction that rap is not a phase in Nigeria. It is his way of eliminating falsehoods surrounding the genre. So many artistes, he argued, have been dissuaded from the genre because of its non-dominance on airwaves. This explains why he called himself the ‘Leader of the Revival.’

“A lot of artistes like myself were told a lie,” reveals Ladipoe. “Many people told us that our music will not sell in Nigeria, that the industry was not looking for our kind of music.

“That if we really wanted to survive and support our family, we will have to jump on the popular bandwagon. These things, you know, have definitely deterred and broken many artists who have never begun. I have to show the falsehood in that. Time will tell. It’s just patience. I have been patient. I really hate patience. But I have been patient.”

He also debunked the myth that hiphop artists need to reinvent the wheel to gain prominence.

“The truth is, it is less about the artist having to reengineer themselves or the genre. Our hip-hop music is a fusion. I didn’t have to lie. All I had to show people was that it has always been there,” he explains.

“Rap and hip-hop music has always been popular. They are just looking at it the wrong way. The lens has always been the problem. African hip-hop, African rap will always be that fusion because we are Africans, and that’s how we make music.

I don’t think they’ll ever be a time when it’s pure hip hop. It does not have to be.

It’s okay. It’s okay to be a rapper that is not necessarily rapping on traditional hip-hop. Once I realised that, I knew my music would be great.”

Ladipoe takes his music legacy seriously. It is one of the reasons he doesn’t jump on trends. He is a firm believer that his music should be a legacy.

“I believe that there’s always been that space preserved for the person that will be seen as an ambassador for rap.

A lot of people are so caught up, you know, they’re tripping over themselves to be the king of this or be the best one at this,” he tells THISDAY. Continues, Ladipoe states, “But what I’ve always believed is that there needs to be somebody that sees beyond, that sees how temporary those labels are, and I need to create something that’s going to last. When I’m gone, when I no longer make music, the people that come after me will say that Ladipoe really was the one that showed me that this thing was possible.

“Tupac used to say that he might not be the one to do it. But he believes he would want to spark the mind that does it. So you have to put yourself out there like that. It’s all about my legacy.”

T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R ˾ MAY 16, 2021

48

TRIBUTE

A Good Man, Ohwovoriole, Takes a Final Bow As the burial ceremony of the late Chief Milton Ohwovoriole, SAN, commences today in Ughelli, Delta State, Iyobosa Uwugiaren pays tribute to the life and time of the legal luminary

I

f the earth that would cover the late Chief Milton Paul Onamegwolo Iriferife Ohwovoriole (SAN) this week would be graceful and soft, it is because he represented humanity throughout his life time.

A ‘good man’ he was, the legal icon, who would be buried this week in his home town, Agbon Olomu, Delta State, was happy with his life and the world around him. Even while struggling between life and death at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Benin City, he was still looking out for others and helping them. He was quite different from negative people. And to many of his children, his faithfulness, generosity, dependability, kindness, moral integrity and fatherliness, were immeasurable.

A legal luminary, scholar, politician, traditional ruler, businessman and philanthropist, the late Ohwovoriole meant different things to different people.

For the Delta State Governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, who expressed shock over the demise of the 80-year-old Senior Advocate of Nigeria, his death was a great loss – not only to the family and Urhobo nation – but to the people of Olomu Kingdom and Nigeria Bar Association (NBA).

“Chief Milton Ohwovoriole (SAN) was a distinguished legal practitioner, who served the society in several capacities, including as Chairman, Nigeria Bar Association, Ikeja branch and former President, Urhobo Social Club”, the governor said.

Okowa described him as a man of great determination and perseverance, and said as a founding member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he contributed significantly to the various victories recorded by the party in Ughelli South and the state.

“Late Chief Milton Ohwovoriole was a courageous leader, who always stood for truth and at every point in time, spoke his mind on any issue irrespective of who was involved”, Okowa added.

In the same vein, the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege described the deceased as one of the shinning lights of the Urhobo Nation and Delta State in the legal profession, saying, he would be greatly missed.

“The news of the demise of Olorogun Milton Paul Ohwovoriole, SAN came to me as a rude shock and a surprise. His immense contributions to the development of the state and country will remain evergreen in our hearts. He was one of the first holders of the prestigious Senior Advocate of Nigeria title from Delta State. Little wonder, he was an inspiration to many,” he stated.

Also eulogising the deceased, the Asaba Branch of NBA, in a statement by its secretary, Mr. Collins O. Osagu, said Ohwovoriole was a purposeful and cerebral leader.

“It is with a heavy heart we announce the demise of an icon, Chief Milton Ohwovoriole (SAN). Before his passing, Chief Milton Ohwovoriole, SAN, was an active member of the Nigerian Bar Association, a legal guru, an advocate par excellence. He was a man of impeccable pedigree, intellect, distinction and of course, a purposeful and cerebral leader.

“As a distinguished bar man, he crafted a remarkable legacy, and left his mark in the sands of time in the legal profession as well as all other endeavours”, the Delta NBA said.

The Akpohor and Akpile of Olomu Kingdom, was born on June 15, 1940 into the Ohwovoriole dynasty of Agbon-Olomu in present-day Delta State. A direct descendant of Alaka, the founder of Olomu Kingdom, his father, H.R.H. David Gbeke Ohwovoriole was the Ohworode of Olomu Kingdom. While his mother, Ayoron is from Oviri-Olomu and also a descendant of the co-founder of Oviri-Olomu.

He had his early education in Olomu and Ughelli, where he attended the Modern school. In spite of his noble background and the comfort that came with the royal lineage, Chief Milton’s higher aspirations motivated his departure from the village to Lagos, where he joined the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) as a constable in 1958 at 18-year.

In the course of his service with the NPF, he was posted as an orderly to a judicial officer, where he had another major encounter with the legal profession – the first being when he was a youth and witnessed his father sitting as the President of the Customary Court, Umolo.

These experiences, a senior family source said, inspired his decision to study law at the University of Ife – from where he graduated with Honours in 1971 and in 1972,

Ohwovoriole he was called to the Nigerian Bar after completing his studies in the Nigerian Law School. And in pursuit of excellence, he obtained his Master’s Degree in Law from the University of Lagos in 1975.

He voluntarily retired from the Nigerian Police in 1976, after 17 years of meritorious service during which time he went on peace keeping missions overseas such as in Congo and rose from the rank of constable to the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police at Force C.I.D, Alagbon Close, Ikoyi, Lagos.

Upon his retirement from the police force, he set up his private practice after brief stints with the late Chief Morohundiya and Chief Gani Fawehinmi, who later took silk. Chief Ohwovoriole also lectured at the Nigerian Law School in 1980s. His experience as a detective during his years in the police force enhanced his teaching of procedure at the Nigeria Law School and court-room practice, where he was said to have earned a welldeserved reputation as a “forensic examiner and one of the foremost criminal lawyers” in Nigeria.

As a legal practitioner, his law chambers at Ikeja, Lagos, was a full service law firm – offering a vibrant practice and opportunities to countless number of young lawyers, who were fortunate to gain employment in his firm.

Chief Ohwovoriole was an active member of NBA. He led the Ikeja Branch of the Nigerian Bar Association as the Chairman between 1985 and 1987 and he was later appointed “Life Patron” of the Branch in recognition of his huge contributions to the branch.

At the national level, he was a member of the Council of Legal Education and the Body of Benchers. His conduct of several landmark cases, courtroom prowess as well as contributions to legal practice and jurisprudence, saw his rise to the pinnacle of the legal profession with his conferment of the prestigious rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) in 1991.

The late Chief Ohwovoriole was a philanthropist. He

believed and invested in human and societal development, contributed immensely to the advancement of his community and for many decades, awarded scholarships and sponsored the educational pursuits of the less privileged persons, who are now pillars in diverse fields.

In his lifetime, he was a serial entrepreneur with investments in real estate, school facilities, international trade and even entertainment. The series of albums waxed in his honour by leading Urhobo musicians in the late 80s and early 90s bear testimony to his interest and desire to promote and spread Urhobo culture.

His colleagues will remember him not only as an intellectual juggernaut but also for his invaluable contribution to the law and humanity.

A promoter of Urhobo’s interests, he was twice the President of the prestigious Urhobo Social Club, Lagos. He was the Akpohor and Akpile (Prime Minister), the 3rd in line in leadership hierarchy of Olomu kingdom.

Chief Ohwovoriole was a devout Christian and most of all a family man, who did not spare any expense to see that his children received the best of education in Nigeria and overseas. Before his death, he witnessed the successes of his children in their chosen professions.

He lost his first daughter, Mrs. Ovigue Omene (nee Ohwovoriole), who was born by Madam Lydia Oru, in August 2000. He is, however, survived by brothers, sisters, wives, Mrs. Rosaline Oborayerue Ohwovoriole (Nee Arumala) from Umolo-Olomu and Mrs. Christiana Ohwovoriole (Nee Okoriko) from Okpe –Olomu.

He is also survived by many children including an architect, a chemist, computer network analyst, utilization revenue manager, banker, electrical engineer, registered nurse, educationist, software engineer and five lawyers made up of a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, a Chief Magistrate, a President of District Customary Court, two others in vibrant private practice, grandchildren and a great grandson.

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ JUNE 24 2012

ARTS & REVIEW A

PUBLICATION

16.05.2021

ADA UDECHUKWU’S SPONTANEOUS DOODLES OF MEMORIES A solo exhibition at The Wheatbaker in Ikoyi, Lagos, heralds Ada Udechukwu's homecoming to the local art scene, where she began her creative journey. Okechukwu Uwaezuoke reports

S

inceAda Udechukwu dropped off the contemporary Nigerian art scene’s radar decades ago, her name has continued to lurk somewhere in the inner recesses of the industry’s memory. Could this be partly because her husband Obiora – with whom she tied the nuptials in 1982 – remains one of the NsukkaArt School’s pioneering leading lights? Straddling two worlds, in any case, had been thrust on her by the deft weaving of fate from as far back as she could recall. For long before her relocating with her family to the US in late 1997, she recalls first moving with herAmerican mother and Nigerian father as well as her three other siblings to the US in 1967 – at the onset of the Nigerian Civil War – only to return to the country in 1971. Besides, her biracial identity compels her to view her environment through a prism of one living on the fringes. “I often feel I’m travelling between two worlds, more like straddling them, not fully in one or the other,” she discloses. “It is a recurrent thing, the interface or connection between the interior world and the exterior world.”

Now, the artist who turns 61 on July 10 reappears in the talentglutted Nigerian art scene with a solo exhibition, titled Particles in Motion. This exhibition – curated by SMO ContemporaryArt and featuring her 36 recent drawings and 10 poems – has been on at The Wheatbaker in Ikoyi, Lagos since Saturday, May 1 and will be on until Saturday, July 31. Seen as a kind of homecoming for the Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont (USA) MFAholder in creative writing and literature, the exhibition – supported by The Wheatbaker and Louis Guntrum Wines – revisits her links to her cultural roots. It dredges up the fond memories of her growing-up years in Enugu, her tertiary education and early matrimonial years in Nsukka as well as her finally settling down in LosAngeles, USA. Perhaps, it’s the apparent spontaneity of Udechukwu’s minimalist and abstract expressions that confers on them that mystique of remoteness. “I have never been someone that works from a sketch,” she says. “For my ink and wash drawings I typically start with the wash, I lay it as I’m moved to and then start the linework. For me, it’s about narrative and exploration. With inward-outward I, II, III, IV, it was that first line and I just built on it. The use of line and space and the dialogue between positive and negative space that’s inherent in the Uli aesthetic has influenced me as a visual artist.As I look at some of my recent drawings from 2020 where you see the filling of those spaces with delicate lines, I am reminded of the akika patterns that are used in traditional Uli wall paintings as subtle background texturing. It gives voice to something there, almost intangible.”

Somehow, her native Igbo background leaches into the lean, compact renditions of her drawings and in the lyrical puzzles of

Co-joined (triptych), 2018 her poems. Viewers are consequently sucked into the vortex of a dense world of thought-forms swarming with rippling lines and segmented forms.

Still on her creative process, Udechukwu alludes to her encounters with things, situations and people, which leave behind images that linger in her for a long time. They, in other words, deposit the particles that are eventually processed into her visual and lyrical expressions. “I hold onto them and the way in which they affect me, hoping for the moment to do them justice. When I first got to LosAngeles, I was struck by the number of homeless people I saw in isolated places, sitting at bus stops, and outside their encampments along the roadside. My ‘encounters’ were while I was driving, or passing by them on a shared sidewalk out on a walk, or when one would come up to ask for money.And at that moment, it was, ‘I see myself in you.’ I kept asking how I could illuminate what it was I felt when I said that to myself. For me, it’s humanity.Athin line separates us all from one life or the other. I’ve had several such encounters and one that particularly stuck with me was the sight of a small group ofAfrican-American men sitting on a bench close to a bus stop with a Caucasian woman in between them. You could tell there was a discussion going on, the woman was in some distress, one of the men had his arm around her, all of them were comforting her. It’s a rough life and yet in the midst of it there is community.”

Consider the works showing in her exhibition, produced between the years 2018 and 2020, the results of her musings while in constant motion, during which she probes into her inner world as well as her physically visible environment.As both an artist and an accomplished writer, whose short story was shortlisted for the Caine Prize in 2007, she draws from the reservoir of her personal experiences. During the early stages of the COVID-19 lockdown, for instance, she felt corralled into a situation that forced her to look inwards, questioning her old habits in the process.

On her two forms of artistic expression – poetry and drawing – she designates them as standalone entities even when both rely on images. “The thing is you’re creating images with words in one, with line, texture, paint in the other. What unites the two in terms of the way in which I approach the creative process is how to create an image and allow it to speak.”

Udechukwu, whose first degree at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka was in English, first attained the limelight in the local arts scene through her textile creations, pen and ink drawings and watercolour paintings as well as her writing in the early 1980s. This was what the Princeton University (USA) Professor ofAfrican and African DiasporaArt Chika Okeke-Agulu was alluding to when he wrote about “the epochal artistic efflorescence that emerged at the University of Nigeria during the late 20th century”.

VISUAL ARTS

For the 4TH Time, BIC Holds Competition for Ball-point Pen Artists...

B

IC, best known for producing such disposable consumer products as lighters, razors and pens, recently announced the launch of its continent-wide search for the best ball-point pen artists. The France-based company is inviting talented ball-point pen artists to submit their exceptional artworks for an art competition, whose winner will be crowned the Art Master of Middle East and Africa.

First held successfully in South Africa in 2017, the BIC Art Master Competition has

since expanded to become a continent-wide affair in 2019. This year, the competition has further expanded to include the Middle East region. A press statement from the organisers recognises the region as one that is swarming with talented people, hence the plan in the competition’s fourth year to recognise and celebrate these artists.

Intending contestants, who must be based in Africa and Middle East, are expected to express their creativity, using only BIC ballpoint pens and freely playing around this year’s theme, “Enchant Everyday Life”. Artists can submit a maximum of three original and authentic artworks of what inspires and brings them joy on the BIC Art Master website before Monday, May 31.

“With our diverse Nigerian culture, we are

excited to be launching this year’s edition of the BIC Art Master Competition that acts as a platform to recognise and showcase African talents,” said Guillaume Grouès, Deputy General Manager, Lucky Stationary Nigeria Ltd and Senior Sales Manager West & Central Africa. “The competition was a great success last year and we are already very impressed with the submissions that we’ve seen in the first couple of days since launch.”

Submissions will be evaluated by a panel of judges, which will be constituted by a mix of artists, art-biased academics and art collectors.

The judging partners are Geoffrey Bich, Enam Bosokah, Aboudouh Akinde Fatiou, Valérie Manouvrier, Hervé Mikaeloff and Ennock

Mlangeni.

While the competition’s first prize-winner carts away $2,000 as well as a personalised online gallery and an opportunity to be featured as part of the BIC Art Collection, the second prize winner will receive with a $1,000 cash prize. In addition, the second runner-up will be given $500 cash prize.

The BIC brand plumes itself on its long tradition of celebrating art for over six decades.

Its collection currently houses over 250 works of art by 80 international artists. This is besides the fact that it is currently partnering with renowned art institutes around the world and displays its products in a number of renowned museums around the world.

EDITOR OKECHUKWU UWAEZUOKE/ okechukwu.uwaezuoke@thisdaylive.com

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ ͯʹ˜ ͰͮͰͯ

HighLife Akeredolu, Let there be Light!

with KAYODE ALFRED ͮͶͯ​ͯʹ͵ͳͷͶͮ͵˜ E-mail: kayflex2@yahoo.com

...Amazing lifestyles of Nigeria’s rich and famous

Glad Tidings, Ex-Bank MD Sola Adedoyin-Alao Welcomes Twins at 58 These are happy days for the people of Orile-Igbon in Surulere, Ogbomosho, Oyo State, and the royal family of the Olugbon, Oba Francis Olusola Alao. Recent news reaching the street is that Olori Olusola Adedoyin-Alao has been delivered of twins.

Akin to flowering at just the right time, the birth of the little angels is coming six years after the happy mother got wedded to Oba Alao. At 58, the couple’s excitement at the arrival of the twins reaches high heavens. Although she does not roar as she used to, it is apparent that Olori Sola Adedoyin-Alao has not lost the punch that made her a force to reckon with in the corporate halls of Nigeria a few years ago.

For those who are only now recognising the name, she was the MD of the defunct City Express Bank, an upper-banker with many awards and accolades, a proud member of the American Management Association (AMA), the Institute of Directors, and

several company boards.

Sola Adedoyin-Alao has also enjoyed much fame on the social front. She is the daughter of a well-known industrialist, Prince Samuel Adedoyin, a pastor at the Redeemed Church of God, and had battled breast cancer twice in her life (and won).

That, and allegations of money laundering and financial misconduct while she was at City Express Bank, pushed her to the front pages some time ago.

Her wedding to Oba Alao took place in 2015 before the latter became the Olugbon of Orile-Igbon (2017). In the years that have followed, AdedoyinAlao has had much to be grateful for.

This is why the delivery of the twins, although her third birth (the last one was 18 years ago during her first marriage), is worth celebrating.

These are the best of days for Olori Sola Adedoyin-Alao, no doubt about it.

Adedoyin-Alao

Igho Sanomi: The Magnate on the Move at 46 Akeredolu

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overnor Rotimi Akeredolu is currently the target of much murmuring and discontent among the citizens of his Ondo. The alleged general dissatisfaction with recent developments in the state has been capped by reports that the traffic lights on several major roads in Akure have gone on a long vacation, seemingly intending to remain unfunctional in the time being.

Governor Akeredolu is not very popular at the moment on social media and in the many corners where folks get together to share gossip. While there are reportedly several reasons for this disgruntlement, the matter at hand is that of the traffic lights on many major roads in Akure which have gone kaput. Knowing that such an impediment has far-reaching consequences for movements around Akure, Akeredolu is being urged to take his sweet time to repair the traffic lights or install new ones.

Of course, for those who are following trending developments, Akeredolu (whose governorship certificate was only recently renewed) has much on his plate at the moment. There is the issue of one of his senior special assistants allegedly assaulting a pregnant woman and the protests that followed.

There is the issue of kidnappings and herdsmen. There is also the governor’s supposed tiff with his former deputy who has allegedly refused to return the government property (cars) in his possession even though he has been out of office for over six months.

Thus, adding the issue of traffic lights is guaranteed to rattle the desk of Governor Akeredolu, but the people of Ondo (Akure, especially) are asking this. In other words, Akeredolu has no choice but to step in and accede to the people’s demand: fix the traffic lights or install new ones. Either that or Governor Akeredolu becomes a laughingstock among his peers for having many dead traffic lights right within his state capital.

Sanomi

May is truly for champions. This is the month some of the most prestigious and prodigious folks on the planet were born. One

of them, Igho Charles Sanomi II, will clock 46 tomorrow, May 17. Already, instruments of music and celebration are rolled out to honour this man whose 46 years on earth have relieved many of their poverty and inadequacies. Many people have started practising how to put the best words to work in their efforts to eulogise Igho Sanomi on his 46th birthday. Because the man has done and continues to do so much for those with him and around him, folks are more than willing to go all out to celebrate his birthday and applaud his accomplishments and contributions.

In recent times, Sanomi has become a paragon of true business savvy and philanthropy, known most notably for being the founder and chairman of the continental conglomerate Taleveras Group. Similar to how the multinational company has its fingers in energy and infrastructure, oil and gas exploration, production, trading and supply, power, and construction, Sanomi has also

managed to make a name for himself in these industries.

What truly stands the Delta state native out, however, is his momentum. To think a man with so many business interests would have the time and motivation to inspire others to do the same! But that is one of the many mantles that Sanomi holds. Consequently, he is a prime example of apex—enough to look down at the world but refusing to do so. To this effect, Sanomi has been hailed as having a big heart. Besides building a legacy for his parents in the form of the reputable Dickson Sanomi Foundation, Sanomi has not spared a kobo in cutting down suffering when he can.

His contributions towards ridding the world of cancer have not gone unnoticed, as the beneficiaries from the Bobby Moore Fund and Cancer Research in the United Kingdom would tell you. All this before the golden age of 50. This is the legend in 46 short years—Igho Sanomi, a man living for more than just himself.

Kofo Sanusi: Unleashing the Potential of the Nigerian Youth Nigerian youths are doing amazing things. This is the first thought that comes to mind when such names as Kofo Sanusi are mentioned. With the most recent development regarding her position in African Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, Sanusi has become both a symbol of pride and intimidation for her fellows. Nevertheless, her success suggests limitless possibilities for others willing to put in more efforts, like her. AVCA, a wellknown body known for encouraging private investments in Africa, recently broke the internet when they announced the young Kofo Sanusi as their new chief operating officer. This appointment, according to reports, was a decision reached by all the members of the Board of Directors after they scrutinised her profile and found her qualified for the position.

The CEO of the pan-African body lauded Sanusi’s potential, noting that she “brings an exceptional track record

of providing strategic, operational, and financial management for various businesses across Africa.” Thus, the appointment is a recognition and appreciation of her talents, experience and expertise, rather than her young age. In truth, Kofo Sanusi has already walked the length and breadth of African, Asian and Middle Eastern business start-ups and development. Known previously as one of the brightest lights in Founders Factory Africa and its COO, Sanusi’s passion for the continent’s development has not been eclipsed by the limitations inherent to the endeavour.

With an MSc in International Public Policy from the UCL School of Management, London, Sanusi was also the COO for Spring Accelerator, another entity renowned for its work in investments and business innovation and development.

Really, Sanusi is a shining light to her peers. Her work in African sustainable development and inclusive participation

Sanusi

continues to announce her. For organisations like AVCA, Sanusi is a largely untapped mine of potential. With Nigerian youths like her, the future is a paradise of opportunities and endless possibilities.

Akala, Teslim and Bayo Adelabu Battle for Oyo APC Leadership Things are getting hotter and spicier within the Oyo chapter of the All Progressives Congress with many veterans pushing buttons and pulling levers to take over the party’s leadership. Camp loyalty has evolved into a collar for tying bewildered supporters to the wagon of the top contenders, especially Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala, Teslim Folarin and Chief Adebayo Adelabu.

The crisis in Oyo APC is being used as an anecdote to instruct young politicians on the necessity of unity within a party, especially when the governor of that state belongs to the opposition. Reflective of the idea that a house divided against itself cannot stand, the influence of the APC in Oyo is as shaky

as it has ever been. And that is because of the power struggle. The main characters behind this struggle include former Governor Christopher Adebayo Alao-Akala, who left APC long ago to join the Peoples Democratic Party, and then Labour Party, and then Action Democratic Party, before returning to APC. There is also Senator Teslim Folarin, who joined APC (from PDP) alongside Alao-Akala in 2017. He has been criticised for reaching above his station since he is a newcomer relative to the old hands that have championed the party for donkey years.

Of course, there is no forgetting former Deputy Governor Adebayo Adekola Adelabu, who has announced time and time

again that there is no power struggle in Oyo APC but appears to have thrown his weight behind Chief Alao-Akala. Nevertheless, certain folks appear to be considering him for the hot seat of leadership.

Political analysts have noted that this struggle might ultimately result in more fractures within the administrative framework of the party. After all, those loyal to the former party leader, the late Senator Abiola Ajimobi, are still much around, seemingly without a leader.

Thus, although Alao-Akala appears to be the most popular candidate, he is also the most unpopular with certain elites in the party. Or so the reports claim. Folarin and Adelabu are not just sitting still, unsurprisingly.

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ ͯʹ˜ ͰͮͰͯ

HIGHLIFE

Tokunbo Wahab at 49: Transforming Lagos Education with Landmark Innovations

Wahab

Why Lagos is considered the apex of Nigeria with regards to development?

Simple: the best brains and visionaries in the country have taken residence there. Tomorrow May 17, one of those overseeing this illustrious city will clock 49. This is Tokunbo Philip Wahab, the celebrated special adviser on education to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu. The good people of Lagos might

have a bone to pick with Governor Sanwo-Olu’s government, but not with respect to the education sector.

Why? Because Sanwo-Olu set up a paragon of excellence to supervise and commandeer the sector— Tokunbo Philip Wahab. Wahab has induced a radiance in the sector that has not been seen anywhere else in the country. The efforts of Tokunbo Wahab can be summed up in one word: effective. As if he has sworn to deify learning, Wahab has not failed in any of his endeavours to ensure that education is a right available to all willing Lagosians, regardless of their age, ethnicity or religious persuasion. His accomplishments to this effect make folks forget that he is a lawyer by training, not an educator.

The most recent landmark of Governor Sanwo-Olu’s government,

the Eko Digital Initiative, has Tokunbo Wahab as its initiator. This Initiative guarantees that willing Lagosians have access to modern/ technological resources that would foster learning (at primary, secondary and tertiary levels) without much impediment. What about all the libraries and ICT centres popping up in even the most remote corners of Lagos?

All to Tokunbo Wahab’s credit.

Of course, even if he hides his involvement, as he does with his philanthropy, no other government official in Nigeria advocates digital approaches to education more than him.

Thus, a step away from clocking 50, Tokunbo Wahab has contributed enough to earn him the praises of all of Lagos. That is what he is getting tomorrow for his 49th birthday.

Friends Yesterday, Enemies Today as Ex-Deputy Governor Eleka Battles Fayose Politics and self-interest are as inseparable as fire and heat. Moreover, they end up becoming their own nemesis. This is the case in the Ekiti State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party. After toiling under many moons as friends, former Governor Ayodele Fayose has become the villain to his friend and former deputy, Professor Kolapo Olusola (Eleka for short).

The chessboard was set up between Fayose and Eleka when the former announced his intention to support the gubernatorial aspiration of Chief Bisi Kolawole under the aegis of the PDP. Even though his good friend and old deputy, Eleka, also intended to compete for the Ekiti apex seat in the same PDP. Faced with acquiescing or moving against Fayose, Eleka has apparently chosen the latter.

According to Eleka, although Fayose commands significant authority in Ekiti

PDP, he did not follow the due process before endorsing Kolawole as the main contender for the gubernatorial seat. On the contrary, Fayose is reported as following his own whim with little regard for the wishes of the remaining actors and stakeholders. Thus, will he abandon his own gubernatorial aspiration and throw his weight behind Kolawole? Apparently not.

According to reports on this, Eleka intends to put his nose to the grindstone and use the grand momentum of his supporters to overwhelm both Kolawole and Fayose at the PDP primary slated for next year, 2022. In the meantime, Fayose is troubling the waters by continuing to build a support base for Kolawole. Recently, the former governor went as far as pronouncing curses on any individual against Kolawole’s ambition and success.

What Fayose has not done, which he did for Eleka in 2018, is lay hands on Kolawole’s head in a prophetic manner and foretell disarming

Fayose and Eleka

and absolute victory at the polls. Politics is a tangled web indeed: able to arm two friends and launch them against each other.

A Peek into Taiwo Afolabi’s World as He is Set to Open Marriott Ikeja Hotel

Afolabi

Nigerians are making history within the country and beyond, no doubts about this. This generation, it seems, will be remembered for breaking the many limitations that stagnated their forebears.

Taiwo Afolabi, the super businessman, founder and Chairman of SIFAX Group and SAHCOL, is at the frontline in this endeavour. With his Marriott Hotel at grand

completion, the man has shot ahead of his peers in Nigeria and the rest of Africa.

The magnificence of Afolabi’s Marriott Hotel is a cause for celebration in the grand scheme of things, but this has left other business people and corporate leaders with similar statuses to Afolabi tearing out what little hair they have left. In a short time, Afolabi managed to break the mould in West Africa with a multi-billion-Naira 5-star monster hotel, the first of its kind in the region.

Marriott Hotel has demonstrated that the SIFAX conglomerate is not the height of Taiwo Afolabi’s abilities. Then again, this is not altogether surprising about a man who started SIFAX (a massive multinational with active interests in all things maritime and nautical, oil and gas, aviation, finance, and hospitality) before he clocked 27.

Even with an LLB from a more prestigious institution, how many have reached this

First Bank MD Sola Adeduntan’s Nine Lives The First Bank drama has turned out to be much more exciting than expected. After the tango with the Central Bank of Nigeria, one could argue that only one individual emerged victorious without suffering any setback. Who would this be if not Sola Adeduntan?

Historians talk about footballers who can change the momentum of a game, excite an entire stadium of committed and neutral spectators, and even snatch the adulation meant for all eleven players of his team.

In a way, this is what has happened with Sola Adeduntan and the First Bank Board of Executive Directors. For those who are

still behind on recent happenings, the entire executive board of First Bank was sacked by the CBN after the board—for lack of a better phrase—retired Adeduntan from his position as Group MD/CEO. Adeduntan was chased out on April 28 but was reinstated by the CBN on April 29, less than 24 hours later.

Folks have attempted to analyse the entire drama from different perspectives. One narrative supposed to have originated from the CBN is that First Bank had given out several loans to its customers, loans that have not been paid back. Another narrative is that Adeduntan was sacked without regard for the due process.

height? But in Afolabi’s case, it was only a matter of time. That’s an eonic genius for you.

Born in Ogun and educated in Ondo, Oyo, and Lagos, Taiwo Afolabi essentially walked the lengths of the South-West in his youth. Perhaps it is on account of this that he has climbed outside of the traditional boundaries of success and paved a new path for others to follow.

In the years to come, history will be kind to Afolabi for spending more than 10 billion to put Nigeria on the map of Africa’s best and most luxurious hotels and accommodations. May 19, 2021 — the day Marriott Hotel will be opened to all and sundry, and Taiwo Afolabi establishes himself as a super corporate leader in West Africa. This is the true corporate spirit: onward and forward.

The latter narrative is the more popular.

Initially, the former executive directors reported that Adeduntan had completed his four-year tenure since he assumed the MD/ CEO position in 2016. Thus, they ushered him out and announced that his deputy, Gbenga Shobo, will replace him. And then CBN arrived on the scene.

In the eyes of the apex bank, Adeduntan’s sack was reminiscent of a coup that might have set a bad precedent for other banking institutions in the country. Thus, to salvage the situation, Adeduntan was reinstated.

However, whether he will continue for another four years is yet to be known. In short, the man is the luckiest fellow out there in the Nigerian corporate yard.

Makinde

Seyi Makinde’s Respect for Rule of Law Governor Seyi Makinde has always been compared with President Emmanuel Macron of France. Perhaps it is the shared compassion for their people or the devotion to duty and the rule of law. In any case, Makinde is not anyway inferior to the Frenchman, particularly concerning satisfying the people’s demands and yet keeping the big picture in view.

Governor Makinde has explained to the public that his government has no intention of disregarding the Supreme Court’s ruling on the issue of dissolved local government administration.

This he said against the growing rumour that this is Makinde’s plan—to delay for as long as possible. For those outside Oyo, the court case is the prelude to many things, including how the other governors, who use Makinde as a template, would respond to a similar directive.

Fortunately, Makinde has insisted time and again that the welfare of the people is the responsibility of the government, and his administration will follow the rules to the letter.

The case itself is interesting.

It emerged from Governor Makinde’s decision and order to remove the chairmen and councillors. The directive was released on May 29, 2019, rousing the fury of the sacked officials. Knowing better than to make noise on social media, the officials approached the Supreme Court and presented their case (after losing to the Appeal Court’s judgment).

The Supreme Court rebuked Makinde’s government for persisting in the termination of duty even though the case was still in court. It charged Makinde to pay the accrued salaries and allowances of the sacked officials, including 20 million as compensation. This directive, Makinde has notified the public that he will obey. After all, the original decision was taken on behalf of the state, not because he wants to see the LGAs and LCDAs stagnated.

That is a law-abiding governor for sure, one that sees beyond his nose.

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ ͯʹ˜ ͰͮͰͯ

LOUD WHISPERS

with JOSEPH EDGAR (09095325791)

Peju Ugboma – Another Needless Death

Ugboma

CHRIS NGIGE – I COULDN’T AGREE LESS Retirement ‘kill’ you there as we say it in Shomolu. So, in all this wahala, the solution you and your advisers can develop is to increase the retirement age of charlatans from 60 to 65. People at their prime who do not seem to know their left from their right and who are living corpses on the ground should now be given an extension of tenor? To do what oh, Mr white beard-beard. The simple solution is the robust and outright restructuring of the value chain from training to monitoring and regulation, practice, welfare and recertification and definitely not increasing the retirement age. I have taken the fight to the whole medical community with the premise that as Peju died, it is not the Premier Hospital that everybody is shouting now that should be blamed. It is the whole nine yards, from the health minister down to the hospital janitor. You will not single out one entity and say because she died here, then let’s deal with that hospital and go to bed. The one who died at Mowe nko? The one who died at Ngwa and Ilorin nko? What about the one that got blinded in Kaduna nko?

Me, I am taking a holistic look at the thing. The whole community is leprous.

A simple solution can only come from a total overhaul: withdraw all their licences immediately, and let’s recertify them. For now, we do not know who is a quack or who is not. From Peju’s narrative, even the herbalist at Awoseyin Street in Shomolu who heals broken bones will not be so clueless and then come and add arrogance to the matter after collecting millions. Ngige, please let’s get serious.

HEALTH CRISIS – CITIZENS’ TRUST FUND TO THE RESCUE You see me, I wouldn’t say I like shouting just for the fun of it. I like making

Ngige

Shebi my in-law say I should stop making noise about Erelu’s passing? That she did not die from any mismanagement but by witchcraft. That she and her pastor are working to uncover the killers, and they will soon confess. As far as she is concerned, Erelu died of so many other things, including my cheating and addiction to porn instead of the rubbish I saw that fateful week in Ikoyi and Ikeja.

So, I decided to keep quiet and be mourning my Erelu in peace.

Then the news broke of Peju, and all hell broke loose again.

The description of the event as vividly narrated by the writer

drew public angst, and I started getting many messages from Nigerians supporting whatever my plans were. The highlight was the call I got from Peju’s husband.

Such a gentleman. He was even condoling with me when his own just happened. Mine is over one year. His own was just two hours before he called and see the way he was condoling with me. The narrative of the passing of beautiful Peju is all that has gone wrong in the country’s health system. The avarice and selfishness of the practitioners all culminating in the avoidable loss of innocent

Nigerians. Be like say they use N1 million curse these people.

Before anything, they will say deposit N1 million knowing full well that they don’t have the capacity to handle the situation.

Immediately you deposit, they will seek to transfer you to another hospital who will also demand their N1m before showing you the way to your grave. This has to stop, and like I have been shouting: it is not the government. It is people masking under the yeye government to perpetrate evil and make money while at it. We will surely do something about it, watch this space.

noise and seeking a solution. I do not believe in railing at the government over everything. Government is clearly clueless and needs help. In fact, who is the government? Is it not us? When baba called us lazy, we all were shouting, but when things like this keep happening, we go on social media and shout and shout.

After a few days, we will now be ogling at Bobrisky’s fake breasts, forgetting Peju, Erelu and all other Nigerians that have lost their lives. Are we not lazy?

Well, I have decided to push for a citizens’ trust fund as a middle-of-theroad and immediate engagement of the situation. The idea is got from the N1k miracle group, of which I am a junior founder and strong member. As expounded by the main founder and driver, the vision of the group is to get just N1,000 from people and help pay medical bills for Nigerian patients. Mrs Chile Udemgba has grown this group from just the initial two of us to over 800 people. Donations have moved from the first N270,000 to over N2 million monthly. With these funds, she pays bills and buys drugs for patients she does not know. This is a young Nigerian lady doing things. So, I want to borrow the idea and push for one million Nigerians to donate N1,000 monthly into a trust fund that corporate trustee firms would manage. The funds will be used to strengthen government public medical facilities in welfare, training, equipment, insurance and facility. This would be a third-leg approach that will impact the community and save lives. If you speak with medical practitioners, you will hear stories of woe. In fact, I hear that a welltrained doctor goes home with about

N200,000 monthly, if not less. This fund will augment this salary and give him a better reason to serve. It will also give out scholarships and push for the quick inflow of newly-trained doctors from the medical schools. This may sound utopian, but what is life if you don’t dream and push. Chile dreamt it, and today in less than two years, she has delivered over N40 million into that sector, just from N1,000. The rest of us, let’s be shouting – eya, it is well, it is God’s work, it is his time. You see say we are our own problems. Na wa.

small experience. One day, I want to travel, so I start to pack my load. Then I did not see my credit card. That time Ecobank was pioneering credit card, and them give me. Na so I start to cry. The next minute I see alert: they were taking the money oh in N20,000 tranches. By the time they had finished with me, a lot of money had gone. That time no daily limit. So, I ran to Shomolu police station.

The man at the counter look me. He say ‘who are you?’ I tell am. He say write statement. I write. He read am finish.

He say ‘how old are you?’ I tell am. He look him colleague say in Yoruba, ‘see this one who dash am N200,000. By the time I finish with him he will talk true.’ Me wey be Shomolu man even though I have not been made Duke by that time, I stand up and say, ‘I am coming.’ He say ‘come on, come back.’ Before I realize myself, I am behind the counter. Accuser don become accused. After studying my statement and going back and forth in consultation and eating amala and ewedu with only one meat o, he came with the major conclusion that, ‘na your wife thief am.’ Before I could comprehend what was going on, he shouted, ‘constable take this man go bring him wife come, na suspect.’ My people I think say na play o. Na so we go arrest my wife o.

Na beg we take commot for the matter.

Let me say something before the acting inspector general want start to dey use me score brownie points. This one happened like 15 years ago. So, if you run to Alade police station for Shomolu na rookie police wey just commot for police college you will see there. Those ones would have been retired by now.

So, Mr Gambari that is my experience and my advice. Just hush am, check to see if nothing was missing. Everything complete, pen, chewing gums, condoms, glasses, praying mat. Once everything is

Ehanire

Gambari

IBRAHIM GAMBARI – PLEASE, DON’T CALL POLICE My brother, I have heard that a mischievous attempt was made at burglarizing your office. Let me say this first, please it is not everything you people should be telling us. This kind thing, you for keep quiet and continue with whatever work you are doing because I no even see the work in the first place.

Telling us that Aso Rock, expected to be a fortress, can be so infiltrated, not the office of the washman but your office?

How do you want us to feel hearing this?

If our seat of power is not well secure, how do we now have the confidence that you can protect us in this wahala of insecurity that is going on? That na my advice to your media handlers. Let it be that one busybody reporter hear the gist and release. You will deny, oh. The thing is shameful. It’s like trying to climb madam, and nothing happens: the thing no gree come up, will you call a press conference? Seriously another advice I want to give you is not to call the police for this matter oh. Let me tell you one

Bala-Usman

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ ͯʹ˜ ͰͮͰͯ

LOUD WHISPERS my Chairman Ken Etete set up a call, and we had a three-way conversation, and it was convivial and deep. Then the news hit like a tsunami, his firm, UTM Offshore, had just been licensed to operate the first floating LNG Production Plant. The firm is expected to build a plant to process about 176m cubic feet of gas and condensate per day. This is a remarkable feat, and strong kudos must be given to the Department of Petroleum Resources for the confidence it has reposed in an indigenous firm to operate at this level. That this would enrich the space cannot be over-emphasized. Well done, DPR and all other stakeholders that allowed this breakthrough to occur. A real silver lining in the nation at this time.

Well done, bro.

complete, just change burglar proof and put broom with red tape on top of the door so that they will just be sweeping when they come. You can give me a contract to supply the broom. I know where they do it in Shomolu. It is around that Ilaje side near Lagoon.

COVID-19 - LOCKDOWN MY FOOT! You really do not need to conduct an official survey to gauge the level of apathy towards government and its policies than this covid thing. Since the inception of the pandemic, Nigerians have been taking everything the government has said and done on the matter with a huge pinch of salt. The fiasco that was the pandemic palliatives did not help matters which also now impacted the vaccine. My brother Femi Olude believes that the vaccine can make someone impotent, and that is why when I went to take my own, I told Duchess to be at alert for testing, and I did not breathe until I climbed and came back with a 98 per cent score. I am usually 70 per cent, but this time I got 98 per cent.

Na the fear propel the action. Anyway, from nowhere with relatively no Covid cases (abi how do you want to describe a caseload of sub-50 for the past one month?) government announce one yeye lockdown. People just hiss and continue with their work. These people are just bent on the continued demystification of governance. Suppose India and the rest are going through a harrowing experience. Is it not easier to contain by strengthening border controls, ensuring strict non-pharmaceutical engagement by both in and outbound passenger traffic and other such sensible protocols? Na to rush and announce comprehensive lockdown when businesses and people are just coming out of the economic tailspin occasioned by all the other lockdowns? For me, I don even know what nightclubs have done these people. They seem to be the ones that the presidential committee no like at all.

Small thing they have shut down clubs, next thing, they will raid them. When malls with thousands of Nigerians are left open and laughable, political rallies are allowed to go on, waiting for it - INEC prescribed protocols. Please, let’s don’t be joking na.

NGX GROUP – THE STOCK AFRICA IS MADE OF I hope I am talking to people who are ‘lit’.

The NGX Group is the new entity the Stock Exchange has morphed into. You know, as a ‘failed’ stockbroker, I must support my first constituency. On the back of the recent demutualization of the Stock Exchange, the Oscar Onyema-led new entity is set to take a leadership position in the local space and regional and global markets. The campaign aims to position NGX as a leading provider of capital market infrastructure connecting Nigeria, Africa and the rest of the world.

The campaign, which will kick off this week will, “amplify the group’s new brand identity, spotlighting the growth potential of the African continent, across traditional and digital media.” Mbok, I have talked too much already, if you want to know more try their new website www.ngxgroup. com. If you are interested in attending the virtual launch of the campaign, try ww.ngxgroup.com/thestockafricaismadeof . I must support the stock exchange because when I first came to Lagos, if you cannot pass an aptitude test, no job. Me, I used to fail the thing like play. I was an expert at failing, but Dr Chukwujama of Unex Securities gave me an aptitude test wey I pass o. That is how I start my career as a stockbroker, and from there, I move. So, I am first a stockbroker before all this Duke of Shomolu thing, loyal to the market and all it stands for.

HADIZA – AMAECHI FIGHTING A LOSING BATTLE Normally, when you see this kind of fight, you will first calm down, pull back, and see the underground causative

Rone

factors. That is what they will first teach you in detective school. So, I don look this matter, has there been any – the other room-type request not been well received that may have led to this implosion?

Well, from preliminary findings, I do not think that is the reason. If you ask me why I will say look Amaechi’s head. It is too big and bald to be of any consideration. He is also rough around the edges. He looks like someone that will not understand what three forks are doing on a dinner table at a French restaurant in Monaco. Then you see Hadiza, forget the purdah she dey use, the eyes are divine. The skin is smooth, and she remains a beauty to behold.

Her confidence shines through, and this is definitely a mismatch. That said, let me say that as useless as I am, I am on the side of Hadiza not because I think she is innocent of thieving the N164 billion or that she is innocent of the insubordination that she has been accused of but simply because of her beauty. Mbok, how can such a divinely created human being ever be guilty of anything? Have you seen a beautiful woman thieving before?

Pastor Adeboye

What insubordination if the woman decides to have direct access to the president nko? Is it your president?

Why would you want the president only to be seeing your big eyes? Mbok, this whole thing looks even childish and petty to me. So now, the monies are all inside CBN as we now hear that na only insubordination remains, which makes it infighting. Let both of them come outside and tell us what the problem really is because I feel that there is more. My advice to Amaechi is that next time you want to fight and need my heavy support, fight people like them Lauretta Onochie - ehen na now you will see objectivity on my part. For this one, I am sorry you lose me. The beauty no let me see road. I’m sorry my brother, next fight we go do am together.

JULIUS RONE – THIS IS AN EARTHSHAKING MOVE So my brother Raymond Abia had first given me initial contact with this incredible Nigerian. I had heard he was on to something major, but I was only interested in Ibiom, my play in Uyo. Then

BIRTHDAY PRAYERS FOR FELA DUROTOYE Aburo, yes, aburo. So, you just dey hit 50 when we don hit am like two years ago? Anyways, you have lived a remarkable life, and that presidential attempt, which collapsed remarkably on live national TV, does not remove from the fact that you are one great Nigerian. As your people gift you with the brand-new Range Rover, what is left from us is to send very strong prayers to you. Oya, kneel down and let me pray for you virtually – Father Lord, you see this your son and our brother Fela, bless him, guide him, protect him. Let him continue to live a life of example, give him the strength to withstand temptation that will come from this Range Rover, and give him the wisdom to send referrals to me as they approach him. Lord, thank you for blessing Nigeria with this soul, for he will lead a transformation and continue to bless lives through your instructions.

Happy birthday, bro.

Durotoye

PASTOR ADEBOYE – ACCEPT MY CONDOLENCE On behalf of the very good people of Shomolu, we would like to extend our heartfelt condolences to you and mummy on the recent loss of your lovely son Pastor Dare Adeboye. The news hit me in Abeokuta as me and Yemi Shodimu were about to devour assorted goat meat and amala at Pankshe.

Pankshe is one place in Abeokuta where the amala is divine. As I was about to dig in, I saw a prompt on my phone. I say let me finish eating because if I read and it’s bad news, I will not eat. So, I finished my food and read the sad news. No one is ever prepared for this, even a man as close to God as you are. But we are emboldened in the faith that you live by and have continued to teach us that Jehovah only knows why and we cannot question him. Dare has gone to rest, daddy. All we can do is to continue to live the life that will make him proud while seated at the right-hand side of our Lord. Take heart, my dear GO, and please keep mummy warm. She needs you much more now. God bless you, and God bless us all.

TONY NDAH – A BIG THANK YOU I will not even forgive myself if I do not do this: send a shoutout to a gentleman and a courageous Nigerian, Tony Ndah. He is the president of estate surveyors in the country, a conscientious businessman and a passionate Nigerian. He is first an Akwa Ibom man with all the affinities to afang, afia efere and ekpang nkukwo.

Very few people meet you for the first time and immediately take to you. As I walked into his office to discuss Ibiom and Akwa Ibom, he listened intently and said, ‘I will support you.’ My sister Eno Udo gave us the meeting, and since then, he took me in as a younger brother. His hold on national issues is second to none, but his lack of interest in politics despite the network, net-worth, and depth is simply confusing. Let me just say thank you so much, my senior brother, and when you are less busy, I owe you a huge bowl of afang. Just let me know.

FOOTNOTE Some of you, my regular readers, would have noticed that I have been quite religious in two stories today. Well, let me explain. Following the death of my mother, she left it in her will that I must return to the church to continue with the work of my father, the late Pastor Sampson Edgar if not I will lose my inheritance – the shop that they are using to do salon in our house in Ewet Housing Estate in Uyo. So my people, in total obedience to that instruction, I was appointed an elder in the church. Now you may ask, will I still be watching porn, following ‘yellow women’. The only answer I can give is that Jesus came for the sick and who sick reach me. Recovery na process, no be military government. You cannot order it—Na very, very gradual process.

Na to pray for long life. Please no show my brother this thing o make him no suspend me o, na him be GO. El Rufai will not come and beg for me, I don yab am too much.

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ ͯʹ˜ ͰͮͰͯ

Adebayo Adeoye bayoolunla@gmail.com; 08054680651

Billionaire Businessman, Olu Okeowo’s Birthday Allocution Sir Olu Okeowo, Chairman of Gibraltar Property, has been around for some time doing what he knows how to do best.

By all standards, his success story is evidence that he is a big player in the property and real estate sector. He is known for a number of imposing properties scattered around the globe; hence, anyone who likes to venture into the real estate business will be doing himself some good if he or she contacts him for some rudiments of the business.

Recently, he threw his door open to family and friends to celebrate with him on the occasion of his birthday.

But beyond the celebration, Okeowo also used the day to preach unity in the country while also urging the government to recruit jobless Coker

Okeowo

Anambra Politician, Prince Nicholas Ukachukwu’s Herculean Task

Return of NTDC Boss, Folly Coker

H

ard work doesn’t go unnoticed, and someday reward will follow and work well done is an opportunity to do more.

This, no doubt, sums up the story of Lagos State-born Folorunsho Folarin-Coker, otherwise known as Folly Coker, who is currently reaping bountifully from his conscientiousness.

When he was appointed the director-general of the NTDC, several people hailed him. At the end of his first term, he was found to be deserving of another term, particularly for his passion and drive to sell Nigeria to the rest of the world.

The news of his reappointment as the NTDC boss has caused jubilation. As players in the tourism industry, his fans and admirers see him as the best man for the job returning with more firepower. The reason may not be unconnected because he is considered the best in that field, with his sheer interest in further repositioning the tourism sector. For his stellar performance, his reappointment shows that he is doing something different.

Society Watch gathered that stakeholders and tourism experts in the country have also lauded President Buhari for reappointing him.

As much as possible, he has continually put the country on the global map in tourism, which has experienced a great turnaround.

youths into the security outfits to help defend the sovereignty of our country.

“We are one united and indivisible entity; after all, we run a democratic republic. The hopeless situation we are in now was born out of decades of bad governance. It has nothing to do with religious bigotry as being trumped up by fake pastors,” he said.

“Christians and Muslims are one, and this country must not go down in Jesus’ mighty name. The South-West has indeed produced great compatriots from formidable politicians to boardroom gurus.

“Internationally, our professionals are being sought after. Unfortunately, the lesser mortals are roaming the streets with prophecies of gloom and doom hovering over their heads. Let us make our governance skills work instead of beating the drums of war.”

Ukachukwu

Prince Nicholas Ukachukwu, Chairman/CEO of SNECOU Group Limited, is a successful businessman and industrialist by all standards.

Since he left the Green Chamber many years ago, he has tried to remain relevant in the political scene in the state.

In the eyes of many, he comes across as a man who lacks any clear-cut political

ideology. However, he wants to be seen as the messiah to provide his people with the muchdesired dividends of democracy.

A serial contender, the more he tries, the more his dream eludes him. Sadly, Society Watch gathered that this has even made him a subject of ridicule in some quarters.

To realize his age-long aspiration for the Anambra South Senatorial district in the 2019 election, the Owelle Osumeyi left the Peoples Democratic Party for the All Progressives Grand Alliance. He could no longer endure the frustration he allegedly suffered in the hands of some hawks in the party, especially Andy Uba and his cronies.

There was a glimmer of hope when he beat many of his other aspirants in APGA, including Bianca Ojukwu, widow of the late Biafra warlord, Emeka Ojukwu and Dr Okey Chidolue, a former top shot in the Nigerian Ports Authority, a one-time aide to the late Ojukwu.

But his hope of flying the party’s ticket was almost punctured when he lost at the Federal High Court in Abuja, following a case instituted by an aggrieved member who felt cheated at the party’s primary. Undeterred, he

had approached the Court of Appeal and won.

As a result, he believed he could still realize his dream of becoming a senator, given his popularity and the support of the state governor, Willie Obiano, who had reportedly promised to use the state apparatus in his favour.

He was full of hope until Senator Ubah hit a sledgehammer on his ambition.

The pendulum swung in the direction of Capital Oil boss Ubah, who was declared winner in the election, puncturing his balloon of hope irredeemably. Not one to give up easily on his cherished dream, Society Watch gathered that the philanthropist would be running for the exalted position in the November 6, 2021 governorship election in the state on the ruling APGA. But a source disclosed that his ambition could amount to a camel passing through the eye of the needle. Already, there are insinuations that many in the party are allegedly rooting for the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Charles Soludo.

Rachael Salehu, Real Estate Guru Par Excellence Over the years, she has managed and nurtured her passion for excellence to the admiration of all. The University of Lagos graduate of Marine Biology and Biological Oceanography has collaborated with innovative teams in content marketing, content creation; executing, measuring and optimizing, engaging marketing campaigns, developing a strong rapport with sales teams, and delivering on marketing Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and company financial targets.

As a strong advocate of business orientation for young and aspiring entrepreneurs and a solution finder, she has made some efforts to solve some of the unregulated real estate sector issues in Nigeria.

It is a fact that the real estate sector is faced with a constant hike in rents, aiding deficiency in low-cost housing and the inability of the common man to be able to pay rent or own an affordable house.

Salehu

As a result, she recently launched her new Arc Homes real estate Website. Salehu, with her friend Caroline Adejube, the Chief Operating Officer, started Arc Homes, a

leading real estate solution finder, with decades of experience in management, development, leasing and selling of properties.

They have both set out to create an atmosphere where players and clients in the real estate sector can complement each other. Those who can’t afford to pay their rents at a go have negotiated with various landlords across Lagos to allow tenants to pay-as-you-earn every month, thereby easing tenants’ burdens, letting them plan their monthly income.

“With results from our feasibility studies, the numbers of those who can’t pay their rents at once are quite enormous.

To curb the issues, we came up with a platform that will provide solutions and complement the government’s efforts in regulating and providing affordable housing and maintaining good synergy between landlords and tenants,” they said.

Nigerian-Born International Model, Abraham Adegeye’s Rising Profile In the past years, Abraham Adegeye’s profile has been tremendously on the rise.

He combines his love for fashion with his love for photography. As a model, he had dazzled on the runway, featuring in top international brands, including Timberland, Umbro, G-star, Coca-Cola, Sprite, Diesel and H&M. Adegeye, who has also produced

several critically acclaimed campaigns with About You, Fossil, Vans, Converse, Pacsun, Calvin Klein and Gant, has been a part of a campaign on behalf of the soft drinks company, Sprite, which tackled cyberbullying and diversity.

The TV campaign received plenty of media coverage and formed an app that appeared during thousands of YouTube videos. He is a fashion influencer

with the main goal of inspiring; he enjoys letting people into his life with each post.

He desires to work with more high-end fashion names, and he is open to more TV appearances such as commercials. Despite the competition in the industry, he has carved a niche for himself. He prides himself on being up to date with his content.

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T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R ˾ MAY 16, 2021

CICERO

Editor:Olawale Olaleye mail:wale.olaleye@thisdaylive.com, SMS: 08116759819

IN THE ARENA

Will Buhari Heed the ‘Asaba Declaration’?

In the face of palpable existential threats, governors of Southern Nigerian states called out President Muhammadu Buhari. Will the president choose rhetoric or take decisive action? Louis Achi asks

O

n Monday, 24 hours before embattled governors of Southern Nigeria, meeting in Asaba, Delta State, issued a ‘proclamation’ calling out President Muhammadu Buhari over spiraling national insecurity, the militant Palestinian Hamas group began targeting Ashkelon and Tel Aviv, Israeli cities close to the Gaza Strip, with rockets and claiming lives.

The six administrative districts constituting the State of Israel and equating Nigerian states did not need to issue an “Asaba Declaration” to prod Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to demonstrate leadership and take decisive action to fulfil his core mandate of defending Israeli citizens, territory and property.

Netanyahu ordered an immediate military response to Hamas’ suicidal attacks with a barrage of air strikes and covert intel-guided operations, which have killed several top commanders of Hamas, a scenario acknowledged by the militant group itself.

The Israeli Army released a statement on Wednesday, saying it carried out a “complex and first-of-its- Buhari kind operation.” Those targeted, it said, were “a key part of the Hamas General Staff” and considered close to the head of the group’s military wing.

Forty-eight hours ago, after dropping leaflets warning civilians to evacuate the area, Netanyahu called up 9,000 reservist troops and massed tanks on the border with Gaza. With a ground offensive to be backed by tanks imminent, the Isareli PM has warned that Israel would never return any inch of Gaza territory it takes if an all-out-offensive ensues. At press time the UN was still scrambling to mediate the crisis.

In Nigeria, almost a week after what many see as the courageous ‘Asaba Declaration’ – nothing. Bandits, rogue herders, ‘unknown gunmen’ kidnappers and Boko Haram terrorists are having a field day. Quirky pronouncements are being issued from some Northern political chieftains with the senate president as cheerleader, to counter the Southern governors’ position. The Aso Rock is presumably still studying the Asaba communique, which contrasts sharply with their traditional quick-fire responses.

Cut to the bone, governors from Southern Nigeria were essentially calling on the Commanderin-Chief to take action to save the Nigerian state.

They had last week urged the federal government to convoke a national dialogue as a matter of urgency to address fundamental issues of state-

hood.

In a 12-point communique read by the Chairman of Southern Governors Forum, Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State, the group “affirmed that the peoples of Southern Nigeria remain committed to the unity of Nigeria on the basis of justice, fairness, equity and oneness and peaceful co-existence between and among its peoples with a focus on the attainment of shared goals for economic development and prosperity.”

Hitting at the core of the security nightmare, they observed that, “The incursion of armed herders, criminals and bandits into the Southern part of the country has presented a severe security challenge such that citizens are not able to live their normal lives including pursuing various productive activities leading to a threat to food supply and general security.”

More, the governors resolved that open grazing of cattle be banned across Southern Nigeria, noting that development and population growth has put pressure on available land and increased the prospects of conflict between migrating herders and local populations in the South. Against this backdrop, it becomes imperative to enforce the ban on open grazing in the South (including cattle movement to the South by foot) – they further held.

Putting a finger on the trigger of incipient dis-

integration, the Southern states’ chief executives held that the progress of the nation requires that urgent and bold steps be taken to restructure the Nigerian Federation leading to the evolution of state police, review of revenue allocation formula in favour of the sub-national governments and creation of other institutions, which legitimately advance our commitment to and practice of true federalism.

Turning their gun-sights on a subject that creates Northern jitters the most, the governors recommended that in view of widespread agitations among their various peoples for greater inclusiveness in existing governance arrangements, the federal government should convoke a national dialogue as a matter of urgency.

For good measure, they drew attention to the extant extreme lopsidedness in appointments and stressed the need to review appointments into Federal Government Agencies (including Security Agencies) to reflect the federal character as Nigeria’s overall population is heterogeneous.

As Nigeria bleeds out from assault on various fronts, will President Buhari make a turnaround and adopt the decisive Netanyahu model of leading from the front? Will he prefer to stay the current course? On either option, the judgement of history beckons. For the embattled masses, it’s morning yet on creation day.

P O L I T I CA L N OT E S

T

Baba

Still on the Attacks on Police

he deliberate and unceasing attacks on security facilities and operatives across the country, especially, in the Southeast part of the country, has reached a point that the authorities must act, not only with force but the determination to return sanity to that part of the country.

With the increasing activities of insurgents and kidnappers in many parts of the country, a situation that has already stretched and demoralised the security operatives, the senseless resort to maiming and killing police officers

in the country must be brought to an abrupt end irrespective of whose ox is gored at the end of the day.

Unfortunately, the people are going to be at the receiving end of the ongoing madness.

How they cannot tell that with police stations and posts being burnt down by criminal elements, they would soon be at the mercy of non-state actors is to say the least, befuddling. And except the people rise in unison to protect and defend the police now, they should be prepared to deal with the mud after a downpour.

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ MAY 16, 2021

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BRIEFINGNOTES El-Rufai, Ortom’s Descent to Character Debate Nigerians expected more in terms of leadership from Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State and his Benue State counterpart, Samuel Ortom, than last week’s resort to character debate, writes Tobi Soniyi

P

enultimate week, Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai and his Benue State counterpart, Samuel Ortom shamelessly, threw caution to the winds and chose to wash their dirty linen in public.

El-Rufai had accused Ortom of using insecurity in his state to attack President Muhammadu Buhari’sadministration as a way to cover up for his own failure.

Ortom didn’t take it lightly. He quickly fired back with sundry allegations against El-Rufai, accusing him of adopting divisible tactics and misleading the president among other weighty allegations.

Incidentally, both Benue and Kaduna states have been devastated by criminals. Evidence abound in both states to show that both governors have failed to deliver on their campaign promises.

While Benue reeled from herders-farmers’ clashes that had left hundreds dead, Kaduna is struggling to stop kidnappers from destroying the state even as its southern part remains a killing field.

Last month, an Internally Displaced Persons camp in Benue State was attacked leaving seven persons dead and many others injured.

On April 20, students of Greenfield University were kidnapped in Kaduna. Five days after their abduction, five of the students were killed by the bandits while the leader of the bandits, Sani Jalingo, said the remaining students would be killed if the government or the parents failed to provide N100 million and 10 motorcycles for the bandits.

So both governors have their hands full, battling insecurity in their respective states. No one, therefore,expects them to have time for frivolities. But this is Nigeria where politicians never cease to entertain. At a time when they should be working together to find an enduring solution to the peril the countrygenerally faces, they have chosen to go for each other’s jugular.

In February, El-Rufai delivered a speech that many considered to be a call to action for leaders irrespective of their political, ethnic or religious inclination.

A quote from the speech, which the governor delivered at the national conversation: ‘The Fierce Urgency of Now: Tactics and Strategies to Pull Nigeria from the Brink’, in Lagos on Friday, 19th February 2021 will suffice.

He said: “As leaders, our obligation is to turn Nigeria’s moment of peril into a breakthrough moment, a time to stand together and drag the Nigerian state to modernity, imbued with a capacity to exercise robust control of security, that is uncompromising in its prerogatives and has an ability to protect rights, lives and livelihoods. Let us make a rational decision that we would be defined by what we achieve in common.”

Many may choose to disagree, El-Rufai is one of the few governors, who understand the depth of the security challenges the nation faces. How, therefore, can a governor, who is expected to rally his colleagues to work with the president to confront a common enemy be picking up a fight with one of his own?

Governor Ortom is also not totally blameless. His response to the Kaduna State governor lacked discretion expected from the exalted office of a state governor. He appeared to have been nursing a grudge against El-Rufai.

The remarks by the Kaduna State governor provided him with the opportunity to pour it out. He obviously overreacted and showed no restraints.

Unfortunately, while the governors bicker, criminals continue to wreak havoc across the country. Those who wanted the country destroyed had the governors where

El-Rufai and Ortom they wanted them. In disunity. Even though it continues to sound hollow in many ears, the reality is that the country is not going to surmount the security challenges except it is united. If one state is not safe, all the states cannot be safe.

These challenges are not only interrelated but are such that it would take collective efforts and synergy to resolve.

Insecurity has grown this worse partly due to the absence of a coordinated response among tiers of government.

When those who should work together to stem the tide of insecurity are busy quarrelling, the nation obviously faces a bleak future.

True be told, one of the reasons Nigeria is turning into a failed state is bad governance and it didn’t start yesterday or with the Buhari government. Too many children are out of school. As they grow up without any means of sustenance they are left with no choice but to resort to crimes.

Both Ortom and El Rufai should be preoccupied with how to provide education to every child in their respective states. It is by doing so that they can secure the future of their states.

Both governors need to find ways to extend governance beyond their state capital. Once you travel out of the

capital, you hardly feel the presence of the government.

These neglected parts are fertile ground for criminals to spring up. Large swathes of land in both Kaduna and Benue have no presence of government.

Even though governors do not control any security forces, they can fight insecurity by developing their states.

It is not too late for the warring governors to bury the hatchet and find common grounds. The Chairman of the Northern Governor’ Forum, Simon Lalong of Plateau State, should immediately initiate a peace process to reconcile them.

Governors will have to work with President Muhammadu Buhari to address the security challenges, even though the president has not shown the leadership required to galvanize state governors to join forces with him.

While the federal government keeps defending the rights of herders to move freely across the country, the Buhari-led administration has not shown similar support for the farmers, whose crops are destroyed by herders.

The time has come for both Ortom and El-Rufai to uphold their ‘obligation’ to turn Nigeria’s moment of peril into a breakthrough and stand together to drag the nation to modernity.

NOTES FOR FILE

The Shina Peller Example

Peller

House of Representatives member for Iseyin/Itesiwaju/ Kajola/Iwajowa federal constituency in Oyo State, Hon. Shina Peller, on Friday celebrated his 45th birthday in a different fashion, largely atypical of what a majority of his folks would do. He is concerned about the state of the nation and therefore used the occasion of his 45th birthday to address some of these national concerns.

Expectedly, some of his choices have allegedly caused some stir in the local politics of his state, Oyo, where some leaders of his party, the All Progressives Congress had scolded him for giving the governor of the state, Seyi Makinde, a significant role to play at an occasion they considered theirs, even though he was eventually represented.

But, the question is, when will the Nigerian politicians stop playing politics with everything? There’s no telling that security is the singular most critical challenge that

the country faces today and so, the least expectation is that everyone – irrespective of party or ideological leaning – would come together to confront what is no less a common enemy.

The last time some APC governors visited Makinde, what he told them was the need to come together as one to wrestle the monster of insecurity, because the scourge recognises no colour, religion, culture or ethnicity. As such, coming together to battle the challenge is the only way out.

However, that some people would seek to politicise such a serious and sensitive matter, at a time it is becoming overwhelming is, to say the least, inconceivable. Shina Peller has just exhibited leadership with example and rather than reprimand him, everyone needs to rally round him and encourage him to do more. He deserves an applause.

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T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R ˾ MAY 16, 2021

CICERO/ONTHEWATCH

Omagbemi: Campaign Is Successful When Planning Is Based on Audience, Not Location Ugochukwu Aliogo spoke to Tosan Omagbemi, Managing Director at Interaction Channels limited, an advertising technology company, on some topical national issues. Excerpts:

L

et’s talk about your newly launched platform, ‘Moving audiences’. What is it about?

Interaction channel is an advertising technology company that holds a strategic partnership with a company known as Moving Walls. Moving Walls is a global company sitting in Singapore, but operates out of four continents and over 11 markets globally. We have an exclusive partnership with them in Nigeria and West Africa. Moving Walls basically operates an intelligence location platform. The location intelligence technology is what we have onboarded in Nigeria.

Location intelligence refers to technologies that allow you to build knowledge about behaviours of audiences or consumers across different locations and points of interest. To be able to operate this type of technology, you will need a lot of data sources. So, what we have done is not rely on one data source, but on multiple data sources, because environments defer. For instance, we are speaking within a confined environment; it is a point of interest. However, when we step out to the car park, that is another environment altogether.

So, the context of every environment defers. So, you will need a number of data sources to make sense of audiences that you find in various points of interests or environment. So, we tap into data from Google traffic, mobile app data, and digital media such as Twitter, search, and fox square. Then we also have a proprietary Internet Of Things device (IOTs) that helps us to pick device signals. The IOTs are basically signals, and they could be used across industries agriculture, manufacturing, and automobiles. Our IOTs are focused on tracking audiences.

So, when you talk about location data or intelligence, you are basically speaking to the digital journeys of different consumers or audiences.

The digital journeys are what you are trying to build knowledge about and it goes deep and granular, beyond just numbers, it goes as far as the demographics. It also seeks to understand the profiles of those audiences, and building their various segments whether you have a white-collar type of audiences, students, traders, mid-income and low-income audiences.

It goes deep from understanding the audiences from a location, preference, and interest standpoints.

What is the significance of location intelligence in the Nigeria Market?

There is a pre-COVID-19 era and we are not in postCOVID-19, because a lot of countries are still battling with the effects of the pandemic, whether pre or post-COVID, data has always been a key tool to unlocking influence with consumers, so a typical brand or product is created to solve a problem, and the problem is for some particular type of consumers. So, every brand of product is aiming to understand how to spend the consumer in a way they will understand.

I have a product already or a solution, but the person that needs may not know they need it in this format. That is where the communication or messaging comes in. To be able to properly message or pass information of the unique value of a product, service, or solution across to a consumer, you need to be able to get an understanding of them. Understanding them takes analysis of data, building insights, so that when you use that insight to speak to a consumer, then, a message will resonate.

The gap that exists in the market is how you are able to build knowledge to reach the consumer or your audience within the market, you need relevant data. Before now, there were no sources of relevant data, before we conducted researches, as you are aware those researches are static and near historical in most cases. Our kind of data is real-time data that is relevant for the moment and constantly refreshed. It becomes absolutely useful for you to build or make marketing decisions. Data will be useless without application, so we don’t just stop at providing data, but we layer that data with technology that allows advertisers, and brands to leverage that data into various marketing variables.

What are you presenting to the digital advertising space to stand out because the space is getting saturated already?

Our platform operates two data engines. The first data engine is the location intelligence engine that gives us knowledge of audiences in physical locations. Now, we also operate another data engine,which is the DMP for mobile, which gives an understanding of audiences in the virtual space through our devices or digitally.

What we have done that is unique to us as an organisation is that we have integrated both data engines that allow us to identify audiences physically and virtually in real-time. That capability does not exist in this market before now. So with that capability in place, being able to identify a common audience, physically and virtually in real-time enables us to be able to do

Omagbemi very efficient mobile advertising and so we have what is known as a hyper-local or location focused mobile advertising platform.

I could target people in a particular shop in a certain location without targeting other shops in that same location. It gives that precision technology and capability; it is what is unique to us.

Whereas many others speak of geo-targeting, very randomly and from a vague standpoint, we speak of location targeting or geo-targeting from the precise standpoint. There are several other filters that we leverage to deliver on that capability.

You talked about the use of data to analyse consumer behaviour, demographics and their views about different products and brands, how are you able to create understanding to arrive at a shared meaning in a complex market?

Firstly, there is what is known as a data privacy policy. Our data first and foremost is anonymous data, so we don’t know people by anything so that makes it private such as names and phone numbers or anything that will be indicative that you’re invading an individual’s privacy, however, we know audiences uniquely and that is where our technology comes in. For instance, if I am a brand that is seeking to reach the high-end type of audiences, in this case, the big class.

The big class is a big class. There is a definition of what is called the ‘Big Class’. What our data does, is to distill who is that Big Class, in what kind of environment do they live, work, what points of interest do they visit. Such individuals may visit Ikoyi Golf club every evening to play golf. He/she maybe someone that has the mindset that I need to use a fitness center, he/she lives in the heart of the Mainland such as Magodo, Shonibare Estate Maryland, and Ikeja GRA, so there are location indicators, that a person visits, which becomes a proxy and defines who the individual is.

We analyse behaviour based on location intent, places they visit physically and virtually (online and offline). In our data ecosystem, there are a lot of digital services in it, and it has nothing to do with writing with paper.

All the data we need, is remotely picked as device signals, Google real-time traffic data, IOTs (these are sensors that basically pick unique identities of devices), then you identify a device ID or ads ID, you can basically build knowledge about that ID because you can see that digital journey in multiple places so that is how you add.

So, that is how you aggregate audiences into a bucket and say this type of the person that visits the gym is a fitness enthusiast, this type of person that visits Spur, Taste Fried Chicken (TFS), Mr. Biggs and Chicken republic is a foodie, this type of person that stays in the office in one high rise building from morning till evening is white-collar type of person, this type of person that is in Ojuoye market or aspanda market is a trader, so that is how we knowledge about audiences.

When the platform launched, what was the level of market penetration?

We started pre-operation early 2018/2019. But we hit the

ground running, it was late October 2019. Of course, COVID-19 became a challenge; we thank God that the stem is almost 100 per cent running back. In terms of penetration, you have to understand that for a novel application, the platform allows us to solve a lot of industry problems.

Most of these problems are age-long problems for instance outof-home measurements, before now you could plan out-of-home with matrix, but now there is a national currency for out-of-home in Nigeria, which allows media strategies and planners to buy and be able to measure its impact of out-of-home advertising for their clients.

We apply the same technology for programmatic digital out-of-home advertising like we have on our mobile devices, you are able to reach audiences with programmatically digital out-ofhome inventory. We apply for retail analytics, events, activation and of course, the platform is integrated with the location first mobile advertising platform. Those are some of the offshoots of our data ecosystem and technology.

Regarding market penetration, as soon as we got started, we brought MTN onboard in January, 2020. We have done a few with Nigeria breweries from the activation standpoint.

We have some clients that are in the pipeline, they include banking services and Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCGs).

Importantly, because the solution is novel, you have to do a lot of awareness creation in the market, just like I stated earlier, even the consumers of Milo beverage may not understand how much they need it until somebody is able to explain to them the value they will get from it and they will begin adoption, so we have been able to do a lot of that.

Presently, we have collaboration with the Outdoor Advertising Association of Nigeria (OAAN) and they have recognised us as the market currency for out- of-home-advertising, so we have made a lot of progress in terms of penetration within the market, having multiple conversations with agencies, and advertisers across different application of the platform.

Before you came into the industry, what was the situation of Out-Home-Advertising, and what has been the improvement you have brought into it?

I have served in the advertising agency for well over a decade and after about 10 years of service, I was directly leading the OutHome-Advertising planning and buying team for the agency. I understand Out-Home-Advertising very well. The gap basically that existed was there was no data to plan, we were basically buying Out-Home-Advertising from a subjective standpoint, so it was all guesswork;there no data driving those decisions.

The situation was more like realising that there are a lot of persons maybe in a particular location, therefore, I should have an inventory that helps me expose these brands on that location.

It is guesswork to the extent that they are a lot of people, but a brand is not looking for a lot of people, instead, it is focusing on a specific set of people.

A brand wants to attract those that will commit some budget to purchase and ultimately walk towards becoming a loyal user. In that wise, there is a lot of guesses still going on and when you even did that, there was no way to measure whether scientifically, what you were doing was making any impact. In line with this is the fact that if you gave me a brief as a client, and I needed to plan a campaign for you, I will then begin to call media owner A, media vendor B, and media vendor C if they have a billboard in a particular location and all of that planning was location-focused.

What we have done as organisation is that we have brought technology and data to bear such that the advertiser and agencies shift focus, away from location buying to audience buying, because it is not locations that have the budget power, it is humans that do. What an advertiser or an agency needs to do is to understand, who the humans that visit locations are. A location is defined by the people that are living there; it is not the location that defines the people. It is not billboards that make the audiences; it is the audience that visits a location that makes the billboards to become relevant, so that is what our technology focuses on.

We are into buying of audiences, planning based on audiences and not based on locations, because a location can deliver a universe, however, you’re not looking for that. But you’re looking for a particular type of audience and where they go, which will help you understand that XYZ locations will allow me to reach those people at 50 or 70 per cent reach XYZ frequency.

Is there a challenge you encounter in sourcing data?

When we wanted to start, we tried to look inwards. We tried to talk to telecommunication companies,who have data, but we realised that we could not make progress. So, what we have done basically in aligning with a global partner is to be able to tap into the wealth of data that is available globally, as you are aware, all of the digital data that is available in this market is actually aggregated from a global standpoint.

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T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R ˾ Y 16, 2021

PERSPECTIVE

L-R: Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva; Director General, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Bashir Jamoh; Executive Director, Finance and Administration, NIMASA, Mr. Chudi Offodile; Commander, 631 Aircraft Maintenance Depot, Air Commodore John Laoye; and Commander, 301 Heavy Airlift Group, Air Commodore Patrick Obeya, during the reception of one of the Special Mission Aircraft (in the background) under the Deep Blue Project, at the Nigerian Air Force Base, Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja.

Deep Blue Project: Countdown to Maritime’s Big Event Events have increased in tempo on a positive note ahead of the launch of Nigeria’s comprehensive maritime security strategy, writes Vincent Obia

T

he assets acquisition and installation phase of the Deep Blue Project moved towards completion on Wednesday with the delivery of one of the two Special Mission Aircraft for the project. The Cessna CJ3 Citation jet for maritime surveillance was received in Lagos ahead of the scheduled launch of the Integrated National Security and Waterways Protection Infrastructure – commonly called the Deep Blue Project – on May 21.

The arrival of the aircraft at the Nigerian Air Force Base, Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, marked a great moment in Nigeria’s maritime security history. Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dr. Bashir Jamoh, captured the moment in a brief interview with journalists.

“This is a historical moment in the course of our national development, especially as we move towards diversification of our economy with maritime playing a strategic role,” Jamoh said. “The arrival of the Special Mission Aircraft happened amid a positively changing maritime security narrative in Nigeria, and we have no doubt that with this additional capacity to control our maritime domain, things would get even better.”

Nigeria has in recent times witnessed a significant drop in attacks in its waters. The International Maritime Bureau (IMB), the global focal point in the fight against maritime crimes and malpractices, recorded only two incidents in Nigerian waters between January and March this year in the latest quarterly report of piracy and armed robbery against ships. This was against 11 attacks within the same period last year, 14 in 2019, and 22 incidents in 2018.

The Nigerian maritime domain and the Gulf of Guinea had seen spikes in piracy and armed robbery at sea. But since the deployment of assets under the Deep Blue Project began about two years ago, there have been drops in such security breaches. IMB reported a decline in piracy attacks in Nigeria in the third quarter of 2019, saying in its report, “Nigeria has reduced Q3 piracy attacks from 41 in 2018 to 29 in 2019.” This represented nearly 30 per cent year-on-year reduction.

As the countdown to the launch of the Deep Blue Project gathers momentum, the reduction in maritime security violations comes into sharper focus.

“The message is loud and clear; those who have sworn to make our maritime domain insecure will not have a free rein to do what they want,” said Jamoh.

Nigeria is investing much of its maritime safety and security hopes in the Deep Blue Project. Initiated by the Federal Ministry of Transportation and Federal Ministry of Defence, it is being implemented by NIMASA, with participation from the Nigerian Navy, Nigerian Army, Nigerian Air Force, Nigeria Police, and Department of State Services.

The Deep Blue Project aims to prevent illegal activities in the Nigerian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), enforce maritime regulations, enhance safety of lives at sea, and prevent illegal activities in the inland waterways. In February, the Federal Government added the Secure Anchorage Area (SAA), off the coast of Lagos, to the areas under the protection of the Deep Blue Project.

The project is designed with three categories of platforms to tackle maritime security issues on land, sea, and air. The land assets comprise the Command, Control, Communication, Computer, and Intelligence Centre (C4i) for intelligence gathering and data collection; 16 armoured vehicles for coastal patrol; and about 600 specially trained troops for interdiction, known as Maritime Security Unit. On air, there are two Special Mission Aircraft for surveillance of the EEZ, one of which was received May 12, with the second expected to arrive soon; three Special Mission Helicopters for search and rescue; and four Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. The sea assets consist of two Special Mission Vessels and 17 Fast Interceptor Boats.

All the assets have been delivered, except one Special Mission Aircraft.

The Deep Blue Project assets would be deployed to prevent pipeline vandalism, oil theft, illegal bunkering, arms smuggling, drug trafficking, human trafficking, and illegal fishing. They would also be deployed for pollution prevention and control in the Nigerian maritime environment.

The project is in line with the country’s total spectrum maritime security strategy, anchored on four pillars, namely, situational awareness, response capability, law enforcement and local partnerships, and regional cooperation.

The C4i Centre, with the primary aim of providing maritime domain awareness intelligence for informed enforcement operations and maritime safety and security interventions, has been up and running since August 2019. As the nucleus of the scheme, the C4i centre would be integrated with all the air, sea, and land platforms of the Deep Blue Project.

NIMASA has promoted coordination and information sharing between the C4i and the surveillance systems of other maritime agencies, including Nigerian Navy’s Falcon Eye, Nigeria Police’s i247, and the C3i, which belongs to the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA).

To improve the spirit, character, and verve of maritime law enforcement in the search for security, the Suppression of Piracy and Other Maritime Offences (SPOMO) Act 2019 was enacted. The SPOMO Act, signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari in June 2019, is the country’s first standalone instrument for the criminalisation and prosecution

of piracy and other sea infractions, and the first standalone antipiracy law in West and Central Africa.

It fulfils a critical international requirement for standalone legislation on piracy.

The SPOMO Act 2019 aims to “prevent and suppress piracy, armed robbery, and any other unlawful act against a ship, aircraft, and any other maritime craft, however propelled, including fixed or floating platform.” It provides a legal framework for the prosecution of piracy and other maritime crimes through the country’s Maritime Administration, NIMASA, and the Nigerian Navy.

The Act gives effect to the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), 1982, the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation (SUA), 1988, and its Protocols.

NIMASA has intensified cooperation with international bodies, such as International Association of Independent Tanker Owners (INTERTANKO) and International Association of Dry Cargo Shipowners (INTERCARGO), to ensure security in the Gulf of Guinea, with the Yaoundé-based International Coordination Centre (ICC) playing a central role.

Nigeria and the Inter Regional Coordination Centre (ICC) Yaoundé have pioneered efforts to galvanise regional and international efforts for security in the Gulf of Guinea (GOG). They recently floated the Gulf of Guinea Maritime Collaboration Forum (GOGMCF/SHADE) following discussions between the Director General of NIMASA, representing Nigeria, and Executive Director of ICC Yaoundé, Admiral Narciso Fastudo Jr. A joint statement by NIMASA, Nigerian Navy, and ICC Yaoundé said GOG-MCF/SHADE, purposed to facilitate shared awareness and deconfliction of activities in the Gulf of Guinea, “will be open to all GOG countries with similar capacities to join on a voluntary basis.”

The statement dated April 26, 2021 said, “GOGMCF/SHADE will focus on counter-piracy and armed robbery by bringing together regional, international, industry and NGO partners to advance and coordinate near term maritime activities with a view to working toward a set of common operational objectives in order to protect seafarers and ships operating off the coast of West and Central Africa.”

The Deep Blue Project highlights a new determination by Nigeria to ensure security in its waters and the Gulf of Guinea. The country has put a lot of hope in the project due for unveiling on May 21. Jamoh says, “We are confident the project would deliver our desires in terms of security in Nigerian waters and the Gulf of Guinea.

“We would not disappoint the hopes now being awakened.”

T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R ˾ Y 16, 2021

59

PERSPECTIVE

ÒÏ ÙØÏ ãÏËÜ ÓØ ÙʩÍÏ ÙÐ ÜÙÐÏÝÝÙÜ ÌÜËÒÓ× Ë×ÌËÜÓ ËÝ ÞÒÏ ÒÓÏÐ ÙÐ ÞËʥ ÞÙ ÜÏÝÓÎÏØÞ ßÒË××ËÎß ßÒËÜÓ˜ has proved positive in many considerations, writes Tajudeen Kareem

I

t takes a captain with the right mix of education, exposure and experience to calm the ship amidst a raging storm, as the appointment and one-year management of the Office of Chief of Staff to the President

by Professor Ibrahim Gambari has shown. Diplomat and technocrat at the highest global bureaucracies, Gambari has ensured a clear direction and less drama at the highest office in Nigeria. He does so noiselessly but with systematic efficiency.

Gambari assumed office on 13 May, 2020 as the pandemic threatened nations, and a pall enveloped the Villa over the death of his predecessor. On that bright Wednesday, he arrived at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, about 11 am. Officials introduced him shortly before the meeting of the Federal Executive Council. Expectations were high, judging by his records which spoke loudly.

After the Council meeting, he told the media that instead of coming as the ‘big headmaster’, his mission was clear: Full loyalty, competence and support to the President. His guiding principle as Chief of Staff, he said, would be “to serve the President to the best of my ability.”

Twelve months down the line, what value has the erudite diplomat added to governance under President Buhari?

Without any doubt, Prof. Gambari has brought some finesse to the administrative machinery of the Villa, opting, and wisely too, to operate an open-door policy. It is a paradigm shift that encourages governors and ministers to walk in and discuss freely with the Chief of Staff before taking their matters to Mr President!

Deep throat has it that Prof Gambari operates more like the old village teacher: the brilliant and dullard among students must get due attention to ensure holistic advancement and success.

Perhaps the most profound effect of Gambari’s arrival at the seat of power is the meteoric rise in Nigeria’s diplomatic profile and a string of successes. Political pundits were agreed that the fight against terrorism, Boko Haram and other threats to her security had dwarfed Nigeria’s diplomatic status to the extent that her external visibility in global and continental organisations was reduced to mere attendance of meetings at international engagements.

Two international events that shaped Nigeria’s path to progressive diplomacy can be attributed to President Buhari’s personality and character. His pre-inaugural visitations to contiguous Chad, Niger and Benin Republics as well as Cameroon propelled the re-constitution of the Multinational Joint Task Force of the Lake Chad Basin Commission and the expansion of its mandate to fight insecurity in the sub-region more concertedly.

Recall that in 2015, President Buhari had scored a diplomatic feat by fully supporting the election and ensuring the emergence of Dr. Akinwumi Adesina as President of the African Development Bank. His re-election in 2020 was quite herculean as the Trump Administration tried to play the spoiler’s role. Despite pressure on President Buhari to replace him, Mr. President reinforced his faith and commitment in Dr. Adewumi’s candidacy and reached out to world leaders seeking their support. Prof. Gambari’s rich experience and connections in the diplomatic circle undoubtedly proved a game-changer.

Nigeria’s progressive diplomatic footwork within ECOWAS is remarkable, namely the support for the complicated peace process in Mali, logistics support for practically all elections in the sub-region, coordinating and providing leadership for good governance, accountability and fight against corruption as well as managing the efforts to contain the catastrophic consequences of COVID-19. All these earned the Buhari Presidency and Nigeria recognition, respect and appreciation, thanks to the rich, informed and calculative steps of the diplomat in the house.

Indeed, when Nigeria expressed interest in fielding a candidate for Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security of the African Union, Nigeria’s adroit diplomacy came handy. All ECOWAS countries stepped down for Nigeria’s candidate, Ambassador Bankole Adeoye who obtained the support of every African Union member to clinch the position in February 2021. But perhaps, the election of former Finance Minister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as Director-General of the World Trade Organization was the defining moment for the organisational ability of Prof.

Gambari and the team of technocrats who worked the clock to remove all barriers to her nomination and endorsement to emerge the first African and first female to head the WTO. The lesson in the rejuvenation of Nigeria’s diplomacy lies in two great attributes: Respect and recognition for the nation’s leader and the determination to always present one of our best. President Buhari is deeply respected within the sub-region and the rest of Africa. He is measured in speaking but firm on his positions. The presence of Prof. Gambari in the corridors of power has certainly brought more panache and momentum to the country’s global engagements for maximum benefits and visibility.

For pundits who initially regarded Prof Gambari as an

Gambari ‘outsider’ in the Villa, the confidence reposed in him by President Buhari is palpable going by several delegated responsibilities on security, political, diplomatic and labour matters.

But for the discerning, his interventions have proved critical in the appointment of new service chiefs, government-labour relations and the smooth working relations between the executive and the legislature. Indeed, informed sources said the hitherto cat and mouse relationship between ministers and heads of agencies and parastatals is gradually giving way to more robust eengagement and confidence sharing.

With his training as a teacher and a diplomat, it is now certain that the chief of staff would rather stay behind the curtain and propel his principal to excellence.

In April, diplomatic feathers between Nigeria and China were nearly ruffled when the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, announced the revocation of four oil leases operated by the Addax Petroleum Exploration Nigeria Limited. The government regulator, citing the company’s inability to comply with exploration targets, sought to re-allocate the oil mining leases to the chagrin of China, a country with strong bilateral relations with Nigeria. Addax Petroleum was established in 1994 and is presently a subsidiary of Sinopec Group, a major oil and gas producer in China.

While the contract termination by DPR was premised on economic necessity, the Presidency promptly intervened after weighing ethical and diplomatic considerations.

President Buhari’s intervention and reversal of the revocation must be seen as a strong ethical stand and a bold statement on commitment to due process in contractual obligations.

That indeed is a clear departure from the era when all sorts of iniquities were perpetrated in the name of the Presidency!

The Addax saga certainly speaks to the quality of advice available to the President from his close advisers, outside the official bureaucracy. An informed commentator, Olu Tayo, writing recently in Thisday Newspaper said: “The special bilateral relationship Nigeria enjoys with the Peoples Republic of China, the owner of Addax Petroleum would have suffered immeasurably”, but for the prompt intervention of the President.

“Clearly, the ethical approach in Nigeria’s engagement of its Chinese partner as well as in wider international affairs must reflect conscience, principle, responsibility and restraint in decision-making. This strategy, as President Buhari has adroitly demonstrated, helps prevent undue conflicts and provides an ecosystem of mutual trust and goodwill among nations,” Tayo observed.

Just twelve months in the saddle, analysts agree that Prof Gambari has not disappointed those who invested

enthusiasm on his choice. For instance, the Kwara State Governor, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq had described the appointment as a befitting development that is rooted in dedication, loyalty, and history. “The appointment is clearly fit for purpose and is well deserved for our own Professor Gambari whose record of service as a diplomat and global statesman is unblemished,” the governor said.

The Emir of Ilorin, Alhaji Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari had affirmed that Gambari’s outstanding contributions, administrative experience, scholarship and excellence will have a positive impact on the administrative structure and smooth operation of the Presidency. He was confident that the President Buhari-led government will enjoy Gambari’s inputs towards ensuring good governance, democratic dividends as well as shared prosperity in the nation. He expressed his belief in the ability of the diplomat to make a difference.

Former Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki urged Nigerians to support Professor Gambari in his tasks as the Chief of Staff to President Buhari. Saraki described Gambari as “a decent man, a cerebral academic and a disciplined diplomat”, coming with the necessary pedigree to help him do well on the job.

Prior to his present calling, Gambari, a scholar-diplomat, has had an illustrious career, spanning academia, government and international diplomacy. Between 1999 and 2005, he served as the first United Nations Under-Secretary General and Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Africa. He was the Chairman of the United Nations Special Committee Against Apartheid from 1990 to 1994 and on Peace-Keeping Operations till 1999. He was Head of the United Nations Department of Political Affairs between 2005 and 2007and also operated as UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Cyprus, Zimbabwe and Myanmar and Special Representative in Angola.

Earlier, he served from 1984 to 1985 as the Minister of External Affairs and subsequently Ambassador/Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations from 1990 to 1999. Professor Gambari also served as Joint AU/UN Special Representative in Darfur and Head of UNAMID from 20102012. Until his current assignment, he was the Chairperson of the Panel of Eminent Persons of the African Peer Review Mechanism.

With daunting security challenges and separatist agitations buffeting the country and with fresh elections approaching, Prof. Gambari surely has his job caught out, going forward.

––Kareem is a public policy analyst.

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ MAY 16, 2021

with ChidiAmuta e-mail:chidi.amuta@gmail.com

ENGAGEMENTS

A Hegemony in Trouble

U

nlike the rest of us who are shivering about the prevalent insecurity and uncertainty over the future of the country, I doubt that President Buhari and his inner core of strategists have cause to lose much sleep. They have no cause to share our fears. They have always known something that we did not. The reason is simple. The president deployed and has been presiding over a hegemonic power template that I believe was deliberately considered, carefully crafted, fully calibrated over time and rolled out from May 29th 2015.

All the existential troubles that Nigeria faces today are the consequences of a deliberate deployment of a template of power hegemony. The precise pattern of the current insecurity and the noises about separatism that we now hear so loudly may in fact be the intended consequences of the brand of power calculus that was deliberately rolled out in the last six years. It is my further contention that the present state of the country, the widespread insecurity, the general fear and uncertainty, the division along ethnic, religious and regional lines could have been factored into the architecture of the current power hegemony. The consequences may be unintended but they were clearly foreseeable.

Even now, as the nation pressures the administration to find solutions to current problems, the possible descent into a garrison state are all intended consequences of the hegemonic power template. Because the nation will give anything in exchange for better security, the calculation may be that erosions of human rights and shrinking of the bounds of freedom may be tolerated in the name of national security. We have been here before. People may be detained. Some may disappear. Arbitrary arrests may follow. Curtailment of freedoms of speech may happen. The media has been under sporadic assault from the periphery. Kangaroo trials presided over by transactional judges may follow if judiciary workers do manage to return to work from a long strike. In this impending drama, random erosions and dislocations of the democratic order will fall into place as the intended consequences of an illiberal and ‘totalitarian’ clannish power concept. For the nation to go into a succession election season with curtailed freedoms in the name of security may be an advancement of the hegemonic project.

Most of the things that have added up to the current atmosphere of fear, insecurity and imminent nation collapse were, I daresay, consequential outcomes of the choice of a power hegemony template. The massive infiltration of all corners of the nation by armed herdsmen is a creation of the last six years and could not have been accidental. If the literal nationwide invasion of armed herdsmen was accidental, how come the state followed that invasion with a planned RUGAcattle colonies project? When the cattle colony idea ran into a storm, how come federal might was deployed to institute some national livestock programme in some states with the dispersed herdsmen as target beneficiaries? How come a National Water Resources Bill with a clear domestic imperialist roadmap was floated and sponsored at the National Assembly?

The recent overrun of some states by bandits and anti-state militants does not look accidental either. Some of the governors of the overrun states have been in the forefront of agitations that the bandits be granted amnesty and paid handsome ransoms in order to free their states for normal governance. The mass migration of armed young militants and homeless children to states far far away from theirs looks programmed. Why not retain the children wherever they came from for better social welfare attention? The mass influx and proliferation of small and light arms all over the country could not be accidental in a country that has border customs checks and a huge standing army. The elevation of Sheikhs, Mullahs, Bishops and all hues of prophets into middlemen and intermediaries between the state and bandits could only be an anticipated outcome of a hegemonic deployment of religion as an instrument of division of the polity and society.

Those of us who have been shouting about bad governance as the source of the present nasty state of affairs may have missed the point. The game on display was not about good governance and a meritocratic state apparatus as a first step. Mr. Buhari knows the meaning of good and orderly governance. When he was presiding over the nation from 1983 to 1985, he could define order and responsible governance even if his autocratic streak was clearly evident.

The current confusion is not about equitable distribution of power and positions either. Buhari and his strategists know what is written in the constitution and understand clearly that they have merely circumnavigated the provisions. Nor is it about justice and the rule of law or the other niceties that we parrot to decorate discourse about our pretensions to a liberal democratic status as a nation. Those of us who have kept insisting on these niceties were merely imposing our values on this presidency. We are the ones who are ignorant about Buhari’s concept of power and unadulterated hegemonic road map.

With our elite democratic obsessions, we may have elected an executive president to preside over a modern constitutional republic with a diverse population. No one bothered to do a psychoanalytical assessment of candidate Buhari even based on his 24 months in power. But the incumbent president had no illusions about his concept of power, why he kept seeking a come back and the values he required to survive in power. Even now,

Lawan I doubt that Buhari has illusions about his desired legacy or the definition of what he considers his constituency. Those who have concluded that the man hardly cares a hoot about the feelings and mood of the public may need to better understand the president’s concept of power.

Mr. Buhari’s definition of national sovereignty may in fact be more restricted than what the rest of us desire of our president. I have a fear that the man’s basic mindset may be primarily clannish and nativist in a primordial village sense. In that mould, the man of power can only feel secure and confident when surrounded by his kith and kin, friends, in-laws and persons whose loyalty, language and culture are rooted in a familiar landscape of primordial loyalty to the clan, its chief and their sense of common interest. In Buhari’s brand of clan authoritarianism, therefore, the native chief can only trust his kinsmen to protect him, defend the estate, and generally tell him the state of the nation as a Medieval manor or fiefdom.

The concept of the nation state as a shared space among citizens with equal stake may in fact be too distant to devotees of this clan concept of power. The farther the clan chieftain goes from his home base and comfort zone, the more insecure he becomes and feels.

Those who can’t understand why the president hardly travels outside Abuja to meet the people in their places of pain and pleasure need to understand this! During the camapigns, he could go to far away places because he was in a desperate quest for power and the throne. Otherwise, he cannot trust ‘strangers’ no matter what the constitution says about federal character and national spread.

Thus, though the outer format of power outlined by the constitution prescribes a balanced federal power structure, this president and his strategists have copiously dredged and mined the constitution to find the elbow room and weak points to prop up a power architecture that serves their narrow clannish design and immediate convenience but still appears suitable to our larger cosmetic desires and nationalistic aspirations.

Therefore, the lopsidedness in strategic appointments that we are complaining about is part of the original hegemonic power architecture. It can only keep deepening because the hegemony requires it to survive. That strategy is an elementary tool of clannish autocrats and is only a necessary first step of state take over. It is routinely accompanied by a far more insidious but progressive institutional take over. For instance, in each of the strategic ministries that president Buhari has cornered for his clan(Petroleum, Power, Water Resources, Communications and Digital Economy, Finance, Defence, National Security, Defence intelligence Agency, National Intelligence Agency, Department of State Security, Police Affairs, Police IG, Justice-AG, Chief Justice, Army, Navy, Customs, Immigration, Internal Revenue, NNPC, NPA, Aviation etc. etc.}, for instance, you only need to look at the hierarchy of the component parastatals to find out the next five personnel in the line of succession.

The concentration of power around this preconceived concentric formation is most effective when it proceeds from the armed and security services to the key revenue centres of government. When you enter a strange country, first ask who controls the guns and holds the money of the state and you will be better equipped. Thus, while the rest of us shiver in fear, the main drivers of the hierarchy of state power remain confident and unperturbed in their control of the commanding heights of state power.

In order to ensure that the rest of the nation does not coalesce into a unified opposition to the hegemonic scheme, conscious divisive measures are injected into the polity and society to ensure that the polity is maximally divided and the hegemony proceeds undisturbed. Random terror attacks on places of worship, clandestine official support for ethnic based special interests (Miyetti Allah) and their elevation to legitimate partakers in national dialogue.

In a factionalized ethnic based society, the greatest instrument for instilling fear among defenseless people is to arm one faction by deliberate official oversight. Enter the armed herdsmen, the squads of bandits and other bad people now roaming freely in the forests of the South East, North East, North West and now North Central and even the South West. The agents of insecurity seem to be armed with a compass that aims at the complete conquest and overrun of the entire national sovereign space. Whoever initiated and allowed the arming of roving herdsmen and other organized criminals as a feature of our landscape must accept responsibility for the nasty outcomes that now stare us all in the face.

In summary, then, the current crisis of internal security across the nation is the direct result of the booby traps that lie within the template of power hegemony. The easiest road to stability and security in Nigeria is to uphold the balance of diversity that is the bedrock of the nation. In our national history, the most stable administrations have been those that respected the diversity of the nation in key appointments and the apportionment of patronage and distribution of federal benefits. Ibrahim Babangida, Olusegun Obasanjo, Alhaji Shehu Shagari and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan ran easily the most balanced administrations. In the post civil war era, these administrations have witnessed the most secure and peaceful periods in national life except for politically induced localized crises.

Clearly, the hegemonic agenda has run into a ditch of its own making. Ahegemonic political agenda is ordinarily a rather sophisticated project. It requires a leadership that has the intelligence, sophistication, savvy and dexterity to usurp the critical high points of state power while running a humane and efficient state. In the hands of a grossly incompetent, incoherent and weak political leadership, a hegemonic agenda is bound to unravel because it will threaten the very survival of the nation it seeks to overrun and overwhelm. That is sadly where Mr. Buhari has led present day Nigeria. The historic question of our time is simply this: How do we retreat from this precarious cliff?

Other nationalities have heard the message of domination and become sensitized to the scheme. They are reacting as they see and deem fit. The divisive and separatist currents blowing across the nation are all reactions to the unhidden and reckless implementation of the original hegemonic agenda. The South West saw the unkind presence of armed herdsmen in their forests and neighbourhoods and quickly took steps. Amotekun was a prompt effective antidote. The South South has a battle tested instrument of resistance located in the soft underbelly of the hydro carbon life belt of the nation. The South East, repeatedly hurt and scarred by Nigerian history, has resorted to the weapons that only a sad memory can furnish. IPOB and ESN are one side of an unfortunate survival kit against a familiar adversarial overlord. Ebube Agu is the other face of a collective injury borne for too long. Larger formations along regional lines are transcending narrow ethnic boundaries to insist that the nation be restructured for equity, productivity and more effective governance delivery. People want to protect their own backyards by themselves. The federal might national order instituted at the end of the Civil War in January 1970 is on its way home. Ironically, the federal guarantor of security and national unity has been weakened by the sectional ambition of hegemonists led by one of the generals produced by the war of unity.

The hegemonic agenda is the highest stage in the consolidation of the entitlement state. The Nigerian entitlement state guaranteed states a mandatory oil and gas revenue cheque every month irrespective of locally generated revenue or productivity. Buhari’s elevation of his hegemonic agenda to a state policy is the greatest disservice to the idea of one Nigeria for which many died. Now I hear the advocates of re-structuring are poised to overturn the pot of the entitlement state once and for all.

What started as Nigerian politics as usual may have come to a pointed head last week in Asaba. When the 17 Southern State Governors met in the historic city of Asaba, they reached three most significant accords. First, they agreed that cattle imperialism must end by banning open grazing in their states. That resolution would end the reign of the cattle as a symbol of national division and crisis.

Second, they resolved that the Nigerian federation be restructured for better equity, productivity and fairness in line with the best traditions of federalism. Most importantly, the governors resolved to call on the federal government to institute a national dialogue to discuss Nigeria’s problems and amicably resolve them through open exchange and compromise.

The ancient politics of hegemonic ruse and violence has come full circle. The empire that was targeted for domination is about to collapse. The components of our commonwealth have recognized the hidden hand. The Federal Republic of Nigeria with all its beauty and promise is mortally threatened with dissolution in direct response to the anarchy inaugurated by the hegemonic agenda. Mr. Buhari is the carrier of this unfortunate historic burden and tragic eventuality. He has to decide whether his entire career as a civil war general and political leader should be summarized in the dissolution of Nigeria.

For the rest of us, I think we should reject the logic of anger and the politics of anarchy. Let us resolve to save and fix Nigeria for ourselves and our posterity. The unifying slogan is a simple one: SAVE AND FIX. Come May 29th 2023, democratic progression must consign the pontiffs of hegemony to the thrash heap of national history. This house must not fall.

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ ͯʹ˜ ͰͮͰͯ

NEWS Adeniran, Williams Recommend Strategies to Rescue Nigeria from Collapse

News Editor: Gboyega Akinsanmi E-mail: ÑÌÙãÏÑ˲ËÕÓØÝËØ×Ó̶ÞÒÓÝÎËãÖÓàÏ˛ÍÙט͸΀͹ͽͺͻͽ΁ͺͽͻ

Seek comprehensive review of security architecture Say security must begin with people Gboyega Akinsanmi

A former Minister for Education, Prof. Tunde Adeniran and a former Commander of Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), Nigerian Army, Maj.-Gen. Ishola Williams have recommended some strategies to pull Nigeria back from the brink.

The leaders asked the federal government to review and restructure the country’s security architecture comprehensively as one of the strategies to stem armed attacks, banditry and kidnapping currently ravaging the nation.

They canvassed these views in separate interviews with THISDAY at the weekend, pointing out that Nigeria “is in a very precarious condition and all stakeholders must work as a team to rescue her from the grips of divisive forces.”

Amid nationwide insecurity, Adeniran described this period as an unusual time in the history of the federation with a note that finding antidotes to Nigeria’s precarious conditions should not be left to the governments alone.

As a people that value the unity of our fatherland, according to the former minister, we have to stop thinking that the governments will solve all our problems. We have to wake up as Nigerians to appreciate that we have security challenges.

Now that the country is in a

very precarious situation, Adeniran canvassed the need “to rise and face all the threats to corporate existence headlong. We have to pull Nigeria back from the brink.

We have to do that together.”

The former minister observed that Nigeria “is in need of every effort to salvage it. A lot has to be done to rescue Nigeria from the brink. Only the people can create a stable political environment, not just the governments.”

Adeniran, a former Nigerian Ambassador to Germany, also emphasised the imperative of restructuring the country’s governance structure as part of the strategies to restore public order and stability nationwide.

He said he had been “an advocate of restructuring. Some of us have been talking about restructuring. But some people do not understand it. Some, who understand it, do not believe it because they put personal interest over and above national interest.

This is most unfortunate.

“If we know we have a problem, we must face that problem. The structure that we are operating is one of our problems. The structure is dysfunctional. Nigeria needs a stable environment to harness her potential.

“Nigeria is a great country and Nigerians are very resourceful.

But if we do not put a round peg in a round hole, we are not

going to achieve much.

“We need to examine ourselves: what are we doing wrong? We are doing so many things wrong.

We have to look into the way we deploy our human resources and the way we manage our material resources,” he observed with grave concern.

Adeniran pointed out that the structure of Nigeria “is deformed

and it has to be reformed. This calls for total overhaul. That goes back to the fundamentals. That fundamental is the constitution that we are using.

“We must do something about it because it does not have people’s approval. Let us stop deceiving ourselves that we can get something out of nothing,” the former minister recommended

with concern for the future of Nigeria.

On his part, Williams observed that things had changed all over the world, indicating that the political leaders could no longer handle diverse challenges confronting Nigeria with the same strategies they had been using.

He explained that people “have discovered that security

operatives, who are far away in the communities, cannot resolve crime in the communities.

“Therefore, the communities themselves or people who govern them must find a way to protect them. Security challenges have been taking place in Kaduna before Mallam Nasir el Rufai became governor. There has been community strife or violence.”

HOMES FOR ALL ...

L-R: Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Housing, Mr. Wasiu Akewusola; Special Adviser to the Governor on Housing, Mrs. Toke Benson-Awoyinka; Commissioner for Housing, Hon. Moruf Akinderu-Fatai and his information & strategy counterpart, Mr. Gbenga Omotoso at the presentation of a mass housing assessment report to mark the mid-term administration of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu in Alausa… recently

PDP Tackles Uzodinma Again, Says Imo is Bleeding Tobi Soniyi

The Peoples Democratic Party, Imo State, has said that Imo State governor, Hope Uzodinma should be held responsible for the lawlessness now reigning in the state.

In a statement issued by its Publicity Secretary, Mr Ogbadu Nwadike, PDP said the lawlessness reigning in the state derived from the failure of

the state government to live up to the irreducible minimum of securing life and property.

PDP said: “We expect Uzodinma to rise to the occasion. But rather than do that, the governor is busy beating about the bush. He is grandstanding rather than showing humility.”

The party said Uzodinma should be embarrassed that unknown gunmen could seize a state for several hours without

any response from the security agents “The impression this creates is that there is no government in the state”, the party added.

PDP said that Uzodinma gave himself away when he said that he got security report on the incident but refused to act on it.

PDP said: “What could be responsible for Uzodinma’s action?

This is curious, to say the least. It is really worrisome that rather than

work towards restoring the peace that he destroyed, Uzodinma is busy searching for scapegoats.”

PDP asked the governor to ponder on why a state that was peaceful before he was declared governor suddenly became a killing field under his watch.

The party said: “Rather than be humble in failure, the governor is cooking up conspiracy theories.

He wants the world to believe that the mayhem that the state

witnessed and is still witnessing is being sponsored by politicians.

“As a responsible political party, we take exception to this insidious attempt to drag innocent people into the mess he created.

As a matter of fact, PDP in the state is aware of schemes being perfected by Uzodinma to drag the leadership of the party and His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha into the Imo crisis.

“For Uzodinma who has

failed in his desperate search for legitimacy, this is his own way of trying to worm himself into the heart of the people. But the wicked scheme is bound to fail.”

The party accused Uzodinma of insensitivity when he threatened “to unleash security agencies against the people he was supposed to govern. Threatening to crush one’s own people is not only insensitive, it is a sign of weakness.”

Tinubu’s Estate Retains Lagoon Park as Attorney FG Moves to Restore Mangrove Ecosystems in Niger Delta Tobi Soniyi

The controversy over the rights to the Power of Attorney over the estate of the late madam Efunroye Tinubu was laid to rest at the weekend as trustees of the estate endorsed the appointment of Lagoon Park Global Resources Limited as the family’s current and authentic attorney.

The family also insisted that the revocation of the appointment of their former attorney, Adamakin Investment and Works Limited and its director Akinfolabi Akindele is irreversible.

The Board of Trustees made up of its Chairman, Alhaji Adio Kassim Lumosa, Vice Chairman,

Chief G O Fasetire, the Secretary, Mr. Temilola Adesanya and the Treasurer, Chief Shafiu Kassim Lumosa made this clarification at a press conference held at Abeokuta, Ogun state.

The trustees alleged that the former attorney acted improperly, and was no longer working in the best interest of the family.

They disclosed that since 1955, the courts have been appointing members of trustees for the estate of late Madam Efunroye Tinubu adding that the current trustees were appointed in 2002 by an high court of Lagos state Ikeja Judicial Division.

The trustees added that the former attorney, Adamakin Investment and Works Limited,

whose Director is Akinfolabi Akindele was appointed in August 2012 but his appointment was revoked in April 2017 over alleged fraud and refusal to render an account of stewardship to the family.

They lamented that despite the revocation, Adamakin Investment and its Director, Akinfolabi Akindele kept on parading themselves as the attorney.

Consequently, the family states ‘’Adamakin investment and Works Limited and its director Akinfolabi Akindele remain revoked as attorney and shall never be reinstated as an attorney to the estate of Late Madam Efunroye Tinubu’’.

Michael Olugbode in Abuja

The federal government has disclosed that it has concluded a plan to restore mangrove ecosystems in Ogoniland and the rest of the Niger Delta region.

This plan was revealed in a statement the Director of Press, Ministry of Environment, Saghir el Mohammed issued yesterday after an International Expert Meeting on Mangrove Restoration in the Niger Delta.

At the opening session, according to the statement, the Minister of Environment, Dr. Mohammad Abubakar said the meeting was a turning point for mangrove ecosystems in Ogoniland.

Quoted in the statement, the minister said: “Using the knowledge and experience of the experts assembled here today, together, we will be able to restore the mangroves and improve the lives of the Ogoni communities who are affected every day by the devastating pollution.”

The statement said the meeting convened by his ministry would lead to the creation of a strategy and conservation plan for the restoration of mangroves in Ogoniland.

The statement noted that during the meeting, the conditions and methods for successful replantation and recovery

of mangrove habitats were discussed.

It said international experts provided their experiences from around the world and their application to Ogoniland. In addition, examples of successful mangrove restoration already taking place in Nigeria were provided.

It noted that the meeting was attended by experts from more than 20 different institutions, and was supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The statement identified mangroves as not just ecologically significant but are critical to the livelihood and food security of communities in Ogoniland.

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ ͯʹ˜ ͰͮͰͯ

NEWSXTRA Lagos, UNOPS in Talks to Deliver 100,000 Mass Housing Units *RYW WDUJHWV RYHU KRPHV E\ 6HHNV DPHQGPHQW WR PRUWJDJH ODZ Gboyega Akinsanmi

With a housing deficit of 2.5 million units, the Lagos State Government has initiated talks with the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) and multilateral development agencies to construct 100,000 units of mass housing units across the state.

Apart from this initiative, the state has also revealed the plan to deliver 7,600 homes on or before 2022 when the state governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu would be three years in office.

This plan was revealed in a housing sector assessment report that the Commissioner for Housing, Mr. Moruf Akinderu-Fatai recently presented at the state secretariat, Alausa to mark SanwoOlu’s mid-term anniversary.

Akinderu-Fatai presented the report alongside his information and strategy counterpart, Mr. Gbenga Omotoso, Special Adviser to the Governor on Housing, Mrs. Toke Benson-Awoyinka and Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Housing, Mr. Wasiu Akewusola, among others.

Lagos, one of the world’s firsttwentieth largest cities, is faced with an acute housing deficit of over 2.5 million, which according to the National Bureau of Statistic (NBS), accounts for about 14.7% of Nigeria’s housing deficit estimated at 17 million.

With over 500,000 migrants relocating to the state yearly from different parts of the federation, according to government statistics, 85% of its residents live in rented apartments and spend over 40% of their income on rents per annum.

Confronted with this social challenge, the state government has come up with multi-pronged initiatives – LagosHoms, Home4More and Joint Venture etc. – to provide decent homes for the residents across social strata.

As indicated in the report, however, Akinderu-Fatai revealed the state’s new mass housing initiative with the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), an operational arm of the United Nations, to provide 100,000 units of housing units in different parts of the state.

Akinderu-Fatai, who once

chaired the House of Representatives Committee on Legislative Compliance, disclosed that UNOPS with the mandate to implement projects for the United Nations System “is working with international investors to provide 100,000 units of housing units in Lagos.

“The Office of SDGs is driving the talk alongside the Ministries of Housing and Physical Planning & Urban Renewal Development.

The idea is to go vertical. With the uncontrolled influx of people, Lagos needs to meet the challenge and create the Hong Kong and Singapore scenarios.”

He, therefore, explained that the partnership was conceived “to speedily tackle the challenge of housing deficit in the state. We

are providing a smart solution to bridge the housing deficit in order to make Lagos a truly 21st century economy comparable to others worldwide.

“In tackling this challenge, the state government is earnestly driving mass housing development headlong through collaboration with multilateral development agencies. Hence, our target is to produce homes in that magnitude so that we can make a speedy difference in the lives of our people.

“We have, in the previous years, sought smart solutions to the problem of housing deficits. The state engaged various development agencies that have track records in provision of affordable mass housing to collaborate with

the state government. It is to tap into innovative technology that will speedily provide homes for the residents of the state.”

Akinderu-Fatai, similarly, revealed the state’s resolve to renew the entire existing old housing schemes to make them decent and liveable in line with the standard, which the Sanwo-Olu administration laid down.

According to him, the state is talking to both domestic and international investors who have approached it with proposals on the schemes.

The aim “is to ensure that the interest of present occupants are protected and the outcomes expected will be a liveable environment.”

Also, as part of the state’s

strategy to drastically reduce housing deficit, the commissioner disclosed that 7,600 homes would be on ground by the time the Sanwo-Olu administration will be three years old in 2022.

He emphasised the importance of innovative building technology “to achieve the objectives. The state will leverage on the innovative technology that Echostone Housing used to build the housing scheme in Idale, Badagry and other parts of the state, mainly the proposed Workers Village, Imota.

He explained that the state government would replicate the eco-friendly designs used at idale in the urban parts of the state notably at Imota, Ikorodu LGA to provide 500 units of homes.

FarmFix to Use Technology to Achieve Food Security The Chief Operating Officer (COO) of FarmFix Investments, Damilola Oladehin, has said his company would use technology in achieving food security in the country.

FarmFix is an integrated farm and agro-allied business that is innovatively and technologically driven to, according to the management of the company, to ensure food security and sustainable returns on investment for the stakeholders or investors.

During a virtual press briefing held from their head office in Ibadan, Oladehin said that their company, FarmFix focuses on the entire agricultural value-chain, investment, production, processing, trading and exporting.

He said, “FarmFix is a leading agribusiness offering diversified farm products, services and profitable projects.

Our vision is to be a leading player in the agricultural industry space and investment destination for individuals and organisations that want to be involved in farming. Our mission is to increase the nation’s food security while creating wealth for her people.”

Speaking on the unique selling point of the company, he stressed that though it was true that many other agro-investment companies may have reneged on financial returns accrued to investors, especially those who were not directly involved in farming, FarmFix was poised to regain trust deficit of agro-investors.

Imesi-Ile Progressives Appoint New Officers New officers have been appointed to pilot the affairs of the Imesi-Ile Progressives Association for the next three years.

Imesi-Ile is a town in the Obokun Local Government Area of Osun State.

The new officers were named when the sons and daughters of the ancient town converged on its town hall where issues affecting it were discussed recently.

The new executive members are Very Revd (Engr.) Oluwaseun Adeniyi (President); Oladele Ayomide (Vice President I); Deaconess Omolewa Oke (Vice President II); Emmanuel Akinwumi Ogundijo (General Secretary); Tunde Olaniyan (Assistant General Secretary); Gabriel Fadare (Treasurer); Samuel Agbeluyi (Financial

Secretary); Prince Adebisi Adesina (internal auditor); Ezekiel Ojo (external auditor); and Olusola Fabiyi (Publicity Secretary).

A statement issued by Fabiyi in Lagos on Friday quoted the Owa-Ooye of Imesi-Ile, His Royal Majesty, Oba Enoch Ademola Akinyemi, Oyoyo II, as praying for the new executives.

“Kabiyesi also admonished the new officers to work together for the peace and progress of the ancient town,” the statement quoted the Oba to have said.

The immediate past President of the IPA, Sir Benjamin Olamijulo, who spoke while handing over the mantle of leadership to Adeniyi, also said he was confident that the new set of officers would make the town proud.

PELLER@45 . . .

L-R: A member of the House of Representatives, Mr. Shina Peller; Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi and Mrs. Ayobami Peller at Peller’s 45th birthday seminar held in Ibadan, Oyo State...Friday

Army Warns Personnel against Use of Social Media to Engage Authorities Kingsley Nwezeh in Abuja

The Nigerian Army yesterday warned personnel against the use of social media to engage authorities, saying any officer found culpable of such acts would be severely dealt with.

The army, also, assured the officers that it was determined to provide them with adequate accommodation across the federation especially those at the frontline.

The warning was revealed in a statement the spokesman of the army, Brigadier-General Mohammed Yerima issued

yesterday while debunking claims that a planned army housing scheme was designed to deny some non-commissioned officers (NCOs) participation in the scheme.

The statement said members of the Nigerian Army have established mechanisms of responding to administrative issues and resorting to social media is not one of them.

“Any personnel caught using social media to engage the authorities will be severely dealt with. It is however curious that a scheme meant to benefit

soldiers and families could be so flagrantly twisted in the social media using names and numbers that are alien to the Nigerian Army. The motive for this kind of strange act will ultimately be uncovered.”

The statement added that the signatories to the petition circulating on social media, who claimed to be writing on behalf of Nigerian Army soldiers, were fictitious names and numbers which were non-existent in the Nigerian Army records.

It said the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Ibrahim At-

tahiru, met an army housing scheme in the pipeline and constituted a committee to understudy its feasibility and desirability.

“Questionnaire was subsequently designed by the committee for soldiers to bare their minds on the scheme and to ascertain those who are interested in it.

It was still at this stage of administering the questionnaire to soldiers that agent provocateurs seized the moment to demonise the scheme with toxic narratives”, it said.

Fayemi: We Need to Tackle Inequality to End Insecurity Kemi Olaitan in Ibadan

Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi yesterday identified inequality, poverty and unemployment as the triggers of insecurity nationwide, thereby calling on governments at all levels to address these challenges to restore order in the country.

He made this recommendation in Ibadan, the Oyo state capital, at a symposium organised by Shina Peller, lawmaker representing Iseyin/Itesiwaju/ Kajola/Iwajowa constituency in the House of Representatives.

He organised the symposium

as parts of activities to mark his 45th anniversary under a theme, National Security and Peace: Role of Government, Citizens and Institutions.

At the symposium, Fayemi noted that the country’s security challenges “are surmountable provided the political leadership can agree to address causes that trigger armed attacks and banditry across the federation.”

Fayemi, Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), called on Nigerian youths to be more active in politics rather than focus their attention on the Twitter

revolution.

He said: “Nigeria is going through challenges that can be overcome if all Nigerians are committed to transforming the country. It is important to be tough on the triggers of crises such as inequality, poverty and unemployment.

“We must all agree that the country at present is facing serious challenges, most importantly security. There is no doubt that we can overcome them as a nation.

“All we need to do is for governments to be tough on the causes that trigger crises most

especially inequality, poverty and unemployment,” he said.

He urged the youths “to stop being Twitter revolutionaries, rather, they should get themselves involved in politics. It is only when youths get themselves involved in politics that they can be part of the decision making process.

“It is when they are in positions of authority that the youths can make a positive impact in the lives of their people. The best way for youths to contribute positively to their communities is to get themselves involved in politics.

63

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER MAY 16, 2021

SUNDAYSPORTS

Edited by: Duro Ikhazuagbe email:Duro.Ikhazuagbe@thisdaylive.com

Leicester City Are English FA Cup Champions!

Defeat Chelsea 1-0 to claim their first ever FA Cup victory

Duro Ikhazuagbe with agency report

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igerian internationals, Wilfred Ndidi and Kelechi Iheanacho, and their Leicester City teammates were crown winners of the oldest football tournament on planet earth yesterday evening after a 1-0 defeat of Chelsea at the Wembley to win the English FA Cup. Youri Tielemans produced one of the greatest FA Cup Ànal goals to give Leicester City the trophy for the Àrst time in their history.

The Belgian settled a closely contested encounter with a spectacular right-foot drive that Áew beyond Chelsea goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga into the top corner from 25 yards in the 63rd minute.

It sent manager Brendan Rodgers down the touchline in celebration although Leicester City’s fans - inside Wembley as 21,000 supporters formed the biggest attendance since lockdown - had to survive a nerve-jangling closing phase before they could celebrate the win in their Àrst Ànal since 1969.

The Foxes were indebted to two crucial saves from keeper Kasper Schmeichel, who turned former Leicester defender Ben Chilwell’s header on to a post then produced an even better stop to turn Mason Mount’s powerful shot wide.

And in a Ànal act of drama, Wes Morgan bundled into his own net following a lastminute goalmouth scramble before it was ruled out by the barest of margins following the intervention of VAR. Leicester closed out the win to spark emotional scenes as those inside Wembley rejoiced in a landmark victory.

Foxes boss Rodgers had a smile that illuminated Wembley as he joined Leicester City’s players in joyous scenes of celebration after the manager and his players had written their name into the club’s folklore.

Tielemans, the gifted 24-year-old, will claim the glory for the sheer quality of the strike that won this FA Cup Ànal and the rest of his performance oozed the quality that saw him named man of the match.

Leicester City players celebrating winning their first ever FA Cup after defeating Chelsea 1-0 to lift the coveted trophy

The Foxes had heroes elsewhere, particularly in veteran keeper Schmeichel, who was well protected for most of the match but made a huge contribution when required. His second key save from Mount, one-handed diving away to his left, even had Rodgers turning around and blowing out his cheeks in relief and admiration.

Youngster Luke Thomas was composed and Leicester even survived the premature loss of the experienced and inÁuential defender Jonny Evans, who was a doubt before the game and suͿered a recurrence

of his heel injury, to keep Chelsea at bay.

And for Rodgers, who cleaned up with Celtic in Scotland, this was another signiÀcant addition to his CV, as his expert guidance of Leicester - who are in a strong position to Ànish in the Premier League’s top four and face Chelsea again at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday - now has a tangible reward in the shape of the FA Cup. This was the result of outstanding work by Rodgers and his players and the rest of the season may yet produce another high point if they can clinch a place in next season’s

Champions League.

Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel revealed he was in “angry mode” after the surprise home loss to Arsenal suddenly put pressure on their top-four hopes in the Premier League - although the Champions League Ànal against Manchester City could yet prove the most glittering safety net.

He certainly looked an angry man throughout this Ànal, the body language increasingly frustrated right up until that Ànal twist when a late equaliser was snatched from Chelsea’s grasp by VAR.

...Pinnick Congratulates Ndidi, Iheanacho on FA Cup Victory Joe Aribo’s Rangers End Scottish League Season Unbeaten President of the Nigeria Football Federation and FIFA Council Member, Mr Amaju Melvin Pinnick, has sent a message of congratulations to Super Eagles’ midÀelder Wilfred Ndidi and forward Kelechi Iheanacho on the duo’s triumph with Leicester City over much-fancied Chelsea FC in Saturday’s FA Cup Ànal in England.

Both players featured in the encounter at Wembley and at the

end celebrated enthusiastically with a Nigeria Áag as they joined a list of only seven other Nigerian players to have lifted England’s most glamorous diadem.

“I am very happy for both Ndidi and Iheanacho. They worked very hard for Leicester City throughout the campaign and themselves and the Club deserve the honour. I believe this triumph will serve as a major psychological boost for the two players ahead of our

friendly games this summer and FIFAWorld Cup qualiÀers starting in September.

“I am also very happy seeing the two players celebrating with the Nigerian Áag at the end of it all. That was awesome.”

Ndidi and Iheanacho became only the second pair of Nigerians to have celebrated The FA Cup win in England, after Nwankwo Kanu and John Utaka triumphed with Portsmouth against CardiͿ

in 2008.

Before then, Daniel Amokachi had won with Everton in 1995; Celestine Babayaro with Chelsea in 2000; Kanu withArsenal in 2002 and 2003 and John Mikel Obi with Chelsea in 2007.

After the Kanu/Utaka feat in 2008, John Mikel Obi won again with Chelsea in 2009, 2010 and 2012;AlexIwobiwonwithArsenal in 2017 and; Victor Moses won with Chelsea in 2018.

Oshoala Reveals Barcelona’s Champions League Final Mood for Chelsea Barcelona striker, Asisat Oshoala, has revealed that her team will not allow a repeat of their UEFA Women’s Champions League Ànal defeat to Lyon when they take on against Chelsea in Goteburg today.

In May 2019, the Nigeria international made history in Budapest, where she scored Barcelona’s late consolation in their 4-1 loss to become the Àrst African to score in the women’s Ànal of the European competition.

Looking back on her side’s Ànal appearance two years ago,

the 26-year-old admitted they have learned from the previous outing and also gained some valuable experience from the defeat to the French giants.

“Now, we have the experience of how European football is and also how a top game like this is played,” Oshoala told Goal.com.

“I think we’re going to be better with our tactics this year, how we go out and play and everything. For us, it was good.

We played in the Ànal 2019, we lost and then we picked up corrections from there. “ The Super Falcons has scored

four goals so far in the competition this season, including the historic 100th Champions League goal of the Catalans in their history against Machester City in the quarterÀnal.

Looking ahead to Chelsea’s showdown, the formerArsenal and Liverpool forward assures that the team will not make the same 2019 Ànal mistakes as she expect a enterprising clash with the English champions.

“Come May 16, against Chelsea, I don’t think we’re going to make the same mistakes again, becausewealreadylearnedfrom

the past. We are a better team now than we were two years ago, “she continued.

“You just have to expect the proper normal Barca game, the normal proper Barca style. We’re not changing anything. We’re working on our own team. I’m sure Chelsea are working on themselves as well.

“When you hear the name Barcelona, you already know the kind of football the team plays.You already know what to expect. When you hear Chelsea, you already know the kind of football you expect.

Super Eagles Joseph Ayodele Aribo and his peerless Rangers swept aside Aberdeen to end the Scottish Premiership term unbeaten before o΀cially lifting the Scottish title for the 55th time.Steven Gerrard’s side are the Àrst to go unbeaten since Brendan Rodgers’ Celtic in 2016-17 and also matched their city rivals’ 107-year-old clean-sheet record Rangers’ task was made easier by Joe Lewis’ unfortunate early own goal, with Kemar Roofe adding further eͿorts either side of the break, and Jermain Defoe scoring a late fourth.

The Ibrox side lived dangerously at the back in the second half but survived with their goal intact to Ànish the campaign having gone 26 league games without conceding.

The 13 goals they have conceded is one fewer than Celtic allowed in the 1913-14 season.

And, having won all 19 home league games, Rangers match the feat achieved by Martin O’Neill’s Celtic, who ultimately went on to win 26 consecutively between 2002 and 2004.

Rangers have now not lost to Aberdeen in eight meetings, winning all four of their encounters this season, including two 4-0 wins at Ibrox.

Having not scored in their previous four most recent visits to Ibrox and having already Ànished in fourth place, Stephen Glass’ side started like one with little to play for and little belief that they could end Rangers’ dominance.

Sunday May 16, 2021

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On the Asaba Revolt by Southern Governors

I

f you are a keen observer of Nigerian politics, or should I say politicking, you must have noticed many unusual things about the meeting of the 17 southern governors in Asaba, Delta state, on Tuesday. In the first place, that the southern governors met at all — and, mind you, every single governor was present; none was represented by a deputy — is one of the most unusual occurrences since the dawn of this democratic era. While the 19 northern governors meet regularly, the last time southern governors met as a bloc, from my records, was in October 2017. And that was after a 12-year hiatus. The first meeting was hosted by then Lagos governor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, in 2002.

Another unusualness is the “solidarity”.

I have always argued that unlike the north that pursues common interests with a single mind no matter the partisan divide, southern politicians traditionally lack a sense of solidarity.

Not only are they divided along party lines, the dominant ethnic groups, Igbo and Yoruba, are eternally at each other’s neck, bickering over who owns Lagos and who doesn’t, and spitting bile over the £20 token compensation for the Biafran currency after the civil war.

There is also a feeling in the south-south that the south-west conspired with the north to chase President Goodluck Jonathan out of office in 2015. Thus, the Asaba gathering is noteworthy.

It is also unusual, I would say, for the current set of southern governors, apart from Rivers Governor Nyesom Wike, to openly criticise Buhari. Although many governors privately grumble about the president’s lopsided appointments and inaction on many issues, they say something else in public, like sycophants.

It’s as if they fear or idolise Buhari so much that they cannot criticise him. This was unlike the case of President Jonathan whom most governors used as toothpick when he was in office. I believe some of the governors who signed the Asaba communique did so reluctantly and I wouldn’t be shocked if they secretly called Buhari later at night to explain themselves remorsefully.

The Asaba Revolt, if you permit that rather strong expression, is all the more manifest in the resolution of the governors to demand a ban on open grazing and physical movement of cattle “across Southern Nigeria” — the keyword being “south”. The incursion of “armed herders, criminals and bandits” into the south, the governors said, “has presented a severe security challenge such that citizens are not able to live their normal lives including pursuing various productive activities leading to a threat to food supply and general security”.

Open grazing has become a touchy political and ethnic issue in Nigeria since the escalation of herders/farmers conflicts in the last four to five years.

Restructuring — the southern cudgel — expectedly featured in the communique, but the southern governors were more specific, or narrow, unlike the regular agitators. They specifically demanded (1) evolution of state police (2) review of revenue allocation formula in favour of the sub-national governments (which will favour all the 36 states and 774 local governments, by the way), and (3) the creation of other institutions which legitimately advance commitment to and practice of “true federalism”. Of course, the governors know that Buhari cannot grant any of these three demands. They are clearly constitutional matters to be handled by federal and state lawmakers.

What do I think, generally? To start with,

Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa I do not want to pre-empt the governors on the proposal to ban open grazing as the details are still sketchy. My preliminary comment would be that you cannot ban open grazing overnight. It has to be well planned. You are dealing with millions of cattle, millions of jobs, millions of families, vital protein nutrition and a multibillion-dollar chain. You cannot disrupt this in one day. There would be unintended consequences. The insecurity will grow beyond crimes — which you may even expect the security agencies to tackle — but will extend to untold economic and nutritional crises, disrupting the livelihood of even southerners in the lengthy value chain.

Many are unaware that it is not just the herders that benefit from the cattle business.

In fact, they are just a dot in the long line.

All they do is breed and sell cattle. By the time the beef lands on your table, values have been created along the line through trading, banking, butchering, processing and vending.

Cooking will invite a mesh of ingredients into the pot and Nestlé knows that. The food seller’s business is nothing without the beef, which is still the cheapest animal protein in Nigeria.

The cow dung is manure for farmers. The bones are used to make chinaware. You know what? Millions of southerners benefit from the chain and probably make more money than the herders themselves!

To be sure, northern governors had also admitted in February that “the current system of herding conducted mainly through open grazing is no longer sustainable in view of growing urbanisation and population of the country”.

This was a major shift, coming in the wake of the ethnic tension generated by the quit notice issued to northerners in some southern states over the activities of criminals believed to be herders. Unlike the Asaba resolution, however, northern governors spoke about a transition process, announcing that they had resolved “to aggressively sensitise herdsmen on the need to adopt new methods of herding by ranching or other acceptable modern methods”.

If southern governors are to ban open grazing and physical movement of cattle, there must be a programme of action which will include transportation and resettlement. One of the best ways of making an ineffective law is to make a law that cannot be obeyed. The end result is more chaos that can only stoke fire across the country. You cannot make herding disappear overnight. The good thing, I think, is that the hardliners in the north have moved from saying “open grazing is Fulani culture”

and have now come to accept that things cannot continue like this. The socio-political consequences have damaged Nigeria and only an enemy of progress will insist on the status quo.

Luckily, there are vast lands in the north where the herders can be resettled. I have heard a lot about how Kano Governor Abdullahi Ganduje is making tremendous progress in creating large grazing reserves in the state. That, to me, looks like problem-solving in place of rabble-rousing. Transitioning from open grazing to ranching has to be methodical. It is not a communiqué issue. Since it cannot be enforced overnight, the order will be difficult to obey and the southern governors will only end up giving more ammunition to the Sunday Igbohos and Nnamdi Kanus to continue their ethnic campaigns. The consequences may not spare any part of Nigeria. We need to pause and think.

The southern governors asked President Muhammadu Buhari to respect “federal character” in his appointments. This was a bit shocking to me. I used to think southerners see “federal character” as a dirty phrase to be despised and avoided. I have always argued that those who wrote “federal character” into our constitution were not stupid — they wanted to avoid domination by any part of the country.

The only way to ensure fairness and promote a sense of belonging in a multi-ethnic federation is to make sure significant federal appointments reflect our diversity. Some analysts believe that a part of the current tension in Nigeria is fuelled

by Buhari’s pattern of appointments.

I was on the phone with a southern governor recently. He said northerners were systematically replacing southerners in positions “zoned” to the south: finance ministry, FIRS, NIMASA, etc.

“The president, a northerner, is the minister of petroleum. The NNPC GMD is a northerner.

Most agencies under the petroleum ministry are headed by northerners,” he lamented. One southern minister said he did not want to renew the tenure of a “disloyal” agency head (they are from the same state) but had to rethink “because they may go and bring somebody from Katsina state to replace him”. The rascal in me quietly jested: didn’t these guys say federal character should never matter?

While I am not trying to downplay the worries and demands of the southern governors, I am more interested in how they can work with Buhari to tackle this crippling insecurity and stop the bleeding in the land. Open grazing needs to stop, I agree; strategic federal appointments must reflect our diversity, I don’t dispute that; Buhari needs to talk to his citizens to calm their nerves, I accept; we need to restructure Nigeria, I concur (although my own ideas are about socio-economic restructuring rather than disguised balkanisation). But, most importantly, what Nigeria needs urgently is first aid. Nigeria is bleeding so profusely that the incurable optimists are worried.

I sympathise with the southern governors: they are under pressure from the streets to say or do something, otherwise they will soon be unable to leave the government house. In 1999-2003, governors of core northern states were under similar tremendous pressure from the streets, with the influence of clerics, to declare Sharia. This is politics: if you don’t eat, you will be eaten. But let us keep this in mind: we need to tackle this insecurity decisively and immediately. All other issues, including open grazing, practising “true federalism” and Biafra, will only be relevant if the prevailing anarchy does not consume us all. Nigerians need to be alive first; other things can always follow.

And Four Other Things…

LIKE MAGU, LIKE HADIZA For those who keep saying they can go into government and make a positive impact, I would advise them to take it easy and learn from Ms Hadiza Bala Usman, the suspended MD of the NPA, and Mallam Ibrahim Magu, the sacked boss of the EFCC. Nigeria will kill your spirit. Though far from being perfect (who is perfect?), they both put in decent shifts in tackling the Nigerian rot. Hadiza has been touching the untouchables who think they can get away with anything in Nigeria.

Sadly, Hadiza and Magu erroneously thought they had the full backing of President Buhari.

I think the signals to forthright people in Buhari’s government are very clear: you are on your own. Unfortunate.

PASTOR’S PLAN B Pastor Paul Adefarasin, the senior pastor of House on The Rock, trended on social media when he asked his church members to have a Plan B out of Nigeria — even if it is to flee to Cameroon — because of the current situation. You can pardon Adefarasin, who happens to be one of my favourite pastors, because he is an elite pastor speaking to his elite gathering. The elite will always take care of themselves. In fact, many have multiple citizenships. But let us spare a thought for over 150 million Nigerians who cannot even afford to pay visa fees much less buy flight tickets. And, sadly, they are the most-hit victims of this dysfunctional Nigerian state — with no possible Plan B. Tragic.

REMAKING NIGERIA I just got a copy of ‘Remaking Nigeria: Sixty Years, Sixty Voices’, edited by Chido Onumah. It is a book of essays by a diverse collection of writers and thinkers Nigeria can boast off, all discussing the present and the future of Nigeria. Among the contributors are: Victoria Ibezim-Ohaeri, Adebola Williams, Doifie Buokoribo, Amina Salihu, Dike Chukwumerije, Ruona Meyer, Zainab Usman, Idayat Hassan, Chris Adetayo and Yemi Adamolekun — to name but a few of the array of writers who have consistently contributed to nation building in their spheres of influence. The diagnoses and prescriptions are there and well-articulated.

The will to transform Nigeria is the next step. Vital.

CRUDE IGBOHOISM Chief Sunday Igboho, the so-called Yoruba rights activist, made uncharitable comments on the death of the son of Pastor Enoch Adeboye, the general overseer of RCCG. His grouse is that Adeboye has not been using his pulpit to support the agitation for Oduduwa Republic. That Igboho, a veteran political thug, has become a revered leader among the Yoruba is one thing, but that a Yoruba would be hailed for mocking the death of anyone at all says a lot about where the values of Oduduwa descendants are headed.

Igboho, whose own family is reportedly in Germany, can continue to beat the drums of war but the comment on late Dare Adeboye is totally distasteful and disgusting. Crude.

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