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History as Buhari Supervises Crude Oil Drilling in the North Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja For the first time in history, President Muhammadu Buhari is expected to officially kick off the drilling of crude oil in the north on Tuesday, about two years after the mineral resource was discovered in the region.

This is a major boost to

the efforts by the federal government to ensure that the region produces crude oil in commercial quantities.

Specifically, the president will conduct the ground-breaking ceremony of the Kolmani Oil Prospecting Lease (OPL) 809 and 810 at the Kolmani field site located in Bauchi and Gombe

states.

The president is expected to carry out the historic exercise with the support of the Minister of State for Petroleum, Mr. Timipre Sylva and the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), Mallam Mele Kyari, among

others, THISDAY gathered.

It was further learnt that the oilfields in Bauchi and Gombe states will be developed by Sterling Global Oil, New Nigeria Development Commission (NNDC) and the NNPC Limited.

“The ceremony will be held on Tuesday, November 22, and will be attended by Mr. President

himself together with most of his cabinet members including the Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva,” said an official of NNPC, who spoke off the records.

Last year, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) issued a request for expressions of interest

(EoI) on the development of the two licences in Nigeria’s North-east.

The integrated development of OPLs 809 and 810 in the Gongola Basin, in the Upper Benue trough extends about 1,000 km from the Bight of Benin to Lake Chad.

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New Tax will Collapse Soft Drinks Sector, Manufacturers Cry Out… Page 6 Sunday 20 November, 2022 Vol 27. No 10084

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UK Supporting Nigeria to Deliver Credible Elections in 2023, Says High Commissioner Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja The British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing, has said that the government of the United

Kingdom is supporting Nigeria to ensure credible elections in 2023.

Laing, who disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja, said the

UK would monitor the elections closely.

She expressed the UK government’s optimism that Nigeria would deliver free and fair elections

in 2023 once the amended Electoral Act was implemented.

She said the UK government had been supporting the electoral process in Nigeria by ensuring

that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) got the processes right and working with Civil Society Organisations to carry out advocacy.

“What I have just said now – the advocacy – is showing Nigerians that we care about their democracy Continued on page 5

Atiku: PDP Will Win at First Ballot Tinubu: Delta Not ATM for Politicians Ortom insists only a southerner should succeed Buhari Wike challenges Atiku to start restructuring from PDP Asks N’Delta govs to account for 13% derivation backlog paid by Buhari

Chuks Okocha in Abuja, Sylvester Idowu in Warri and Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt

Following a revelation by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that it was planning to print extra 93.5 million ballot papers for a possible presidential election runoff, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has said he will win on the first ballot.

On his part, Atiku’s counterpart in the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu, yesterday, chided the PDP for failing to develop Delta State in spite of the huge resources accruing to the state, stressing that state is not an ATM for migratory politicians.

National Commissioner and Chairman of Voter Education at INEC, Mr. Festus Okoye, had on Friday told journalists that the commission was planning to print 93.5 million presidential ballot papers for a possible runoff in next year’s presidential election.

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OBA OF BENIN VISITS THE PRESIDENT… President Muhammadu Buhari (left ) and the Oba of Benin, His Royal Majesty, Oba Ewuare II, when the monarch visited the Presidential Villa in Abuja...recently

Host, Qatar, Ecuador Kick off First World Cup in Middle East… Page 79

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Bill Gates Pledges $7bn in Aid to Nigeria, Other African Countries Says Ukraine war reducing aid Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said at the weekend that it was committing $7 billion to Nigeria and other African countries over the next four years, just as the head of the organisation, Bill Gates has warned that the Ukraine crisis was reducing the amount of aid flowing to the continent.

The foundation's pledge, which is up 40 per cent on the amount spent during the previous four years, will target projects tackling hunger, disease, poverty and gender inequality.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, will take the biggest share, the international organisation stated.

Humanitarian groups in Africa are grappling with the diversion of funding away towards Ukraine, and as Russia's invasion increases goods prices globally, impacting aid operations, a Reuters report said.

"The European budgets are deeply affected by the Ukraine war and so right now the trend for aid is not to go up," the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft Corporation told journalists at the University of Nairobi during a visit to Kenya.

"If you take all aid (into Africa) including all climate aid - we'll have a few years where it’ll probably go down," he added.

Drought, compounded by conflict and the COVID-19 pandemic, has pushed more than 10 million people in the region "to the very brink of a hunger crisis", the US-based Christian relief group World Vision said this week.

The United Nations says it expects famine to be declared in parts of Somalia this year.

Following a meeting with Kenyan President William Ruto, Gates

said that the Foundation would establish a regional office in Nairobi.

"Our foundation will continue to support solutions in health, agriculture, and other critical areas—and the systems to get them out of the labs and to the people who need them," Gates, who runs the foundation with his ex-wife Melinda French Gates, said in a statement.

The Foundation in 2021 gave charitable support of $6.7 billion and last week pledged $1.4 billion to help the world's smallholder farmers cope with climate change.

Nigeria has made significant progress in reaching its health goals, including recently eradicating wild polio from the country, Gates said, adding that the foundation works with the Nigerian government and other partners to help address a range of health issues, including family planning, nutrition, and strengthening primary health care and public health systems.

“We support efforts to help smallholder farmers in Nigeria increase their yields and reduce food insecurity in the country.

“We also support the

government’s efforts to ensure that women, smallholder farmers, and other marginalized populations have access to digital financial services.

“We want all of Nigeria’s children, mothers, and families to be able to lead healthy and productive lives, and we want the country’s most marginalised people to have opportunities to lift themselves out of poverty.

To work toward these goals, we partner with the government, the private sector, and civil society organisations,” the foundation stated.

do not understand human beings; some people want to be governor of Rivers State since 2003 till now.”

Wike again alleged that Ayu pocketed funds realised by the party from the sale of nomination and expression of interest forms for primaries in May. He challenged the PDP national chairman to head to court to see if he is innocent.

“You cannot fight Rivers State and go free,” he added.

Speaking earlier on Friday night during a banquet organised by the PDP in the state for the G-5 governors, Wike challenged his counterparts in the Niger Delta to account for the huge sums of monies received by them as a backlog for the 13 per cent oil derivation since 1999, which was paid by Buhari.

The governor told attendees at the banquet that while he could point to the projects executed by his administration with the monies in Rivers State, some of his colleagues cannot show any proof.

He said: “I am not an apostle of Buhari; he is not my friend but I have no regret to appreciate him for paying the money meant for the Niger Delta states. He has paid. Let everybody come and account for it.”

Wike said he is unfazed by threats of being sacked by the PDP. He dared the party to carry out the threat, stating he would respond appropriately.

The governor insisted that his state would no longer work for anybody, who refuses to embrace justice, fairness and equity.

He said he was only committed to working for PDP, Rivers State chapter, adding that all his candidates in the state would

win their elections.

The governor said after he had praised Buhari for releasing the money owed to some Niger Delta states of Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Delta and Bayelsa, some persons sent him messages that he should not have commended the president.

“Just like all of them here, you have not won the election and you want to jail the Benue governor.

You have not won the election and you want to jail the Enugu governor. You have not won the election and you want to jail the Oyo governor. God will not allow you.

“Because they stand for the truth and say they will support Wike; therefore all of them will come down. They will never come down.

They cannot be governors again.

Only Seyi will still be governor.

He has worked for Oyo State and you cannot threaten him.

“What have we done? We say by our party’s constitution, the President should go here and the chairman should go here. But you say no you will take everything, we also say no we won’t allow that. History will be on our side that we are saying the truth and nothing but the truth.

“There is one man who married 20 wives and because we say no, you can’t extort states of over $400 million - one man. He said he did work. Which work? But we say we won’t allow him to take that money,” Wike added.

On his promise to give logistics support to the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, Wike said he had no regret. He promised again to release vehicles and security for Obi’s campaign in Rivers State.

ATIKU: PDP WILL WIN AT FIRST BALLOT...TINUBU: DELTA NOT ATM FOR POLITICIANS But the Spokesperson of Atiku/ Okowa Campaign Organisation, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, advised INEC not to worry, expressing the confidence that Atiku would win in the first ballot.

According to Ologbondiyan, "our campaign counsels INEC not to listen to diversionary narratives by apologists of the deflated APC who are ostensibly seeking ways to derail the election, having realised that their party has been rejected.”

He urged INEC to deploy its resources towards conducting a free, fair, transparent and credible election that would be generally accepted by majority of Nigerians.

He said: "Our campaign is confident that by every indices and data available, our candidate, Atiku Abubakar, will win the presidential election of February 25, 2023 at the first run."

Ologondiyan said the APC has seen defeat ahead as Nigerians are quickly reaching a consensus on the fact that the ruling party’s presidential candidate, Tinubu, is not electable.

He urged Nigerians to remain resolute in their determination to vote for their choice, Atiku, and take every step necessary within the ambit of the law to protect their votes.

Tinubu: Delta Not ATM for Migratory Politicians Meanwhile, Tinubu, while addressing the mammoth crowd that thronged the Warri Central Stadium in Delta State to have a glimpse of him during the inauguration of governorship campaign of the APC in the state, promised to clean up Niger Delta region just as he accused the PDP of abandoning infrastructure development in the state.

“Delta has all it takes to be great and help lead the nation forward.

Yet, for the past 23 years, those governing your state have taken you for a hard and long ride by selling you short. They have not done the things they should have and could have done for you.

“The infrastructure in the state was better 30 years ago than it is now. The state has recorded historic

debts run up by the incumbent yet the infrastructure and other things still remain lacking because of under investment and neglect.

“The money is much, but it does not have legs. Where did it go?

Not to your welfare. Perhaps, it has found a home with a certain presidential candidate who loves Dubai more than Nigeria. But Delta State is not an ATM for migratory politicians. It is a place where good and hardworking people reside and work to create decent and peaceful lives for themselves and their families,” he said.

Tinubu accused Atiku of fighting President Olusegun Obasanjo when he served as vice president between 1999 and 2007.

“Our rivals do not have shame.

They are fighting in the public, how can they think of governance?” the former Lagos State governor told the gathering.

“When Atiku was there, he was fighting his boss in public.

They were telling us how they spent money to buy cars for their girlfriends. Do they have shame?

Will you vote for them again?”

He told the crowd of supporters that the APC would deliver its promises to Nigerians if the party wins next year’s elections as he redoubled his accusation that the PDP failed the country.

“I will commit to your progress and fulfill all the promises made to you. You are the future of this country and the heart and soul of Nigeria,” Tinubu added.

“Your environment is as important as gold mining. Your health, welfare, and dream will be realised for a stable and prosperous Nigeria.”

On his plans for the state, Tinubu promised to re-activate the gas revolution industrial park, while also seeking the clean-up of the whole Niger-Delta region to ensure that the host communities do not suffer for building the nation’s economy through their oil.

“We will step up and clean up the operations of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and the Ministry of the Niger Delta. The NDDC will be improved. Greater cooperation with communities which have suffered the environmental degradation will be my policy.

On infrastructure development in the state, which he affirmed had been in a sorry state, Tinubu said: “We will help develop the infrastructure of your state. The deep sea port project and the Omadino-Escravos Road project will be revisited. We will rehabilitate Warri, Koko, Sapele and Burutu ports, creating yet more jobs in the state.”

He also promised to make the state safe for all, noting that no business can thrive in an unsafe environment.

Addressing the rally, OmoAgege said the state governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, who is also PDP vice presidential candidate, had failed the state and should step down.

Omo-Agege accused Okowa of betraying Southern Nigeria by accepting to be the running mate to Atiku.

He said a southerner should succeed President Buhari after his eight-year tenure next May.

Ortom Insists Only a Southerner Should Succeed Buhari Meanwhile, despite moves to reconcile Atiku and five governors, who were elected on the platform of the PDP, led by Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, the Benue State Governor, Dr. Samuel Ortom, yesterday remained unrelenting in his opposition to the presidential aspiration of the former vice president, insisting that only a southerner should succeed President Muhammadu Buhari.

Speaking at the Adokiye Amiesimaka Stadium during the inauguration of the PDP state-level campaign in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, Ortom, who is one of the governors in Wike’s camp, insisted that only a southerner should succeed President Buhari in 2023.

He said he was the first governor from the North to back the southern presidency, which he said is in the interest of fairness and justice.

“Nigerians, for the sake of equity, fairness and justice, expect that after eight years of President Buhari, the next President should go to the South irrespective of political

HISTORY AS BUHARI SUPERVISES CRUDE OIL DRILLING IN THE NORTH Before then, the NPDC said it had discovered “huge commercial quantities” of oil and gas in the Kolmani River, adding that the blocks were more than 700 km from the coast, posing challenges to export options.

It also proposed an onsite midstream refinery and power plant, saying that this would allow it to use these resources for local needs as well as “create an industrial hub” to provide economic benefits and employment.

At some point in the development of the facilities, in the midstream, the plan would involve a 150 MW power plant and a 50,000 barrel- per day condensate refinery.

The NPDC, as it was then

called, had drilled the Kolmani River 2 well in 2019 and the Kolmani River 3 in early 2021.

Bauchi State Governor, Senator Bala Mohammed, had also recently said the oil and gas exploration at Kolmani River in Alkaleri Local Government Area of the state by the NNPC would ‘reverse the narrative of poverty and underdevelopment' in the state.

NNPC Limited has over the years expended monies on frontier exploration, but the spending has now been statutorily ingrained in the new Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021.

The new piece of legislation has now raised funding for frontier exploration to 30 per

cent, which implies that the NNPC Limited would have more funds to develop oil fields around the country.

According to the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Nigeria currently has crude oil reserves of about 37 billion barrels.

Kolmani fields could hold as much as one billion barrels crude oil reserve, which could significantly raise Nigeria’s oil reserve.

The oil discovery in the north is coming at a time crude oil production has dropped to around one million barrels per day in the country, as a result of oil theft and vandalism, thereby hobbling the ability of the country to earn foreign exchange.

affiliation and that is the right thing to do. We are Nigerians and we must ensure that all of us work together,” Ortom said.

He added that Wike was the right candidate to succeed Buhari, but “enemies of progress” ensured he didn’t win the party’s presidential primary in May. Stressing that the enemies of progress also denied Wike the running mate ticket, the Benue State governor, however, urged the party’s supporters in the state to work with him and ensure victory for all PDP National Assembly, state assembly and governorship candidates in Rivers.

Atiku Should Start Restructuring from PDP, Says Wike Also speaking at the event, Wike argued that Atiku must start a government of inclusion and national unity from the PDP. He insisted that he believed in the party as well as in equity, fairness and justice.

He argued that if Atiku believed in restructuring, and devolution of power and that President Buhari appointed 17 northerners as heads of security chiefs, he should correct it from the party by asking the National Chairman of the party, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, to step down for a southerner.

He boasted that none of the G-5 governors would lose their governorship. "Not one of the states of PDP integrity governors will lose their governorship. Not one.

No amount of gang-up will make us lose Abia, Enugu, Benue and Oyo states and who is that that will come and win Rivers State? I

UK SUPPORTING NIGERIA TO DELIVER CREDIBLE ELECTIONS IN 2023, SAYS HIGH COMMISSIONER and we are watching it.

“In a practical way, for many elections we have been supporting INEC – your electoral body – to ensure it has got the necessary systems and processes in place.

And in each election we have seen INEC improve its processes.

“We were the partner who supported the passing of the Electoral Act. It was a project that we funded through legal advisors to help you actually write that Electoral Act and looking at best practice globally.

“And it has been absolutely instrumental. So, with the passing of that, then the possibility for electronic transmission of votes, the young people feel much more confident that their votes will count.

“So we provided that support, we support civil society, the YIAGA not too young to run campaign alongside US partners, we support that and we have been supporting women groups in particular, to encourage young women, more women to try and stand for political offices.

“We are supporting voter education, encouraging voters to understand the importance of going out to vote. So we are involved in a number of different ways.

“I should say we always say

that each election alongside our US partners that we will have eyes on; we will be monitoring this election closely on the ground and through other means.

“And if we understand that an individual has been involved in violence, either directly or through inciting violence, we can use our visa programme to ensure that that person is not allowed to travel to the UK. “So we do have some negative levers as well as our positive levers,” Laing said.

The high commissioner emphasised that the visa sanctions on electoral offenders remain a very effective mechanism for deterring people from engaging in electoral violence.

She added that the political parties are supportive of the policy.

“They (visa sanctions) absolutely do work. Obviously, I cannot talk about individual names, but I can assure you we have used it and the whole point of it is to deter people.

“The political parties tell me that they think it does work. In fact, during the last election, both APC and the PDP told me they welcomed it.

“We are completely neutral and

we would apply this to whoever may be engaged in violence,” she said.

The British envoy described Nigeria’s democracy as critical to the growth of democratic rule in African continent hence the need for the country’s leaders to set the pace especially for the sub-region where democratic transitions are being threatened, “Nigeria is the biggest democracy in Africa and in your part of the world where democracy is backsliding.

“Looking at what is happening in Mali, Guinea and others, the coup’s, and the presidents who are refusing to step down when their term ends, as well as Nigeria’s journey to democracy since 1999, you know, it’s been rocky at times.

“But you have continued on that pathway and that sends a very, very important signal to Africa, that if Nigeria can do it – the biggest democracy in Africa with all the challenges you have with 36 states, and with the complexity of ethnicity and religion, and so on – they can do it too.

“No election in the world is perfect, nevertheless, the journey continues. And I am really hopeful that the next election will be credible,” Laing added.

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DEEPENING DEMOCRACY… L-R: Akwa Ibom State Governor, Mr. Udom Emmanuel; presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar; National Chairman of PDP, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu; and National Secretary of PDP, Senator Sam Anyanwu, at the inauguration of the Peoples Democratic Institute in Abuja…yesterday

At $6.4bn, Nollywood Ranks Second Fastest Growing Movie Industry Globally, Says Bank CEO Emameh Gabriel in Abuja The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, of First Generation Mortgage Bank (FGMB), Dr. YoungTobi Ekechi, has stated that Nollywood ranks second in the world after Hollywood with a financial value of over $6.4 billion, making it one of the fastest-growing movie industries

in the world and one of the biggest employers of labour in the country.

He commended the players in the Nigerian movie industry for the feat they have attained in the last decades.

Ekechi asserted in a speech titled: ‘Nollywood, A Rising Pillar in Nigeria's Socioeconomic Development,’ which he delivered at the closing

New Tax will Collapse Soft Drinks Sector, Manufacturers Cry Out Festus Akanbi with agency report The carbonated soft drinks sub-sector of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) has raised the alarm over the federal government’s proposed 20 per cent ad-valorem excise tax on non-alcoholic beverages.

The MAN group was quoted as saying that the new policy would affect the widely consumed Carbonated Soft Drinks (CSD) segment.

According to agency reports, heads of the sectoral group rose from a meeting in Lagos on Friday and warned that the new tax policy if implemented, would spell doom for the sector. They noted that the prevailing N10 per litre tax regime was already crippling the sector with its biting negative impacts on their businesses.

Industry study already points to a eight-per cent revenue decline as a result of the government’s excise tax implementation. It is projected that the decline could hit 25 per cent by December 2022 if not reviewed. This excludes the cost of write-offs of products produced, excised but not sold.

With the proposed 20 per cent Ad-valorem tax introduction, the collapse of the soft drink market is imminent, the manufacturers argued. ‘‘This will be catastrophic as thousands of jobs will be affected and the ultimate aim of the government in collecting revenue will be completely defeated,’’ they said in a statement.

Some of the operators insisted

they would wish to remain anonymous on the matter in the meantime for fear of victimisation.

“Most certainly, the additional 20 per cent will not only kill the sector but result in loss of revenue by the federal government, and a consequential phenomenal loss of jobs by various layers of the Nigerian workforce,’’ the source said in an email exchange.

This sectoral position was laid bare by the Soft Drinks Manufacturers Sub-sector of the MAN, which accounts for 33 per cent of the entire manufacturing sector in Nigeria.

Interestingly, the manufacturing industry contributes 15 per cent to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the Nigerian economy, while the food and beverage sector contributes five per cent, and with a payment of N202 billion to the government on Value Added Tax (VAT), and N207 billion in Company Income Tax, an enormous amount that would be lost by the federal government if the sector is allowed to collapse, which will have a multiplier effect on infrastructural development and growth of the already troubled economy.

According to the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the food and beverage division of the economy in the last five years generated 1.5 million jobs - both direct and indirect.

It was only from 2020 that some companies in the sector strived to pay Minimum Tax, which is a pointer to the fact that the Continued on page 12

sessions of the just-concluded Nollywood Technology and Security Summit, held in Abuja.

At the event which also saw players and stakeholders in the industry being rewarded with awards of various categories, the FGMB boss said the impacts of Nollywood in the Nigerian economy, if well sustained would open doors of prosperity to the country and beyond.

He said: "I want to most sincerely congratulate the organisers of this event, while also paying tribute to the creative giants whose hard work, ingenuity and persistence have firmly put Nigeria on the global entertainment and cinema map.

"I can boldly state that today, the Nigerian film industry is now the most important platform for showcasing

Nigeria’s arts and culture to the world. The recent launch of both the Amazon Prime and the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever movie in Lagos is a testament to the importance of the Nigerian film industry,” he explained.

Ekechi said since the breakthrough by pioneers of the industry in the 60s and early 90s, "Nollywood has become a thriving space that not only provides an avenue for entertainment but also generates significant revenue for Nigeria’s economy.

"Nollywood has now grown to become the largest Movie market in Africa in terms of value, the number of movies produced per year, revenue, popularity and job creation for actors, scriptwriters, production assistants and other individuals

involved in the value chain.

"To put the financial impact of Nollywood on the socioeconomic landscape in proper perspective, we must consider the known fact that the Nigerian movie industry is currently ranked the second largest film industry globally with the financial value of the film industry put at over $6.4 billion as of 2021.

"Furthermore, the jobcreating potential inherent in the industry cannot be overstated as the industry currently employs over one million people, making it one of Nigeria’s largest employers.

Its capacity to employ a large number of people has been applauded by the World Bank, who acknowledged the job creation potentials of Nollywood,” he added.

The bank CEO said while the industry has continued to contribute to the socioeconomic development of Nigeria, it must also be used as a tool to launder the image of the country positively amongst the nations of the world.

Also speaking at the event, the National President, of the Actors Guild of Nigeria, Emeka Rollas Ejezie, called on the government to invest in the industry to make it compete favourably with Hollywood.

Veteran actors and producers at the event include Steve Eboh, Sydney Dialla, Frankwhite Nzeh, DonChuk Uzochukwu, Makata Patrick, Amar Ignis, Ubichukwu Ohuonu 20 Mouth, Maimuna Mogaji, Nazareth Jesse, Marxist Kayode, Imabong Abia, Sam Nwachukwu and a host of others.

Obi Apologises to Rivers LP Guber Candidate for Not Visiting Her During His Trip to Port Harcourt Says Odili was never his classmate Gabriel Emameh in Abuja The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, has apologised to the party’s gubernatorial candidate in Rivers State, Mrs. Beatrice Itubo, for not visiting her during his trip to the state.

The former governor of Anambra State has also denied saying that the former Rivers State governor, Dr. Peter Odili, was his classmate, clarifying that Odili had left CKC before he entered the school.

Obi was in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital on Thursday for the inauguration of the Nkpolu Oroworukwo flyover.

During his visit, it was reported that he asked Governor Nyesom Wike to support his bid for the presidency in exchange for the governorship seat.

This request irked some members of LP in the state, who were not happy that Obi asked Wike to take the gubernatorial

seat and support him for the presidency.

Some of them were particularly concerned that Itubo, known to have been mobilising support for Obi, was in clutches nursing injuries she sustained from a domestic accident when her presidential candidate was trading off her ambition.

Itubo had replied that she only understood Obi’s statement within the context of politics, saying she would never step down for Wike’s governorship candidate.

But in a statement yesterday, Obi apologised for the oversight, saying he was not aware of the party’s governorship candidate’s sickness.

He reassured Itubo of a cordial working relationship between them.

He said: “My sincere apologies to Mrs. Beatrice Itubo, the Labour Party candidate in Rivers State for an inadvertent oversight. When I visited Port Harcourt a few

days back, I was not informed or aware of her sickness.

“On arrival in Port Harcourt, I was welcomed by the Labour Party Presidential State Coordinator in Rivers State and other party stakeholders.“We had a useful meeting and I explained to them the purpose of my visit, which was to respectfully honour an invitation by the Rivers State Government and that I will return for our party’s rally and other LP engagements soon.

“No one mentioned that our candidate was sick, otherwise I would have visited her before or after the event. I had committed to passing through the campaign office no matter how late, and I did at about 6.30 pm.

“My dear sister, I sincerely wish you a very quick recovery and reassure you of our good working relationship. May God Almighty bless you always,” Obi said.

Clarifying his position on Odili, Obi in a statement issued by

Obi-Datti Media Office, stated that, he could not "have said that former Governor Odili was my classmate; I said that he was a great footballer in my school that we all cherished and had a good memory of his football exploits when we entered the school.

“I was in CKC from 1973 to 1978 and Dr. Peter Odili left before I entered the school. He was such a fabulous footballer whose image still loomed large even in our time, especially when my primary school was very close to CKC. "The truth is that the primary school I attended, Santa Maria school/Holy Trinity School. were both owned by the same Catholic Church that owns Christ the King College (CKC), Onitsha.

"In fact both primary schools were feeder schools to the CKC and a large number of pupils that passed through them ended up in CKC for secondary education,” the statement explained.

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CAMPAIGN AGAINST DRUGS… L-R: Publisher/Editor, Realnews, Ms. Maureen Chigbo; Chairperson/Group Managing Director, Futureview Financial Services Limited, Mrs. Elizabeth Ngozi Ebi; Guest Lecturer/Chairman, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, Brig-Gen. Buba Marwa (rtd); Director General, Christ Against Drug Abuse Ministry (CADAM), Dr. Dokun Adedeji; and former Chairman and Head, Department of Mass ABIODUN AJALA Communications, University of Lagos, Prof. Ralph Akinfeleye, at the 10th anniversary lecture in Lagos…recently

Lagos, Ekiti, Benue Reject LG Financial Autonomy Bill, Adamawa Abstains Sunday Aborisade in Abuja Fresh facts have emerged on how 20 states have so far voted in the ongoing constitution amendments with Lagos, Ekiti and Benue states, rejecting the Local Government Financial Autonomy Bill.

A member of the Senate Ad hoc Committee on the Constitution Review, who disclosed this to THISDAY on condition of anonymity, however, said 24 states were required by law to vote on the 44 bills transmitted to the state Houses of Assembly.

He said no fewer than 20 out of the 36 state Houses of Assembly in the country, have so far voted on the bill.

He also expressed optimism that the remaining four states needed to vote, which would make the National Assembly pass the bills, would do so before the end of the month.

He said: "Only 11 states had voted the last time the committee addressed the journalists but we have had 20 so far and we are

hoping that we should achieve the 24 required by law to enable us to go ahead with the exercise, before the end of November."

The breakdown of those that already voted indicated that Abia, Kogi, Edo, Ogun, Katsina, Delta, Akwa-Ibom, Anambra, Nasarawa, Niger, Kaduna, Cross River, Osun, Enugu, Kano and Bauchi state houses of assembly voted in support of the Local Government Financial Autonomy Bill.

It also indicated that Adamawa State’s lawmakers abstained from the exercise.

The National Assembly had on October 18 this year, alleged that state governors were using lawmakers in their states to stall the process of amending the constitution alterations being carried out by the nation's legislative institution.

The Chairman, of the Senate Ad hoc Committee on Constitution Review, who is also the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, made the allegation at a news conference

Kizz Daniel, Patoranking to Perform as World Cup Starts Today in Qatar Vanessa Obioha As the Qatar 2022 World Cup competition begins today, this biggest football event in the world, which will end on December 18 will witness the performance of two Nigerian artistes, Kizz Daniel and Patoranking.

Kizz Daniel, whose real name is Oluwatobiloba Anidugbe, is set to perform at the tournament.

For Daniel, this is a dream come true, as the ‘Cough’ singer had taken to his Twitter page months earlier to write that he wished to perform his hit song, ‘Buga’ at the tournament.

He wrote on June 22, “God, I want to perform ‘Buga’ for (sic) the World Cup with a mass choir. Help me say ‘amen’.” A few months later, he is set to perform at the opening ceremony of the games.

Reggae-dancehall singer, Patoranking, whose name is Patrick Okorie, is scheduled to perform at the Al Bidda Park in the country’s capital, Doha, on November 28, 2022.

The ‘Girlie O’ crooner has undoubtedly carved a niche for himself with his style of music.

Born and raised in Ijegun-

Egba, Lagos State, he started his entertainment career as a dancer.

The singer also seems to be an ardent lover of football. He stated that he got the inspiration for one of his songs, ‘Abule’ while playing football.

Chukwuka Ifeanyi, better known as Ckay, will join his Nigerian counterparts to perform at the tournament too. In an interview with Al Jazeera, the singer stated that he was excited to be one of the artistes that would be performing at the World Cup. He had said, “Even though we (Nigeria) did not qualify for the World Cup; at least, there is still Nigeria representation in the area of music.

Recall that Ckay’s 2019 song, ‘Love Nwantiti’ enjoyed global acceptance.

Though he was not listed among the artistes that would perform at the World Cup, popular singer, David Adeleke, aka Davido, was featured on the theme song for the competition.

He joined Latin-American singer, Trinidad Cardonna; and Qatari singaer, Aisha, to record the song titled, ‘Hayya Hayya’ (Better Together).

in Abuja.

He noted with concern that the Conference of Nigeria Speakers had vowed not to pass the 44 Constitution Review Bills transmitted to them by the National Assembly until the four bills they proposed are passed.

He disclosed that only 11 states had considered and performed their constitutional role of passing amendments to the constitution.

He lamented that the Speakers of the state Houses of Assembly through a letter to the National Assembly Joint Committee on Constitution Review had given four conditions upon which the remaining 25 states would pass the amendments.

He described the letter as the “hands of Esau and voice of Jacob”, saying "state governors are behind the action of the speakers to stall the process."

He said: "Six months after the transmission of these Bills to State

Assemblies, it is most disheartening to inform you that only 11 state Houses of Assembly have demonstrated their independence and loyalty to the Constitution regarding the 44 bills.

"Twenty five state Houses of Assembly are yet to consider and vote on these bills.

"So far, only Abia, Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Delta, Edo, Kaduna, Katsina, Kogi, Lagos, Ogun and Osun States had successfully considered, voted on, and forwarded their resolutions on the 44 bills to the National Assembly.

"More worrisome is that while we are still expecting the receipt of the resolutions of the remaining Houses of Assembly, we received a letter from the Conference of Speakers of state assemblies informing the National Assembly that the remaining states will not act on the 44 Bills unless the National Assembly passes four new Bills they had proposed in

the letter.

"The bills they proposed, seek to amend the Constitution to Establish State Police; Establish State Judicial Council; Streamline the procedure for removing Presiding Officers of State Houses of Assembly; and, Institutionalise Legislative Bureaucracy in the Constitution."

Defending the parliament, however, Omo-Agege said the National Assembly was in no way averse to acting on any proposed bill or memoranda appropriately tabled before it, "at any time in its life."

But in a swift reaction, the Conference of Speakers of State Legislatures of Nigeria had accused the National Assembly of blackmailing and undermining the powers of the state assemblies.

The Speakers also said the National Assembly lied about their different position on the review of the 1999 Constitution.

The position of the Speakers was

made known by their Chairman and Speaker of the Bauchi State House of Assembly, Abubakar Sulaiman, in a statement.

Sulaiman said: “Contrary to the figure given by Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, the actual number of the state Houses of Assembly that have, so far, passed the resolutions of the National Assembly on the Constitution Review was 16.

“They are Abia, Anambra, Enugu, Delta, Edo, Akwa Ibom, Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Ekiti, Kogi, Benue, Nasarawa, Kaduna, Katsina, and Adamawa States.

“We believe the misrepresentation was deliberate to demonise the Honourable Speakers and the State Houses of Assembly in the eye of the citizenry.

“This is also regrettable and disappointing.”

Sulaiman justified the Speakers' insistence that the four bills must be considered by the National Assembly.

Atiku, Others Hail Ayu at 70, Say PDP will Bring Prosperity Former VP will fight insecurity, poverty, revamp economy, Okowa insists Chuks Okocha in Abuja and Seriki Adinoyi in Jos The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar; former governor of the old Anambra State, Chief Jim Nwobodo; and others have predicted victory for the main opposition party in the 2023 presidential election just as they hailed the National Chairman of the party, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, on the occasion of his 70th birthday on Friday night.

This is coming as the vice presidential candidate of the PDP and Governor of Delta State, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, has said Atiku if elected in 2023, will tackle insecurity, and poverty and revamp the current economic downturn in the country.

Atiku, who showered praises on Ayu on his verified Twitter handle, described him as the towering pillar of democracy.

Atiku said the party under Ayu’s leadership with himself as the president will do the needful to engender prosperity in the country.

“Dr. Ayu and I are poised to return this country to another democratic dispensation: a democracy that brought prosperity

to the country between1999-2007.

This is another opportunity for us to lead Nigeria into unity and prosperity, and transform Africa into a better continent by providing veritable leadership,” Atiku explained.

Nwobodo, who was the chairman of the occasion, predicted electoral triumph for the PDP, describing the life of Ayu as one of achievements, commitments and resilience.

“I am absolutely sure we will win this election. If we don’t it would be our fault as Nigerians have had a bad experience under this (APC) government. They’re yearning for a change,” Nwobodo said.

He added that he would like to see Atiku and his running mate, Governor Okowa, at the helm of affairs next year, and urged all party members to mobilise support for the PDP’s victory from the ward level to the national level.

On his part, Ayu’s monarch and supreme traditional ruler of the Tiv, the Tor Tiv, Prof. Joseph Ayatse encouraged the celebrant to live by his good deeds.

“This is only the beginning for you. You have been very successful. You will be more productive and successful,” the

monarch added while praying for his long life and prosperity.

The celebrant’s schoolmate at the Ahmadu Bello University, where he studied Sociology, and former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Alhaji Yayale Ahmed, said he would always like to associate with Ayu. “We were in the same faculty in the university. He was a radical who read Sociology. He distinguished himself back then as he was noticeable, making us think that ‘this Tiv man will be a great man,” Ahmed said.

The occasion, which was declared open with a prayer offered by John Cardinal Onaiyekan, Archbishop emeritus of Abuja diocese, had in attendance, several dignitaries.

Meanwhile, Okowa has said Atiku, if elected in 2023, will tackle insecurity, and poverty and revamp the current economic downturn in the country.

Okowa disclosed this yesterday in Jos during the inauguration of the Atiku/Okowa and Mutfwang/ Piyo Plateau State Campaign Office, located at the Secretariat Junction, Jos, Plateau State.

He said: "As a party, we believe that working together

and carrying along everybody, particularly women and the youths will enable us to have a landslide victory in Nigeria and the states in February and March 2023. The battle is not about Atiku or Mutfwang but about Nigeria and Nigerians.

"The PDP is working around the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory with very promising prospects and by the grace of God, we will win the national elections in Jesus' Name.

"I believe that with the economic reform of Atiku, working with Governor Caleb Mutfwang, we would be able to cause our people to rediscover themselves and forget the past and pursue progress as we move forward," Okowa said.

Okowa noted that Atiku’s administration would take the education of Nigerians very seriously, unlike the APC government which has truncated the future of Nigerian youths through persistent strike actions in schools.

He added that they would assist farmers through the provision of formidable security and farming input to enable farmers to return to farms without any harm.

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NEWS

IN HONOUR OF NOLLYWOOD… L-R: Republic of Benin Minister of Tourism, Culture and Arts, Mr. Jean-Michael Abimbola; Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed; Secretary-General, World Tourism Organisation, Mr. Zurab ABIODUN AJALA Pololikashvili; and Nollywood Actress, Mrs. Ngozi Nwosu, during 'A Day with Nollywood' at the United Nations World Tourism Organisation Global Conference in Lagos...recently

Dantata, Rabiu, Others Raise N1bn for Jigawa Flood Victims UN announces $10.5m new funding Gboyega Akinsanmi Nigerian businessman and philanthropist, Alhaji Aminu Dantata, and the founder of BUA Group, Abdulsamad Rabiu, yesterday raised over N1 billion for Jigawa flood victims.

The donations were made in Dutse at the fund raising in support of the 2022 flood victims in the state.

Also, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Nigeria, Matthias Schmale, has announced $10.5 million in new funding for the flood response in Nigeria.

Dantata and Rabiu each donated N200 million, Jigawa State Government N250 million, Governor Muhammad Badaru, donated N25 million on behalf of himself, family and his company, Talamis Group.

However, Dantata, who was represented by Alhaji Salisu Sambajo, expressed concern over the conditions in which the flood victims found themselves after the disaster.

The philanthropist prayed for those who died during the disaster and sympathised with those who lost their property and crops in the floods.

Similarly, Badaru also expressed appreciation to the teeming donors for their kind gesture and urged the fund raising committee to be equitable and just in the distribution of the palliatives and cash.

The committee Chairman, Alhaji Bashir Dalhatu, (Wazirin Dutse) and former Minister of Power, thanked individuals and group of companies for supporting the victims.

Other donors included the members of the state and National Assembly as well as Council Chairmen.

Zenith Bank, Jaiz Bank, FCMB, Sterling Bank, GTBANK and Unity Bank were among the financial institutions who made donations.

Also, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Nigeria, Schmale, has announced $10.5 million dollars

Akwa Ibom APC Guber Candidate Tackles State Govt over Ownership of Ibom Air Heads to Appeal Court over his candidacy

Emmanuel Addeh and Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Akwa Ibom State, Akanimo Udofia, has debunked an allegation by the state government that he was claiming ownership of Ibom Airlines.

Udofia has also decided to appeal the Federal High Court’s judgment, which nullified the party's primary that produced him as the governorship candidate.

A statement by the Akanimo Udofia Campaign Council stressed that the allegation authored by the state Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Uko Udom (SAN), was an attempt to

gloss over the facts of the matter.

In the statement, which was signed by Imo Akpan of the Campaign Council, the group however said the idea to float the airline was first mooted by former Governor Godswill Akpabio and not the current Governor, Udom Emmanuel.

“Rather than patronising roadside gossip, surfing social media and issuing unfounded threats, the Attorney General of Akwa Ibom State must do more. He must go further and address the issue of ownership, funding and cost of maintaining the aircraft in the fleet as Akwa Ibom people are interested in the profitability of the venture,” the statement added.

The statement accused the Akwa

Ibom government of ‘peddling falsehood' against the APC chieftain, adding that the fact that the state has become a hub for Air Traffic Control (ATC) staff, is a testimony to the efforts by Udofia who lobbied to secure the ATC status for Obong Attah International Airport.

“Our principal, Obong Akanimo Udofia did not lay claim to ownership of Ibom Airlines or any aircraft in its fleet. There is no evidence anywhere that such a claim was made. The video referred to clearly does not make that claim; so, it is embarrassing for Mr. Udom to accuse our principal of wrongdoing.

“For the avoidance of doubts, the idea of Ibom Airlines Limited was not conceived by Governor Udom

NEW TAX WILL COLLAPSE SOFT DRINKS SECTOR, MANUFACTURERS CRY OUT business climate is deteriorating, as the companies are finding it difficult to carry out their operations effectively.

There is evidence that the current N10 per litre excise tax on nonalcoholic beverages is ravaging the sector as the companies pay N10 for every litre of beverage produced, whether sold or not.

Speaking at the meeting, the sectoral heads decried the devastating effects of the N10 per litre tax, which has become burdensome with the high cost of

operation in the country. This is already having devastating effects on the end cost to consumers, considering their poor economic condition; an additional 20 per cent will most certainly kill the sector.

They, therefore, called for the suspension of the excise tax being proposed by the federal government to forestall the collapse of the industry.

Corroborating this position, Corporate Affairs and Sustainability Director, Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC), Ekuma Eze,

also pointed out that the N10 per litre tax has no bearing on profitability for any of the members of the sectoral group.

He stated that since the introduction of the N10 per litre Excise Tax, businesses in the sector have been experiencing a worrisome decline.

According to him, the average loss in volume and revenue is 10 per cent between June to September 2022, adding that it is estimated that the decline will further worsen by 25 per cent in December 2022.

Emmanuel contrary to what Mr. Udom would want the world to believe when he said the idea of Ibom Air was conceived and executed by Governor Udom Emmanuel, who at the time was a staff of Zenith Bank Plc. “Nothing could be farther from the truth as records show that Ibom Airlines Limited was incorporated in 2013 by Governor Godswill Akpabio after our principal shared the idea of an airline with him sometime in 2012.

“The man hailed as the uncommon transformer thereafter visited the Bombardier facility in Toulouse in France to further explore the possibility of giving life to our principal’s vision. The fact is, Ibom Airlines Limited that Mr. Udom Emmanuel inherited as Governor in 2015 was our principal’s brainchild,” Akpan argued.

He added that in furtherance of the ‘shared vision', Akpabio then sponsored 32 Akwa Ibom indigenes for training in ATC in various institutions abroad.

“These graduates are today working in several airports in Nigeria.

Obong Akan Udofia then trained the first female pilot of Akwa Ibom descent.

“Our principal from 2019 went on to lobby his friends in the Aviation Ministry and Nigerian Airforce to secure the ATC status for Obong Attah International Airport. This has

culminated in our state being the hub for ATC in Nigeria today,” the campaign team argued.

The statement further noted that the Attorney General’s claim that the airline is owned 100 per cent

by Akwa Ibom State, was untrue, stating that Ibom Airlines Limited “is not owned by Akwa Ibom State (government)” and is incapable of being owned in a legal sense.

“For the purpose of enlightenment, Ibom Airlines Limited is a limited liability company and therefore a juristic person. The so-called SAN ought to appreciate this fine piece of jurisprudence.”

Meanwhile, Udofia has also decided to appeal the Federal High Court’s judgment in Uyo, which nullified the party's primary that produced him as the governorship candidate.

Recall that Justice AA Okeke in her judgment nullified the Akwa Ibom APC primary and held that Udofia was not qualified to contest the primary of the party because he was not a member of the APC. But addressing a press conference yesterday in Abuja, the Director General of the Akan Udofia Campaign Council, Mr. Don Etim, insisted that Udofia has confidence in the judiciary and would take immediate steps to appeal the judgment and recover the mandate freely conferred on him by the members of the party.

in new funding for the flood response in Nigeria.

Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesperson for the SecretaryGeneral, disclosed this at a news conference at UN headquarters in New York.

Haq said that Schmale announced the funding in a statement to support Nigeria as the country faced unprecedented flooding with more than 4.4 million people affected across the country and 2.4 million displaced.

“This new funding from the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) and the Nigeria Humanitarian Fund will provide clean water, sanitation, health care, shelter and non-food items for people in the most affected states.

“This will include people affected in the north-east of the country where people are reeling from the combined impact of floods, protracted conflict, rising hunger and a cholera outbreak,’’ he said Similarly, the deputy spokesperson said Schmale had condemned killing of a staff member of the humanitarian non-governmental organisation Médecins du Monde in Damboa, Borno State.

“On behalf of the United Nations, Schmale conveyed his heartfelt condolences to the aid worker’s family and to her colleagues.

“He also wished a speedy recovery to a pilot working with the UN Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) who was injured in the deplorable attack by an apparently rogue soldier.

“Schmale stressed that all humanitarian staff working in north-east Nigeria deserve our fullest respect for their courage and commitment to stay and deliver life-saving assistance to people in need in often difficult and dangerous circumstances.

“Humanitarian workers must be protected,’’ he said.

Haq said that Schmale lauded the government and the military’s efforts to speedily investigate the Thursday’s incident and urged them to strengthen remedial measures to prevent similar incidents in the future.

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER NOVEMBER 20 , 2022

BUSINESS

Editor: Festus Akanbi 08038588469 Email:festus.akanbi@thisdaylive.com

As Stakeholders Caution FG against New Excise Policy According to reports, the newly introduced Fiscal Policy Measures, which specify a new excise regime for makers of non-alcoholic beverages, alcoholic beverages, cigarettes and tobacco products, are worsening the crisis in the Nigerian manufacturing sector, which is already grappling with the LVVXH RI IDFWRU\ FORVXUHV DV ZHOO DV WKH UHORFDWLRQ RI ÀUPV WR QHLJKERXULQJ FRXQWULHV 7R DYHUW IXUWKHU strains on the economy, the time to dialogue with stakeholders is now, writes Festus Akanbi

A

t the 28th edition of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) which was held last week, one issue raised

by President Muhammadu Buhari while declaring the summit open was Nigeria’s challenged revenue base which has pushed the nation’s economic managers to opt for borrowing, issuance of new taxes and OHYLHV DQG WKH DGRSWLRQ RI ÀVFDO GLVFLSOLQH The president also did not miss the opportunity to restate the commitment of his administration to shore up Nigeria’s revenue levels and bequeath to the incoming administration, an economy free from H[FHVVLYH GHEW HQWDQJOHPHQWV New Excise Duty There is no doubt that one of the vehicles for revenue enhancement was the newly introduced Fiscal Policy Measures announced on March 1, 2022, by the Minister RI )LQDQFH =DLQDE 8VPDQ 7KLV FRPSULVHV Supplementary Protection Measures for the enforcement of the Economic Community of West Africa States Common External 7DULͿ (&2:$6 &(7 DQG H[FLVH duties on goods such as non-alcoholic beverages, alcoholic beverages, cigarettes and tobacco products, and telecommunication VHUYLFHV ZLWK HͿHFW IURP $SULO Fiscal Policy Measures (FPM) are a set of tools designed by the federal government to foster economic growth by expanding investment in the public and private sectors and diversifying resources from less desirDEOH LQYHVWPHQWV WR PRUH GHVLUDEOH RQHV The 2022 FPM supersedes the 2021 FPM which had been in force since September

The FPM 2022 replaces the FPM 2021, and among other changes, introduces Import $GMXVWHG 7D[ ,$7 RQ WDULͿ OLQHV DQG prohibits certain goods originating from QRQ (&2:$6 PHPEHU VWDWHV Nigeria-British Chamber Calls for Caution However, like some other players in the economy, the Nigeria-British Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) has expressed concern over plans by the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and Financial Planning to HͿHFW D KLNH LQ WKH VSHFLÀF H[FLVH FRPSRQHQW of some products, including alcoholic and QRQ DOFRKROLF EHYHUDJHV DQG WREDFFR Almost at the same time that President Buhari was lamenting the dire revenue situation in the country last week, the chamber, in a statement by its President, Bisi Adeyemi, said the introduction of a QHZ UHJLPH RI H[FLVH GXW\ LV D VLJQLÀFDQW digression from the recently adopted 2022 ÀVFDO SROLF\ PHDVXUHV DQG WDULͿV DPHQGments (FPM 2022) roadmap, which covers WKH H[FLVH H[SDQVLRQ IURP Calling for a thorough review of the policy, the NBCC stated, “While we understand and appreciate the need to improve federal government income, a holistic review of the peculiarities of Nigeria’s current micro and macroeconomic realities, as well as the impact of these RQ EXVLQHVVHV DQG 1LJHULDQV VSHFLÀFDOO\ VKRXOG EH XQGHUWDNHQ µ According to Adeyemi, the call was to “ensure sustainability and minimise the QHJDWLYH LPSDFW RQ WKH DͿHFWHG VHFWRUV including the value chain, which will be

WKH KDUGHVW KLW “Long and medium-term plans and policies that will allow for the engagement and input of all stakeholders XVXDOO\ \LHOG RSWLPDO RXWFRPHV µ Adeyemi said the manufacturing sector is currently contending with sundry issues, which include skyrockHWLQJ HQHUJ\ FRVWV ULVLQJ LQÁDWLRQ foreign exchange scarcity, poor and inadequate infrastructure, increasing GL΀FXOWLHV DVVRFLDWHG ZLWK HDVH RI doing business, and other headwinds that increasingly challenge competiWLYHQHVV LQ WKH JOREDO PDUNHW Quoting a recent report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), she said that the value of manufactured goods traded for the second quarter RI IHOO E\ FRPSDUHG WR WKH VDPH SHULRG LQ “Even as manufacturers adjust to the approved excise increase in the FPM 2022, the aforementioned conditions are being exacerbated by the fragile state of the country’s HFRQRP\ µ VKH DGGHG Adeyemi implored the federal government to retain the approved excise regime, as contained in the approved FPM 2022, covering the period from 2022 to 2024, and to urgently engage ZLWK WKH DͿHFWHG VHFWRUV FKDPEHUV of commerce, the organised private VHFWRU DQG RWKHU VWDNHKROGHUV She believed retention of the existing rate will, among others, increase WD[ FRQWULEXWLRQ IURP WKH DͿHFWHG sectors which will be delivered by 2022 FPM; explaining that these sectors can support the government’s objective of reducing the high rate of unemployment reported to be at DERXW DQG LPSURYH WKH LQÁRZ of foreign direct investment as invesWRUV FRQÀGHQFH LV VWUHQJWKHQHG E\

government’s continuous demonstration of its willingness to create an enabling environment through stable and consistent SROLFLHV She called for negotiation with the affected sectors, chambers of commerce, the organised private sector and other VWDNHKROGHUV EHIRUH WKH SROLF\ WDNHV RͿ Like NBCC, Like NUBIFIE The alarm raised by the chamber came at almost the same time as that of the National Union of Food, Beverages and Tobacco Employees (NUFBTE) calling on the National Assembly to intervene on its behalf to avert the further increase of H[FLVH GXWLHV RQ FDUERQDWHG GULQNV The letter titled: ‘’Re: Excise Duties on Carbonated Drinks (The Unbearable Impact on Food, Beverages and Tobacco Industries: An Appeal for Immediate AbroJDWLRQ 7KHUHRI µ DQG VLJQHG E\ 0U /DWHHI 2\HOHNDQ DQG 0U 0LNH 2ODQUHZDMX LWV National President and General Secretary respectively, beckoned on members of the +RXVH RI 5HSUHVHQWDWLYHV WR MRLQ HͿRUWV to save the food, beverage and tobacco industry, and ultimately, the Nigerian HFRQRP\ Like the chamber, the labour union advised the regulators to invite their members to discuss the viability or otherwise of the ÀUVW SKDVH DOUHDG\ LQWURGXFHG “While we hope that this appeal will be found worthy of your kind consideration, we continue to assure you the deepest of RXU UHJDUGV DQG XQZDYHULQJ VROLGDULW\ µ WKH GXR VDLG They noted that no fewer than 5,000 Nigerian workers had been rendered redundant between January and September ZKHQ WKH ÀUVW SKDVH RI WKH H[FLVH GXWLHV ZDV LQWURGXFHG WLOO GDWH They revealed that some companies were still contemplating redundancy exercises owing to the drastic reduction

of their production capacity, while most companies were seriously considering the possibility of relocating to countries where WKH FRVW RI SURGXFWLRQ ZDV EHDUDEO\ ORZ “Manufacturers, for the fear of paying excise duties on products, which the market is no longer sustainable have drastically UHGXFHG WKHLU SURGXFWLRQV “Therefore, it is foisting possible reduction on their shareholders’ dividends and also impacting negatively on the Nigerian HFRQRP\ µ WKH OHDGHUV VDLG The labour leaders expressed worry over foreign products now taking prevalence RYHU WKRVH ORFDOO\ SURGXFHG According to them, the price tag on both products is relatively the same and/or in most cases foreign products are readily DYDLODEOH DW FKHDSHU SULFHV “Survey in the last months has placed the demand for foreign imported carbonated GULQNV RYHU WKH ORFDOO\ SURGXFHG ´7KLV LV ODUJHO\ RQ WKH JURXQG RI DͿRUGability in the foreign and/or imported carbonated drinks which is now ostensibly DͿRUGDEOH DQG SULFH IULHQGO\ UDWKHU WKDQ WKH ORFDOO\ SURGXFHG RQHV “They enjoy greater patronage in detriment to our locally made products and this is attributed to the increment of price introduced by the manufacturers on their SURGXFWV “Also, the cause of these price increases LV ERUQ RXW RI WKH LQWURGXFWLRQ RI WKH ÀUVW phase of the exercise duty, for which the consequence inevitably lies with their respective customers and consumers to EHDU µ ERWK OHDGHUV VDLG The Paradox Ironically, the performance of quoted ÀUPV XQGHU WKH FRQVXPHU JRRGV VHFWRU of the Exchange has been on the rise, data FRPSLOHG E\ 1DLUDPHWULFV KDV VKRZQ It parsed through data from 10 of the largest consumer goods companies on the Nigerian Exchange cutting across the EUHZHU\ IRRG SURFHVVLQJ DQG ÁRXU PLOOV They include Nestle, Cadbury, Unilever, DQG 'DQJRWH 6XJDU 2WKHUV LQFOXGH 1Lgeria Breweries, Guinness, International Breweries, Flour Mills, BUA Foods, and 1$6&21 5HVXOWV IURP WKHLU FDVK ÁRZ VWDWHPHQWV LQ WKH ÀUVW QLQH PRQWKV RI WKLV \HDU FRPSDUHG to December 2021, show companies relied on a combination of debt, sales, and vendor PDQDJHPHQW WR VKRUH XS FDVK EDODQFHV )RU WKH ÀUPV UHYLHZHG WKH WRWDO FDVK EDODQFH IRU WKH ÀUVW QLQH PRQWKV RI WKH \HDU ZDV 1 ELOOLRQ FRPSDUHG WR 1 ELOOLRQ DW WKH HQG RI Topping the cash-rich companies on the consumer goods platform are the likes of Nestle, Dangote Sugar, Guinness, and UniOHYHU 'DQJRWH 6XJDU KDG WKH KLJKHVW FDVK EDODQFH RI 1 ELOOLRQ DV RI 6HSWHPEHU 2022, compared to N103 billion the year EHIRUH 1HVWOH LV QH[W ZLWK DERXW 1 billion compared to N100 billion the year EHIRUH 8QLOHYHU LV QH[W ZLWK 1 ELOOLRQ FRPSDUHG WR 1 ELOOLRQ UHSRUWHG DW WKH end of 2022 and according to Nairametrics, WRWDO FDVK DQG FDVK HTXLYDOHQW RI 1 ELOOLRQ FRPSDUHG WR 1 ELOOLRQ LQ 'HFHPEHU &DOOLQJ IRU D GLDORJXH ZLWK DͿHFWHG companies will provide the opportunity to give the policy the human face it needs to win the support of the various stakeholders LQ WKH 1LJHULDQ PDQXIDFWXULQJ VHFWRU

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER NOVEMBER 20 , 2022

AGRICULTURE

A flooded rice farm

Need to De-risk Nigeria’s Climate-threatened Farmlands With many Nigerian farmers still smarting from the ruination of farm produce by the recent ÁRRGLQJ Festus Akanbi writes that de-risking farming for farmers could support them to scale up production and increase their resilience to ever-increasing climate shocks

T

oday, Nigeria’s farmers as well as its rapidly growing population face a foodinsecure future after 140,000 hectares of farmland in 34 of the country’s 36 states were GHYDVWDWHG E\ ÁRRGV DQG heavier-than-expected rainfall in recent weeks.

The development has elicited the fear that the extent of the damage to farmland and crops may reduce access to food and diminish the quality of food across the nation, intensifying food insecurity, hunger, and entrenched poverty.

Industry analysts believed that uninsured and underinsured smallholders make up most – about 90 per cent – of the farmers in Nigeria and account for the majority (80 per cent) of local agricultural production.

De-risking farming for farmers could support them to scale up production and increase their resilience to ever-increasing climate shocks.

It is in this respect that Heifer International, D JOREDO QRQSURÀW ZRUNLQJ WR HUDGLFDWH SRYerty and hunger comes into the picture. The organisation is committed to sustainably addressing the shortfall in crop insurance while supporting farmers with training on climate-smart agriculture interventions and access to technology so that they are better prepared to deal with climate events – like ÁRRGLQJ “Building resilience will require a combination of interventions and more partnerships at all levels with governments, the private sector, and major international foundations as well as development institutions to de-risk farming in Nigeria,” said Adesuwa Ifedi, Senior Vice President of Africa Programmes for Heifer International.

“We need to promote climate-smart innovations in agriculture, by working with farmers, their communities, and market system actors to prepare for climate shocks and identify and invest in opportunities that deliver positive outcomes for farmers,” she said, adding that “Smallholder farmers will be better supported if emerging technologies are leveraged to protect agricultural investments across Africa.”

However, this kind of programme is uncommon in Africa and the adoption of crop insurance programs has been weak because IDUPHUV KDYH QRW EHHQ DEOH WR DͿRUG LQVXUDQFH premiums. In comparison, the United States crop insurance program covers more than 80 per cent of American cropland and costs the

government an average of nearly $9 billion per year.

Heifer International Country Director for Nigeria, Rufus Idris, acknowledges the challenges and notes that rural communities lack WKH ÀQDQFLDO UHVRXUFHV DV ZHOO DV WKH DFFHVV WR innovation and technology that could build resilience and better prepare them for shocks.

In 2021, through a collaboration with Pula Advisors, Olam Agri, Thrive Agric, and Leadway Assurance Limited, Heifer International introduced the Pay-at-Harvest (PAH) Area Yield Index Insurance (AYII) to rice farmers as a means of reducing their risk of crop loss from climate-related events while also restorLQJ LQYHVWRUV· FRQÀGHQFH LQ ULFH IDUPLQJ 7KH 3$+ PRGHO RI LQVXUDQFH VSHFLÀFDOO\ DGGUHVVHV farmers’ inability to pay premiums early in the season. Farmers have insurance coverage at the start of a season but pay the premium after they have harvested and sold their produce.

Farmers that experience covered crop losses WKURXJK ÁRRGV GURXJKWV QHZ SHVWV DQG diseases can recover their investment.

“With farming in Nigeria considered high risk and liable to losses, Heifer International is collaborating with its partners to help smallholder farmers in Nigeria adapt to climate change and maximise their outputs,” said Idris.

“This programme provides rice farmers in 1LJHULD ZLWK DQ DͿRUGDEOH ZD\ WR FRQWLQXH farming. Farmers get a full return if their insured farmland does not produce the projected quantity of crops due to a climate event,” he said.

At present, nearly 20 thousand smallholder ULFH IDUPHUV ZHUH DͿHFWHG E\ WKH ÁRRG are participating in the AYII project for the 2022 Wet Farming Season. This number is expected to grow to at least 100,000 farmers

by June 2025.

According to the World Bank, climate change inaction could cost Nigeria between 2-11 per cent of GDP by 2020 and 6-30 per cent of GDP by 2050, equivalent to a loss of US$100-460 billion.

Results from a study conducted by Pula show that the AYII insurance programme has helped smallholder farmers increase farm investment by nearly 20 per cent; double yields and increase household savings by as much as 170 per cent, resulting in an overall increase in the resilience of participant farmers.

While many parts of Nigeria are prone to DQQXDO ÁRRGV WKH H[WHQW RI ÁRRG GDPDJH has become more severe in recent years. In some areas, homes and neighbourhoods have

EHHQ FRPSOHWHO\ VXEPHUJHG E\ ÁRRGZDWHUV Nigeria’s meteorological agency has warned WKDW WKH ÁRRGLQJ FRXOG FRQWLQXH XQWLO WKH HQG of November in some states in the south of the country. The agency has urged local governments to “prepare accordingly.” $ ULFH IDUPHU LQ WKH ÁRRG UDYDJHG $ZH Local Government Area of Nasarawa State, 6DÀ\DQX 6XOHLPDQ VDLG WKRXVDQGV RI IDUPHUV KDYH ORVW WKHLU IDUPV WR ÁRRGLQJ LQ WKH DUHD “In the Azara community where I come from, we are heavily dependent on farming for income. Most of our farms were submerged E\ WKH ÁRRG DQG RQO\ WKRVH RI XV ZKR LQVXUHG our farmlands through the Heifer International program are certain of a way out of this situation,” the 37-year-old farmer said.

The situation is similar for a 32-year-old resident of the Daudu community in the Guma Local Government Area of Benue State, Felicia Gbuuka. She had cultivated three hectares of rice farm during the farming season and more WKDQ WZR RI WKRVH KHFWDUHV ZHUH DͿHFWHG E\ WKH GHYDVWDWLQJ ÁRRGV “I may not have been able to recover from WKH HͿHFW RI WKLV ORVV LI , GLG QRW SURWHFW P\ ULFH farm through insurance, Gbuuka explained.

“What I thought was not necessary has turned out to become my saving grace,” she said.

Another rice farmer, Esther Ogochukwu Ezeh, 31, who also lives in theAzara community of Awe Local Government Area of Nasarawa State, regrets not having a risk mitigation plan to protect the investments in her rice farm. The PRWKHU RI WKUHH VDLG WKH ÁRRG KDV FXW KHU RͿ from her primary source of livelihood. “My IDUP LV FRPSOHWHO\ ÁRRGHG µ VKH H[FODLPHG “The money I spent on cultivation has gone to complete waste. I can’t lie, I wish I joined the farmers who insured their farmlands. I hope I get another opportunity to participate in the insurance scheme,” Ezeh said.

Vice President for Farming Initiatives at Olam Agri, Reji George, an agribusiness enterprise that has established Africa’s largest commercial rice farm at Rukubi in Nasarawa State, said insurance provides a path forward for farmers and allows them to overcome climate and weather-related challenges they may not otherwise be able to overcome.

“Olam has been negatively impacted by the GHYDVWDWLQJ ÁRRGV LQ LWV RZQ +HFWDUHV RI Nucleus Rice farm in Nasarawa State and also across its massive out-grower programs in the states of Nasarawa, Benue, Taraba, Plateau, Niger and Kogi,” he said, adding that, “The Area Yield Index Insurance has come to the

rescue of these farmers.”

Pula has been widely recognised for its work piloting crop insurance throughout Africa.

“With 140,000 hectares of farmland now XQGHU ZDWHU IROORZLQJ UHFHQW ÁRRGLQJ DFURVV the country, the 19,900 hectares of farmland, belonging to the 19,900 Naija Unlock smallholder farmers participating in the Heifer supported pay-at-harvest AYII, are insured to the tune of N5.9 billion ($13.6 million), hence, these Naija 8QORFN IDUPHUV DUH PRUH UHVLOLHQW WR WKH HͿHFW RI WKH UHFHQW GHYDVWDWLQJ ÁRRG LQ 1LJHULD µ said Chukwuma Kalu, Pula’s Commercial Manager- West Africa Anglophone.

The programme is being implemented under Heifer’s Signature Program “Naija Unlock”, which aims to unlock Nigeria’s potential for IRRG VHOI VX΀FLHQF\ DQG HQDEOH RQH PLOOLRQ people to reach a Sustainable Living Income by 2025 by strengthening local market systems and promoting innovative agribusiness models in the rice, tomato, poultry, small ruminants, and cattle value chains.

During the 2021 Wet Farming Season, a total of 4,358 hectares of farmland belonging to 4,354 smallholder rice farmers in Benue and Nasarawa states were insured under the project. Just over three thousand smallholder ULFH IDUPHUV VXͿHUHG FURS ORVVHV Leadway Assurance, an implementing partner for AYII acknowledges that encouraging farmers’ resilience to climate-induced losses KDV IDU UHDFKLQJ HFRQRPLF EHQHÀWV ´7KH DͿHFWHG ULFH IDUPHUV UHFHLYHG D WRWDO of N111,398,895 ($253,012.55) in insurance compensation,” said Mr. Ayoola Fatona Head of Agric and Micro Insurance for Leadway Assurance Limited.

Heifer International is also partnering with Ignitia, a technology company that builds smallholder farmers’ resilience through digital weather information and analysis. The company aims to connect 780,000 smallholder farmers to a platform that will allow them to receive daily weather forecasts and weekly climate smart extension advisory messages by 2025 to improve outcomes and increase ERWK \LHOGV DQG SURÀWV Since 1944, Heifer International has worked with more than 42.9 million people around the world to end hunger and poverty sustainably.

Working with rural communities in 19 countries in Africa, Asia, and the Americas, including the United States, Heifer International supports farmers and local food producers to strengthen local economies and build secure livelihoods that provide a living income.

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER NOVEMBER 20 , 2022

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FINANCE

Interrogating Naira’s Patronage In this piece, James Emejo assesses Nigerians’ attitude to the Naira following its proposed redesign by the Central Bank of Nigeria and concludes that the resulting exchange rate disparity at the parallel market is mainly self-inflicted

T

he October 26, 2022 decision by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to redesign the Naira has continued to elicit mixed reactions from the public. While some believed that the objectives were politically-motivated, a larger percentage of Nigerians believed it is a welcome development that is long overdue.

The central bank had insisted that the redesigning project was only a routine exercise adding that it seeks to also address the prevailing currency counterfeiting, WHUURULVP ÀQDQFLQJ DQG KRDUGLQJ DPRQJ others. In fact, the proposed currency redesign programme is likened to using a solution to address several abnormalities in the economy.

7KH &%1 *RYHUQRU 0U *RGZLQ (PHÀHOH had recently announced the bank’s resolve to redesign, produce, and circulate new series of banknotes including N200, N500, and N1,000 denominations following the express approval by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The project will commence with the circulation of the new banknotes on December 15, 2022.

Reasons for the Redesign (PHÀHOH KDG HTXDOO\ H[SODLQHG WKDW WKH decision was aimed at checking the increasing ease and risk of currency counterfeiting evidenced by several security reports and WKH LQFUHDVHG ULVN WR ÀQDQFLDO VWDELOLW\ DV well as the worsening shortage of clean and ÀW FXUUHQF\ ZLWK WKH DWWHQGDQW QHJDWLYH perception of the central bank.

Other reasons adduced for the exercise were the need to control currency in circulation - with 80 per cent of money outside the vaults of commercial banks.

The CBN governor noted that as of September 2022, a total of N3.2 trillion was in circulation, of which N2.73 trillion was outside the vaults of the banks.

The scenario is particularly troubling JLYHQ WKH SRWHQWLDO IRU D KLJK UDWH RI LQÁDWLRQ and foreign exchange challenges.

The apex bank boss also explained that the move was aimed at tackling vote-buying E\ SROLWLFLDQV JLYHQ WKDW LQÁDWLRQ LV RIWHQ VSLNHG RͿ GXULQJ WKH HOHFWLRQHHULQJ SHULRG There had been concerns that except there was a bold policy direction, the forthcoming general elections could provide monetary authorities with a major headache given the proposed election spending.

In addition, the naira redesign project ZDV DLPHG DW WDFNOLQJ WHUURULVP ÀQDQFLQJ which remains a growing security concern in the country.

The currency redesign project particularly came at a period when Nigerians are FODPRXULQJ IRU ÀQDQFLDO UHJXODWRU\ LQWHUYHQWLRQV WR PDNH LW GL΀FXOW IRU NLGQDSSHUV to seek ransom from victims.

7KH FXUUHQF\ UHGHVLJQ HͿRUW FRXOG EH seen as an attempt by the CBN to address a myriad of problems using a single intervention. $FFRUGLQJ WR (PHÀHOH WKHUH KDG EHHQ persistent concerns over the management of the current series of banknotes as well as currency in circulation, particularly those outside the banking system in the country.

He said although the global best practice is for central banks to redesign, produce and circulate new local legal tender every ÀYH WR HLJKW \HDUV WKH QDLUD KDG QRW EHHQ redesigned in the last 20 years.

7KH &%1 ERVV VDLG ´6R ÀUVW RI DOO ZKDW we want to do is mop up the N3.2 trillion back into the CBN so we can take control of the money supply. Again, this would KHOS WR UHLQ LQ LQÁDWLRQ DQG LW ZRXOG KDYH D SRVLWLYH LPSDFW RQ LQÁDWLRQ µ He further explained that the new and

Naira notes existing currencies shall remain legal tender and circulate together until January 31, 2023, when the existing currencies shall cease to be legal tender.

Currency Mopping Records Early Successes In a development that showed that the objectives of the currency redesign programme were achieving the intended impact, earlier reports KDG VXJJHVWHG WKDW ZLWKLQ WKH ÀUVW WZR ZHHNV RI (PHÀHOH·V SROLF\ DQnouncement, directing the existing naira notes which are stashed in warehouses and underground to be returned to the banks to be exchanged with the proposed new banknotes, about N52 billion cash was deposited into commercial banks.

7KH ÀJXUH KDG VLQFH EHHQ RQ WKH LQFUHDVH HͿHFWLYHO\ PRSSLQJ WKH huge sums of money that are outside banks’ vaults.

Unpatriotic Attitude and Naira’s Depreciation Expectedly, the rush by some unpatriotic Nigerians and mostly criminal elements to bypass the system following the currency redesigning move had piled pressure on the local currency.

Rather than return their illicit money to the banking system and fearing the possibility of being nabbed by anti-graft agencies, some corrupt Nigerians have resorted to exchanging their Naira denominations for the US dollar.

7KLV KDV LQ WXUQ DͿHFWHG WKH YDOXH of the naira, especially in the black market, which, however, accounts for OHVV WKDQ ÀYH SHU FHQW RI WKH IRUHLJQ exchange market.

(PHÀHOH KDG VHYHUDOO\ FODULÀHG WKDW the black-market rate cannot be used to determine the real value of the naira.

Although critics have blamed the CBN on the depreciation following the move to redesign the naira, several analysts believe the impact on the local currency is only temporary – stressLQJ WKDW WKH 1DLUD ZLOO ÀUVW ÀUP XS

against the dollar as soon as the currency redesign project is completed.

But the development also demonstrated the unpatriotic zeal on the part of Nigerians towards their currency.

Experts have argued that the value of the local currency is intrinsically tied to how it is received or accepted by its citizens.

In order words, if Nigerians don’t demonstrate their love for their local currency, the latter is bound to receive a hit.

This is particularly so as witnessed by the conscious dollarisation of the economy in recent times before regulatory interventions by the CBN. The CBN has continued to appeal to Nigerians to support the currency redesign project which is in their overall interest and the economy at large, stressing that they owe it as a responsibility to ensure that the Naira remains strong against other currencies of the world.

The Chief Executive, of Global Analytics Consulting Company Limited, Dr. Tope Fasua, said achieving price stability and H[FKDQJH UDWH SDULW\ UHTXLUHV WKH FRRSHUDtion of all stakeholders and not only the central bank. $FFRUGLQJ WR KLP RI WKH ÀUVW VWHSV WR achieving a strong local currency is by the Nigerians developing a love for the naira.

Fasua said the value of the naira was tied to patriotism and nationalism stressing that a “lot of the value of your currency is made up of perception actually - what do people think about the currency? If those who hold the currency don’t have FRQÀGHQFH WKDW FXUUHQF\ LV LQ WURXEOHµ According to him, the local currency remained an embodiment of the people as well as fundamental to the economy, pointing out that the US dollar had remained strong partly because it is protected from losing its value.

He said Nigerians should shun the VHOI IXOÀOOLQJ SURSKHF\ ZKLFK VWDWHV WKDW WKH ORFDO FXUUHQF\ LV D UHÁHFWLRQ RI ZKDW citizens say about it. He further explained that merely speculating that Naira would crash could lead to its depreciation.

In an exclusive chat with THISDAY, Fasua said, “But even the rate is correcting. It’s unfortunate how we have become. Some people are unpatriotic and oftentimes work hard to ensure that our

economy has a serious problem because of political and sometimes ethnic animosities.

“I think Nigeria must be that country where people decide to hurt themselves for base sentimental reasons. The currency redesign is a routine central bank duty.

There is a department in Central Bank set up for that purpose just like they have bank supervisors, monetary policy, and so on.

“For 17 years we have done nothing with our currency. Now, we want to do something and all hell broke loose. Why? Redesigning a currency to tackle our many currency forgers has nothing to do with WKH YDOXH RI WKH FXUUHQF\ µ He said, “Only criminals will rush to convert to dollars and let the authorities deal with that. The entire saga has also brought to the fore the folly of trading dollars in the streets and I hope the government does the right thing this time.

“All dollars must be traded with documentation in banks and BDCs only. All else is illegal and examples must be made. We KDYH EHFRPH ODZOHVV LQ 1LJHULD µ On his part, Managing Director/Chief Executive, Dignity Finance and Investment Limited, Dr. Chijioke Ekechukwu, said the solution to the increasing exchange rate disparity is to make the naira scarce after the redesigning programme.

Also, Wealth Management and Business Development Consultant, Mr. Ibrahim Shelleng, predicted the current steep naira depreciation will probably stabilise by Q1 2023 once there is a clearer indication of how the new redesign and cashless policy will be implemented.

In the same vein, Managing Director/ Chief Executive, SD&D Capital Management Limited, Mr. Idakolo Gbolade, however, SRLQWHG RXW WKDW WKH LQÁDWLRQDU\ SUHVVXUHV the redesigning move has created may “stay with us for a long time if the CBN does not evolve economic programmes to lift WKH HFRQRP\µ He said the CBN redesign of the naira is an attempt to recover cash in circulation which is not within its control.

He said, “The new security measures in the newly redesigned naira notes will make LW GL΀FXOW IRU FRXQWHUIHLWLQJ DQG DOVR FDXVH VRPH SUREOHPV IRU WHUURULVWV DQG WUD΀FNHUV in the short run but they could recover DIWHU D ZKLOH EDFN WR EXVLQHVV DV XVXDO µ

20

T H I S DAY, T H E S U N DAY N E W S PA P E R • NOVEMBER 20, 2022

SOFT FINANCE with AYO AROWOLO The only column you may need to read on everything personal finance, money, investing -and other life matters

EMAIL: AYO.AROWOLO@THISDAYLIVE.COM PHONE: 08086447494( SMS ONLY)

Ohuabunwa: How I Handle My Personal Finance

O

nce in a while, we shall be featuring top executives from different sectors of the economy who share tips and insights on how to make money, manage money, multiply money, make money to count and make money to last. We call them WEALTH MASTERS. Our first Wealth Master on the hot seat is Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa, former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Neimeth International Pharmaceuticals Plc, Lagos. Ohuabunwa took the pharmaceutical industry by surprise in 1997 when he and his colleagues spearheaded the Management-Buy-Out of a 60 per cent equity holding in Pfizer Products Plc. A dreamer and visionary leader, he rose from the position of the sales representative at Pfizer to the position of CEO within 15 years of joining the company. He spent 33 years in the pharmaceuticals industry, 18 of which were at the level of CEO before he retired in 2011.

Beyond his work as the CEO of Pfizer, Ohuabunwa also played leadership roles in a lot of private sector organisations, including Chairman, Manufacturers’ Association of Nigeria (MAN), Ikeja Branch; President, Nigerian Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA); Chairman, Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG); and a host of others.

Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa is an entrepreneur, leader, nation builder, author, lay minister and social worker, all rolled into one. He was one of the presidential aspirants on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who lost the ticket to Atiku Abubakar in the primaries.

Here, Ohuabunwa shares insights on personal finance with me.

YOUR MONEY IS IN YOUR PASSION

The overriding lesson I have learnt in life is that if you can discover what you are passionate about and put everything you have into it by developing it; you are on your way to creating lasting wealth. And when you now apply the power of vision and focus on it, then there is practically nothing you can’t achieve.

With a well-defined vision and a focused mind, you can achieve practically any worthwhile thing you put your mind to. And without a vision, success is not in sight. When I joined Pfizer in 1978, I determined I was going to spend five years so that I could go into business with my uncle. I purposed in mind that in those five years, I would know everything I needed to know about manufacturing in a multinational organisation.

In my fifth year, while I was getting ready to leave the company, I had an encounter with the Chairman of the company who thought I had been in the company for at least 10 years.

When he was reminded that I had been there for just five years, he couldn’t believe it because I had risen to middle management in five years from the lowly position of a pharmaceutical sales representative. That interested him.

After that encounter, I changed my mind and decided I was going to continue and that I would like to be like the Chairman. I posted the picture I took with the Chairman on the wall in my office. After that, each time I entered my office, I would look at the picture and say a silent prayer while saying to myself that someday I would be the Chairman of the company.

From that day, it took me 10 years to become the Chairman/CEO of the company in fulfilment of the vision. The major determinant of success in life is vision; determine the end from the beginning. By the grace of God, I have created all my wealth from my passion and area of focus.

So I would say the first step to creating wealth is to discover what you are passionate about and spend time and resources to develop skills around it. Don’t jump from place to place.

Where you are now is good enough. Your wealth is inside it. Dig deeper. Gold is not found on the surface.

DEVELOP MULTIPLE STREAMS OF INCOME

To gain financial independence, I discovered from my personal experience that one cannot rely on one source of income. You need to create and nurture other streams to augment the first.

in a lot of people - family members, friends, associates, and so on. Today, most of them have become ready sources of help when I need them. Invest time in building relationships and invest in those relationships, financially and emotionally.

HOW I INVEST

My first investment option is to put every idle money in savings or fixed deposits.

The second is investing in stocks and shares.

I have accounts with my stock brokers who buy and sell shares for me on my instruction.

From time to time, I draw cash or liquidate investments in stocks to meet my needs or invest in other areas with better returns.

Thirdly, I often partner with friends or family to create products or services that will fill needs, solve problems or create higher values.

HOW I PLANNED FOR RETIREMENT

Ohuabunwa

Most people cannot meet all their legitimate needs by depending on salary alone, irrespective of their level.

The reason most people indulge in funny things, including abusing privileges and disappointing those who have trusted them is simply that their income cannot sufficiently meet their needs. For salary earners, that source may suddenly end or you may have other challenges and you begin to go from grace to grass. So, it is wise to create multiple streams of income in your active years.

BUDGET EVERYTHING

I have also discovered that to be on top of your finance, you have to get accustomed to budgeting. I budget everything, including the money I give out to charities and benevolence.

If you do not budget your finances, you would get accustomed to spending on impulse and that is not the way that leads to wealth.

Let me share my experience with budgeting, especially when it has to do with giving. A lot of people think they can just come to you and demand money. What I have learnt to do is to budget how much I want to give per time and once it is exhausted, I have to wait another time. In that way, I don’t allow people to put me under pressure.

Again, a long time ago, I decided I would be saving a portion of my income for each of my children and that has helped a lot in the sense that they were given a head start in life.

When they started to grow up they already had something they could build on. They can decide to further their education with the money in their account.

Budgeting is a form of control. It enables you to track how you are doing when it comes to money matters. For instance, when you budget for a particular type of expenditure for the month, budgeting would make it possible for you to stick to those items. It does not mean you cannot exceed what you budgeted but budgeting allows you to stop and reflect and ask yourself questions.

Why did I exceed my expenditure target? Was the item I spent it on really necessary? Could I have avoided spending the money? What can I do to avoid such next time? Without a budget, such questions would not arise.

I have also learned that managing money is as important as making it. If you can budget, you would realise that what you thought was not enough can accomplish much. I must warn, however, that it takes discipline to budget but it can be learnt.

MY MOST ENDURING INVESTMENT ARE IN HUMAN BEINGS AND RELATIONSHIPS

I can state this without an iota of doubt: the most enduring investment anyone can make is in human beings and in building relationships.

The returns are long-lasting and for all seasons.

I have made many investments in businesses that have failed or from which I received no benefits or dividends.

I have placed money in banks and financial institutions that were lost. But I have discovered that most of the investments I have made in human beings have been profitable and have continued to yield benefits and returns. In my active service, I decided to invest financially

ME AND MY MONEY

As stated above my largest investments are in stocks and shares and I ensured that regular income from there will help meet my needs in retirement.

Three years before I retired, I worked on ensuring that I had functional accommodation in Lagos and my home in Abia State.

I knew I needed to be busy, making additional income to maintain my standard of living and giving back to society. Hence I set up a consulting firm and a foundation. Both have kept me quite busy. I also planned to write books and undertake other literary projects upon retirement. Overall, before I retired, I ensured that all of my children had finished school.

I have been retired for about 10 years now and I have been sufficiently busy, though there have been a few unexpected developments here and there. By and large, my deliberate retirement plans have enabled me to have a good experience since retirement.

THREE MONEY MISTAKES I HAVE MADE

The first was to borrow in foreign exchange to do business that earned local currency in an unstable and volatile exchange rate regime.

The second was to invest in a business without an appropriate marketing survey.

I made assumptions but those assumptions turned out false and I lost much of my money.

The third was entering into a partnership without fully investigating the background and history of my partner, only to lose money to a fraudulent partner.

MY FAVORITE MONEY BOOKS 1. THE $100 DOLLAR STARTUP - Chris Guillebeau 2. RICH DAD, POOR DAD - Robert T. Kiyosaki 3. THE RICHEST MAN IN BABYLON – George S.

with Yemisi Shyllon

You Must Prepare for the Worst Outcomes in Your Investments

W

e all fail many times with some of our decisions. No human being is perfect.

However, wealth builders must regularly augment their investment failures with sacrifices or cut in their expenditures.

Investment failures should normally be expected to occur, but wealth builders must adjust regularly to augment such accrued losses by looking out for areas to reduce spending for augmenting such losses, whenever they occur and use such reductions to cover for such losses in investments.

It is also important for wealth builders to always prepare for the worst in their investments.

Wealth builders must identify possible problems/failures that may arise and plan ahead against such failures. In doing this, wealth builders must take up insurance policies to cover such possible losses/failures. This is very vital.

They must anticipate the worst at all times when building wealth. Specifically, wealth builders must obtain insurance covers for their health, assets, accidents and fire, among others. Appropriate insurance covers must be taken and serviced regularly to protect wealth builders against the worst things that could possibly happen and which usually happen.

They must organise their finances regularly to provide insurance covers to protect them against usually foreseeable failures. All possible mishaps must be identified and anticipated, with preparations made against them, by taking up insurance policies, providing required protection of their assets and making necessary decisions to protect their accumulating and built-up wealth.

While in paid employment, I started with fire insurance, motor vehicle and health covers, even when I lived in rented and companyprovided accommodations. However, I have since graduated, and my insurance covers many other necessary areas.

Shyllon

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OPI NION

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T H I S D AY MONDAYSunday MARCH 2022 2022 20 14, November, Vol 27. No 10085

opinion@thisdaylive.com

www.thisdaylive.com

LESS TALK, MORE ACTION Gbajabiamila convenes education summit in a bid to resolve the ASUU impasse, writes AKIN OMOWALE

IKE OKONTA expresses pride as Nigerian youth are determined to take back their country

OPEN LETTER TO NIGERIAN YOUTH

Y See Page 26

TOO OLD TO RUN AISHA SHUAIBU argues that Nigeria has no business being led by old people

See Page 26

EDITORIAL

QATAR 2022: IT’S TIME FOR FOOTBALL

See Page 55

ou call yourselves the ‘Japa’ generation. And quite rightly. Nigeria at present is a mess politically, socially and economically and you want to migrate to Europe and North America where governments are more serious and accountable to their people. Migration is as old as human history, and people have always PRYHG WR RWKHU FOLPHV LQ VHDUFK RI IXOÀOOPHQW or adventure. I therefore refuse to criticize you for doing what others before you all over the world have always done.

But you also call yourselves the ‘Sore Soke’ generation – the young people who in late 2020 took on the might of the Nigerian police and in one week’s display of outrage, public demonstrations and sheer courage, used the ‘EndSars’ campaign to draw the nation’s attention to the corruption and highhandedness that is the hallmark of policing in this country. President Muhammadu’s response to your peaceful and patriotic gathering at Lekki Toll Gate was to unleash the murderous Nigerian Army against you, shooting and killing you even DV \RX ZHUH ZDYLQJ WKH QDWLRQDO ÁDJ DQG singing the national anthem. I salute you, Nigerian youth.

And now you have decided to intervene in the nation’s political arena after watching Nigerian politicians use their positions to enrich themselves and their relatives since the advent of the Fourth Republic in 1999, leaving the rest of the country a social and economic wreck. I want to tell you that your decision to join the political fray is a long overdue and is in fact in the Nigerian tradition going back to the early 1940s. It was the students of Kings College, Lagos that, angered at the depredations of British colonial rule and the seeming inability of Nigerian nationalists to unite and move against it, visited Herbert Macaulay and Nnamdi Azikiwe in 1944 and charged them with the task of establishing a political party that would unite all Nigerians and galvanise them to demand for independence immediately. Thus was born the National Council of Nigeria And The Cameroun (NCNC.) It can therefore be rightly said that Nigerian youth paved the way for independence in October 1960. But Nigerian youth did not just stand on the sidelines and watch the older politicians politic. They played a pivotal role in guiding the politics of the time by establishing the Zikist Movement in the early 1950s, uniting the north and the south in their insistence that independence be granted to Nigeria on the basis of socialism and a political structure that did away with the old three regions and put in their place a more balanced federation of several states. The Zikist Movement was 1LJHULD·V ÀUVW WUXO\ SDQ QDWLRQDO SROLWLFDO movement, eschewing ethnic and religious sentiments and insisting that the country’s

true enemy was British colonial rule and that it should be confronted by all Nigerians pulling together.

It is also a fact that the older politicians stabbed members of the Zikist Movement LQ WKH EDFN DQG WXUQHG DZD\ IURP WKH SDQ Nigerian ideals they had espoused in their rush to take over the reins of government from the departing British in 1960. The result was a bloody military coup six mere years DIWHU LQGHSHQGHQFH D EORRGLHU FRXQWHU FRXS and then a civil war that left the rest of the world asking whether Nigerian leaders had what it took to hold Africa’s most populous nation together as a united entity. I make bold to say that had the older politicians paid attention to what members of the Zikist Movement had to say concerning governance and political cohesion in the country, the chaos and bloodletting that marked the 1960s would have been avoided.

Nigerian youth intervened again in June 1993 when Moshood Abiola won the presidential election but General ,EUDKLP %DEDQJLGD IRU VHOI VHUYLQJ UHDVRQV refused to hand over the government of the country to him. Even long before this event, Nigerian youths had been mobilizing DJDLQVW %DEDQJLGD·V KDUH EUDLQHG 6WUXFWXUDO Adjustment Programme that had left ordinary Nigerians even more impoverished. They also wanted an immediate end to military rule and a return to democratic government.

The annulment of the presidential election result in June 1993 presented them with a welcome opportunity to do away with the military altogether and they did this with

In all indexes of national development, Nigeria is virtually crawling on the floor. That explains the decision of you, Nigerian youth, to intervene politically. I heartily welcome you to the arena

uncommon courage and political agility. The birthing of the Fourth Republic in May 1999 is the gift that Nigerian youth bequeathed to grateful Nigerians.

It is now an obvious fact that the promises RI WKH KDYH QRW EHHQ IXOÀOOHG 7KH politicians have not learnt their lessons. Like their predecessors in the unlamented First and Second Republics they have deployed ethnic and religious stratagems to hide their true objectives – plundering the national treasury.

In all indexes of national development, 1LJHULD LV YLUWXDOO\ FUDZOLQJ RQ WKH ÁRRU 7KDW explains the decision of you, Nigerian youth, to intervene politically. I heartily welcome you to the arena.

A good number of you have chosen to support the candidacy of Peter Obi. The reason for your choice is still a mystery to me but I respect your choice, nevertheless. However, my experience dealing with Nigerian politicians is that you cannot afford to give them a blank cheque, believing that they will execute the right policies and programmes once they get elected. You must rally together as youth and identify the core policies and programmes you want to see implemented and press them on Peter Obi. Even more important, you must unfurl a Nigerian Youth Charter as a guide to your future interactions with all Nigerian politicians, Peter Obi included. Also, assuming Peter Obi gets elected, you must insist that Nigerian youth occupy at least 30 percent of all the cabinet positions.

I was a youth like you when as a political journalist, I joined thousands of other youth to take on General Ibrahim Babangida in the early 1990s. If my generation has any achievement, it is that we gave Nigeria democracy in 1999. But that achievement is fast turning into a pyrrhic victory as I watch on the sidelines as the very prize some members of my generation paid the supreme price for has been turned into an avenue for incompetent and corrupt politicians to do as they please with the nation’s destiny. As I watch you, Nigerian youth, take to the streets and the social media insisting that enough is enough and that the time has come for you to take your country back, I can only express my pride in your generation. You are not talking ethnicity. You are not talking religion. You are simply saying that Nigeria presently is not working, and that you are now determined to make it work.

This is a noble sentiment. And I stand with you in your latest endeavor.

Dr Okonta was until recently Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Department of Politics at the University of Oxford. He now lives in Abuja.

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LESS TALK, MORE ACTION Gbajabiamila convenes education summit in a bid to resolve the ASUU impasse, writes AKIN OMOWALE the 2019 agreement, led by Nimi Briggs.

Adoption of UTAS. ASUU kicked against the introduction of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), and wants the government to accept its own UTAS.

Education is too important to be toyed with. The United Nations Education, 6FLHQWLÀF DQG &XOWXUDO 2UJDQL]DWLRQ (UNESCO) avers that education transforms lives and it is a great tool for eradicating poverty. According to the global body, education can uplift millions in poverty territory into the region of comfort. This is known as social mobility.

In fact, UNESCO stipulates allocation of 15 - 20 percent of the total developing nations’ budgets for education.

The pivotal role education plays in the socio-economic development of the nation made the Speaker, House of Representatives, Rt Hon. Olufemi Hakeem Gbajabiamila to wade into the crisis plaguing the sector, in particular the industrial action embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). It took the patriotic moves and intervention of the speaker for the striking University lecturers to return to classrooms after withdrawing services IRU HLJKW PRQWKV RYHU XQIXOÀOOHG agreements they had with the federal government.

7KH VSHFLÀF GHPDQGV RI $688 DUH DV follows: Funding for the revitalisation of public universities. The federal government, in its agreement entered with the union in 2009 and 2013, agreed to inject a total of N1.3 trillion into public universities in six tranches, starting from 2013. Only N200 billion has been released since 2013. Payment of earned academic allowances (EEA). The federal government had in 2019 agreed to pay lecturers EAA, but failed to implement LW 7KH JRYHUQPHQW ÀQDOO\ DJUHHG WR SD\ WKH ÀUVW WUDQFKH RI WKH EDFNORJ RI allowances in November 2019 and the second instalment by August 2020, but nothing was paid. In 2020, the federal government agreed to pay N40 billion. It also said it has released N22.127 billion earned allowances of both academic and non-academic workers of universities to 38 universities. Reconstitution of the FGN/ASUU 2009 Renegotiation Committee. The federal government agreed to renegotiate the 2009 agreement to review university’s conditions of service, funding, university autonomy and academic freedom. The conditions of service included a separate salary structure for university lectures to be known as ‘Consolidated University Academic Salary Structure’. Thirteen years later, the government inaugurated a seven-man committee to renegotiate

Also ASUU wants: the constitution of visitation panels. The union is demanding that the government ought WR YLVLW LWV XQLYHUVLWLHV HYHU\ ÀYH \HDUV according to the law, but the last visit was conducted in January 2011. The Nigerian JRYHUQPHQW ÀQDOO\ LQDXJXUDWHG SDQHOV for 36 universities, six for 25 polytechnics, DQG ÀYH IRU FROOHJHV RI HGXFDWLRQ The union is calling for the review of the Nigeria Universities Commission (2004) Act to tackle the proliferation of universities. Withheld salaries and non-remittance of check-off dues. These are contained on December 22, 2020 Memorandum of Action. ASUU accused the federal government of deducting check-off dues on behalf of the union and refused to remit the same between February and June 2020 and 26 percent budgetary allocation to the education sector. In a bid to improve the education sector, the union wants 26 percent of Nigeria’s annual budget to be allocated to education, and half of that allocation to universities. The above demands were partly met with commitment to gradually improve on sundry matters raised by the lecturers.

While, the parley brokered by Speaker Gbajabiamila was getting through, the federal government on its part stuck to its decision on ‘No Work, No Pay’; the October salaries of lecturers were paid on pro-rata basis. The action expectedly angered lecturers.

To forestall another round of ugly industrial action, Gbajabiamila, who was the chief mediator between federal government and ASUU waded in. He assured that the needful will be done by the federal government, while urging the lecturers to also show understanding.

In furtherance of this, and in order to ÀQG D ODVWLQJ VROXWLRQ WR WKH QDJJLQJ matters, he convened the education summit on the state of tertiary education in Nigeria that is scheduled to hold on November 22 and 23, 2022.

Gbajabiamila, in his welcome remarks at the resumption of plenary on Monday, said the summit will “begin the long overdue national conversation.”

According to him, stakeholders including scholars, tertiary education administrators, are billed to submit papers for presentation.

“The presentations and submissions will inform the policy recommendations of the summit and be published in a journal for policy action and academic reference.

So far, public interest both within and outside Nigeria has been impressive. We must ask and answer complex questions about the operating structure of our public tertiary institutions, sustainable funding, education quality and access”, Gbajabiamila said.

What Gbajabiamila has shown is called pragmatic leadership. He has consistently displayed his dexterity as a national leader that can be trusted. Many Nigerians who have lost hope in the leadership of the country, have gradually started having a change of mind that all hope is not lost. ·

Shuaibu is a member of THISDAY Editorial Board

AISHA SHUAIBU argues that Nigeria has no business being led by old people

TOO OLD TO RUN

“All over the world, young people want to see leaders with kindred spirits, whom they could dream and build. In an age when the world is mainstreaming Resource Mobilization, the present paradigm shift promises to usher in a smarter and inclusive Nigerian society” – Hamzat Lawal Conditions for new entrants into Nigerian governance improved for prospective youth political candidates after The Age Reduction Bill popularly known as the Not -Too- YoungTo- Run Bill was signed into law in 2018, making a 25- year- old eligible for the House of Representatives and House of Assembly and a 35- year-old eligible for the Office of the Senate, Governorship, and Presidency. Despite this, the 2023 elections have still seen low youth political participation, keeping the baby boomers as a persistent demographic bulge weighing down Nigerian governance. Despite the youth’s frustration with the ancient ways of thinking by our aged leaders, young citizens remain disengaged from electoral politics. This generational gap in governance explains why Nigerian politicians stand to prioritise the elderly more than the young. Fact remains that the more youth abstain from political participation, the more decisions from our legislators will be biased against their interests. Neglecting the absence of youth participation is a breeding ground for social inequality on a massive scale.

Redressing generational biases in the political system is a concern for all democracies and may be able to be addressed by legislators examining intergeneration issues, the implementation of mandatory voting, etc. Nigeria has no business being led by old people who should be settling into retirement.

The generational dimension is remarkably absent from political debates, making them inconsiderate of true democracy, youth and inclusion. The respite gained by the older generation will certainly have to be paid for by the younger ones in the long run. It is not overambitious to desire a leader who can catch Nigeria up to its potential, particularly through human capital development, but Nigerian leaders continue to express the facts DQG ÀJXUHV RI HFRQRPLF JURZWK WKURXJK human capital and are still yet to place education and health at the forefront of their progressive agendas. By not challenging the ‘analogue’ thinkers that insist on leadership in a predominantly youth nation, the fate of most citizens under 30 will be fundamentally affected. Political priorities differ between older leaders who want to preserve backward ideologies that are seemingly failing the

country every day instead of the fresher ideas that understand the importance of leveraging the capacity of Nigerians to alleviate our country of its reliance on imports and oil production.

To represent Nigerians is to be fearless, commanding and disruptive. It is to be aware of the aged Nigerians who remain in positions they should have been retired from, the setbacks youth face in the public and private sectors, and how to create a better environment for smart work and innovative ideas to thrive. It is to be concerned about the access of Nigerians to an income, safety and an education, and to mobilise the best among us to head our government Ministries, Agencies and Departments. While we worry about the fate of the nation, that concern is further amplified by the sight of presidential aspirants slurring their words and falling asleep on national television. We must take seriously our local and global representation by having younger and sharper minds in political office with the capacity and willingness to perform better than what we are currently being subjected to. To make way for more youth political participation, we must create a culture of accountability by those already in office and not glamorize a job that should be in service to the people, not one that sacrifices them. The cost of failure must be higher than that of entry into governance to purge the system of inactivity.

Nigerians should have a say in who is too old to run for public office and this discourse should not be about age alone but more about personal ideology. We cannot afford to further descend into the pit of despair as the bar for good leadership gets lower and lower. Our youth must begin to understand that change occurs faster from the inside. Let every old man or woman who assumes the seat of leadership in our country serve as a motivator to be concerned about governance and to get involved as soon as possible.

YIAGA Africa sets an example of how the youth can unite for progressive change after spending two years striving and eventually altering sections of the Nigerian constitution successfully. It is in the strengthening of our democracy and governance systems that we will begin to fix the deeply embedded rot. We must shorten the gap between those deciding policy and those who weather its effects and this should be a major concern for the youth as they have the most at stake.

Shuaibu is a member of THISDAY Editorial Board

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER NOVEMBER 20, 2022

PERSPECTIVE 2023/2024 and Okun’s Quest for Kogi Governorship Tunde Olusunle

S

elect leaders and socio-cultural groupings from the Okun nation in Kogi State have once again, commenced fervid advocacy in the continuing quest for the governorship slot of the multicultural middle belt state. The state is host to the intersection of two of Nigeria’s largest rivers, the River Niger and River Benue, which can be gleaned from ample elevations in the state capital, Lokoja and its environs. The Okun quest has become a regular refrain, since the emplacement of the state on August 27, 1991, by the administration of Nigeria’s erstwhile military President, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (rtd). For the purposes of elucidation, the Okun nationality comprises of the Okun-Yoruba speaking peoples of six out of seven local government areas, (LGAs), in Kogi West senatorial zone in Kogi State. Okun people are to be found in: Yagba East, Yagba West, Mopamuro, Ijumu, Kabba-Bunu, and the Oworo district in Lokoja LGA. Okunland is the fountain of several revered scholars, technocrats, bureaucrats, businessmen, military top brass, legal luminaries, among several other specialists.

It has been postulated that Okunland alone, has the highest percentage per square metre of professors in Nigeria, over and above the numbers posted by any other state within similar JHRSK\VLFDO ERXQGDULHV )LYH KXQGUHG DQG ÀIW\ SURIHVVRUV have been documented thus far from the area, while other Okun intellectuals are regularly joining the topmost rungs of academic attainments. The distribution of doctorate degrees is almost per household. There are two in my family for instance, while three are in the mint. Over a dozen legal luminaries of WKH UDQN RI 6HQLRU $GYRFDWH RI 1LJHULD 6$1 DUH LGHQWLÀDEOH from the same catchment. Okunland is home to Africa’s largest cement plant, the Dangote Obajana Cement Complex, in Lokoja LGA. A second such industry being driven by Mangal 1LJHULD /LPLWHG LV JHWWLQJ RͿ WKH JURXQG LQ ,MXPX /*$ The population of Okun people is approximately 800,000.

This indeed is bigger than the numerical size of some countries in the world. Guyana, Western Sahara, Barbados, Malta, Macau, Sao Tome and Principe, among others, are indeed by size and population, smaller than contemporary Okunland.

The preceding attributes of the sub-nationality, attest to the quantum and quality of the human and mineral resource base of Okunland.

Despite these mouthwatering attractions and endowments of Okunland, however, it has been regularly and deliberately XQGHUPLQHG HYHQ VSLWHG LQ WKH TXHVW IRU WKH 1XPEHU 2QH R΀FH in the state, over time. No Okun person has been substantive chief executive of Kogi State. $KHDG RI WKH RͿ VHDVRQ JXEHUQDWRULDO HOHFWLRQ LQ WKH VWDWH which is scheduled for the last quarter of 2023, agitations have begun from various ethnicities and senatorial zones, for the top job. Hitherto, the predominantly Igala speaking .RJL (DVW KDG H[HUFLVHG YLUWXDO PRQRSRO\ RI WKH R΀FH %HJLQning from the pioneer civilian administration of Abubakar Audu between January 2, 1992 to November 1993, Kogi East KDV PDLQWDLQHG D VWUDQJOHKROG RQ WKH R΀FH :LWK WKH GDZQ of democratic governance in 1999, Audu, a seasoned bank H[HFXWLYH ZKR ÁHZ WKH ÁDJ RI WKH QRZ GHIXQFW $OO 1LJHULD Peoples Party (ANPP), returned to Lugard House.

Government House, Lokoja is so called because it was christened after the British Governor-General of Nigeria, Frederick Lugard, who once lived in the town. Lugard reportedly oversaw the amalgamation of the northern and southern Nigerian protectorates, into what stands as Nigeria today. He was also the pioneer Governor-General of the new creation. In a very rare appearance of an Okun personality on the gubernatorial ballot in Kogi State, Stephen Olorunfemi, a successful architect and businessman, of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), sparred with Audu in the 1999 polls.

Audu, however, lost his reelection bid in 2003, to Ibrahim Idris, who is also from Igalaland. Idris was to savour a twoWHUP WLFNHW ZKLFK NHSW KLP LQ R΀FH IRU HLJKW \HDUV ,QGHHG KH VWD\HG LQ R΀FH D IHZ PRQWKV EH\RQG WKH HLJKW \HDUV EHFDXVH his reelection in 2007 was challenged in court by Audu, his serial co-competitor. A rerun was subsequently ordered by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) about VL[ PRQWKV LQWR ,GULV· VHFRQG WHUP ,GULV YDFDWHG R΀FH IRU a few months, to allow for the conduct of a fresh election which he won. During the interregnum, Clarence Olafemi, Speaker of the Kogi State House of Assembly, (KSHA), stood in as Acting Governor. Idris won the election and returned WR R΀FH IRU D IUHVK UXQ RI IRXU \HDUV Preparatory to the completion of Idris’ second term, the ruling PDP in 2011, conducted a gubernatorial primary to HOHFW D ÁDJEHDUHU ,W KDV EHHQ DGYDQFHG WKDW UHPDLQHG the best chance of Okunland to produce a governor, a brilliant and competent one at that. Okun achievers like: Bayo Ojo, SAN, (former Attorney-General and Justice Minister); Olusola $NDQPRGH IRUPHU &KLHI RI 6WDͿ WR WKH 9LFH 3UHVLGHQW DQG Clarence Olafemi, erstwhile Speaker of KSHA, all contested WKH SULPDU\ ,GULV· ORQJVHUYLQJ ÀQDQFH FRPPLVVLRQHU %LRGXQ Ojo; telecommunications businessman, Dehinde Abolarin, DQG IRUPHU PLOLWDU\ R΀FHU %HOOR )DGLOH DOVR WKUHZ WKHLU KDWV in the ring.

While Okun contestants shredded the delegates’ votes which

Bello

has been perfected to accord every segment of the various states a sense of belonging. Beginning in 1999 with an Urhobo governor in James Ibori, other ethnicities are taking their turns in Delta State. Emmanuel Uduaghan, (2007 to 2015) and ,IHDQ\L 2NRZD WR WKH SUHVHQW KDYH ÁRZQ WKH ÁDJV RI the Itsekiris and Aniomas respectively.

Rotation has also been perfected in states like Cross River, where all three governors since 1999- Donald Duke, Liyel ,PRNH DQG WKH LQFXPEHQW %HQ $\DGH FRPH IURP GLͿHUHQW senatorial zones in the state. The same obtains even in culturally homogenous entities like Enugu, Bayelsa, Anambra and so on.

Against the background of the serial marginalisation of Okunland from the political scheme in Kogi State, leaders from the area have on several occasions, canvassed the creation of an Okun State. The initiative is intended to accommodate Okun people in Kwara, Ekiti and Ondo states respectively, bound together by the same sociology, culture, tongues and ZRUOGYLHZ 6XEPLVVLRQV WR WKLV HͿHFW KDYH EHHQ PDGH WR the “2014 National Conference,” set up by former president, Goodluck Jonathan, and relevant committees of the National Assembly. This explains the profundity of the pangs of pain, thus far endured by the Okun people and Kogi West in general, in the sustained dysfunctional political equation in Kogi State.

From feelers on the streets of Lokoja, all three senatorial zones are bracing up to challenge for Lugard House, even as ,1(& KDV À[HG WKH JXEHUQDWRULDO SULPDU\ DURXQG PLG 7KH ,JDOD KDYH IHOW OLNH ÀVK RXW RI ZDWHU WKHVH SDVW VHYHQ \HDUV relegated to the backup position of deputy governor, whereas WKH\ KLWKHUWR FDOOHG WKH VKRWV 7KH (ELUD DUH Á\LQJ D NLWH WR WKH HͿHFW WKDW WKH\ EH DOORZHG WR VHUYH DQ DGGLWLRQDO WZR WHUPV of eight years, at the end of Bello’s regime. A mischievous billboard was recently erected on the streets of Lokoja with numerals asking for Ebiraland to run a seamless 16 years, to approximate Igalaland’s 18. In this calculus, no mention was made of Okunland which is expected to remain at “zero years” in the political scheme.

A number of press conferences have been addressed at the levels of the Okun Development Association (ODA), drawing attention to the recurring relegation of Okunland in the Kogi geopolitical scheme. Another body under the umbrella of the ODA, Okun Development Initiative (ODI) convened by Olusuyi Otitoju and Lekan Aiyenigba, on Saturday September 17, setup a lobby group to meet with and secure the buy-in of SROLWLFDO ÀJXUHV DFURVV WKH YDULRXV FRQVWLWXHQFLHV DQG ]RQHV RI the state. The membership includes Sola Enikanolaye, (retired ambassador); Clarence Olafemi, (former acting governor); Mike Ikupolati and Kola Olorunleke, (both professors); Oladimeji Adeoye and B.F. Ayeni, (both retired army generals), and Funmilayo Bodunde, (respected woman leader). Tunde Bello and Bamidele Suru, (both highly regarded attorneys), are also in the group. The aim is to deepen the imperative of prioritising the “Okun for Governor” agenda, in popular consciousness as we stride towards 2023/2024.

On Friday October 21, 2022, the Okun Think Tank (OTT), the technocratic arm of ODA, held a meeting convened in Abuja, by its vice chairman, Julius Olakunle Oshanupin, a retired army general, on the same subject. Olu Obafemi, (distinguished professor and recipient of the Nigeria National Order of Merit, (NNOM)); Joash Amupitan, (SAN, professor and deputy vice-chancellor (administration) of the University of Jos) and Mike Kupolati, (also a professor, were in attendance.

ODA president, Femi Mokikan, (a revered attorney); Babatunde Paul Fadumiyo, Akenson Rotimi and Olusegun Ijagbemi, (all retired ambassadors); Adekunle Obayemi, (retired air commodore); Dan Kunle, (reputable business consultant); J O Yusuf (political leader) and Salman Idris, (seasoned architect), honoured the invite.

The consensus at the meeting was that power is never served on a platter, but wrestled from the grips of power mongers. It was proposed that a team of political strategists be purposely HQJDJHG LI ZH GR QRW KDYH SHRSOH ZLWK VXFK SURÀFLHQFLHV LQ the ranks of Okun people.

Many presidents across the globe, engaged multitasking strategists to help plot and plan their pathways to power.

Such professionals should draw up for Okunland, a blueprint DERXW KRZ WR EHVW SXOORXW WKH FKHVWQXW IURP WKH ÀUHSODFH KRZ to confront, clobber and carpet the lion in its own den. The challenge for the acquisition of power from the status quo in Kogi State, it was agreed, is a combination of the genteel and the robust. In all of these, Okunland will work with its people in the Lokoja and Kotonkarfe LGAs with whom it shares the Kogi West senatorial zone, and believers in fairness, equity and justice, across the state and beyond. ,UUHVSHFWLYH RI SDUW\ D΀OLDWLRQ 2NXQ SHRSOH PXVW JLUG WKHLU loins for the proper plunge and push for Lugard House, Lokoja, if they must secure the ultimate trophy. Prejudices, animosities, jealousies and presumptuousness must be exorcised even from the onset. This is not the time for chicanery, debauchery, subterfuge and brinkmanship in any form. Distractions and diversions must be dispensed with, even from the starting blocks of the project. Okun people must approach this with a “never say die,” “forward ever” resolve, until the tape is ÀQDOO\ EUHDVWHG

they should have harnessed into a single pot, it was easy for Idris in furtherance of the Igala agenda, to settle for Jibrin Isah, a bank executive. Even when the primary was cancelled and a rerun ordered by INEC, Idris who had fallen out with Isah, installed yet another kinsman and favourite, Idris Wada, an aviator, consistent with Nigeria’s nepotistic democratic model. Wada led the state from January 2012 to January 2016. The late Abubakar Audu who ran against Wada on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was coasting to victory during the October 2015 governorship election, when he died in very mysterious circumstances.

Instructively, there was an attempt in the aftermath of the 2015 general election, to forge rapprochement between Kogi West and Kogi Central, for the mutual EHQHÀW RI ERWK ]RQHV 7KH UHVXOWV RI WKH SUHVLGHQWLDO election for that year, showed that the votes from both zones, far outweighed the tally from Kogi East. The West and Central therefore reignited their age-old political homogeneity, which had both zones together in the former Kwara State, before the 1991 states creation exercise. Both zones believed that if they stuck together and worked as a monolithic bloc, they could neutralise Kogi East. Former health minister, Eyitayo Lambo, (emeritus professor), was one of the prime movers of the initiative.

In a curious manifestation of novel legal gymnastics, Yahaya Bello, an Ebira from Kogi Central who posted second place at the APC governorship primary which produced Audu, was assigned the votes garnered by Audu and returned as governor!

The maverick afrobeat musician, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti would have described that as “government magic... where red is turned into blue!” There is as yet no such precedence in Nigeria’s staccato democratic H[SHULHQFH EHJLQQLQJ IURP WKH ÀUVW UHSXEOLF LQ WKH 1960s. Bello who has administered the state with legendary malevolence and cold-bloodedness since January 2016, appropriated to himself a second term LQ R΀FH EHJLQQLQJ IURP -DQXDU\ VSHFLÀFDOO\ by the barrel of the gun. Bello’s electoral ingenuity inspired the release of the hit “musical track and music video” ta-ta-ta-ta-ta.

With the rapid onset of the completion of Bello’s second term, the political air in Kogi State is abuzz, expectedly. The space is dominated by discussions and postulations about where the governorship pendulum should swing, come January 2024. Between Audu, Idris and Wada, the Igala in Kogi East, grossed a minimum of 18 years at the helm in Lugard House. %\ WKH WLPH %HOOR FRQFOXGHV KLV VHFRQG WHUP LQ R΀FH in 2024, the Ebira of Kogi Central, would have logged HLJKW \HDUV LQ WKH VDPH R΀FH ,Q D UDWLRQDO IUHH DQG fair political situation, Okunland should automatically and unanimously produce Bello’s successor.

Kogi is not the only state which is home to divergent Olusunle, a poet, journalist, scholar and author, is a Member cultures and ethnicities. Elsewhere, seamless rotation of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE)

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T H I S D AY SUNDAY NOVEMBER 20, 2022

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

EDITORIAL

QATAR 2022: IT’S TIME FOR FOOTBALL Let football take the centre stage in Qatar

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he 22nd edition of the FIFA men’s the effects of the soaring heat on the spectators World Cup tournament is scheduled DQG WHDPV DOO WKH YHQXHV KDYH EHHQ ÀWWHG ZLWK DLU to kick off today in Doha, Qatar. In FRQGLWLRQLQJ DQG FRROLQJ WHFKQRORJ\ %XW WKHUH LV HYHU\ UDPLÀFDWLRQ WKLV HGLWLRQ LV TXLWH the challenge of accommodation in a small country. different from any that has been held However, whatever the backlash against the since the 1930 inaugural tournament choice of Qatar, it still does not take the shine off the LQ 8UXJXD\ ,W LV WKH ÀUVW WLPH WKLV JOREDO IRRWEDOO World Cup as the most coveted football tournament showpiece will be taking place in the Middle East in the modern era. FIFA president, Gianni Infantino DQG WKH $UDE ZRUOG )RU WKH ÀUVW WLPH DOVR WKH has written to all 32 competing nations, urging them World Cup will be played during the Northern to “let football take the stage” in Qatar. From today, Hemisphere mild winter months of November– that’ will be the reality. Countries derive absolute December outside the usual June-July schedule.

SULGH LQ TXDOLI\LQJ IRU WKH HYHQW ZKLOH ZLQQLQJ WKH With the farthest venue barely 20 minutes away World Cup is considered the ultimate benchmark from the city centre, the tournament will last only to measure nationalism. Eight countries; Uruguay, 29 days, making it one %UD]LO ,WDO\ (QJODQG Germany, France, of the shortest in more Argentina and Spain than four decades. The have lifted the trophy ÀQDO RI WKH WRXUQDPHQW since inception. Of the will be played on 18th SDFN %UD]LO LV WKH PRVW December with 32 Countries derive absolute pride in qualifying for the event while successful nation having countries competing lifted the trophy on across 64 matches. winning the World Cup is considered the ultimate ÀYH GLIIHUHQW RFFDVLRQV Meanwhile, Qatar benchmark to measure nationalism while Germany has four got the hosting rights victories. in 2010 after beating off Coming home, missing stiff competition from out of the global showpiece is a real blow for Nigeria, the United States and Australia. The gulf nation, ZKLFK IDLOHG WR VHFXUH LWV VHYHQWK TXDOLÀFDWLRQ of less than three million people has spent over for the World Cup after it failed to secure one of $200 billion in providing the eight match venues, $IULFD·V ÀYH VORWV IROORZLQJ GHIHDW E\ SHUHQQLDO hotels, roads and other supporting state of the art ULYDOV WKH %ODFN 6WDUV RI *KDQD ,QGHHG WKH 6XSHU infrastructure that will ensure the success of the (DJOHV QRQ TXDOLÀFDWLRQ IRU 4DWDU PDNHV LW TXDGUHQQLDO WRXUQDPHQW %XW 4DWDU KDV WKH ÀUVW WLPH WKH WKUHH WLPH $IULFD FKDPSLRQV ZLOO been a polarising choice with many openly be missing on the world’s biggest stage since the TXHVWLRQLQJ WKH SURSULHW\ RI KRVWLQJ WKH :RUOG 2010 edition in South Africa. In monetary terms, Cup in the Persian peninsular. For several years, Nigeria will not be getting a share of the $440 the decision has been criticised by football PLOOLRQ ZLQGIDOO LQ SUL]H PRQH\ JLYHQ E\ ),)$ IRU stakeholders across all divides. Corruption the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The Eagles will also allegations were heaped against FIFA executives miss the participation fee of $1.5million paid to in the award of the tournament to Qatar. That is every participating country and $13 million aside the country’s human rights record and the they stand to receive if they advance into the treatment of the 30,000 migrant labourers, who round of 16. endured difficult conditions to build the stadia.

While the setback may be a disappointment The logic of playing 64 matches in venues for the country, the current situation is an separated by a maximum radius of 46 miles and opportunity for our football administrators to in a country that is less than one-sixth of Niger reset the cue button and develop our football.

6WDWH LQ 1LJHULD LQ ODQGPDVV KDV EHHQ TXHVWLRQHG Indeed, this is the time for us to commence It has already disrupted the international preparations for the 2026 World Cup to be football calendar and forced many leagues in jointly hosted by the United States, Mexico and Europe to reschedule many fixtures in order to Canada. accommodate the tournament. In order to lessen Letters to the Editor

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

LETTERS UKO UDOM AND IBOM AIRLINES We have stumbled on a piece of authored by a Uko Udom who is said to be a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Akwa Ibom State. The piece against our principal and foremost entrepreneur, Obong Akanimo Udofia is riddled with ignorance - that Udofia claimed ownership of Ibom Airlines and some of the aircraft in its fleet.

We consider it worthless joining issues with idle and visionless appointees of government, but for our commitment to continually further the ideals of truth and responsibility and to deepen the conversation around the state of our government/governance, we wish to state the following facts for the benefit of our compatriots and supporters.

Our principal, Obong Akanimo Udofia did not lay claim to ownership of Ibom Airlines or any aircraft in its fleet. There is no evidence anywhere that such a claim was made. The video referred to clearly does not make that claim so it is embarrassing for Udom to accuse our principal of wrongdoing. For the avoidance of doubts, the idea of Ibom Airlines Limited, was not conceived by Governor Udom Emmanuel contrary

to what Udom would want the world to believe when he said; “the idea of Ibom Air was conceived and executed by His Excellency, Governor Udom Emmanuel” who at the time was a staff of Zenith %DQN 3OF Nothing could be farther from the truth as records show that Ibom Airlines Limited was incorporated in 2013 by Governor Godswill Akpabio after our principal shared the idea of an airline with him sometime in 2012. The man hailed as the “uncommon WUDQVIRUPHU WKHUHDIWHU YLVLWHG WKH %RPEDUGLHU IDFLOLW\ in Toulouse in France to further explore the possibility of giving life to our principal’s vision. The fact is, Ibom Airlines Limited that Mr. Udom Emmanuel inherited as governor in 2015 was our principal’s brainchild!

In fact, in furtherance of the “shared vision”, His Excellency, Godswill Akpabio then sponsored 32 Akwa Ibom indigenes for training in Air Traffic Control (ATC) in various institutions abroad. These graduates are today working in several airports in Nigeria.

Obong Akan Udofia then trained the first female pilot of Akwa Ibom descent. Our principal from 2019

went on to lobby his friends in the Aviation Ministry and Nigerian Air Force to secure the Air Traffic Control (ATC) status for Obong Attah International Airport. This has culminated in our state being the hub for ATC in Nigeria today.

Udom stood truth on its head when he claimed “ … the Airline is owned 100% by Akwa Ibom State”. Ibom Airlines Limited is not owned by Akwa Ibom State (Government) and is incapable of being “owned” in a legal sense. For the purpose of enlightenment, Ibom Airlines Limited is a limited liability company and therefore a juristic person.

Indeed, while Udom’s piece failed to prove any wrongdoing against Obong Akanimo Udofia, it inadvertently magnified the relationship of Uko Udom, Mfon Udom and Governor Udom Emmanuel in the light of their recent and strategic repositioning of the corporate governance structure in the airline.

Akan Udofia’s aspiration to the governorship of Akwa Ibom State is predicated on his commitment to entrenching his vision of “shared prosperity” and development for the people of our beloved state. What he deserves is commendation and not condemnation

and deliberate fabrication of lies with the sole aim of damaging his hard-earned reputation and bringing him to disrepute. ,W LV LQFRQWURYHUWLEOH WKDW DV D SULYDWH FLWL]HQ 8GRILD KDV partnered and supported successive administrations in the state in various developmental initiatives, charitable causes and philanthropic gestures.

Today, it is easy to say that Udofia is the largest philanthropist in the history of Akwa Ibom. In 2019 he singlehandedly built and donated an ultra-modern 105-bedroom hostel for postgraduate students of Akwa Ibom State University, Ikot Akpaden.

In recognition of his entrepreneurial prowess and philanthropy, in 2016 he became the first and only recipient of Akwa Ibom Award of Entrepreneurial Excellence by Governor Udom Emmanuel the executive governor, Akwa Ibom State.

It is on account of these gestures and many others that his bid to seek office as the Governor of Akwa Ibom State has resonated well with the good people of the State.

Imo E. Akpan, Akanimo Udofia Campaign Council

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SUNDAY NOVEMBER 20, 2022 • T H I S D AY

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WEEKLY PULL-OUT

20.11.2022

FOLAKE MAJIN FRINGES OF A LIFE OF A FASHIONISTA She is one of the foremost fashion designers in Nigeria with experience spanning over three decades. She has clothed celebrities such as first ladies, society ladies as well as many corporate clienteles. Folake Majin, is the creative and managing director of Schon Afrique label, under which she runs her own individual label, the Folake Majin brand. Her exclusive designs have featured in top Nigerian magazines and attracted international attention; vogue and Getty images. The Ahmadu Bello University English graduate has plied her fashion trade for 35 years.

In this encounter with Funke Olaode, the Kogi-born celebrity designer recounts how she has evolved from being a classroom teacher to a fashion mogul.

ASSISTANT EDITOR OLUFUNKE OLAODE/victoria.olaode@thisdaylive.com.

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COVER

I Discovered Fashion was Part of Me Since Childhood

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er passion for fashion traces back to her childhood. Her ingenuity and creativity of paying attention to details have drawn several high profile clienteles into her fashion tent.

Mrs. Folake Majin, is the creative and managing director of Schon Afrique label, under which she runs her own individual label, the Folake Majin brand. Mrs. Majin has been in the fashion business for 35 years and continues to dictate the fashion space because of her wow effect she often creates for her high profile clientele. She is known in the celebrity circle for her unique stunning and classy designs.

Timeless and classic, she is known for bespoke pieces for confident women with a desire to ‘stand out’ outfits that don’t necessarily follow trends but stand the test of time. Often referred to as “Designer of First Ladies,” her clothes have adorned industry leaders in government, media, arts, and music and film industries.

Her exclusive designs have featured in top Nigerian Magazines and attracted international attention; vogue and Getty images to name a few. She’s a member of Manufacturers association of Nigeria (MAN), a member of Fashion designers association of Nigeria (FADAN)and the Vice President of Apparel and Accessories Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (AAMAN ).

Welcoming this reporter into her upscale showroom in Lekki, Lagos, the ambience speaks volumes about the affluence and opulence embedded in every stitch accompanied by tailored precision. Mrs. Majin has been operating in a different location for years, her new abode is more conducive, convenient and of course, closer to her clients who are all about that fit.

Born 65 years ago, the mother of six (three boys and girls) hails from the Yoruba speaking area of Kogi state but lived in Ilorin with her parents while growing up. “I grew up in Ilorin, a conservative setting. I remember as a child, my father was in University College London (UCL), and my mother was a school teacher.

My parents were disciplinarians, especially my mother. Maybe because my father was always not around. When he came, his biggest punishment was, ‘put your hands behind your back.’ But my mum, possibly until I got married, I used to think that she didn’t like me.

She was very strict. Every mistake comes with some smacks and beating. I remember she once gave me gold earrings that I lost in church one day and it was hell,” she recounted with nostalgia.

A well-grounded and courteous woman, Mrs. Majin imbibed the culture of etiquette right from her school days at Queen Amina College in Kaduna. “My secondary school was one of the best experiences of my life, because I went to Catholic school. And there were a lot of values we were taught as children. I find it odd when people break the law, for example, crossing the lawn, sitting carelessly etc.”

After leaving Queen Amina College, Mrs. Majin wanted a career in the wig but couldn’t get admission to study law. She settled for English at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. “I didn’t regret that decision because I have always had interest in Arts, Literature and so on. It was a nice course for me to study. In those days, you didn’t just study only that course. We did courses in Social Sciences such as Economics.

So, it was a very good experience.”

Before her foray into the fashion industry, Mrs. Majin was a classroom teacher. “After the mandatory youth service I got married and relocated to Minna where I was teaching.

I taught for a few months, then my husband got transferred to the Ministry of Defence, Lagos.”

While doing a sit-at-home wife and mum, consciously or unconsciously, Mrs. Majin was re-awakening his childhood ambition of being a fashion designer. “I have always liked fashion. And as far as fashion goes if you ask me, in my next life what I will be, I’ll tell you I would be a fashion designer. I discovered this part of me ever since I was still a child.

We always look forward to all the ceremonial times when you have to do harvests and festivals in church. I have always been interested in fashion. But when I knew it was deep for me was when my mum made me an outfit I didn’t like. I refused to go to church and I hid.”

The flame of fashion was reignited in the university as an undergraduate where she called the shots dictating the fashion space.

She was admired by all for her fashion sense until she graduated. Mrs. Majin decided to make a living out of her childhood dream

Majin

during an encounter with an old friend who admired her style and wanted a taste of her fashion sense. “It was my friend who wanted to copy styles that first ‘challenged’ me to give my talent a chance. And some weeks earlier, I was with my sisters-in-law at a breakfast table, and they were like, ‘aunty, you know this your fashion thing, your children are now grown, you can start it’. And I said okay, there are so many ways God talks to you. He talks to you through people as well, and you may not even realise that it was God. Because at that time, if you ask me, I wasn’t even thinking that way.

That’s how it started. I made the clothes for her.

And I decided to make more. I made like 20 more dresses. I did it for all my friends in Ikoyi then.”

A very consistent and hardworking woman. Mrs. Majin’s fashion journey began in the early 80s. And by the mid-80s, she had blossomed and became a go-to fashion for top society women of that era. “I was even making the clothes from a small confine in my house then. After some time, I decided that I have to take it more seriously. I actually was quite ambitious, that was how I got a place. Along the line I went on training in pattern making and pattern drafting, these are the technical, structural and engineering parts of fashion

designing, which is very important.”

For Mrs. Majin, one of her unique selling points or what makes her tick is her creativity which has been transferred to her offspring “For me, the design part of me is mostly a gift and a unique one because I have this ability to be able to design endlessly, and effortlessly. To be able to create exclusive designs per person no matter how many people I’m designing for. With the same fabrics, I can give everybody different styles. That’s clearly a gift. I didn’t go to any fashion school, it’s my children that went. Two of them are also into fashion now. They own their own companies, but once a while we collaborate to create a fashion show. We have done like two or three fashion shows that were sponsored by MTN, Bank of Industries a few years back.”

Having flourished in the fashion industry for close to four decades, Mrs. Majin attests to the fact that Nigerian brands have always stood out, become acceptable and has come to stay. “If you have an experience living in the north, it was never a pattern to look western.

In the north, fashionistas do their clothing in traditional attires. In the south also, we had

fashion designers such as Mrs. Folorunso Alakija that made their clothing in African Fabrics. The francophone countries were always true to their culture, they used African fabrics for their clothing.

Here in Nigeria, the late Mrs. Maryam Babangida made wearing Nigerian fabrics enviable. She was patronised by a lot of Nigerian designers making clothes for her, because she wanted to look authentically African. So, it wasn’t much of a problem convincing people to wear our cultural fabrics when I started.”

Narrating her challenges at the inception of her fashion business and how she navigated through it, according to her, ‘it was enormous’.

“There were challenges of power, getting professionals, people that knew how to cut precisely, getting pattern makers etc. Now the industry has grown. Then, there weren’t pattern makers. You had to use the foreigners, these are people from francophone countries. This was because they were ahead of us in indigenous fashion. And the designers there do pattern making and the like. Also, because I love lace a lot, I love the intricacies of lace, I have to train all my staff myself. That’s how they became experts.”

She started her fashion business in her flat and as her business grew, she got a warehouse and expanded her business. According to her, she was growing with her ambition. “I told you I was very ambitious. I took a whole flat when I first set out to get a place. I later moved to a warehouse at the back. My area of specialization then was African fabrics. I was making laces, Ankara, brocades etc. Along the line I discovered I was doing a lot. It was time consuming, and I was like how do I balance out, so I can do the thing that brings more of the cash rather than the passion. Which is the business side of fashion. I ventured into wholesales of traditional gowns, uniforms etc. I do bridal wear, special location wear, and traditional engagement wear, special wear, custom made.”

A few years back, Mrs. Majin was in the news for good reason when a photograph of one of her designs went viral. It was a picture of Nigeria’s First Lady, Mrs. Aisha Buhari. Did she actually make the dress? “Yes I did. I feel honoured and humbled. And I feel it’s the God factor for me, that’s what has brought me this far.

Mrs. Majin as a fashion entrepreneur is also rooted in the word of God. She is neither a pastor nor head of a church. Loving God comes to her naturally with her pastoral approach to life. “For me, it’s always the God factor. Where I am today is the God factor. Even the Fashion is the God factor. It’s not as if I deliberately set out to do fashion. Until I had my fourth child, I was purely a house wife. I used to live in Minna with my late husband. I moved to Lagos after I had my first child. While in Minna, I was teaching in a Girls’ school then. Because that was immediately after my youth service. I’m not religious because religion for me is appearance. However beyond appearance, your relationship with God and obedience to him matters a lot. If you see me do anything, it’s probably what I have experienced and the way that the lord leads and guides me, even without me asking. Even my meeting with God was divine. Nothing happens by accident and nothing happens without God. So I am very involved with God and His things and very involved with my church, the Baptist Church, Ikoyi. We are encouraged to hear from God, know God and serve him. And then, you have those circumstances around you, and you just find God at work, God will lead you.”

It has been 36 years of making Nigerian women beautiful through her breathtaking designs, Mrs. Majin said it is a terrain where she has found fulfillment apart from serving God.” Endowed with a babyface, smooth skin with a dark long silk hair, Mrs. Majin is also an embodiment of contentment. Any beauty routine?

“No. It is the joy of the Lord. It does not mean that one doesn’t have issues. His joy has made us look younger than our age. For me, makeup is not a must. I wear makeup when I’m going out or if I want to do a photo-shoot. Otherwise, everyday it’s just me and my powder. For my hair, I try my best to keep it looking this way. I give directions to my hair dressers rather than them telling me what to do for me. Over the years, I know what works for my hair.”

Mrs. Majin has been widowed for 8 years, having lost her husband in 2014. “God has been the glory and the lifter of my head. He has been my support, he has been my help, my joy and my everything. He is my providential provider.”

For deeply religious Mrs. Majin, her life lessons still rely solely on God. “God is the glory and the lifter of my head. Life has taught me that I must depend on God. Apart from him, I can do nothing. I’ve learnt to rely on God and depend on him. Everything he says in his words is meaningful to me. Despite surrounding issues in my life. I find joy in God alone. He has been faithful.”

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GLITZ ENTERTAINMENT

Fatai Rolling Dollar to be Immortalised in Hometown Stories by Vanessa Obioha

Late Fatai Rolling Dollar

Plans are underway to immortalise the late Juju maestro, Fatai Olagunju, popularly known as Fatai Rolling Dollar, in his hometown Ede, Osun, next year.

Spearheading this event is Dotun Taylor, the Yoruba Cultural Ambassador to Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Ogunwusi who has an array of events to mark the 10th remembrance of the late icon. A museum which will have materials, instruments and paraphernalia of the Agidigbo master will be launched in Ede. Also, there are plans to host a concert in Osun that

After Three Years, Kizz Daniel Returns to Lagos for Live Concert ‘Buga’ crooner, Kizz Daniel, will be holding his first headline concert since 2019 this December. The seasoned artist who has recently been on a global tour in major cities around the world and will be performing at the opening of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar is set to bring the Afroclassic experience to fans and the audience in Nigeria to kick start the festive season.

The concert tagged ‘Kizz Daniel Live in Lagos’ is organised by LiveWire Concerts, a leading concert production company. Also a subsidiary of Bluenote Entertainment, LiveWire Concerts comprises a team of seasoned show producers and top entertainment directors responsible for some of the most spectacular concerts in Nigeria, such as the ‘King Coal concert’ with Wande Coal and ‘Grown and Sexy’ with R&B artist, Joe in 2019.

While speaking about the ‘Kizz Daniel Live in Lagos’ concert, Seyi Sodimu, a veteran Nigerian singer and co-founder, LiveWire Concerts, said, “LiveWire has been created not just to produce concerts, but to create remarkable experiences that the audience would never forget. We want to achieve this with the Kizz Daniel Live in Lagos concert. Kizz Daniel is a talented artist with no bad songs and is loved by millions worldwide. We want to give the Nigerian audience, music lovers, and entertainment fans a unique experience that will be the highlight of their year.”

The concert will also feature star artists who have collaborated with the artist and will take place on December 17 at Eko Convention Centre.

will celebrate the life and times of Rolling Dollar. All of these will be supported by the Ooni of Ife and the Osun State Government.

To commence the planned remembrance, the deceased widow and children recently got a surprise visit from the Roots and Heritage Renaissance Cultural Initiative (RHRCI), an organisation founded by Taylor.

The group supplied the widow cartons of drinks, a generating set, a refrigerator, and some cash to support her business.

social issues.

Speaking about the show’s move to Africa Magic, Jideonwo shared, “Earlier this year, the amazing guys at DStv reached out to me - they wanted to acquire ‘With Chude’.

It was a massive validation of the work we are doing.”

This season Jideonwo is billed to interview some of the biggest names in Nigerian entertainment, from Joke Silva, Bolanle Ninalowo, and Uti Nwachukwu to Nkechi Blessing, Sola This month, the popular online series Sobowale and Funke Akindele. He will ‘With Chude’ started airing on DStv touch on issues such as mental health, and GOtv. The talk series which gained beating depression, and surviving a reputation for the anchor, Chude toxic relationships – hot topics that Jideonwo for his insightful interviews have held the attention of fans of his with top celebrities is the latest acquisition interviewees making the show a viable by the media company which is platform to provide insight and truth to passionate about telling authentic African many half-truths surrounding his guests. stories. Airing every Sunday, the show The weekly interviews are widely will feature celebrity interviews as well syndicated across terrestrial television and as interviews with everyday Nigerians, social media platforms, reaching an average discussing the most personal and relevant of eight million people weekly.

‘With Chude’ Moves to MultiChoice Platforms

US Mission Celebrates 3D Documentation of Busanyin Shrine

Kizz Daniel

Bolanle Olukanni Makes History as First African to Host IAA Conference about the opportunity, Olukanni said: TV host, Bolanle Olukanni “It was such an honour to raise the recently reached a milestone as Nigerian flag at such a prestigious the first African to host the Global event. The IAA is a global organization International Advertising Association with an extremely (IAA) Conference which was held in networked body that Bucharest, Romania. invites the top minds in She paired with BBC the global advertising broadcaster Kasia Madera industry. It was an at the conference which absolute pleasure to was held at the Bucharest host the conference National Opera House. and engage a highly The IAA is diversified an umbrella audience of organisation that professionals.” unites advertising Olukanni’s practitioners spread over 77 countries portfolio boasts across the world. hosting a variety of IAA’s Creativity4Better TV shows and events Conference is currently such as ‘Moments with the sixth edition in the Mo’ and ‘Juice’. She is history of the 84-year-old currently serving as the host for ‘Trophy Extra international organisation.

Special Band’.

Sharing her enthusiasm Bolanle Olukanni

K1 De Ultimate, Saheed Osupa Billed for Fuji: A Opera Concert K1 De Ultimate, Taye Currency, King Saheed Osupa and other Fuji musicians will be entertaining fans and lovers this festive period at the Fuji: A Opera, the premier multi-dimensional entertainment platform.

The event tagged ‘Fuji Vibrations’, is slated for December 8, and will provide a one-of-a-kind live music experience, showcasing exceptional talent from the Fuji world for one night only.

Ten acts will perform on a single stage at Muri Okunola Park, Victoria Island, Lagos. Other linedup Fuji artists include Sefiu Alao and KS1 Malaika among others. They will be paired with emerging Fuji talents to create dynamic sounds.

Fuji: A Opera premiered in December 2020 at the Alliance Française de Lagos/Mike Adenuga Centre in Lagos.

US Consul General, Will Stevens, in a conversation with the Principal Technical Officer, Heritage Department, National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Toyin Ajayi at the Osun Osogbo.

The 3D documentation of one of the eight monuments within the Osun-Osogbo Grove, Busanyin Shrine has been completed.

Supported through the US Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP), the project titled, ‘Digital Documentation, Training and Conservation Planning for National Heritage Busanyin Shrine within the Osun Osogbo Sacred Grove’ was awarded to CyArk, a Californiabased nonprofit.

AFCP was established in 2001 by the US Congress to assist countries in cultural heritage preservation while also demonstrating American respect

for other cultures.

At the public presentation in Osogbo, US Consul General Will Stevens explained that the 3D documentation of the Busanyin Shrine provides the most accurate record of the current conditions of the site to effectively plan a restoration project.

He thanked CyArk, Adunni Olorisa Trust and their local partners for working so hard to preserve a valuable national heritage. He also lauded their efforts in providing training to

local professionals to build capacity in digital documentation skills and cultural heritage management.

“The United States Mission to Nigeria has a long history of supporting the protection and preservation of Nigerian cultural heritage through the Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation,” Stevens said. “We have funded over $1 million for preservation projects across Nigeria through the AFCP in the last 10 years.”

In addition to the Busanyin Shrine project, additional AFCP projects include documentation and conservation of the 14th-century Sungbo Eredo earthworks of the Yoruba Ijebu Kingdom in South-west Nigeria; documentation of the Ifa oral traditions in Oyo State; rock art preservation project in Cross River and Jigawa states, among many others.

Alex Okosi Makes UK Black Powerlist 2023 Nigerian media and tech executive, Alex Okosi among other distinguished Africans have been recognised as part of Britain’s 100 most influential black people in the Powerlist 2022. Okosi, who is Managing Director, Emerging Markets, YouTube EMEA, where he is responsible for the platform’s growth in Russia, Africa, the Middle East and Turkey, spent 22 years at ViacomCBS in the US, Europe and Africa before taking on the role at YouTube.

Among his career highlights was developing the business plan and leading the rollout of the conglomerate’s entry into Africa.

The Powerlist was launched in 2007 to showcase black role models to young people. It is now regarded as the leading authority on issues of black influence. Now in its 15th year, The Powerlist, in partnership with J.P. Morgan, honours incredible men and women across a wide range of industries including business, science, technology and the arts.

CEO of Powerful Media, Michael Eboda said: “The Powerlist continues to be the leading showcase, acknowledgement and reminder of the amazing individuals of African, African Caribbean and African

American heritage we have in the UK and I would like to hugely congratulate each and everyone on the list.”

Judged by an independent panel of judges, this year’s list consists of several business leaders like Dean Forbes, CEO, Forterro Group; and Paulette Simpson, Executive, Corporate Affairs and Public Policy. Other notable Blacks in the list include the English actor Idris Elba and Duro Olowu, a Alex Okosi at the Black Nigerian-born British Excellence Awards.png fashion designer.

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HighLife

with KAYODE ALFRED 08116759807, E-mail: kayflex2@yahoo.com

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

Eyitayo London Stands Still for Julius Rone as He Signs Mega Deal Jegede Takes Akeredolu to the ‘Cleaners’

Jegede

When it comes to fights between political figures in Nigeria, anyone interested in safety and security better keep their distance. Otherwise, there would be fired bullets that would suddenly lob themselves into the teeth of overly concerned onlookers.

Consider the case of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State and the 2019 Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship aspirant, Eyitayo Jegede. After so long, they are still hard at the battle, throwing the occasional invective towards the direction of each other.

Jegede has once again visited his proverbial shrine to take a shot at his erstwhile political rival, Akeredolu.

Speaking during a radio programme, Jegede explained in that titillating fashion of his that Akeredolu was getting worse with age at managing the affairs of Ondo. Specifically, Jegede said that Ondo was getting worse under the government of Akeredolu, and this has been the case for six years now.

Based on the accusations presented by Jegede against Akeredolu, access to basic amenities in Ondo has become one of the glories of the past. The same is true for good roads, free medical services, and many other necessities for which a people would choose a government to serve them. Jegede noted that this was not the case when his party, PDP, was in power.

Never one to take a blow lying down, Akeredolu responded to Jegede’s criticism. According to him, Jegede is a victim of self-imposed ignorance and self-inflicted bitterness. Akeredolu then went on to highlight some of his doings in Ondo during the six years that Jegede mentioned, pointing out completed roads, among other accomplishments.

Akeredolu and Jegede’s bout of mercurial exchange is nothing new. Every time there is a need for either to speak and the other would certainly hear of it, invectives would be fired and egos would be bruised.

So, for men that are long past their teenage years, both Akeredolu and Jegede still have a lot of hot blood coursing through their veins.

Businessmen are prophets of enterprise.

They are the illustrious popes of commerce, robed and mitred in the resonance of their exploits. More often than not, they rise through the fog and the fire of enterprise to tower in dominion astride chains of businesses and industry.

Consider the Nigerian magnate, Julius Rone, the head honcho of UTM FLNG, for instance; he starts as a champion of trade, constantly battling the odds to protect the franchise he creates. Thus, he has the same fundamental psychology as the artist or inventor. He sets himself to certain tasks and the work absorbs, becoming an expression of his depth and persona.

He understands that there is no better ballast for keeping the mind steady on its keel, and saving it from the risk of lethargy, than business. He lives to the growth and perfection of enterprise as reflected in his exploits.

Rone has done it again! He has signed a multibillion-dollar partnership with KBR, JGC Corporation, and Technip Energies to design Nigeria’s first floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facility. The deal was signed on Wednesday, November 16, for the Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) of UTM’s natural gas project.

The latest effort comes nearly a year after UTM inked a memorandum of understanding with Afreximbank to finance $2 billion in order to create an opportunity to support a future final investment decision on the FLNG project.

Osula

Who can say what life has in store for a person? Usually, it is only when we look back that we can see and say that a downtrodden person can be restored to their zenith. For real estate baron and philanthropist, Princess Rosemary Osula

With the recent FEED contract, UTM will move the FLNG project from the fundraising stage to the implementation phase and will continue working with NNPC Limited and ExxonMobil to expedite the development, exploitation, and monetisation of stranded gas resources. The project’s completion will ensure energy security, access to energy, and clean cooking gas in Nigeria, the region, and beyond, as Europe seeks alternative gas suppliers as the bloc diversifies energy sources away from Russia due to the Ukraine conflict.

As Rone signed the deal with his beautiful wife, Yutee Rone, the Petroleum Minister, Chief Timipre Sylva, Ambassador Sharafa Isola, Nigeria’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, and others watched from behind,

grinning in apparent satisfaction.

With the first production from the $1.8 billion FLNG facility expected before 2027, UTM Offshore’s FLNG project will usher in a new age of LNG sector expansion in Nigeria and around the region as energy demand rises. Rone stated that Nigeria, with its vast gas reserves, is well positioned to increase its supply to Europe, and that UTM’s FLNG facility will be an enabler of industry expansion and Nigeria’s best practice in addressing critical gas industry challenges.

Interestingly, with the signed contract, the development of the FLNG facility in block OML 204 offshore Nigeria will kick off, enabling the exploitation of stranded gas resources sustainably while contributing to the Nigerian government’s agenda of reducing flaring and optimising environmental sustainability in energy developments, according to Sylva in a speech made during the signing ceremony of the contract.

“Following the signing of the PreFront End Engineering Design (Pre-FEED) contract to start the development of the 176 million cubic feet per day FLNG facility, the federal government expressed optimism about improved earnings from our gas monetisation scheme.; We are also elated that the UTM Offshore FLNG will be the first of such a project developed by an African company on the continent even as it will also significantly contribute to the Nigerian government’s agenda of reducing the flaring of associated gas across our industry.”

(known adoringly as Rosula), no truer words than restoration and rebirth have ever been said. Despite falling out of favour with the public for donkey years now, Rosula is back in the limelight and back for good.

The word on the street currently is that Rosula received a Doctor of Management Sciences Degree (Honoris Causa) from Igbinedion University, Okada, (IUO), in Edo State. The degree conferment is part of the highlights for the institution’s 20th convocation ceremony held on Saturday, November 12, 2022. Rosula was honoured as one of the daughters of the soil, one who has raised the reputation of an Edo person all across Nigeria. Moreover, she will share the stage with the Founder and President of the Believers Love World Ministries (Christ Embassy), Pastor Chris Oyakhilome.

Truly, it is clear that Rosula is coming

from the proverbial wastelands to receive the honorary title of noble at court. After all, very few Nigerians remember that Rosula used to be a household name all across the country. That was during the time of the late Gen. Sani Abacha. However, her fortune allegedly collapsed with Abacha’s death, and her businesses suffered mishap after mishap.

Of course, despite her troubles, Rosula has continued to be magnanimous to those that are fortunate to catch her eye.

Her NGO, Rosula Foundation, continues to push its agenda of empowerment, education and humanitarian service all across Nigeria. And after many awards, some honorary and others far less formal but equally prestigious, Rosula is set to climb back into the ranks of the appreciably high and indefatigably mighty.

Rone

Mike Dada Takes Eighth AFRIMA Awards to Senegal Some foreigners have nothing positive to say about Nigerians. They only know how to point out the black sheep of the great family of Nigeria. However, if these people discover high-flyers like Mike Dada, President of All Africa Music Awards (AFRIMA), it is a no-brainer that they would surrender their accusatory fingers and no longer pay heed to unsavoury tales. In the meantime, Dada and others like him continue to make Nigerians proud with their doings.

It is now clear to all with eyes to see that Dada intends to use AFRIMA to show the excellencies of Africa at large and Nigeria in particular. Based on the most recent reports regarding the plans for the highly anticipated eighth edition of the AFRIMA tagged ‘Teranga Edition,’ things are moving in tandem with Dada’s wishes to have the entire gig held at Dakar, the prestigious capital and largest city of Senegal.

According to reports, although the event is scheduled to be held on January

12 to 15, 2023, Dada has already met up with the President of the Republic of Senegal, Macky Sall. President Sall had Dada over for the weekend and went to great lengths to assure him that the entire Republic of Senegal is behind AFRIMA and will pull out all the stops to play the role of a gratified host.

Being his ever-charming self, Dada showed his gratitude to President Sall and the people of Senegal, thanking them specially for agreeing to host the eighth AFRIMA edition on their shores. He noted that he was looking forward to seeing Senegal’s robust collage of true talents in the music industry and other industries of creatives in Africa.

One must admit that Dada is going further and further into the distance, leaving his peers and their expectations in the dust.

But this is to be expected considering how diligent he always is while being AFRIMA president. Surely the day, when he ushers all of Africa’s music geniuses onto the global scene, is not far away.

Dada

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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 NOVEMBER 20, 2022

HIGHLIFE

New Chairman, Bimbo Ashiru Making Odu’a Group Great Again Nigeria will always have her trailblazers. These are individuals who will not stop reaching for the stars, no matter how unfavourable conditions are. For Bimbo Ashiru, this description is very perfect. However, he is different from other trailblazers in that all he does is for the people. No wonder the people of Odu’a Group happily urged him to take the position of Board Chairman. So far, Ashiru has not failed them.

There will always be people serving others with sincerity and grace. Ashiru can be placed in this category. Since climbing the ranks to become the Board Chairman of Odu’a Group, Ashiru has gone out of his way to manage and protect the interest of the six South-west states. It is no wonder the people in this region took time out to celebrate his appointment to the Board of the Odu’a Group.

Really, Ashiru is one of those people There is a kind of ridicule that boggles the mind. It is the kind that is far outside the realm of truth and possibility that it throws one off, leading one to ask the question: “Do they think that we have melons on top of our necks instead of heads?” Well, one such ridicule is currently circulating on Nigeria’s social media space, and it has to do with the Governor of Bayelsa State, Duoye Diri.

However, Diri does not intend to sit this one out but will fight tooth and nail to make sure that the truth surfaces.

Currently, the gist in town is that Governor Diri leaked the nude video of a female South African legislator named Zanele Sifuba. According to the ridiculous tale, Diri first asked Sifuba to pay him R300,000 (which is equivalent to N8 million) or face the music. And because Sifuba allegedly refused to pay Diri, the governor went ahead to post her nude video online.

with a mark of providence on them, or so it would seem from their achievements.

The man has too many glowing marks of greatness on him than this article can itemise. Nevertheless, he did his bit at Stanbic IBTC Bank before moving to serve Ogun State as the Honorable Commissioner for Commerce and Industry.

Of course, Ashiru has also fallen under the observatory radar of powers like the World Bank Group and others who count him as a genius of administration and management. Everything the man touches, it would seem, becomes golden in the shortest possible time. And this is the case for the Odu’a Group as well.

Thus, more and more individuals are looking to give their arms to study the motivation and methods of Ashiru.

Perhaps, if someone like him gets a bigger stage to work from, things would turn upside down and a historic revolution

Governor Diri Reads Riot Acts to Those Spreading Unverified Sex Story

Diri

Ashiru

would come about. But all this is speculation. What is sure is that Ashiru is doing an incredible job as the Board Chairman of Odu’a Group.

Interestingly, despite the sheer absurdity of the tale, several local blogs carried it upon themselves to publish it. Moreover, they did not consider the image of the governor or try to verify the tale. As a result, Diri’s name has been dragged through the mud. Knowing this, the governor has promised in very strong terms to find out who spun the narrative from the very beginning since it is clear that such a person intended to blackstripe his reputation.

It is all the more interesting considering that Diri has been minding the business of the victims of flooding in Bayelsa. Going from one flooded town to another, Diri’s work has even earned him the approval of some of his former critics.

Things will certainly reach a melting point, very soon. This much is sure considering that Diri is very angry this time around and ready to hunt down everybody tarnishing his name.

Senator Saraki, Gbemi and Siblings Celebrate Father’s 10th Year Remembrance There is indeed nothing we can do presently to revert the work of Death and smoothen out the scars it has caused, and this is a sad fact.

However, it is also true that our memories are enough for us to hold on to, reviving our spirits from despair when we think of Death’s doings, and this is a happy fact.

For the Saraki family of Kwara State, the happy fact continues to suppress the sad fact. And during the 10th-year remembrance service of the late patriarch of the family, Olusola Saraki, the coals of happiness were once more stoked.

How many people do not know that the fierce Senator Bukola Saraki and his fearsome sister, Senator Gbemisola Ruqayyah, came from the same man? Those that keep abreast of this fact always celebrate the late Saraki’s strength in bringing to the world two tableshakers. But the truth is that the late Saraki was no slouch during his time. As a result, people continue to remember him with fond

Late Saraki

memories, convinced that his children will certainly continue to raise banners that remind other people of him.

Recently, the entire Saraki family gathered to remember the late Waziri of the Ilorin Emirate. The event was well-attended, which is not surprising considering the prestige of every person involved. Nevertheless, the Saraki children made sure to entertain their guests, playing the role of their late father.

It has to be said that based on the legacy of the late Saraki, Senator Bukola and Gbemi are doing very well for themselves. One remains a force to be reckoned with and even the history books shudder when his name is mentioned.

The other is also raising eyebrows with her work at the Ministry of State for Mines and Steel Development.

Thus, as they remember their late father, they can reassure themselves that they are doing an amazing job advancing his stillbubbling prestige with their work.

Late MKO’s Wife, Adebisi Abiola Plans Big for Daughter’s Wedding in Lagos

Abiola

Things are heating up nicely over at the corner of Chief (Mrs) Adebisi Abiola, the wife of the late Bashorun MKO Abiola.

According to those with ears on every wall, Chief Abiola is making moves to throw the biggest possible wedding event for her daughter, Saudat. Naturally, one should

expect that once a lioness like Chief Abiola roars, it echoes for years to come.

Weddings are happy times. For Saudat Abiola and her lover, Yusuf Odutota Tikare, this is the best time to be tied together for life. And knowing her daughter’s heart, Chief Abiola is ready to go to great lengths to make the day very memorable for the couple. Of course, as a consequence of this decision by the prospective Mother of the Day, every guest that attends the event may always remember it as the best one of 2022.

According to sources, the wedding is said to be held on Thursday, December 8, 2022. With Saudat and her man at the forefront of the event, it is reported that Chief Abiola is the

figure behind them. Thus, she will most certainly bring out the best silverware to serve her guests and add extra shine to the event. People are looking forward to this.

Despite being the host of the event, it is reported that Chief Abiola will let the couple have their Nikkai and traditional engagement at the Harbour Point Hall in Victoria Island, Lagos rather than at her hometown. Of course, those that know her well enough know that money is not a problem for her. Therefore, she can turn anywhere into whatever she wants since all she needs to do is throw bundles at it.

Therefore, for her daughter’s wedding, Chief Abiola is likely to throw the grandest party. Even the biggest bigwigs will be there prepared to dance along to the ‘Pink on Pink’ dress code.

Subair’s Great Vision for LIRS One must admit that there is nothing quite like working under somebody with a vision and an honest mind. Fortunately, even though there are not a lot of Nigerian agencies and ministries that are familiar with this privilege, the people at Lagos Internal Revenue Services (LIRS) are doing their best not to flaunt it too much. This is because, despite all that their boss, Hamzat Ayodele Subair knows and does, he remains a humble person. Nevertheless, the LIRS staff are not deceived by his humility: Subair is a gift to them.

LIRS is currently undergoing one of its best times since it was created.

According to voices from inside and outside the agency, Subair has continued to treat the LIRS workforce with as much care as he would give one that is dearly beloved by him. It is no wonder that the agency is turning up incredibly eye-opening reports on productivity among its staff, some reaching new heights since the creation of LIRS and Lagos state.

Currently, Subair has introduced several staff-welfare schemes that provide workers with a robust collage of benefits. It is reported that even workers whose duties are secretarial can access handsome allowances, some of which are useful for their call, data, and wardrobe change demands.

Furthermore, promotions have reportedly become so common in the agency that there have been more than 3,000 since 2017. As a consequence, some individuals who are employed elsewhere are considering transferring under Subair’s administration so that they can also get treated well.

Because Subair is treating his workforce with such care, many of them are committed to their duties and are not taking his niceties for granted.

At the end of the day, Subair is doing things that beggar the average mind.

Subair

Olanipekun’s Good Example Good people exist everywhere. It is just a shame that they are not as celebrated as the ‘punks’ of high society that only know how to pilfer Nigeria’s resources. Chief Wole Olanipekun is a member of the former group and he is currently doing amazing things in Ekiti State. Most recently, he demonstrated to the new governor of Ekiti, Biodun Oyebanji, what it means to prioritise education, infrastructure, and internal security above all else.

Chief Olanipekun continues to show the good stuff he is made of in Ekiti. Recently, he took up the challenge of sparking off a revolution by presenting more than N30 million worth of scholarships and empowerments to students, young and old people, as well as widows. His gesture did not go unnoticed, causing his name to reach an all-time high among people of good repute in Ekiti and all of Nigeria.

According to reports, Chief Olanipekun’s big donation to the development of Ekiti people was carried out during the 26th edition of the annual Chief Wole Olanipekun Scholarship Scheme and Empowerment Schemes at his country home, Ikere-Ekiti, Ekiti. The Senior Advocate of Nigeria and former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) noted that it was his wish to do even more than he did last year, which was to empower a total of 1,475 individuals with scholarships and other lifeenabling schemes.

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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 NOVEMBER 20, 2022

LOUD WHISPERS

with JOSEPH EDGAR (09095325791)

Soludo vs Peter Obi: The Professor, The Trader and Massive Lies You see, I really do not understand why Mr. Peter Obi will be going up and down the country and just be giving us ‘fabu’. This kind presidential aspirant is a new one o. Kai! In defense of his position as shredded by Professor Chukwuma Soludo, Obi was reported to have claimed that he was ‘number one in health’ and that he won the Melinda and Bill Gates prize.

But what he actually won was the number one governor in the South-east in the eradication of polio and not in health nationwide as alluded.

Basically, land of the blind, one eyed man is…

So, you see, at times when we want to pity Obi, he himself will not be pitying himself with all of these ‘fabu’. The thing is getting too much o.

Someone should advise him.

Anyways, that was how the professor entered the matter and tore Obi to shreds. Prof. was not in a joking mood o as he fired from all cylinders.

“Obi cannot win,” he bellowed in his baritone voice. Who is Obi to win? The man no dey baff and as such he cannot be president. He is just wasting his time and that of Ndigbo. How can a man wey never brush teeth since he left APGA win the election?

My people, this Soludo no be real person o.

This level of bad bele can only be seen in run down brothels, where expiring prostitutes fight for a receding clientele base. This attack was devastating, well-oiled and primed for maximum effect. As we say in Shomolu, ‘Soludo really mean Obi.’ Coming from his home state governor, this

attack was not going to be ignored. I called Obi and said, “Bro, ignore this person. No even answer am.”

Obi replied, “Duke, me wey go soon release him nudes?”

I shouted ahhhhh, abeg we no want see Prof whittled down glory o.

Obi against my advice came out with seven guns: “I am but a lowly trader, what do I know.

Shebi na you be the Prof, oya go and do better.”

This Obi impressed me with that response o.

Not like them Dino or that squeaky voiced Keyamo who will be out there doing Baba Sala instead of engaging.

That response should have put Prof in his place. But not this Prof o. This one that has turned Anambra into one of the dirtiest states in the country? Is it not this Prof who out of nothing to do, sent people to go and beat up my pastor – the great Lion of Odumeje- the liquid metal?

Prof says he will not be intimidated by bullies.

BOLA TINUBU AND THE HUNDEYIN’S ‘CURSE’ You see, I hear that elephants dey fear rats. That the biggest irokos are usually felled by little men and that the great Samson was felled by the little Delilah.

As I woke up to write this column at 4am when normal people are still sleeping, or crawling towards their housemaid’s room, I decided to say a little prayer for Mr. Tinubu.

“Oh Lord,” I screamed – the MFM way. “Any weapon fashioned against this our presidential ambition, should dieeeeeeeee!!! Die!!! Die!!! Die!!!” I continued screaming, shaking my head and jumping naked in the room.

Duchess ran into the room in fear. I have not prayed this year. Even when my brother, Ken Etete, in a bid not to give me sponsorship stopped reading my messages, I did not pray. So you can understand Duchess’ amazement when she rushed in and saw me with a bottle of Holy Oil and a picture of Hundeyin, shouting dieeeeee oooo !!!!!.

The way this boy is going about this

thing, I come dey pity Asiwaju. When they come out from one angle, the boy will open another flank. As they are closing one side, the boy will open another one. As Keyamo is screaming with his quarrelsome voice on TV, the boy will open another angle. You see why I have decided to take his matter to the Giver of life and the Source of all powers?

Mbok, this boy has gone to ask Deloitte question o. Those ones have replied in a way that could give their HR promotion. They are reported to have said that they do not recognise this particular Yoruba name talk less of giving him $1.8million, abi I cannot remember the amount again o.

This Hundeyin is like scabies. Very hard to treat. In University of Ibadan, I had scabies in my bumbum and the thing followed me for four years. The itching is bad. I think Wike has the thing that is why he will be giving a speech and the next minute he will start dancing — na lie, na the craw craw dey itch am.

Anyways, Hundeyin has defeated

Keyamo and all the spokespersons of APC have been thrown into the matter.

The boy even has the temerity to challenge Keyamo to an open debate.

It’s looking like that one has dodged.

You know, he prefers to ‘bully’ TV presenters – “Seun take paper and biro.” Now that the real student has challenged him, he will not talk o.

As for me, Hundeyin picture remains on my altar for prayers. May he be struck with gonorrhea or something that will distract him because if we are not careful, this boy will scatter everything o and instead of shouting, God bless PD, it will be ‘egba mi ooooo lo wo bobo yi o.’ That is what we will be shouting in the market square. Kai. YEMI OSINBAJO: APOLOGY NOT ACCEPTED You see, Prof. Osinbajo is a Yoruba man. If for anything else, Yoruba people know how to respect elders and greet people. They can spend hours greeting you on the main road and in

the process reel out your family tree just to say hello.

They also know how to kneel and prostate while having this rendition.

In fact, for you to engage any Yoruba person in this fine art of greeting you must be physically fit, if not na Lagoon Hospital you go end.

So, a whole Prof. Osinbajo during Governor Akeredolu’s Mama burial embarked on this journey with glee. He is an expert in greeting people. He even used to add their ‘oriki’ as he is greeting and sing for some of them and call their great grandfathers’ mistress names as part of the greeting.

So, the great and erudite professor took the podium and spent about one hour greeting people, saluting them, hailing them and all that.

Nobody was spared, even the cleaners of the church and the head of Okada that cleared the road for him as he entered the town all received accolades during the

Tinubu

Osinbajo

Oseni

Onyeagwu

Soludo

Obi

He will say his own and really do not care if his sex tape is released to the public. He has already explained to Madam and as such he will continue to say his own. Poverty according to him under Obi increased by 50% and dropped fantastically to 14% during Obiano’s time. You guys remember that one abi? That is the one that his wife is a ‘slapper’ abi a ‘slappee’. This Anambra people, na drama house of horror.

As I write, I am trying to reach Obi feverishly to beg him to allow sleeping dogs lie, because the next thing now he will drop another fabu that during his time, Anambra recorded more pregnancies among 60-yearold women making him win the first prize in insemination. An award given to him by Hugh Hefner, the late great promoter of my first porn magazine, Playboy.

People of Nigeria, Obi has been stripped naked by no less a personality than his own state governor, the erudite Professor Soludo.

I think his campaign has been mortally hit and I really do not see any hope of recovery and it is in this regard that I really do wish that Obi has anything on Soludo that we can use to make him pay.

A sex tape, a nude photo, Soludo begging for food in school anything that will also damage him. He cannot go scot free after what he has done. He too must suffer. This was a massive blow.

Kai! Soludo but you wicked sha.

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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 NOVEMBER 20, 2022

LOUD WHISPERS marathon greetings.

Then the Jagaban, the Lion of Bourdillon, the Emilokan of our time, the Chicago Mayor, the defeater of Jonathan and the only husband of Oluremi, sitting smack in front of you, you forget?

No na. My brother Osinbajo, this is not how they used to fight this fight. You see how inexperience is doing you?

You see why they say you do not have political sagacity. You ignore Jagaban?

You forget to greet him? Ohhh my God! You later apologised o. But we can never agree. This is a major slap on the face of authority. A man who made you? A man who brought you from a lowly handout seller at UNILAG and made you first a commissioner and now vice president and you do this? How can you bite the finger that has fed you like this?

You know Jagaban is a man of peace. He has even forgotten your name but me, I will never forget this. I will shout on his behalf and I will say that no apology will be accepted except you do the following and very quickly: Carry ‘eboh’ complete with kolanut and red palm oil and two eggs in the middle of the night while dressed in white bed sheet with no shoes and chalk all over your face and go and drop at Falomo Roundabout in Ikoyi. Also send any beautiful and untouched female from your harem to Shomolu to spend just 49 days with the Duke of Shomolu and finally send a 500-word apology to the Jagaban and copy your boss, Muhammadu Buhari – he no teach you well and also copy the two factional leaders of Afenifere – please make it bold, you know one is 94 and the other is over 100, so they can read.

You have been a bad student. Didn’t you see how Tinubu, your leader and maker, greeted Buhari in Jos? He got his followers to follow him in a chant – Buhari!!!!! Buhari!!!!! Buhari! That is how you greet an immortal.

Kai. Bro, you need urgent lessons o. kai.

RUFAI OSENI: LET’S BEAT HIM UP Rufai has been annoying too many people in this country. From LASTMA, to the governor and so many political people with the way he talks on TV. It is no wonder the other day that LASTMA caught him and he had to shout, “I will tell the governor” before they left him. Well, recently, some people who did not care if he was friends with the governor or not accosted him in the lift of a highbrow hotel in Abuja and threatened to beat him up.

Now if this was meant to intimidate him or not is what I don’t know. But the Rufai that I spoke to during the week remained very strong and courageous. “Edgar, abeg you know any juju man wey I fit contact?

I need those incisions, that will make me invincible.”

I said no problem. You see, I have experience in these things. All na packaging. Rufai will be working around like ‘aje butter’ wearing a suit complete with pocket square. It is people who cannot fight that used to dress like that – pocket square? That is a clear sign of a man who cannot fight. You sef check am na, who dey wear pocket square and can fight? Nobody.

That is why those people will have the courage to threaten him inside a lift. Me? Who born anybody? Shomolu brought up? Me that I used to fight at Onipanu and at Apata public tap? Go and ask Gisorin. Gisorin was the local champion.

He used to beat everybody and as such all the babes in Shomolu then were under his control. We used to call him ‘boxer alagbara’. But me I sha knew I could beat him.

So, one day, I challenged him to a fight.

He had captured Bose. Bose was the Queen. She had k-legs but was very beautiful with sexy tribal marks. To earn Bose’s love, I had to fight Gisorin. And I told Rufai this story o to show him how a man should be.

I walked up to Gisorin at Adebiyi Street

TITI OSHODI AND HER ‘BOSEKO’ INITIATIVE

Oshodi

You see, if there is anything I really do like in this world, it is when my friends marry lovely wives. Titi is the very beautiful wife of my brother Demola Oshodi. Oh my God, this Demola lucky o. You should see his big head and now compare it to the very beautiful and elegant Titi, then you will know what I am talking about.

Last week, I called Demola who is in the thick of the Asiwaju campaigns as the brilliant intellectual that he is.

“Demola, how is the campaign going?” I asked. “Won’t you people come and buy tickets to see ‘Awo’ my new play coming up this December so that your operatives will learn one thing or the other about leadership?”

He smiled and said, “why not talk to Titi, they are doing something brilliant that you will like.* That was how I got introduced to BOSEKO. BOSEKO is an independent initiative that has been conceived to among others amplify success stories of Lagosians. It is a communications platform that leverages on visceral storytelling as a strong means of inspiring, empowering and engaging a curated target audience. Youths, near the world-famous Good Evening street where you get the best prostitutes in the land. Immediately he saw me, he laughed. “Omo kobokobo,” he screamed and all his boys laughed. I looked at him the way Chinese people do in films and I started with my ‘snake in a monkey shadow’ pose. I said, “Gisorin, you kill my father, I kill you’’ and rushed at him. People of Nigeria, I did not see the blow o. The next thing,

MSMEs and young professionals are its main targets and I must say in this young age, they have really made serious inroads.

Titi has always been a communications expert. One of the most brilliant in space. She has plied her trades in many communications and marketing firms and it did not come as a surprise when she was tapped to join the first Sanwo-Olu campaign from where she was integrated into the administration in the first term.

By the time you are reading this, I would have given my talk to a team of about 20 young professionals on the platform. According to her, my story is a rich Lagos story. It is the story of how dreams come true in Lagos and of how Lagos has worked very closely with me to build one of the most enduring theatre platforms in the country.

Lagos, our Lagos. A place that makes the dreams of the very serious a reality.

It is these stories that Titi’s BOSEKO is amplifying with the aim of replicating the successes of Lagosians in a way that will see a collective resolve to succeed. Well done my brother’s wife.

Well done, my sister and God bless you and the team at BOSEKO. na my Mama breast I see myself wey she dey use hot towel dey press the huge koko on my head as she dey use her breast as pillow to tell me sorry.

This is why I respect Yoruba people till tomorrow because of Gisorin. So, I tell my brother Rufai, those people that threaten you, did they have tribal marks? He said he didn’t know that the lift was dark. I said, ok how many were they? He answered like two and

that his own brother was a life witness.

I told him ok, no problem, it is a small matter we will handle it. I suggested we write a petition to the ICC at the Hague, this matter has passed Nigeria Police and ask for Interpol protection. This is beyond juju or any of those things. It is those people that used to guard the American President that we should use to protect you because the way you used to talk on TV some people will give you magun sef.

But seriously, threatening a man for his opinion? Threatening a man for standing on his conscience? A real shithole place we have found ourselves I tell you. Keep your head high my brother, nothing do you. If anything happens again, no call me o. Call the guguru defence, I hear they now carry guns. Kai! ZENITH TECH FAIR WAY TO GO I have just been invited by my brother, the ever brilliant Tope Fasoranti PhD to the Zenith Bank Tech Fair. I am especially excited about this event if for nothing else but because of the role technology has played in the economy and in our lives. Zenith Bank since inception has shown a glaring interest in technology, leveraging on it to build one of the country’s most viable and admired institutions.

So, it did not come as a surprise that they are headlining and arrow heading this massive project. Tagged: ‘Future Forward 2.0,’ the event would include a Zecathon, conferences, breakout masterclasses, exhibitions, raffle draws and lots more.

Owing to the level of influence and respect Zenith has in the space, they have been able to pull together some of the most brilliant players on technology globally. Huge international enterprises like Mckinsey, Google, Visa, Huawei and also with a fine smattering of some local super players like Opay headed by my former oga and good friend Olu Akanmu, CBN, Flutterwave, among others, form the core participants in these super eclectic happening.

Hosted by Dr. Umeoji who is the Deputy Managing Director of Zenith and my brother Ebenezer Onyeagwu who is the Managing Director the two-day event promises to be a blast and I will be there during the lunch break of both days.

Look out for me and I hope they will serve Afang.

TOSIN AND MISAN; A LOVE STORY NEVER TOLD These two people amaze me. They are truly in love. Nigeria of today, no get time for this kind of love. These two people continue to amaze not only me but everybody that comes near them.

Kai, they both run the wonderful franchise FC Accessories from where they distribute very iconic accessories to the well-heeled. But their story is not the story of the beautiful brand but a story of their love and friendship.

When I see them, I will be imagining the stories their bed would tell me if only I could understand the language of furniture. They cannot keep their hands off each other and Tosin will be saying, ‘my wife this and my wife that’ and when Misan comes, the way she will be looking at Tosin like the way I look at well-made Afang you will be ‘jealosing’ Tosin that such a beautiful creature can find him so amazingly interesting.

I used to pray for them o simply because this love is strong o. The last time I saw this kind of love was when my Papa buy my Mama Peugeot 404.

I swear, when I buy Misan Parfait for Abuja, she no chop until Tosin come o. I swear, you will not believe. Be like juju.

I just want to wish these two everlasting and a rich union. May God continue to bless them and guide them.

May there be no distractions and may they be blessed massively so that they can continue to show that truly, we can love selflessly.

64

T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R NOVEMBER 20, 2022

Adebayo Adeoye bayoolunla@gmail.com; 08054680651

SOCIETY WATCH

Billionaire Businessman, Orikolade Karim’s Heart of Gratitude

Peters

A Peek into the World of Lady Waynett Peters The story of renowned entrepreneur and humanitarian, Lady Waynett Peters, may read like a fable or a Nollywood movie. But those who are familiar with her peregrinations in life will attest to the fact that it is not any work of imagination.

Naturally inclined to business and getting results, Waynett had ventured into business at a very young age; and by her mid-20s, she was already running numerous successful businesses. Sadly, at some point in her life, she lost all, thereby turning her word inside out.

During the uneventful period, she was homeless and even sought friendship on London’s Camden streets. As fate would have it, while she was mentoring some alcoholics, drug addicts and rejects, she discovered her greatest lessons about true wealth, success, love, happiness, and her purpose in life. The encounter turned out to be another memorable chapter of her life.

Luckily, she survived the doleful period through God’s grace, persistence, hard work and discipline; and she was able to rebuild herself and her business portfolio.

Today, she runs empowerment workshops and reaches out to the homeless, the mentally challenged, the abused and the disadvantaged.

Through her work, the Yeye Asoju Oba of Ilodo in Ogun State has helped countless individuals to realise their self-worth, develop their skills and talents and escape the shackles of joblessness.

Waynett’s ethos about life is that when you are ready to humbly serve humanity, desperate enough for a miracle or put your faith in your Creator, positive change comes into your life.

She is well known and has been recognised for her philanthropic contributions. She continues to build homes for many, while also offering financial support to many families in Africa, the Caribbean and the United Kingdom.

The Yeye Bobaselu of Igbokoda in Ondo State has been honoured with over 35 international awards for her humanitarian, philanthropic, and empowerment contributions, particularly through her foundations such as Reclaiming Our Children Back from the Streets (ROC), which is a communitybased programme aimed at uniting and supporting parents while coordinating change champion programmed with external parties, authorities, government bodies and youth organisations; Loving Our Valued Elders, LOVE, an initiative to honour, appreciate and assist elders in the communities.

November 24 is a special day for Nigerian businessman and oil mogul, Orikolade Karim, Managing Director, Shoreline Energy. It is a day that signifies the beginning of his earthly sojourn.

For a man of his status, it won’t be so surprising if Karim, who is also the Agbaoye of Ibadan land chooses to present his memoirs on the occasion of his 54th birthday. Having recorded many successes in life, it is evident that he was born under the proverbial lucky star.

But close sources hinted that he is not in a hurry to release his memoirs for public consumption because he believes that he is still an evolving phenomenon.

However, the billionaire, who sits atop other conglomerates, will have more than one reason to be joyous, apart from the grace to survive the mysteries of the days and nights in the past year.

Reliable sources disclosed that his 54th birthday celebration would be lowkey.

Though he is not given to frivolities or throwing any form of revelry, his family members, friends, business associates,

fans and admirers will share in his joy and pour encomiums on him on the occasion.

The man who does not court media attention unnecessarily has touched several lives whose paths have crossed his in so many positive ways. He has an innate belief that behind every success story are others helping to make it happen.

Probably because he keeps the cameras away during his altruistic gestures, many don’t know that he is one of the biggest philanthropists in Nigeria at the moment.

In the views of some observers, Karim’s continued relevance, nay staying power, should provoke some careful study by aspiring entrepreneurs or even established ones, especially in Nigeria’s inclement business environment.

The highly cerebral business mogul has proven in all ramifications that the African continent does not lack talents who can hold their heads high anywhere in the world.

From his days at the defunct Standard Trust Bank, till he took over the driver’s seat at Africa’s foremost financial institution, United Bank for Africa (UBA), mercurial Tony Elumelu had stood tall as a big tree in the nation’s volatile banking and corporate sectors.

Today, this financial guru is seen as a popular brand being variously copied by many who want to be successful in their endeavours.

His Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) is a blessing to many young African budding entrepreneurs, with abundant financial assistance at its behest.

The foundation has fulfilled the dreams of over 10, 000 youths across the African continent since its establishment in 2010. With this, he

Elumelu Stamps His Feet Across the Continent

Elumelu

Karim

Through his various investments, primarily in oil and gas and construction, the extremely private businessman has grown to own a slew of other juicy business concerns. has succeeded in stamping his feet across the continent of Africa while he is also fast becoming one of the most talked about and respected entrepreneurs across the globe.

What many may not readily know about the enterprising and highly industrious Elumelu is that a handful of the younger generation of corporate/business entrepreneurs, over the years, have been emulating his unique style, mannerism and eloquence with delight and enthusiasm.

Rising from his modest beginnings, he now has significant investments in the energy, hospitality, agribusiness, insurance, healthcare and real estate sectors.

Retired Army Top Brass, Sani Bello, Glides into 80 in Style Birthdays are not occasions meant only for celebrations, where glasses filled with vintage drinks are clinked and sumptuous delicacies munched. They are also occasions for introspection and expression of gratitude to God for the grace to still be counted among the living.

This definitely will be the case for Col. Sani Bello (rtd), a former military Governor of the old Kano State and father of the incumbent Niger State Governor, Abubakar Sani Bello, who proudly joins the club of octogenarians on Sunday, November 27, 2022.

Already, preparations are at feverish points.

As part of the activities to mark the event, a dinner/book launch tagged ‘The Platinum Pillar At 80’ was recently held at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, where his son,

Governor Bello, disclosed that his dad did not only instil discipline and morals in his biological children but in all who crossed his path.

The encomiums showered on the retired army officer was proof of the former military administrator’s kindness and love for the people. Also, the respected retired soldier, yesterday, Saturday, November 19, declared open an International ICT Centre on Sokoto-Yuari Road, Usubu Kontagora, Niger State to commemorate his 80th birthday anniversary.

The birthday celebration will climax in Kano on Sunday, November 27, 2022, where he will be joined by family members, friends and associates at a reception that will be kicked off with prayers.

Bello

When Sujimoto Boss, Sijibomi Ogundele Shone Brilliantly

Ogundele

In the words of Bear Grylls, “Life doesn’t reward the naturally clever or strong, but those who can fight and work hard and never quit.”

To say that Sijibomi Ogundele, the boss of The Sujimoto Group, has sown in sweats and now harvesting in smiles is, to put it mildly.

The real estate giant, who has spearheaded numerous audacious multibillion-dollar projects is reaping the reward of his hard work and determination.

Last week, Ogundele again shone brilliantly and literally stood tall when he received an honorary Doctorate from Cornerstone University, Ibadan, Oyo State. Ogundele alongside former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Bishop David Oyedepo were honoured at the institution’s maiden convocation ceremony.

In his remarks, Ogundele, who described the university as one founded on the quest for entrepreneurship, urged the graduating students to become “leaders of their generation, as they step into the world as future entrepreneurs.”

He said: “A man without a dream, is an

empty man!”

He shared his story of how he won an “ovarian lottery” when his mother diligently imbibed the spirit of entrepreneurship in him from the tender age of four.

He also shared the story of how he started his company nine years ago with only one staff member as well as how his workforce has grown to over 600 today.

Ogundele is the brains behind the iconic LucreziaBySujimoto Tower in Banana Island, Lagos; the much-talked-about LeonardoBySujimoto, a 25-storey waterfront high-rise also in Lagos as well as the eyepopping Sujimoto Twin Towers, a luxurious but affordable housing scheme, where with as little as $380,000 anyone can experience a piece of the luxury Sujimoto Group offers.

This young entrepreneur, who emerged from the Agege area of Lagos State is described as the youngest billionaire in Nigeria.

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ JUNE 24 2012

ARTS & REVIEW A

PUBLICATION

20. 11.2022

About Grief, Ofem Ubi Muses

An alumnus of the G.A.S. Foundation, Lagos residency programme, Ofem Ubi, launches himself on the cusp of a promising creative career with the publication of a poetry collection and a solo exhibition. Okechukwu Uwaezuoke writes

F

rom as far back as Ofem Ubi could recall, loss—or rather the sense of it—has always stalked him. In a sequence of experiences dredged up from his 26 years of earthly OLIH VR IDU WKH\ ÁDUHG EHIRUH his mind’s eye, steeped in their familiar dread and sadness. He had once nearly lost an eye, lost both of his parents in quick succession, had blood loss after having his head pulled from between decorative bricks, and so on. Then there's also the gnawing dread of encounters ZLWK WKH ODZ HQIRUFHPHQW R΀FHUV WKDW FRXOG lead to his losing his braided hair, which he describes as “a forest sitting on my head,” among other things.

This sense of loss, which spawned his soliloquies about grief, has now been transformed into his recently published, 45-page poetic musings, lavishly illustrated with his photographs. “I reckon that grief is a universal feeling and we all have our bouts of gloom,” he says. “Sometimes we need a kick-starter, something to set the table for these kinds of conversations to be had. Grief is [as] light as it is heavy; it embodies all the characters you could ever think of, and I tried to personify it in my book.”

8EL LV JUDWLÀHG E\ WKH IDFW WKDW WKH FROOHFWLRQ titled The Last Time I Called, the First Thing I Heard Was “As-Salamu Alaykum,” and published by DeftTouch Publishers in Ibadan, has so far done better than he had hoped for.

“My losses are a mirror from where the readers UHÁHFW DQG ÀQG D VHPEODQFH RI WKHLU RZQ µ he continues. “I believe that the exercise of introspection through my ordeals makes it less scary and approachable for anyone. The reactions have been a dream, and having people share with me what it has done to them is a blessing I’m utterly grateful for.” $ OLIHORQJ SUHGLOHFWLRQ IRU WKH ÁXLGLW\ RI language has been the theme song of this Cross River State native's creative odyssey. This is a trait that would later manifest itself through his passion for literature, which peaked in his secondary school years. It was indeed at a young age that he realised that he was more drawn to history, literature, or any other subject that inspired him to write than he was to the sciences.

Besides, the idea that words are repositories of meaning captivated his receptive young mind and sparked his interest in literature. After graduating from secondary school in 2012, it was just a matter of time until he moved on from reading poetry books to penning down his own poems.

Back in Senior Secondary 2 at the Hope Waddell Training Institute in Calabar, he recalls calling out to the literature in English teacher, a female corps member, to read from George Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man before the class. “I love how you read,” the highly impressed teacher told him, and her commendation became the catalyst for a future literary career.

This literary career, nourished by the love of poetry, continued to blossom as more opportunities, one of which was his feature on D ORFDO UDGLR VWDWLRQ RͿHUHG WKHPVHOYHV WR him. “I love how it gives you the avenue to unpack. When you read and begin to decipher each line, you’ll discover that each line has a

After Fire & Smoke by Ofem Ubi

Ofem Ubi

Ubi

meaning of its own. It’s a very engaging art form in itself.”

Ubi's artistic work currently pivots on a tripod made up of poetry, photography, and video. His poems are frequently incorporated into his videos as voiceovers, embodying the story and direction of the moving pictures. As IRU WKH VWLOO LPDJHV KH FUHDWHV WKHP RQ ÀOP VHWV LQ WKH PRVW FRVW HͿHFWLYH ZD\ SRVVLEOH WR maximise his resources. “Poetry became that infrastructure, aiding me to converse with myself and confront the things I had always wanted to but didn’t have the right tool for.

Photography on the other hand had always been a form I admired, a form I would go on to use as a visual aid for my poems in my early writings. I had begun to explore the concept of documentation in poetry during the lockdown, but I also wanted to do that through other means respectively. My photography erupted from my penchant for the perseverance of memory. I began to take still images during that time¬¬- pictures of home and the bodies that occupied it, that ultimately led to my exploration of moving image.”

Ultimately, he discerns a relationship between all the art forms. And he means that in the sense WKDW WKH\ DOO KDYH VRPHWKLQJ WR VD\ ´, ÀQG WKH FRQÁXHQFH EHWZHHQ SRHWU\ DQG SKRWRJUDSK\ in how they complement each other at evoking comprehension. A poem is a literal image, an image is a visual poem. When you put these two together, I think what it does is that it drives the idea further and farther.”

The 2019 Cross River State University mass communication graduate is currently working on larger projects and determining how to allow each art form to breathe as a standalone medium capable of carrying the artist's PHVVDJH ZLWKRXW RQH DUW IRUP VFDͿROGLQJ RQ from another. He's also dabbled in prose, which he says allows a writer to narrate to his or her heart's content.

Alongside Hava Aslam, Femi Johnson, (PPD 3UHPSHK DQG 8]RU 8JRDOD KH ÁDJJHG RͿ <LQND 6KRQLEDUH·V * $ 6 )RXQGDWLRQ·V inaugural residency programme. A friend, ZKRP KH VLPSO\ LGHQWLÀHG DV (NHPLQL KDG shared the application form for the Foundation’s residency programme with him over

:KDWV$SS ´$FFRUGLQJ WR KLP , ZDV WKH ÀUVW that came to mind immediately; he set his eyes on the opportunity, and he thought I would EHQHÀW IURP LW LI , JRW LQ , JRW LQ µ During this residency programme, Ubi savoured the freedom to explore, experiment and express. “G.A.S. provides you with the PHQWDO VFDͿROGLQJ WR EH \RXUVHOI DQG WKDW HDVH ensures the possibility of anything. If I ever felt any pressure, it was self-induced. It is a fantastic and warm space in the way it lets you bloom as a creative person, and I’m glad I got to be a part of its tremendous artist programme. Of course, the fruits of my residency are evident, so it was a huge period for me—not just in creating but in learning more about myself, my work, and my creative reaction to spaces of that nature.” +LV ÀUVW HYHU VROR H[KLELWLRQ DW WKH * $ 6 Foundation in Lagos, whose private viewing was on Wednesday, September 7, became the crowning point of his career’s highlights so IDU 7KDW ZDV DOVR WKH GD\ KH SXEOLVKHG KLV ÀUVW collection of poems. “Seeing the work of your hands in tangible form and up in lights is as big as it gets at this point, at least for me,” he reminisces. “What starts as a seed in your mind EHFRPHV VRPHWKLQJ \RX ÀQDOO\ JHW WR EULQJ to life, talk about, and have people listen to, appreciate, and contribute to—that is huge.”

7KH IDFW WKDW 8EL ÀUVW ORRNV WR KLV H[SHULHQFHV accomplishments, and self for inspiration is evident in the fact that most of the works he has ever produced were drawn from memories of stories and experiences that either belong to him or to which he can relate. “My familiarity with them guides in the audacity and starkness , HPSOR\ LQ WHOOLQJ WKHP 6R PH ÀUVW DQG WKHQ everything else. I think it is imperative that ZH ÀQG D FRQQHFWLRQ WR WKH VWRULHV ZH WHOO LW makes us more inclined to tell them honestly because we see ourselves in there somewhere.”

Nonetheless, he greatly admires such art personalities as Caleb Femi, Jolade Olusanya, Shade Joseph, Theresa Lola, Helen Salomao, <RPL 6RGH *HRUJH 0SDQJD 7\OHU 0LWFKHOO and Sean Tucker, among others, because of their multifaceted art forms and the fact they challenge him with each new work, which inspires and spurs him to diversify and test QHZ WHUULWRULHV ´,·P VSHFLÀFDOO\ DVWRXQGHG with how they continually shift the boundaries of their art forms and open new worlds for me,” he adds.

As for his typical day, he spends his time making sure that each day is as productive as possible. And this depends on what he has on his to-do list. He is content to live each day as it comes and is unconcerned about where his career will take him in the future.

“I do not wish to perturb myself with the ache of foresight,” he explains. “I just want to be consistent and better at this – at this God-given chance of making meaning with my time on here. The good thing is that one can never go wrong with consistency, so I’m certain the future is a good place. I’m more concerned with my now, it is all I have and I must nurse it with all I’ve got.

“I’m continually open to newer artistic landscapes and the possibility of making work through them because I believe in the beauty that emanates from multi-disciplinary endeavours. And if I can do that, why not?”

EDITOR OKECHUKWU UWAEZUOKE/ okechukwu.uwaezuoke@thisdaylive.com

66

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER NOVEMBER 20, 2022

ARTS & REVIEW\\POTPOURRI

Looted Artefacts and Legal Restitution: The Case of Benin Bronzes

CULTURE

Kaine Agary

T

he most topical issue in the art world as it pertains to Africa is rooted in antiquity.

In 1897, the British Army raided the Benin Kingdom in a so called “punitive expedition” following the killing of James 5REHUW 3KLOOLSV D %ULWLVK R΀FLDO DQG RWKHUV 7KH 2ED RI %HQLQ 2ED 2Y̹QUDPZ̥Q 1̹JEDLVL ZDV deposed and exiled, and members of the British Army set about pillaging the Kingdom’s cultural and religious artefacts, and artworks. Some of the booty, collectively known as the Benin Bronzes, ZDV DXFWLRQHG RͿ WR FRYHU WKH FRVW RI WKH PLVVLRQ some others ended up in private collections, and a sizable collection ended up in museums.

Over the years, pieces from the Benin Bronzes have dispersed across the world, ending up in private collections and museums in Europe and America. A century and a quarter later, the Binis DUH VWLOO ÀJKWLQJ WR ULJKW WKH LQMXVWLFH GRQH WR WKHP They have called for the return of their artefacts for decades, but in the last decade or so, especially with the impressive cultural diplomacy of the Benin Dialogue Group with strong support from the current monarch, Oba Ewuare II, the tide seems to be shifting.

Institutions across Europe and the United States have either returned or pledged to return pieces of the Benin Bronzes in their collection. A few museums are resisting, citing extant provisions ZKLFK SHUPLW WKH GLVSRVDO RI REMHFWV LQ LWV FROOHFWLRQ only in very limited circumstances.

While international law provides for the restitution and return of stolen art, the gaps in available laws mean that the Binis may have to rely not on law but on “good conscience” for the return of the Benin Bronzes. As evident in the actions in support of returning World War II era assets, such good conscience exists in the international community.

For many years, those who have resisted the calls have made the tenuous argument that the artefacts ZRXOG QRW UHFHLYH SURSHU FDUH LI UHWXUQHG WR 1LJHULD and other sites where they were stolen from. That argument is no longer tenable. $ 1HZ +RPH IRU WKH %HQLQ %URQ]HV The Edo State Government recently announced WKH LPPLQHQW WDNH RͿ RI WKH %HQLQ &XOWXUDO 'LVtrict. The District will be home to three prominent PXVHXPV WKH 1DWLRQDO 0XVHXP WKH 5R\DO %HQLQ 0XVHXP DQG WKH (GR 0XVHXP RI :HVW $IULFDQ $UW (02:$$ :KLOH WKH 6WDWH KDV FRPPLWWHG IXQGV IRU WKH UHIXUELVKPHQW RI WKH 1DWLRQDO 0XVHXP DQG WKH (GR 0XVHXP RI :HVW $IULFDQ $UW WKHVH

L-R: Sir. Clement Djebah : Chairman, PB Djebah & Co Ltd Mrs. Lola Olota : Administrative Director : Correct Connect Africa Foundation Hon. Segun Odunmbaku : Chairman, Ojodu LCDA Rev. Fr. Toni Aleakwe Odior(SDB) : General Coordinator, Correct Connect Africa Foundation Mr. Gbenga Adebija : Director-General, Nigerian American Chamber of Commerce at the grand opening of the African Cultural Learning Centre on Saturday in Lagos.

Igun Street bronze works

Igun Street gate

ANTIQUES institutions remain susceptible to the commitment of future government administrations.

7KH 5R\DO %HQLQ 0XVHXP LV FRQFHLYHG E\ WKH Oba of Benin and is intended to house the Benin Bronzes which are being returned piecemeal even though institutions from Germany to the UK and WKH 86 KDYH FRPPLWWHG WR UHWXUQ QHDUO\ SLHFHV $ FRQVLGHUDWLRQ RI WKH VKHHU QXPEHU RI REMHFWV WR EH UHWXUQHG DQ HVWLPDWHG REMHFWV WUDFNHG down to 131 separate collections in the West, bears out the wisdom in setting up a culture district and refurbishing older museums. ,W DOVR KLJKOLJKWV WKH LPSHUDWLYH RI QRW IRU SURÀW LQLWLDWLYHV OLNH WKH (02:$$ 7UXVW·V 0XVHXP DQG surrounding facilities; one of which will provide extensive storage space and will serve as a research and education center. It will be a creative hub for contemporary creatives in Africa as well as a place WR FHOHEUDWH DQG VWXG\ FXOWXUDO KHULWDJH (02:$$ will be owned and operated by a private trust, and has the support of diverse stakeholders including WKH (GR 6WDWH *RYHUQPHQW 1DWLRQDO &RPPLVVLRQ IRU 0XVHXPV DQG 0RQXPHQWV RI 1LJHULD DQG others.

The Benin Bronzes will therefore have several homes upon return. All that is left is for those in possession of the looted cultural heritage of the Binis to come to the table with “good conscience” and work out the details of their return. And to facilitate this we have the example of the immense FRPPXQDO DQG SULYDWH ORVVHV VXͿHUHG E\ (XURSHDQ Jews during World War II to guide us.

Reparation, Restitution, and Return 7KH ODZ SURYLGHV UHPHGLHV WR JLYH MXVWLFH WR SHUsons who have been wronged. These remedies are available for both civil and criminal wrongful acts.

The terms “restitution” and “return” have evolved RYHU WLPH DQG QRZ UHSUHVHQW WZR GLͿHUHQW FRQFHSWV LQ WKH ÀHOG RI FXOWXUDO KHULWDJH GLVSXWHV 7KH distinction in terms recognizes the hardship in trying to use legal tools to settle these disputes.

“Restitution” is available as a remedy to victims of a legal violation, namely fraud, looting, and theft. With restitution, the victim is entitled to full restoration based on the wrongdoer’s gain DW WKH YLFWLPV· H[SHQVH L H WKH ZURQJGRHU·V XQMXVW enrichment. Restitution can be achieved directly E\ UHWXUQLQJ WKH REMHFWV RI WKH WKHIW RU SLOODJLQJ RU ZKHUH WKH REMHFW QR ORQJHU H[LVWV LQGLUHFWO\ E\ JLYLQJ REMHFWV VLPLODU WR ZKDW ZDV VWROHQ ´5HWXUQµ RQ WKH RWKHU KDQG UHIHUV WR REMHFWV WDNHQ GXULQJ the colonial era or those illegally exported from one country to another. While International law seems comfortable with the “return” concept, ´UHVWLWXWLRQµ VHHPV D PRUH GL΀FXOW QXW WR FUDFN It involves a lot more legal technicalities on which a claim may fail.

7KH +RORFDXVW 5HWXUQ RI &XOWXUDO $VVHWV $FW 2Q WK 1RYHPEHU WKH 8QLWHG .LQJGRP HQDFWHG WKH +RORFDXVW 5HWXUQ RI &XOWXUDO $VVHWV $FW RI 7KH SXUSRVH RI WKH $FW ZKLFK applies to several national institutions, empowers an Advisory Panel constituted under the Act, to recommend and approve the return of victims’ property. The Act, which initially had a “sunset clause” that provided for the Act to expire after \HDUV ZDV DPHQGHG LQ 7KH +RORFDXVW 5HWXUQ RI &XOWXUDO $VVHWV $PHQGPHQW $FW UHPRYHG WKH VXQVHW FODXVH LQ HͿHFW FRPPLWWLQJ WR WKH SXUSRVH RI WKH $FW LQGHÀQLWHO\

0

onochrome pictures and IRRWDJH MRJ PHPRULHV RI the past- an undulatLQJ KLVWRU\ RI 1LJHULD captured in the reels that formed the music documentary movie, (OGHUV &RUQHU 'LUHFWHG E\ 6LML $ZR\LQND WKH YLVXDO narrative is interwoven with interviews featuring OHJHQGDU\ PXVLFLDQV DQG MDP VHVVLRQV ZLWK D FURVV JHQHUDWLRQDO EDQG ZLWK 3D -LPL 6RODQNH 6LML $ZR\LQND and Ade Bantu as lead vocalists.

Awoyinka himself is a musician, researcher and a story hunter as much as a storyteller. Using a selfnarrative technique, he walks the audience through KLV HQFRXQWHU ZLWK 1LJHULDQ PXVLF DQG KRZ HDFK genre has served as historical signpost.

Starting with the pre-independence period, the UK-born director digs into his father's music albums collection and past work as a band member for one RI WKH HDUOLHVW NQRZQ KLJKOLIH EDQGV +LV FXULRVLW\ OHG KLP WR WKH KRPHV RI PDQ\ 1LJHULDQ DUWLVWV VRPH RI ZKRP GLG QRW OLYH ORQJ WR VHH WKH ÀQDO SURGXFWLRQ RI the documentary that had its premiere screening at WKH MXVW FRQFOXGHG $IULFD ,QWHUQDWLRQDO )LOP )HVWLYDO $)5,)) +H VWDUWHG ÀOPLQJ GHVSLWH WKH SDXFLW\ RI IXQGV because the stories are way too incredible to be abandoned or lost in archives. Like the narrator LQ WKH 1HWÁL[ GRFXPHQWDU\ +LS +RS (YROXWLRQ Awoyinka inserted himself in the story although he'd zoom in and out of the plot to allow the audience

Uwaifo

FILMS to follow the individual artist's story. )URP ( & $ULQ]H WR 9LFWRU 2ODL\D WKH HPHUJHQFH of highlife music was trailed and situated within its VRFLR SROLWLFDO FRQWH[WV LQ WKH PLQXWH ÁLFN +LJKOLIH for instance, is introduced as the soundtrack of the independence period, mirroring the optimism and XSEHDW QDWXUH RI WKH 1LJHULDQ %XW LQ D VHULRXV decline was recorded when the civil war paralysed social life, forcing most of highlife progenitors of Ibo extraction to leave Lagos.

Kakadu, a nightclub based in Yaba Lagos remains a cultural reference point in the documentary as WKH QDUUDWRU GUDZV LQVLJKWV IURP ( & $ULQ]H -LPL 6RODQNH 7KH 2ULHQWDO %URWKHUV 9LFWRU 8ZDLIR DQG RWKHUV RQ KRZ WKH SUHYDOHQW VLWXDWLRQ LQ 1LJHULD impacted their music. For some artists, the civil war

Yinka Olatunbosun The access to information on African history and heritage has been heightened by the introduction of WKH $IULFDQ &XOWXUDO /HDUQLQJ &HQWUH E\ WKH &RUUHFW &RQQHFW $IULFD )RXQGDWLRQ &&$) 7KH &HQWUH LV VDLG WR EH ORDGHG ZLWK UDUH DUFKLYDO PDWHULDOV 'XULQJ DQ R΀FLDO ODXQFK RI WKH FHQWUH WKH *HQHUDO &RRUGLQDWRU RI &RUUHFW &RQQHFW $IULFD )RXQGDWLRQ &&$) 5HY )DWKHU $QWKRQ\ $OHDNZH 2GLRU saidthatthehighlevelofdecadenceandtrivialization ofAfrican culture and loss of identity informed his decision to open the centre where people can come to learn about African histories and heritages.

7KH &DWKROLF 3ULHVW RI WKH 6DOHVLDQV RI 'RQ %RVFR stated this recently at the event which coincided with the launch of the 4th edition of Sankofa Youth -RXUQDO LQ /DJRV +H VDLG WKH &HQWUH LV RSHQHG WR schools and individuals who want to know about their roots. ,Q KLV UHPDUNV RQ &KULVWDLQ SHUFHSWLRQV RQ FXOWXUH KH VDLG ´&XOWXUH DQG UHOLJLRQ DUH QRW WZR VHSDUDWH WKLQJV WKH\ DUH WRJHWKHU ,W·V MXVW WKDW ZH KDYH JRWWHQ it wrong from the beginning there by, when the misVLRQDULHV ÀUVW FDPH WKH\ ZHUH QRW DEOH WR UHODWH ZLWK our culture. “They do not understand the culture of the people. Unfortunately, many saw our culture as demonic, as something that does not have anything WR GR ZLWK &KULVWDLQ UHOLJLRQ

.DLQH $JDU\ LV D 1LJHULD /LWHUDWXUH 3UL]H $ZDUG ZLQQHU QHZVSDSHU FROXPQLVW DQG ,3 ODZ\HU Read full Article online - www.thisdaylive.com

Travelling Down Nigeria's History Through Music with Elders' Corner Yinka Olatunbosun

CCAF Opens African Cultural Learning Centre in Lagos

killed their careers completely. They lost their homes.

They lost their families. And sadly, they lost their MR\ DQG FRQÀGHQFH LQ 1LJHULD That hope would be rekindled after the civil war, SDUWLFXODUO\ GXULQJ WKH RLO ERRP HUD LQ WKH V 1LJHULD became the wealthiest African nation. The prices of crude oil surged and there was an increase in foreign exchange earnings. The musicians became sought after once again.

-XMX PXVLF GHYHORSHG ,W ZDV SDUW\ PXVLF DQG DUJXDEO\ D YHKLFOH IRU ODYLVK VSHQGLQJ 1LJKW FUDZOing. Womanising- the language of revealing this by the musicians was humorous.

By this time, new voices of revolution began to HYROYH 7KH /LMDGX 6LVWHUV )HOD $QLNXODSR .XWL DQG RWKHUV 1RZ WKLV LV ZKHUH WKH QDUUDWRU·V GLVFUHWLRQ clashes with the logic of history. A revered music FULWLF DQG KLVWRULDQ %HQVRQ ,GRQLMH LQ KLV ERRN ´7KLV )HOD 6HI·· UHYHDOV WKDW )HOD ZDV WKH ÀUVW 1LJHULDQ PXVLFLDQ WR SURGXFH D MD]] DOEXP ,W·V FRPPRQ knowledge too that Fela’s emergence in the music scene did not start with Afrobeat although he is credited as the originator of that music genre in the court of popular opinions.

Perhaps, Awoyinka simply decides to place Fela in this context- as the antagonist of the Festival of $UWV DQG &XOWXUH )(67$& ZKLFK ZDV WRXWHG DV one of the machineries for the gross misuse of public IXQGV ,Q WUXWK )HOD LV PRUH WKDQ WKDW +DYLQJ FXW his teeth with the highlife legend, Fela made some contribution to highlife music with his Koola Lobitos band and even made some a hit song “Onidodo” amongst others.

Read full Article online - www.thisdaylive.com

L-R: Head of Retail Marketing, Sterling Bank Plc, Abena Annan; Founder and Director, Ake Books and Arts Festival, Lola Shoneyin and Chief Executive Officer, Sterling One Foundation, Olapeju Ibekwe at a press conference on the 10th edition of Ake Books and Arts Festival in Lagos recently

$NH )HVWLYDO 3URPLVHV /DYLVK Return with ‘Homecoming’ Yinka Olatunbosun Africa’s leading literary festival,AkeArts and Book )HVWLYDO LV VHW IRU LWV WK DQQLYHUVDU\ HGLWLRQ DIWHU D WZR \HDU KLDWXV 5XQQLQJ IURP 1RYHPEHU WR DW WKH 6WURQJ 7RZHU (YHQWV &HQWUH ,NR\L WKH WKUHH days of cultural immersion will feature book chats, interviews, panel discussions, concerts and more. $W D UHFHQW SUHVV EULHÀQJ KHOG DW 2XLGD +RXVH LQ ,NHMD WKH FRQYHQHU RI WKH IHVWLYDO DQG DXWKRU /ROD Shoneyin expressed her excitement at the return of the cultural event to its physical form. )RU KHU LW LV D GHOLJKW WR KRVW WKH WK HGLWLRQ LQ /DJRV although its traditional home wasAbeokuta. Expectedly, visitors will relish stimulating panel discussions on brain drain, climate action, economic growth, emerging feminist identities and sexual revolutions.

With support from Sterling bank, the festival has as LWV WKHPH ¶+RPHFRPLQJ · ´2XU $IULFDQ DUWV FRQWLQXH WR LQÁXHQFH RXU DUWV and our creative expression,’’ Shoneyin said while explaining the rationale behind the theme. “We hope to formalise the ritual of coming back to our roots in order to interact with people that are here and bring back knowledge and whatever it is that they have OHDUQW DQG MRLQ LW ZLWK ZKDW ZH KDYH KHUH DOUHDG\

67

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER NOVEMBER 20 , 2022

CICERO

Editor: Ejiofor Alike SMS: 08066066268 email:ejiofor.alike@thisdaylive.com

IN THE ARENA

How Senate Failed to Shift Deadline for Naira Redesign An attempt by some senators to shift the deadline for naira redesign from the January 31, 2023 to April 30, created uproar on the floor of the red chamber last Wednesday. At the end, they failed, Sunday Aborisade writes

T

he Senate resumed plenary on Wednesday following the end of the recess it embarked on October 12 to enable members to engage heads of ministries, departments and agencies on their 2023 budget proposals.

The first legislative activity of the day at plenary, presided over by the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, was a point of order raised by the member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) representing Kaduna Central Senatorial District, Senator Uba Sani.

Sani’s motion was titled: ‘Re-design of the New Naira Notes by the CBN: A Call for Legislative Support.’

In the motion, the senator proposed four prayers and sought the approval of his colleagues.

One of his key prayers was that the Senate should encourage Nigerians and the public to comply with the Central Bank of Nigeria’s directive to deposit cash at their respective commercial banks.

He also urged the Senate to support the decision of the CBN given the aforementioned benefits of the currency redesign to the nation.

The Senate approved the four prayers when the presiding officer put them into votes.

However, while the majority of the senators across party lines supported the redesign of the naira, some of them were concerned about the deadline set by the apex bank for the old notes to be deposited in commercial banks.

Some of the lawmakers called for a shift in the deadline for the old banknotes to be withdrawn from circulation, from January 15 to April 2023, to enable them offload the cash they had stockpiled for elections.

CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele had on October 26, announced a redesign of the currency in the variation of N200, N500 and N1,000.

The CBN governor, who pointed out that the change was sequel to the approval of the president, had said circulation of the new banknotes would commence on December 15, 2022.

It was gathered that this monetary tool aimed at fighting corruption, checkmating money laundering, eliminating counterfeits, and ending the hoarding of the Naira by kidnappers and others, has thrown politicians who stashed billions of the Nigerian currency ahead of the 2023 general election into confusion.

It is estimated that about 84 per cent of the N12.73 trillion in circulation is outside the banking system, precisely in the hands of corrupt politicians, kidnappers, traders and criminal elements. These elements, who do not bank their funds, are involved in money laundering and currency round-tripping using the black market as the alternative foreign exchange window.

The politicians who feared that they might not return billions of Naira into the banking system within the three months – November 2022 to January 2023 specified by the CBN without breaching the Money Laundering Act and attracting the attention of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), are mobilising some mem-

he should be persuaded to extend the deadline to April 30, 2023.

But Senator Gabriel Suswan disagreed with Kalu and others, claiming that the CBN governor had always shunned the Senate invitations.

He urged his colleagues to ignore the CBN policy.

In his contribution, Senator Bassey Akpan stressed the need to support the CBN governor, stressing that there should be no debate on the matter.

Senator Ndume had earlier said there were only five banks in the entire 27 local government areas in Borno State due to the insurgency in the state. He urged his colleagues to ignore the CBN policy.

Emefiele bers of the National Assembly to pass a resolution against the Naira redesign.

THISDAY had reported that politicians who stashed billions of naira outside the banking system to prosecute the 2023 general election were plotting against the reintroduction and redesign of Nigeria’s currency. These politicians, it was learnt, had mobilised the National Assembly to pass a resolution against the naira redesign.

By the time the issue came up for debate in the Senate last Wednesday, many Nigerians were not surprised. The lawmakers questioned the impact of the redesign of the naira note on the economy and if it would help reduce the inflation rate and the dwindling value of the naira.

The session became rowdy when Senators Ali Ndume, Abiodun Olujimi, Betty Apiafi, Barau Jibrin, Chukwuka Utazi, and Orji Uzor Kalu, supported the CBN policy but suggested the extension of the deadline for compliance.

Kalu specifically wanted the Senate to invite the Governor of CBN, Mr. Godwin Emefiele to throw more light on the policy, insisting that

On her part, Senator Abiodun Olujimi, said the time was too short to withdraw all the money in circulation without shutting down the economy. She added the Senate should invite the CBN governor for further explanation on the issue.

Also, Senator Apiafi said rural banking had been shut down hence the January deadline should be extended. She argued that the implications of the redesign should be criticality examined in view of the fact that bandits have said they would be collecting ransom I’m foreign currencies.

On his part, Senator Jibrin said the naira redesign cannot on its own halt terrorism, but could only reduce it.

In his contribution, Senator Chukwuka Utazi said because of the rural nature of the country, the leadership of the Senate should interface with the CBN governor, urging the CBN to visit all rural communities to get first-hand information.

But Suswan and Akpan’s submissions did not go down well with those seeking the extension of the deadline.

It degenerated to a shouting match between Akpan and Senator Solomon Adeola, for about five minutes.

It took the persistent appeals by Omo-Agege for the session to return to normalcy after 10 minutes of hot arguments among the senators. Omo-Agege said it was the prerogative of the CBN to redesign the naira and put a deadline for compliance.

The Senate after the rowdy session offered to provide legislative support for the policy. It also mandated the Senate Committee on Banking and Financial Institutions to go on oversight.

Multiple sources close to the federal lawmakers had reportedly told THISDAY that some politicians wanted the National Assembly to pass a resolution directing the CBN to shift the Naira redesign till after the 2023 general election.

Investigation had also revealed that many of the politicians who had perfected plans of rigging next year’s election through vote-buying and who had stock-pilled the naira in their houses, offices and other hidden places were jittery and uncomfortable.

However, their plan to ambush the apex bank’s initiative, which has received the strong backing of President Muhammadu Buhari and economic experts, failed at the Wednesday’s Senate plenary.

Buhari had declared that his government would not go back on it.

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

Adamu Adamu’s Irredeemable Posture

Atiku

Less than two weeks after the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, openly confessed that he failed in his responsibility in office, it seems he is not in any way ready to remedy the situation.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), which embarked on strike in February, called it off in October following the intervention of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila. All through the period of the strike, Adamu, whose ministry is charge of education, was hardly seen playing any critical role to resolve the issue.

Before the strike was called off, the federal government had insisted that members of ASUU would not be paid for work not done in line with the ‘No work no pay’ policy. The lecturers thought it was a joke.

However, at the end of October, the union members got half salaries, a move which did not go down well with them.

Last Wednesday, State House reporters took up the minister after the Federal Executive Council meeting. In his response, Adamu said the position of the federal government was that the lecturers “would not be paid for work not done.”

When told that the lecturers were threatening a one-day action to protest government’s action, Adamu said he was not aware.

It was the same Adamu, who while speaking at the 66th National Council on Education in Abuja, said it was regrettable that despite being the longest-serving education minister in the nation’s history

that he was unable to solve several of the challenges of the sector.

Many Nigerians had blamed the minister for allowing the ASUU strike to last for eight months until the National Assembly stepped in.

After his open confession, since he did not resign, many Nigerians had thought it was a clear opportunity for him redeem himself. But he is on his own blowing it.

Adamu’s action confirms the impression ASUU has that the federal government is not concerned if they are in school or not because all their children are not in public schools.

It is shocking how the minister wants to be remembered by the time he leaves office in 2023. Will he go down in history as a leader who contributed to improve education in the country or one who destroyed it?

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER NOVEMBER 20 , 2022

BRIEFINGNOTES

2023: Tinubu Keeps Eyes on the Ball The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Senator Bola Tinubu, has shrugged off all the controversies surrounding his age, origin, certificates, alleged drug deals, and has continued to win the support of his enemies, resulting in the speedy resolution of the dispute over the composition of his party’s campaign council and the successful flag-off of his presidential campaign, Ejiofor Alike writes

T

he presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Bola Tinubu, first stamped his political superiority over his opponents and his traducers when he survived all the plots by the leadership of his party and a section of the Presidency to successfully emerge as the party’s presidential candidate in a free, fair, and transparent presidential primary. But despite his political dexterity, the plots almost over-stretched his patience that snapped, forcing him to make what many regarded as disparaging remarks against President Muhammadu Buhari and Ogun State Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun in Abeokuta, Ogun State.

Many believed that he broke the records when he survived all the intrigues, threw jabs at a sitting president and still won the ruling party’s presidential primary. Even after winning the primary, his frustrations by his supposed loyalists almost overwhelmed him as he failed to recognise Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in his acceptance speech and also told the President of the Senate, Dr. Ahmad Lawan, to go and lick his wounds.

He only recognised Osinbajo after the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila walked up to him to remind him.

Tinubu was said to have nominated Osinbajo as Buhari’s running mate and had expected the vice president not to challenge him in the primary. He also played a key role in the emergence of Lawan as the Senate President in 2019 and had fought the former President of the Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki for denying the Yobe senator the position in 2015.

Tinubu was therefore justifiably upset when Lawan not only threw his hat in the presidential ring, but was hurriedly named as the consensus presidential candidate of the APC by the party’s National Chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, who claimed that the decision was reached in consultation with President Buhari.

The backlash that greeted the announcement and the denial of Adamu’s claim by members of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) forced the Presidency to disown the party’s chairman.

Tinubu obviously knew that his emergence did not go down well with a section of the Presidency and the leadership of his party.

He equally knew that the enemies within could pull the rug from under his feet.

As a political strategist, he quickly deployed deft moves to court all his perceived enemies and win more friends to actualise his ambition.

He has made enormous efforts to woo the likes of Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir

Tinubu el-Rufai, who had never hidden his disdain for his style of politics.

In May 2019, the Kaduna State governor had offered to advise the people of Lagos State on how to end godfatherism in the state. Also during the ‘Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola Colloquium 2020,’ a virtual conference put together in May 2020 to commemorate the interior minister’s 63rd birthday where el-Rufai had reportedly said: “I am not Asiwaju’s man.

You (Aregbesola) are Asiwaju’s man. Asiwaju and I have our differences. You and I have none.”

But despite his position on Tinubu, the former Lagos State governor has been making strenuous efforts to win him over to his side. Having declared that it was his turn to become the president, what matters to him is the realisation of his age-long ambition.

Tinubu uses every occasion to acknowledge

el-Rufai’s contributions to his emergence as presidential candidate. With his attitude to those opposed to his ambition, he is ahead of another leading presidential candidate, who chose to snub his perceived enemies.

While he mastered the art of courting his opponents, he has however engaged in embarrassing Freudian slips, which have given his handlers a tough task to manage.

One of such embarrassing moments came before his emergence when he called for the recruitment of 50 million youths into the army to fight terrorism. Few hours later, his handlers clarified that he meant 50,000.

Tinubu had also told participants at the Kaduna Economic and Investment Summit last month that Governor el-Rufai could turn a rotten situation into a bad one, a comment his handlers later described as a slip of tongue.

Even at last week’s campaign in Jos, Tinubu

who slipped out of excitement, chanted “God Bless PD…”, before he realised his Freudian slip and quickly reverted to his “APC”.

Following these embarrassing gaffes, the former Lagos governor and his handlers have resolved that he won’t participate in television debates or interviews. Many thought such decision would be his greatest undoing but he survived without any bruises.

Despite the attempts by his opponents to use these gaffes to discredit him, the APC presidential candidate has continued to wax strong in the race to Aso Rock.

The controversy over the list of members of the party’s Presidential Campaign Council was another issue that threw a spanner in his works.

Mutual distrust between his close allies and the leadership of the party had fuelled the dispute. With the failed attempt by the party’s leadership to stop his emergence, his loyalists were said to have ignored the party and prepared a list, which the NWC felt was not all-inclusive.

As his opponents were celebrating the party’s inability to constitute a presidential campaign council, Tinubu in his characteristic deft political moves, resolved the dispute to the chagrin of his traducers. No sooner was it resolved than a fresh controversy over his alleged involvement in drug deal in the United States surfaced.

Less than one week before the party kicked off its presidential campaign in Jos, the Plateau State capital, the media was agog with a United States District Court judgment from the Northern District of Illinois taking possession of Tinubu’s $460,000 over his involvement in drug trafficking in the 1990s.

The APC presidential candidate had earlier shrugged off the controversies over his real origin, name, age, and educational qualifications.

However, the allegation over drug deal was so strong that many thought that it would truncate his presidential ambition. Many also thought that President Buhari who was known to have executed those involved in drug trafficking as a military head of state, would not be part of his scheduled campaign in Jos. His opponents were however disappointed when Buhari personally flagged off the campaign which was witnessed by a mammoth crowd of the party’s supporters.

Despite his weaknesses and all the grave allegations against him, Tinubu has continued to exude an uncommon confidence, which his main challengers lack.

For instance, while presenting a copy of his manifesto recently to the leader of Afenifere, Chief Reuben Fasoranti, the APC presidential candidate had urged him to remain alive to attend his presidential inauguration.

NOTES FOR FILE

2023: Police Need to up Their Game

Baba

ItwasreallyshockingtoheartheInspectorGeneral of Police, Usman Baba, blaming the increasing incidences of political violence in the country on some state governors. Baba said this during a meeting with the leadership of political parties and other stakeholders on Thursday in Abuja.

RecallthatatarecentmeetingoftheInter-Agency Consultative Committee on Electoral Security (ICCES), the National Security Adviser (NSA), MajorGeneral Babagana Monguno (rtd), had disclosed that the country witnessed 52 cases of electoral violence in 22 states in one month. Monguno said President Muhammadu Buhari had given all the security agencies the go-ahead to deal decisively withindividualsorgroupstryingtopreventpeaceful conduct of the general election.

ButlastThursday,IGatameetingtoengagepolitical parties’ leadership on the increasing trend of political violence and to present a common front in addressing the issues, blamed most incidents of violence on political extremism, misinformation, intolerance, wrong political orientation, hate speeches, incitement and desperation of strategic actors.

According to him, such actors usually give the wrong direction to their party faithful, arm them, reorient them and encourage them to resort to the use of threat, violence, and other extra-legal means to frustrate competing political parties.

A lot of Nigerians were alarmed that such a comment could come from the IG who should order the arrest of the culprits and not lament helplessly or

appeal to anyone. Doesn’t he know that political violenceinanyformisanoffenceundertheElectoral Act and a crime under extant criminal laws of the country?Doesheneedpermissiontoarrestanybody who contravenes the laws of Nigeria?

Everybody knows that once the police force is fixed to do its job effectively and efficiently, three quartersoftheproblemsinNigeriawouldbesolved.

WhyshouldapoliceIGbeblamingpeopleforcommitting crime instead of arresting and prosecuting to serve as a deterrent to others?The failure of the policetoaddresscrimeisthereasonwhymostpeople take the laws into their hands.

He should better know that the success of the 2023 general election depends on how effective and efficient the police would be.

69

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER NOVEMBER 20 , 2022

CICERO/ISSUES

PDP Crisis: Can Saraki Break the Jinx?

Former Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, last week sounded upbeat about the possible reconciliation between the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar and G-5 governors led by Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State. It remains to be seen, if the former Kwara State governor can break the jinx, Chuks Okocha writes

Atiku

S

ince many have failed, can the former Senate President, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, effectively resolve the crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)? This is one question that is seriously begging for answers from members of the party who have all lost hope that any good thing can come out of the party ahead of the presidential election in February 2023.

Speaking with journalists in Ilorin, Kwara State, last Monday on the sidelines of the 10th memorial prayer for his late father and Second Republic Senate Leader, Dr. Abubakar Olusola Saraki, the former Senate president said the party would soon surprise Nigerians, adding that members of the party would work together to better the lot of Nigeria.

“We will surprise Nigerians. We are going to work together to improve the lot of Nigeria.

This is because we all think about what is good for this country. Look at the poverty that is on the street. Look at how governance has not gone well.

“We will put Nigerians first because Nigerians want PDP back in power. The little differences between Governor Wike and Abubakar, we will resolve them and at the end of the day whether it’s Wike or others all of us in PDP want a better Nigeria.”

THISDAY gathered that Saraki has taken up the gauntlet to spearhead the reconciliation of the warring factions in the party in order for it battle the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Labour Party (LP) in 2023.

The PDP has been enmeshed in a leadership crisis since after its presidential primary, which was won by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar at a special convention held in Abuja in May. While making a presentation at the PDP primary, Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State, who had also been screened to contest the presidential ticket, announced his withdrawal from the race and asked his supporters to back Atiku.

A day after the primaries, the PDP National Chairman, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu paid a visit to Tambuwal where he hailed him as the “hero of

Saraki

the convention,” a comment that raised mutual distrust within the party. Further cracks in the opposition party widened after Atiku overlooked Wike and settled for Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State as his running mate.

In response, Wike’s camp began to agitate for Ayu’s resignation as national chairman of the party because he and Atiku are from the same region – the North.

Ayu has insisted he would not resign because he was elected for a four yearterm. Several efforts by Atiku to appease the G-5 governors both abroad and at home have not yielded any positive results.

Wike and his group have insisted that the current leadership structure, where the North holds the presidential ticket as well as the national chairmanship positions, was against the Constitution of the party and a gross injustice to the South.

The disagreement worsened when the G-5 governors withdrew from the party’s presidential campaign, insisting that Ayu be removed or should resign from his position for a southerner to succeed him. The governors not only stayed away from the party’s presidential campaign rallies held in Akwa Ibom, Kaduna, Edo and Borno states, they frequently made incendiary comments to demarket Atiku.

Saraki has however expressed optimism that the political differences between Atiku and the G-5 governors would soon be over.

His optimism is driven by the outcome of the meeting between him and Wike’s team which made the Rivers State governor to declare that they had never closed the door against reconciliation.

“I have stated severally that we are here for reconciliation. We have never closed the door for reconciliation. All we are calling for is equity, fairness, and justice. In fact, that is the hallmark that PDP stands for,” Wike reportedly said.

Before Saraki’s effort to reconcile warring factions in the party, the party had set up a reconciliation committee to reconcile

Wike

the Atiku and the G-5. Its recommendation was sent to the Board of Trustees (BoT). It recommended that Ayu should resign his chairmanship position after the 2023 poll.

The recommendation, which was signed by the BoT chairman, Senator Adolphus Wabara, noted that people had been wronged on both sides, but that party leaders and people close to them should desist from making further inflammatory remarks or granting press interviews on the matter.

“The BoT called on the chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum (Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State) to convene a meeting of the forum without further delay; called on all leaders of the party to match words with action, and where commitments are made, to unconditionally fulfil the same. “(The BoT) urged the national chairman as an eminent leader to give a firm assurance that he will resign his position after the 2023 elections. In the same vein, the BoT chairman has been authorised to offer apologies on behalf of all members who feel maligned or aggrieved by the public statements made by its members nationwide that have sharpened the current division in the party.”

THISDAY gathered that this did not yield any positive outcome because as soon as the governors returned from Spain where they went to deliberate on the issue, they renewed their determination not to shift ground.

Recently, the social media and some newspapers were agog with reports that a former Senate President, Senator David Mark; former Governor of Rivers State, Dr. Peter Odili and his Delta State counterpart, Chief James Ibori were among the eminent emissaries drafted by Atiku to plead with Wike to put an end to the disagreement in the party.

But sources close to Odili later informed THISDAY that nobody told him to help in assuaging Wike’s feelings.

Against the backdrop that PDP losing the 2023 presidential election would embarrass Saraki and many other members of the party, many are hoping that all hand would be put on deck in the task of bringing peace to the party.

But in the meantime, Wike has continued to make incendiary comments that tend to show that the conditions for peace between the leadership of the PDP and his group are non-negotiable.

Speaking last Wednesday during the inauguration of the Rumuepirikom flyover in Port Harcourt, the governor stressed that he and his group would only accept reconciliation that is based on equity, fairness and justice.

The governor maintained that their position that elective offices must be shared equally between the North and the South in the PDP ahead of the 2023 general election remained sacrosanct.

Indirectly lampooning the leadership of the party, the Rivers State governor urged Nigerian leaders to strive to have integrity in order to be able to keep their promises to the people. He said he would not accept the argument that failure to keep promises was a familiar trait among politicians.

“We stand for equity, fairness and justice.

That is what the G-5 governors will continue to preach. We have said we are not against reconciliation, but reconciliation must be based on equity, fairness and justice. But now, because I said let the right thing be done, let agreement be agreement. Because I have said that, I have now become an enemy. Because we said, look, we had an agreement, do this, do that, and some people believe that they will not and we said it must be done,” he stated.

“You must tell me what is the interest of my community. I will not join anybody who does not want my state to benefit. I will not support anybody who does not like my state. Individuals can behave that way, I will not behave that way. If I say something today, I will do it. If there is any reason, I won’t do it, I have to come back to you and let you know this is the reason why. And that is what they call integrity,” the governor said.

By the time he hosted the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi, who was in the state on Thursday to inaugurate projects, Wike openly assured him of logistics and other support anytime Obi comes to campaign in Rivers State.

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER NOVEMBER 20 , 2022

CICERO/ISSUE

Tinubu

Adamu

Lalong

Is Lalong Alone on Tinubu’s Project?

Despite the crowd that graced the All Progressives Congress’ presidential election flag-off in Jos, Plateau State, Seriki Adinoyi writes that Governor Simon Lalong may not be representing the will of his people as the APC has never won any presidential election in the state

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he easy and expected fairytale that followed last week’s flag-off of the presidential campaign of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Jos, Plateau State was that going by the crowd at the event, the party will record a landslide victory in the 2023 presidential election.

But those familiar with the politics of the state will vehemently disagree with that illusion. The average man in Plateau State has a mind of his own; he does not sheepishly follow a leader he perceives as working for personal and selfish interest. So, such leader is usually abandoned to himself in his selfish pursuit.

That may be the case of Governor Simon Lalong, who the people of the state perceived as not working for them. So, the crowd that attended the campaign flag-off of the presidential candidate of the APC, Senator Bola Tinubu last Tuesday may not be a true reflection of the popularity of the party in the state.

The people of Plateau State had openly expressed their opposition to the leadership style of President Muhammadu Buhari and the choice of Muslim-Muslim ticket by the APC. It is on record that whenever APC had a rally in the state, it would always go to the neighbouring states of Bauchi, Gombe, Nasarawa, and Kaduna to hire crowd. So, despite the huge and electrifying crowds that President Buhari pulled in the build-up to 2015 and 2019 elections, he lost woefully in the state, though he had a Christian and pastor as running mate.

To put it straight, the APC has never won any presidential election in Plateau State, despite the crowd it always attracted at its rallies. The reason was that the crowds were actually hired from neighbouring states and did not represent the people’s support.

It is an open secret that the people of the state are aggrieved with the Muslim-Muslim ticket of APC, and the impression created by the party that no northern Christian is competent to be the running mate. This anger is not peculiar to Christians only, but

some Muslims too who claimed that Islam represents justice and equity.

In addition, the number of people killed in the state since 2015 when President Buhari came power, is unprecedented. There is hardly no week at least five persons or more would not been killed. While Governor Lalong has not been able to solve the intractable problems in the state, President Buhari feels unconcerned. For instance, the night after the APC rally, the state was attacked and no fewer than 11 persons were killed.

Many were not surprised that apart from handing over the party’s flag to Tinubu, President Buhari refused to speak at the event. While observers have read it to mean that the president is not in total support of Tinubu’s candidacy, others said it is because of the poor performance of the party in the last seven years.

According to a public affairs analyst, Dr. Ahmed Adamu, “If a sitting president attends his party’s political rally and shies away from speaking, it is a clear message that he does not trust and believe in the candidature of the party’s candidate.”

According to Adamu, “President Buhari enjoyed support from northern Nigeria, and now he fears that his defaming political personality would not add much value to his party. However, if he still had Tinubu in his heart, he would have grabbed the microphone and said a word or two.”

It was not surprising that in the morning after the presidential campaign flag-off, some people came out in their thousands to embark on what they described as a “symbolic cleansing” of the land which they alleged had been desecrated by “the evil that visited the city in the name of a mega rally.”

There is no worse level of disapproval than when an African home sweeps away the footprint of a visitor. It is a form of symbolic and spiritual cleansing of the home from the ill-luck that the visitor represents.

Mocking the party and its presidential candidate as they went round the Rwang Pam township stadium, venue of the flag-off with buckets of water, mops, brooms, and soap to cleanse the venue and the adjourning

streets, they said that their action was to show their disenchantment for APC and the evil the party has visited on the land in the past seven and a half years.

Commenting on the action of the people, the Director General of Atiku Motivational Movement (AMM), Mr. Kamru Sani, said the action of the people was a clear message of disapproval for the APC. “Can you imagine that on the night of their rally, the state was attacked and no fewer than 11 persons were killed? Yet, the governor was ‘given a medal’ during the rally for bringing peace and security.”

He reiterated that Plateau State is a stronghold of the PDP, adding that the choice of a failed governor of the state as the Director General of Tinubu/Shettima campaign would not change the position of the people.

Also speaking, the National Coordinator, PDP Youth Amendment Movement, Comrade Sadiq Mohammed Hassan said, “the people present at the rally yesterday were not supporters of APC, but gullible hungry Nigerians hired from neighbouring states of Bauchi, Gombe, Nasarawa and Kaduna.”

He said: “We were all witnesses to the lofty promises they made to us during the campaigns for 2015 and 2019 elections, and how they roundly failed; it was all a deceit after all. We can’t afford to have them receive us again.

“The price Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) has steadily gone up since they assumed power, security situation continue escalate, education, especially at tertiary level has been in shambles, food prices have grown worse, corruption has gone to its peak. No promise fulfilled.”

He alleged that the same Lalong who had abandoned the state to itself hurriedly began to fill the portholes on the streets of Jos on the eve of the rally - the same streets he had abandoned for years.

“The governor and DG of their campaign organisation that persuaded them to take the rally to Jos, suddenly realised that he had nothing to show. While his counterparts in other states like Rivers and Ebonyi are

commissioning flyovers, bridges and smooth roads, his own achievement is to patch the portholes and host campaign rallies.

“How can hosting the presidential campaign rally count as an achievement? Has it restored and boosted our economy; has it erected dilapidated infrastructures; has it restored our sporting capacity; has it brought back the glorious days of our entertainment industry; has it revitalised our tourism potential, and has it ended the persistent kidnappings and killing in the state; has it brought back the relocated regional headquarters of Central Bank, Post Office, and others?”

He dismissed the claim that Lalong’s sterling qualities and patience got him the campaign DG of the APC, querying why the party did not notice his acclaimed qualities when he was denied the vice presidential slot.

A political analyst in the state, Mr. Shabul Mazadu, while deconstructing Lalong’s choice, said the governor was chosen as DG to serve as bait to appease Christians, because a Muslim DG would have further compounded APC problems.

He said: “Why he chose Lalong was to appease the Northern Governors’ Forum whom he broke his promise of picking one of them as running mate. Who else would Tinubu have picked as a Christian DG among the northern governors? Would he pick Samuel Ortom or Ishaku Darius of PDP? The only APC northern Christian governor is Lalong, and it was on that basis that he was considered, not on the basis of ‘competence or sterling qualities’ as Lalong has noting sterling in his qualities.

He told Lalong that Tinubu cannot win the election simply on the basis that he flagged-off his campaign in Jos. “Alhaji Shehu Shagari did not flag-off his campaign in Jos, but won in 1979 and 1983; Umaru Musa Yar’Adua did not flag-off his campaign in Jos, but won. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan did not flag-off in Jos, but won.

Buhari did not flag-off in Jos, but won,” he added He insisted that Lalong is standing alone, and not representing the will of the people.

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 20, 2022 • T H I S D AY

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER NOVEMBER 20, 2022

PERSPECTIVE

Understanding Tinubu’s US Case Femi Fani-Kayode

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y dear friend and brother Dr. Reuben Abati, I watched you and a colleague of yours by the name of Mr. Rufai Oseni interview a young man by the name of David Hundeyin, who apparently lives abroad and who describes himself as an “investigative journalist”, on your morning show last Tuesday.

The topic was onAsiwaju BolaAhmed Tinubu and his so-called links with the drug business.

Whilst insisting that Tinubu was a drug lord, your guest did not answer the question that was put to him by Oseni.

He asked: “On Channels Television last night Femi Fani-Kayode said $1million was returned to Bola Tinubu by the US authorities after the investigation was completed and only $460,000 was seized due to tax that was not paid on his investments. Is this true?”

This was a good question which for obvious reasons your young guest David refused to answer.

He could NOT refute the assertion and the FACT that the FBI returned $1million to Tinubu because he knew it was true.

He could not explain why only $460,000 was seized and forfeited and he refused to acknowledge that it was seized for tax reasons.

Instead he claimed that the money that was seized was indeed drug money which is an allegation that the Americans themselves clearly and categorically REFUTED when they were asked about the matter by the Nigerian authorities.

One Mr. Bonner wrote a letter in plain English on behalf of the American Embassy in Nigeria in which he said that Tinubu had NOT been INDICTED or CONVICTED of ANY crime.

This means that Tinubu was neither formally charged to court or convicted by any court of ODZ IRU GUXJ RU GUXJ UHODWHG RͿHQFHV RU LQGHHG DQ\ RWKHU RͿHQFHV DW DOO LQ $PHULFD DIWHU ZKDW , am sure was a thorough criminal investigation into the source of his funds.

He came out of it all triumphant, not wanting DQG ZLWK Á\LQJ FRORXUV Thanks be to God! Instead of rejoicing that his compatriot was declared as clean as a whistle after such a rigorous and thorough criminal investigation people like David are still attempting to convict him for a crime he never committed in the court of public opinion 30 years later.

This is indeed a great shame. It is also a crime in itself.

They actually believe that they know better than the Federal Bureau of Investigation and that Tinubu is a dangerous criminal and drug lord even though the Americans have said clearly and categorically that there is NO evidence to suggest that this is the case.

Investigative journalism is one thing and I commend and salute the courage of those that conduct such investigations in good faith, with an objective mind and in earnest.

However obsession and the obsessive persecution of an innocent man borne out of bitterness, hate and envy and couched in the cloak of investigative journalism is quite another.

It is like the proverbial crooked, biased, corrupt, obsessed and, more often than not, sociopathic and mentally ill criminal prosecutor who is totally and completely obsessed with jailing his innocent victim even though he knows that the man has done no wrong.

There is indeed a special place in hell reserved IRU VXFK SHRSOH DQG +XQGH\LQ DSSHDUV WR ÀW the bill.

He reminds me of the insane and obsessed policeman by the name of Javert in Victor Hugo’s famous literary and highly celebrated masterpiece which was originally written in 1810, titled ‘Les Miserables’ who dedicated his life to attempting to jail the hero of the book, an innocent, humble, pious and reformed character with a kind and golden heart, by the name of Jean Valjean.

So obsessed was Javert with jailing his innocent victim Valjean that he ended up committing suicide after he discovered that he had failed in his evil quest and after he realised that the darkness in him could not overcome the light in his victim.

Let us hope young David does not end up doing the same thing a few years down the line.

Tinubu Frankly I cannot fathom how people like him sleep at night with their inherent wickedness and vicious lies.

Worse still after they tell such lies they label anyone that attempts to set the record straight and tells the plain truth with evidence proving it as either being ignorant or a liar.

How this young man can get on television and tell such lies about his own compatriots from a foreign land and with such conviction I just don’t know.

Is he the victim of mind-control, is he under a spell or has he been hypnotised?

Or is it that he is simply the seed and spawn satan, what the Bible describes as a “son of perdition” and utterly evil.

His mendacities are like those of the proverbial serpent that misled Eve in the Garden of Eden: dangerous, deceitful, calculated, well-researched, well-served, well-crafted, well-delivered and well- designed to hurt, shatter, defame, destroy, assassinate, traumatise and do as much damage as possible to whoever he seeks to target.

His obsession with Tinubu and his family borders on madness: at the very best it is simply uncharitable and at the worst it is savage and wicked.

Young David is a sick man. He is lost. He is in desperate need of prayer. He is a pathological and obsessive liar and he is best treated with the contempt that he deserves.

He is a teller of tales, an accuser of the brethren and an agent of Beelzebub, the Lord of the Flies.

Like the evil and mystical character in Robert Browning’s famous book titled ‘The Pied Piper of Hamlin’, his sweet tongue and strange music leads to nothing but shattered dreams, dashed hopes, failure, loss, sadness, tragedy and destruction to all those that believe in him and follow him.

The question he needed to answer, which he conveniently refused to do, was simple: “Why was $1 million returned to Tinubu if the money were the proceeds of drugs?”

He had NO answer for that.

YES there WAS an investigation into the funds in Bola Tinubu’s account approximately 30 years ago by the FBI. YES there was a civil forfeiture of $1,460,000 pending the course of the investigation.

And YES after the investigation was completed $1 million was returned to Tinubu.

These are the FACTS! No one can refute them and only the criminally insane and the obsessively delusional can deny them.

The records are there for all to see but young David will not talk about that or show you those documents because it defeats and contradicts his sinister and nefarious purpose.

Now permit me to ask the following questions: Does it make sense to suggest that the FBI would return $1million if it was drug money?

Would Tinubu not have been in jail for life by now in America if that $1million had been in any way linked to drugs?

The $460,000 was seized only as a consequence of the IRS claiming and asserting that he had not paid tax on his numerousAmerican investments.

Tinubu chose not to challenge or dispute that claim and assertion by the IRS even though he was perfectly within his rights to do so and hence he willingly forfeited that money.

injured, traumatised, dehumanised, incarcerated, driven into exile and lost their loved ones was nothing but a scam.

Here is a young man that had the nerve and temerity to describe the late Chief MKOAbiola, the winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election and an authentic Nigerian hero and martyr, as yet another drug lord without providing any tangible evidence whatsoever to substantiate his grave allegation.

Finally here is a young man who is a selfconfessed unbeliever, who believes that there is NO God and who boastfully proclaims that his own mother is a cold, cruel and unfeeling narcissist that drove his father to an early grave.

There is no insult or curse that he has not visited on the woman that gave birth to him and brought him into the world.

Outside of that his greatest pleasure and past time, apart from running down the Tinubus and the Abiolas, is to slander, defame and libel high celebrity and hard-working people two of whom are dedicated, honest, sincere, brilliant and accomplished female journalists that have achieved heights that he can only dream of and that are far better and more accomplished than The seizure of the $460,000 had NOTHING he can ever be.

Is this the type of creature that Nigerians should WR GR ZLWK GUXJV RU OLQNV WR GUXJ WUD΀FNLQJ Rather it had EVERYTHING to do with tax take seriously?

Do we need to pay any more attention to his and it was the IRS that claimed it.

The FBI investigated Tinubu for links to drugs irritating and disingenuous smear campaign and laundering drug money and they found and specious lies all couched in the false claim of “investigative journalism?”

NOTHING. The only thing that needs to be investigated He came out clean.

Most of the money they originally seized was about young David is the state of his mind, the size of his brain and the content of his character. returned. +H LV ÀOOHG ZLWK VR PXFK YLWULRO ELOH ELWWHUQHVV The money that was not returned had NOTHand hate and he is propelled and motivated by ING to do with drugs.

Tinubu is a clean, wholesome, hard-working so much deceit.

Aside from that we know that he is working and innocent man and those making these allegations are simply trying to derail his presidential for the intelligence unit of a particular political party and presidential campaign council. ambition.

All this we know and when the time is right 7KH\ DUH DOVR ÀOOHG ZLWK KDWH DQG WKH\ UHVHQW we will expose them all and show the world his great successes in life.

The young man David told ARISE Television the type of libelous, slanderous, unconceivable, that yours truly had lied but he was unable to unpatriotic, unrelenting and irresponsible malesay where, when and how. factor and leprous plague that young David and Was it a lie that $1 million was returned to those that he works for really are.

Tinubu?

Meanwhile we shall continue to focus on Was it a lie that the $460,000 that was forfeited winning the election and not be distracted by was due to non-payment of taxes on his lawful this implausible, sordid, unacceptable and and legitimate investments? nonsensical fairy tales.

Was it a lie that Tinubu was not indicted?

Permit me to end this contribution with the Was it a lie that he was not charged or con- following.

Many of us, including yours truly, were misled victed?

Was it a lie that the Americans themselves by the disinformation that we were fed with in said he had committed no crime and that he the past and that were peddled over the years about Tinubu. was never a drug dealer?

We actually bought the lie that he was indeed The answer to all these questions is a resoundinvolved in the drug business 30 years ago simply ing NO! I never told a single lie during the course of my because of the salacious and false assertion and Channels’ Television ‘Politics Today’ interview baseless allegation of seized “drug” funds.

Sadly we only read the headlines and did not with Mr. Seun Okinbaloye when we discussed Tinubu’s so-called involvement with the drug read the full story.

We refused to look behind the veil, dig deep business and the absurd assertion and notion and do our own research but instead we relied that he is a drug lord.

It is rather young David that is the liar and on the research and misinformation of others.

6LPSO\ SXW ZH ZHUH IRROHG DQG XQMXVWLÀDEO\ not me.

If he has the courage of his convictions, I urge blinded with rage.

We accused Tinubu of being involved in the him to come to Nigeria and repeat these lies and drug business simply because we were not fully grave allegations here.

He should bring his so-called evidence with aware of all the facts of the case and neither did him and stop talking from the safety of foreign ZH FDUH WR GLJ GHHS DQG ÀQG RXW Thankfully we have now done that, we know lands where he cannot easily be held accountable.

If he has something to say let him come home better and we collectivity owe him an apology for assuming the worst and believing the lie. and say it here, on Nigerian soil.

7KRXJK XQMXVWLÀDEOH DQG LQGHIHQVLEOH LW LV Not inAmerica. Not in the UK. Not in Canada.

Not in France. Not in Ghana. Let him come here nevertheless forgivable to erroneously accuse an innocent man of crimes he never committed due and say it!

And if he does I promise him that I will direct to a lack of real and proper understanding of the my Personal Assistant to challenge him to a facts and issues in the matter under consideration.

What cannot be forgiven and is totally unacnationally televised public debate on this and any other issue touching and concerning our ceptable is to continue to peddle the grievous nation and his young life. lie and injurious falsehood purposely and with Here is a young man that delights in talking malicious intent once the truth has been estabasinine, absurd, tendentious, unintelligent and lished and unearthed and once the facts prove unsubstantiated gibberish from abroad and beyond reasonable doubt that the individual refuses to come home to state whatever case that was falsely accused is actually innocent. he has in a courageous and honorable manner.

This is a lesson that young David and those How can you describe yourself as an investiga- WKDW VKDUH KLV SHUÀGLRXV DQG ZDUSHG ZRUOGYLHZ tive journalist of repute and at the same time be have yet to learn.

He calls himself an investigative journalist D ÁDPLQJ FRZDUG" Here is a young man who said NADECO \HW KH IRUJHWV WKH ÀUVW ODZ RI MRXUQDOLVP WKDW facts are sacred and opinion is cheap! was a fraud.

May God deliver him.

Here is a young man that said that the seven-year heroic and bitter struggle against Fani-Kayode, a former Minister of Aviathe military and for democracy in our country, in tion, is a spokesman of the APC Presidential which thousands were killed, maimed, tortured, Campaign Council

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER NOVEMBER 20 , 2022

CICERO/ISSUE

:KHQ 6ROXGR 0LVÀUHG RQ 2EL·V $PELWLRQ If the tirade by the Anambra State Governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo was meant to diminish the fortunes of the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi, in the 2023 elections, Obi’s powerful, brilliant, and humble personality which has stood him out as a leader with extraordinary wisdom and intelligence, has rubbished the status of the governor, writes Adedayo Akinwale

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he Governor of Anambra State, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, last week courted another controversy when he dismissed the aspiration of the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, describing it as a waste of time and effort.

He specifically said Obi would not win the 2023 presidential election.

In an article released Monday, November 14 titled ‘History Beckons and I Will Not Be Silent (Part 1),’ Soludo said Obi was only making the 2023 presidential election an easy win for the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Before the former CBN governor wrote the letter, he had been under intense attack for close to a week for dismissing Obi’s investment in the state as amounting to nothing, during a television interview.

Soludo, a product of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), who prides himself as an international scholar, is not new to controversy. He wrote a similar letter against the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan shortly before the 2015 general election.

But his critics who argued that he had always overrated himself, have reminded him that reputable international scholars who served in the former administrations of President Olusegun Obasanjo and Jonathan have since secured international jobs while he shuttled between Awka and Aso Rock in search of the Presidency that would make him the Anambra State governor.

In his latest letter, the Anambra State governor argued that Obi was going nowhere in the 2023 presidential poll, adding that the LP presidential candidate by his aspiration, was toying with the destiny of Ndigbo. He alleged that the Obi was well aware of the “game” he was playing, adding that with LP, he lacked the necessary structure in place to win the presidency. Soludo who desperately wanted to be the Anambra State governor and had contested and lost on the platform of the PDP, equally accused the LP presidential candidate of desperation, which he claimed may likely cost Igbo dearly for years to come.

He stressed that Obi was inadvertently making the pathway to victory much easier for the presidential candidate of APC, Tinubu, by indirectly pulling down the PDP, stressing also that he was toying with the destiny of millions of Ndigbo.

“Let’s be clear: Peter Obi knows that he can’t and won’t win. He knows the game he is playing, and we know too; and he knows that we know. The game he is playing is the main reason he didn’t return to APGA. “Of course, Peter Obi will get some votes, and may probably win in Anambra State— as ‘home boy.’But Anambra is not Nigeria. If he like, I can even campaign for him but that won’t change much. From internal state-by-state polling available to me, he was on course to get 25 per cent in five states as at August this year. The latest polling shows that it is down to four states, and declining. Not even in Lagos State (supposed headquarters of urban youths) where Labour Party could not find candidates to contest for House of Representatives or Senate. The polls also show that he is taking votes away mostly from PDP. Indeed, if I were Asiwaju Tinubu, I would even give Peter Obi money as someone heading one of the departments of his campaign because Obi is making Tinubu’s pathway to victory much easier by indirectly pulling down PDP. It is what it is!

“Let me once again wish my brother Peter Obi good luck. He should have fun and enjoy the fleeting frenzy of the moment. But he must moderate the desperation as exhibited by his social media mob.

There is a limit to propaganda. A mob action often reflects the character of its leader. No one has a monopoly of social media violence, and no one should play God. Life won’t end by February/March 2023.”

Many were shocked that a supposedly busy governor whose state has become the ‘North-east of the South-east’ in terms of insecurity, and who had dismissed the nationwide popularity Obi enjoys among the ‘Obidients,’ describing the support as a mere “mob action”, could devote his precious time to write over 4,000 words to reply such irrelevant mob.

Before the latest attack on Obi, Soludo, a few days ago, had reeled out reasons why his party, the All

Obi

Soludo Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), would not take the hard decision of supporting the LP presidential aspiration. He said supporting Obi would ruin the chances of the party’s candidates at different levels of electioneering.

Speaking through his Special Adviser on Political Matters, Dr. Alex Obiogbolu, he said: “Today, APGA remains third largest political party in Nigeria. It is the third largest, considering the number of political offices it has won. APGA has a state governor, members of the National Assembly, and members of the state assemblies.

“We wish Peter Obi good luck, but no matter how much we wish him, everyone is aware that we also have our own Peter Umeadi, running for president under APGA. Even if APGA should adopt Obi as its presidential candidate, our votes alone cannot make president.”

For those who have been following Anambra politics, the two gladiators have a long history of rivalry. The crux of the matter is that being from the same state and belonging to different parties

means they will be rivals. Their paths first crossed in 2010 when Soludo wanted to become Anambra State governor on the platform of the PDP and challenged incumbent Obi. After the poll, Soludo lost to Obi. Soon after, the former CBN governor crossed over to APGA, and Obi welcomed him, and in the permutations of many people from the state, Soludo was APGA’s best option. But when the time came, Obi and the then APGA National Chairman, Victor Umeh, chose Willie Obiano.

Once Obiano assumed office, he fell out with Obi who at the time, had eyes on national politics and considered APGA too regional. He defected to the PDP into the bosom of President Goodluck Jonathan. Soon, a political dispute ensued between Obiano and Obi. Soludo bided his time and remained loyal to Obiano.

When Obiano was due for re-election, Obi threw his weight behind his boy, Oseloka Obaze who used Obi’s achievements to campaign but lost. When another election season came in the state, Obiano

anointed Soludo, and Obi chose another protégé, Val Ozigbo, to contest against Soludo. They all lost again to Soludo.

While Soludo wants to consolidate power in Anambra in February, Obi wants to overthrow APGA in the state.

As Obi is banking on South-east for block votes,Tinubu is relying on the South-west and Kwara, while Atiku Abubakar is hoping the entire North will not disappoint him.

But while most of the governors in the South-west are from the APC and some PDP governors are in the North, there is no governor in the South-east that is of the Labour Party.

However, if Soludo thought his tirade would embarrass Obi, the LP candidate’s powerful, and brilliant, humble response, which would continue to stand him out as leader with extraordinary wisdom and intelligence, has demystified Soludo and his self-acclaimed monopoly of knowledge.

Using the opportunity offered him by the Lagos Business School to highlight his programmes if elected president in 2023, Obi in his usual calm, and measured disposition, released a positive bang that made Soludo to look like a child.

First, he said he wished Soludo well and prayed for him to succeed and surpass his own achievement, adding that since governance is a continuum, he should face areas he could not complete as governor of Anambra State.

LP candidate used the occasion to reiterate his claim that, aside from the investment in International Breweries, his administration saved $50 million each in Access, defunct Diamond and Fidelity banks with an interest rate of at least 6.5 per cent. He added that he exited office as governor of the state leaving behind some savings of about N75 billion in the state treasury and did not owe any contractor and supplier who had executed their jobs.

“The one (investment) they (Soludo) said is worthless, is that we invested N3.5 billion in International Breweries. That facility is there, employing directly and indirectly over 10,000 Anambarians. The shares were at a time being sold at N50.Today the shares are about N5 or so. Maybe, that was what was referred to (by Soludo). But that was less than five per cent of what I left,” he said.

“When you spread your investment, some will go up, some will come down but overall, the company is still there, the company is still doing well. It is still part of the global chain. If you calculate (all of them) today, the money (invested) would have been about N60 billion,” he added.

“For other things which I didn’t succeed, God has given him (Soludo) opportunity to do it and succeed.

So, if there is anything pending, governance doesn’t finish. People are still in government in America.

So, you stop where you will stop, other people will continue from there.

“He is the governor of my state. He is my senior brother, he is even more intelligent than me, (because) he is a professor. I am a trader. So, he knows more and will be able to do things better than I did it. I have done my little own as a trader, now the professor is there. He will do his own as a professor. The schools I didn’t roof, he will roof them. That’s how government goes,” the LP candidate said.

Before then, the chief spokesperson for the Labour Party’s Presidential Campaign, Yunusa Tanko, had angrily accused Soludo of being sponsored by some unknown persons to weaken the base of the party in the South-east.

He advised the Anambra governor to concentrate on governance and avoid comments that might put himself and the state in danger, adding that he was being sponsored in order to attack Obi’s base in the South-east.

Tanko said: “It seems to us that it’s a grand plan to try to see that if they can weaken us from our base. But the truth is that they are making us even popular. The people are the ones even responding to the attacks. But we want to advise that it’s very good that Soludo should look at the future and not the present, because he is just starting as a governor.”

With Obi’s humble reaction, it is hoped that Soludo would bury any further attack as this could deny him a second term in office, in view of Obi’s growing followership in the state.

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER NOVEMBER 20 , 2022

INTERNATIONAL

Foreign Policy as Instrument of National Security: The Case of Nigeria

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olicy can be variously explicated, and particularly as a vertical continuum in which the beginning or lowest level is seen as ‘domestic’ and the crescendo as‘foreign.’In other words, we have domestic policy and foreign policy. In defining policy in this context, it is considered that foreign policy is necessarily an extension of domestic policy. Foreign policy is an with aspect of domestic policy. Consequently, foreign policy is seen by many observers as an instrument for protecting the national interest.

But what really is national interest?

Dr Humphrey Assisi Asobie, Professor of Political Science at the UniTelephone : 0807-688-2846 versity of Nigeria, Nsukka, has it that‘interest’as enunciated byThomas e-mail: bolyttag@yahoo.com Hobbes,wasinitiallyequatedwithself-preservationfromthematerialist view of human nature. In the nineteenth century, ‘interest’‘became attributed, not only to individuals, but also to such collective actors as social classes and fractions.The concept was generalised so as to apply to any group with identifiable common economic or social advantages to protect.’ In this regarded, Prof. Asobie has re-articulated the three main schools of thought on national interest: Realist, behavioural and Marxist schools. First is the realist perspectives of Hans J. Morgenthau of the power school and George Kennan of the eclectic tradition. Both of them agreed that it is national interest, and not moral principles, that should guide the foreign policy of any sovereign state, but hold different views on the nexus between national interest and moral or ethical principles [vide Humphrey Assisi Asobie, “Nigeria’s National Interest in a Globalising World: A Theoretical Perspective,” in Bola A. Akinterinwa, ed., Nigeria’s National Interests in a Globalising World: Further Reflections on Constructive and Beneficial Concentricism; Volume 1: contending Issues in Nation-building, (Bolytag International Publishers, 2007), p. 3 et s]..

The second is the behaviouralist school (Richard Synder. B. Sapin, H. Bruck) which considers national interest as not being a single objective reality but as a constantly changing pluralistic set of subjective preferences. As further quoted by Professor Asobie, ‘the national interest is what the nation, that is, the decision maker decides it is.

What constitutes the national interest therefore cannot be subjected to measurement by objective yardsticks, because it is made of up values which are subjective.’

The third school is the Marxist or political economy school which says that the power school’s position implies that might is right if national interest is defined by power; that it implies an‘indirect legitimation of the powerful, and‘a form of justification of the continued exploitation of the weaker states by the stronger ones.’More importantly,‘it has the effect of deceitfully portraying the interest of a few as the interest of the whole nation,’while it also‘obscures and masks the domination of the Onyeama working class by the ruling class and makes this domination appear acceptable’since it is carried on under the canopy of national interest.

Without iota of gainsaying, in Nigeria, foreign policy cannot be And most importantly, the definition of national interest by the easily used to promote nation-building because the foundation power and behavioural schools has the effect of‘blurring the differfor cultivating love for the fatherland was never laid, and hence, no ences between the external behaviours of States with divergent class opportunity has been allowed to grow and develop patriotism. characteristics.’

In fact, all efforts attempted to lay a strong foundation for it is frontally challenged by ethnic chauvinism, religious bigotry, and political chicanery. First, there cannot be nation-building without Nation-building and Foreign Policy Challenges initial political will that can sustain the building effort.The political It is against the foregoing definitional background that we are poised will is yet to exist. Besides, a sociological nation must exist before to explicate, not only foreign policy as an instrument, but also as a consideration of its promotion. Nigeria is a nation-state and yet to critical challenge to nation-building. There are several elements of be evolved as a sociological nation in which common indigenous truth in the various rationales given to justify the position taken by andnotforeignlanguagewillbecultivated.Diversityisthehallmark the three schools of thought on the conception of national interest. of Nigeria’s polity but no government has shown any seriousness However, regardless of the theoretical perspective foreign policy is of purpose to manage the diversity to the advantage of national looked at, it essentially remains an action or an objective. unity and national happiness.

As an action, it is a tactical foreign policy, meaning a potent tool of Put differently, the factor of Nigerianess only exists on paper, foreign policy. When national interest is considered as an objective, but hardly in the spirit of the so-called Nigerians. It is true that it is referred to as a strategic foreign policy, and therefore about selfthe Principles of Federal Character and National Youths Service preservation that seeks the security and grandeur of a country. By Corps have been put in place. If the principle of Federal Character implication, it has a permanent character. But, unlike strategic foreign is required in the appointments in the Public Service and the policy, tactical foreign policy has a varying characteristic. Different principle has been kept in the political drawers of PMB only to options are often considered in the pursuit of a given long-term forgather dust, in which way is national togetherness fostered? Many eign policy development objective. In such considerations, different media reports focused last week on the top management staff of challenges can surface.This partly explains why tactical foreign policy the NNPC. PMB himself is the First Minister of Petroleum Resources is short-term or limited objective in character and is also variously in Nigeria. The first twenty topmost offices in the NNPC about defined and redefined in response to domestic and international threemonthswereoccupiedbyNortherners.Mediareportstalked environmental conditionings.

Bola A. Akinterinwa

The Russo-Ukrainian war has specifically created a good platform to reconsider many exploitative international policies. The war has prompted discussions on alternative international currencies to the US Dollar and the U.K. Pound Sterling as espoused by the Bretton Woods agreements. New organisations and alliances are in the making. Consequently, Nigeria, as the global capital of the black world, and Nigeria with the biggest black population in the world, needs to provide exemplary leadership, not only for the African, but also for the whole black, people of the world by ensuring the establishment of a platform where interests of the medium powers can be constructively addressed. Rearticulating the idea of the Concert of Medium Powers has therefore become a desideratum. Foreign policy, indeed, can be a very potent tool of promoting national unity, economic vibrancy and religious harmony if the sentiments of holier than thou are first removed. A united Nigeria cannot but remain a dream if there are open threats of Fulanisation and Islamisation or ethnic threats of supremacy over one another. In addressing these threats, foreign policy can be seriously energised to seek international assistance to douse the tension at the domestic level. In the eyes of the OIC, Nigeria is a Muslim or Islamic State but Nigeria is not. Foreign policy can seek to underscore that Nigeria has a provision on secularity and to use the opportunity to seek international support for the strengthening of that policy of secularity

“

“

VIE INTERNATIONALE

about sixteen of them as at last week.The NNPC is the main source of oil revenue. Why should it be dominated by Northerners?

Politicalgovernanceisstilllargelydrivenbyethno-religioussentiments in Nigeria. This situation is not helpful to the articulation of whatever national interest is to be protected. For instance, what foreign policy decision is expected when the foreign policy elite is challenged by political controversies, ranging from alleged Fulanisation and Islamisation agenda to agitation of politico-economic self-determination and separate regional existence? In this context, foreign policy cannot seek to rightly defend regional secession, even if self-determination is an internationally acknowledged principle.

It is important to also note the public resistance to Government’s Fulanisation and Islamisation agenda. The Governor of Bauchi State, Mr. Bala Mohammed, has made it clear that the Federal Government had already been accommodating in Nigeria the Fulani herdsmen from the West and Central African regions of Africa. They have been urged to come and occupy the ungoverned spaces of Nigeria, but this policy has been vehemently opposed in southern parts and Middle Belt of Nigeria. Again, what type of foreign policy can be promoted in the face of a North-South divide?

Perhaps more disturbingly, political governance is still largely predicated on political chicanery, toga of irrationalities and recklessness, institutional corruption. This is particularly so under the PMB administration, even though PMB gave Nigerians the impression that his administration would fight tooth and nail corruption, insecurity and economic poverty. But without any whiff of doubt, insecurity is fast deepening in Nigeria. Economic impoverishment has also become the hallmark of the Nigerian life with rising inflation and essential commodities. Societal discipline is now a tall order. Democracy itself iscurrentlyfraughtwithmalpractices and electoral fraud and corruption through vote buying. In fact, political parties openly disregard their own party Constitution during their primary elections, especially in the election of their standard bearers. The truth is that the disregard for the rule of law has been to the detriment of sub-regional political balancing. And nothing can be as disheartening as having candidates with tainted records or having been convicted in a court of competent jurisdiction still being given national honours or being accredited for election purposes contrarily to the lawful regulations. But true enough, accredited diplomatic missions are more conversant with the political contradictions in Nigeria, even more than the host government.

Consequently, Nigeria’s foreign policy makers and implementers necessarily have limitations as to the extent they can promote the goodnessofNigeriaabroad.Thisisonemajorobstacletonation-building because Nigeria cannot grow and develop on the basis of untruths.

Truth exalts a nation as told in the Holy Bible. Because governance is that of untruth and political chicanery, Nigeria cannot but have a tainted international image, which cannot but be quite difficult for the foreign policy image makers to polish.This then raises many interesting questions on how to carve out a new nation from the currently incapacitated Nigeria. In this regard, which way forward Nigeria?

Nigeria, Quo Vadis?

Differentoptionalleewayhavebeenpositedbyforeignpolicythinkers.

OptiononeisthatofthelateMuammarGaddafiofLibyawhoconsidered the partitioning of Nigeria into Muslim North and Christian South as the only way of ensuring lasting peace in Nigeria.The rationale behind the suggestion is that political instability in Nigeria is generated by the quest for Islamisation of Nigeria, and where it is impossible, to begin the struggle with the Northern region. In other words, there cannot be any enduring political stability, and by implication, any peace and security,inthecountryuntiltherearetwocountries:MuslimandChristian Nigeria.This is partitioning Nigeria along the lines of religion and many observers who have been talking about threats of Islamisation can now have their protection under Gaddafi’s observation.

In this regard, is the current Boko Haram insurrection or armed banditry in the North-west not an expression and struggle to have Nigeria partitioned, if Nigeria cannot be wholly Islamised? If it is not, how do we explain the declared objective of the Boko Haram which always installed the flag of an Islamic Caliphate in any place it succeeded to occupy? Can the agenda be Fulanisation if it is not Islamic?

If it is Fulanisation, are the members of the Boko Haram all of Fulani ethnic stock? If they are not, are they sponsored agents provocateurs or mercenaries? Whatever is the case, this option one is quite difficult to accept as it is a call for national disintegration but it cannot be ruled out. This option should be kept as the last possible option for as long as the Government of Nigeria is still able to contain the threats of disintegration.

The implication in this case is that Nigeria is actually at war with all the international Islamic terrorists who are struggling to impose Islam on the whole world. Partitioning as a solution therefore can only be a last scenario.

Option two is addressing the challenges of constitutional restructuring. The 1999 constitution, even as amended, has more of disuniting than uniting factors. Many stakeholders see the Constitution as very fraudulent, simply because it purported to have been negotiated and engineered by the people of Nigeria, whereas it is not. It is, indeed, a military-defined constitution which has only been generating a lot of controversies, particularly from a religious perspective. It is argued, for example, that Islam or Muslim or Sharia is mentioned more than sixty times in the 1999 Constitution without mentioning any other religion in the same Constitution. Different motivational questions are being raised within the context of threats of Islamisation agenda.

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER NOVEMBER 20 , 2022

with ChidiAmuta e-mail:chidi.amuta@gmail.com

ENGAGEMENTS

Campaigning Amidst the Carnage

T

he current landscape of Nigeria is somewhere between a violent crime scene and the ruin of an imperfect edifice. It is like ‘the day after’ a great holocaust, an atomic upheaval or some other man made disaster.

Those who left here seven years ago can no longer easily recognise familiar places. The highways are dangerous just as familiar neighborhoods have become treacherous. A society that produces orphans, widows and suicides faster than the birth rate in maternity homes deserves a contemplative rethink instead of a celebration. What, in real terms, is the current campaign season all about?

Uncertainty of prospects coupled with viral poverty makes everything and everywhere strange. This is not the place that used to fire hope and drive ambition when we were young. Community has been replaced by clashing clans of hate and raging tribes of suspicion. Viral pessimism and incurable cynicism are everywhere. The perennial sadness on nearly every face says all about a place where happiness is now a scarce commodity to be hidden from the gaze of the disenchanted mob.

Yet we are in an election season with campaign carnivals all around us. The politicians are seeking our mandate to alleviate the mood of depression and vicious anger. In a democracy, seasonal election campaigns can alleviate depression and imbue hope. Campaign carnivals can become rituals of hope and ceremonies of renewal. The prospect of new managers of popular expectations, familiar people promising to do old things in new ways can give hope and elevate moods. Even if the expectations that go with campaign promises end up in smoke eventually, campaigns have a way of creating that air of festival relief and ease which every society occasionally needs to vent and postpone the implosion that bad governance breeds.

That is where we are right now in Nigeria.

But it is hard to sow hope in a landscape of carnage, of utter devastation.

Seven and half years of the Buhari administration has created easily the most decadent years of Nigeria’s history.

Nearly every aspect of national life has been devastated by a sad combination of incompetence, tacit corruption, disastrous governance and distant insensitivity. There is a raging argument among scholars as to how a whole national edifice could be destroyed in less than a decade. Those with a historical mindset readily point to the examples of parallel disasters in recent history: Somalia, former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Lebanon etc.

From the general tone of the ongoing campaigns, even the most casual observer can detect the near hopelessness.

Where will the new men begin? Which is the priority?

A backdrop of perilous national drift has shaping the campaign season and possibly deprived it of a redeeming hope.

It is not one campaign that is raging.

There are in fact many campaigns going on simultaneously. Suddenly woken up to the emptiness of its own legacy, a lame duck Buhari administration is converting the remaining vestiges of federal power into an opportunity for a legacy campaign. Devoid of any redeeming landmark achievements except a mound of debts and a sea of deaths, the beleaguered president and his rabble are clutching to free and fair elections as a worthy legacy worth bequeathing to a nation that has since drawn its conclusions. In this context, it is a credible election legacy if the opposition overwhelms the incumbent and emerges victorious.

That would be a legacy of a fair minded and objective incumbent rather than the

Buhari routing of an incumbent in disorderly retreat. A ruin is after all also a form of architecture!

Afraid of deserting its own faulty tower, Mr. Buhari cannot but campaign for his lack luster party and its infinitely controversial presidential candidate. Last week in Jos, it was a miserable outgoing president Buhari that sat through the opening campaign of his party. There, in full view of a world in utter consternation, his party’s flag bearer repeatedly called his party the ‘PDP’ while endlessly invoking the Buhari spirit in repeated recitations of the President’s name as a curative mantra! Buhari! Buhari!!

Buhari!!! What a tragic reversal and blatant linguistic subversion of political intention.

In other areas, the campaign season has donned a typically Nigerian garb. A parade of carefully selected renowned Court Jesters have been picked as spokespersons of the major presidential contenders. In the process, the agenda of the candidates have been deliberately drained of issues or any semblance of seriousness. This same collective of political entertainers have in recent times so frequently moved between the two main parties that most times they tend to forget whose servant they now are. Mr. Dino Melaye of the Atiku campaign spent so much time singing the praise of the opposition APC that he needed a prompter to nudge him into reality from an obvious state of habitual delirium. But the damage had been done by the time he realized that he was now singing the anthem of the PDP once again!

In all this, most perceptive citizens are now asking: when will the campaigns really begin? People are desirous to get the perspectives of leading presidential candidates on the issues that define today’s reality.

People agree that today’s reality is a veritable carnage. But we expect those who are aspiring to lead us out of this morass to come up with serious ideas. This should be the object of the ongoing campaigns. Instead, we are getting a surfeit of inanities and a

pageant of hired clowns.

In all this, comedy has replaced substance. Name -calling has replaced serious engagement. Trivia has replaced substance while motor park grade personal abuse is being bandied as campaign rhetoric. A free trading in fake news and the blatant mangling of facts in the social media has created a new market for scandals and manufactured half truths to score political points. In the process, the public is left in the quagmire of a carnage of known origins. Political actors are afraid to name the source of the carnage for fear of reprisals by an unforgiving incumbent.

The Nigerian carnage is total. Some say insecurity is the key to a return to normalcy; only the living can afford to hope.

Others counter that it is the absence of economic well being that is generating violent insecurity. The desperately poor have blood in their eyes and anger in their hearts. They want to kill to live, knowing that the certainty of their own slow death is guaranteed. The presidential candidates are finding it hard to navigate around the carnage, to place the blame where it lies and to pick their priorities to move the campaign forward.

Mr. Atiku Abubakar thinks the economy is the gathering point of all our woes. He wants to recreate the Obasanjo agenda of primary growth sectors and drastic debt reduction. May Nigerians recall that Mr. Obasanjo with Atiku as his deputy created growth sectors in banking and finance, the stock market, the telecommunications industry, oil and gas and a bit of power generation. Next in Atiku’s priority list is the structure of our federation. He thinks that the easiest and best way to re-engineer national unity is to create a federation of economically competing units in a fiscal federation where states congregate mostly on the issues of collective security. No one is sure that a secure and economically contented populace will be so bothered about the structure and forms of governance.

But there is a distant refrain that our federation is too unitary and the states are too dependent on centrally collected rents and royalties to become centers of productivity and wealth creation.

For Mr. Tinubu, a manifesto of tinkering

odds and ends is more of a repairers toolbox than an agenda of national renewal and redemption. Worse still, his 81 page manifesto is overwhelmed by an open commitment to carry on with elements of the Buhari legacy. But there is hardly any legacy; only a bleeding carnage of death, criminality, devastation and misrule.

How does anyone carry such a burden and add the ones of his own creation?

Political expediency may dictate no less but a commitment to deepen this carnage requires more of sympathy than understanding and endorsement.

Mr. Peter Obi is headed in direct opposition to a moving train. Seeking to replace politics as usual with a nameless street movement is huge enough. But the carnage still needs to be confronted and the crime scene rid of gangsters. Mr. Obi has a trader’s economic blueprint any time in the breast pocket of his now familiar black outfit. His handy tool of economic management is the trader ‘s pocket calculator. His formula for economic success is simple: if the numbers do not add up, something requires fixing.

The way to fix the economy is to total up the sums and find what is missing. Closing the shop to chase after thieves is not a good idea. Government should keep the ship open but send some people after the thieves.

Mr. Obi wants to drain the Abuja swamp by starving it of excess pork, fat and slush money. He wants to chase back the bandits and terrorists to wherever they came from. He also wants to change governance in Nigeria from a network of organized crime to a structure that works the people. All these and more sound like direct affronts to Nigeria’s ancient power structure. That assemblage of hegemonists, oligarchs, entrenched ageing generals, multi nationals, militarists and traditional rulers is not about to sit idly by as Mr. Obi and his street mobs dismantle their stranglehold on Nigeria In spite of the occasional flashes of high ideals and honest intentions, all the leading presidential candidates seem afflicted by the bug of incoherence and confusion that is haunting this campaign season. Maybe, they are overwhelmed by the extent of the Buhari inspired carnage.

As a result, candidates have occasionally relapsed into ethnic and sectional expressions. In Kaduna earlier in the month, Mr. Atiku found himself urging northern Hausa Fulanis to avoid voting for Southern Igbo and Yoruba candidates.

Mr. Tinubu has stated that although Peter Obi lives in Lagos, as president he will send him back to Anambra State, a regrettable violation of the right of Nigerians to live and thrive wherever they choose in the federation. Mr. Obi has himself urged his major rivals to go into retirement on grounds of age and age related infirmities. No one is certain how these candidates can sustain credible campaigns for another four months in view of the weaknesses that are already obvious.

In the frenzy for presidential high grounds, campaigns at the lower levels of governance have received less attention and media. All roads seem to lead to Aso Rock, the grand venue of the national bazaar. Our political imagination seems to have forgotten that in real terms , Nigerians live and work in the states. We are all citizens of Nigeria but our needs are met first by the 36 states and the FCT. The challenge of this campaign season is both simple and complex. The simple part is to design and implement credible campaigns with clear messages that do not insult the public mind. The hard part is for politicians to navigate their way through the Buhari carnage and reimagine Nigeria. Neither if these seem to be happening. That is why it has become difficult to predict the outcome of a election that seems too far to call.

T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R NOVEMBER 20, 2022

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NEWS Encroachment Delaying Addition of 2,000 Megawatts to National Grid, FG Laments

News Editor: Gboyega Akinsanmi

E-mail: gboyega.akinsanmi@thisdaylive.com,08152359253

Ibrahim Shuaibu in Kano The federal government yesterday lamented that the encroachment of land in various communities along power lines “is delaying addition of 2,000 megawatts to the national grid.”

The Minister of Power, Mr. Aliyu Abubakar, revealed this during a two-day working visit to nine power stations in the state, saying land encroachment had been impeding the process of electricity supply and generation from one place to another in the country.

He added that the national grid “has been improved by this administration more than any other government. But the

right of way has been an obstacle for successful generation of the electricity.”

The minister said the current sub-station in Kano “is receiving 330 single line from Kaduna which is not enough for Kano.”

He added that another project “has been awarded which is double of the 330 single. It will improve the capacity from 600 megawatts to over 2000 megawatts and will cater for Kano and Katsina States.

“One of our biggest challenges is how people are living on the ways we will pass our cables that will generate power to the various destinations. The National grid has witnessed the most rapid improvement ever.

“As it is now, the capacity can take up to 78,000 megawatt or more but it may not be useful if it is not uptake distribution level as the distribution capacity is not up to that. So, part of the challenge is the right of way, which is the challenge we are facing.

“We need people to vacate the ways through which the wires can pass. Some people were paid before, but they could not vacate the places.

Our agreement with the German company will raise the National Grid to 25,000 by 2025,” he said.

However, the minister assured that all ongoing projects would be completed by Buhari’s administration to ensure stable electricity supply across Nigeria, through continuous enhancement of the wheeling capacity of the Transmission Company of Nigeria and more investment

in renewable energy through Rural Electrification Agency.

Some of the new projects inspected include Kumbotso Transmission Substation, Rimin Zakara Transmission Substation and the 1 megawatt Peak Interconnected Solar Mini Grid Zawachiki.

Haruna Urges Media to Hold Decision Makers Accountable The Resident Electoral Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mallam Mohammed Haruna has called on the Nigerian media to extend its focus on accountability beyond politicians and hold responsible every person or group whose decisions and actions affect society.

Speaking at the Media Roundtable on “The Accountability Imperative: Why and How to Hold the Politicians’ Feet to Fire” organised recently

by FrontFoot Media Initiative, Lagos, Haruna said various other persons beyond politicians decide issues for society.

Haruna is a Fellow of the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN), the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), and the African Centre for Democratic Governance.

At the roundtable, the INEC Commissioner stated: “Big Business, Big Labour, Big Pharma, and, of course, Big Media, etc., all make decisions that affect people.

“Therefore, we must go

beyond the Constitutional enunciations for the Media to hold the government accountable to the public and hold every institution whose decisions and actions impact people and society to account for their decisions and actions.”

Haruna, who is also a former managing director of the New Nigerian Newspaper and renowned columnist, charged journalists to equip themselves with knowledge of three critical rules for reporting political developments in the country.

“As the leader in holding not just politicians but all other groups accountable to the people, the Media must be guided by knowledge, ethics (integrity, courage, professionalism, impartiality, etc.) and civility.

“The first step the Media must take in holding politicians accountable to the public is to be knowledgeable about politics and everything else it reports. This should start with knowing the rules that guide our politics.”

Diversification: Experts Propose Recipe to Foster Circular Economy Ayodeji Ake

Experts in climate change and sustainability have said research, data, development of government policies, and access to power would help establish a working circular economy as a means of diversification for Nigeria.

Speaking during a panel discussion at the Circular Economy Investments and Business in Nigeria Confab hosted by Bio and Circular Programme, Business Finland, recently in Lagos, the Executive Secretary, Financial Centre for Sustainability, Nigeria, Mr. Emmanuel Etaderhi, noted Nigeria needed to adopt the principles of circularity.

Etaderhi revealed the circular

business in Nigeria was worth millions of dollars and should be maximised swiftly.

“Nigerians are very smart. They have started producing things on their own on the basis of circularity.

If you attend the programmes of water, sanitation and hygiene, you will see products made by Nigerians and there is nothing like government policies added to the products. Policy development is always a handshake between the government and the private sector. The reason why there is no implementation is simply because most individuals are always waiting on the government for implementation. Whereas, the role of the government is to provide an enabling environment and now

DIPLOMATIC PARLEY… National Organising Secretary, Afenifere, Chief Kole Omololu (left), and Nigeria’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Ambassador Sarafa Isola, during Omololu’s courtesy visit to the High Commission, Northumberland Avenue, London…weekend

Kidnappers Demand N100m for Abducted C’River Doctors Bassey Inyang in Calabar The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Cross River, yesterday disclosed that the abductors of two of its members had demanded N100 million as ransom to secure their release.

Just after the demand for N100 million ransom, the National Assembly assured Nigerians of its commitment to seek funding for the Nigerian Army in order to deal with its major challenges.

The Chairman of Cross River NMA, Dr Felix Archibong confirmed the figure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Calabar yesterday.

During the session, Archibong said that the two medical doctors were abducted on Friday alongside two others at the Ikomita section of the Calabar-Ikom Highway.

Likewise, the Commissioner of Police, Sule Balarabe confirmed the incident, saying his

command would do everything humanly possible to secure their release unhurt.

During an oversight function to the 8 Division of Nigerian Army in Sokoto, Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Army, Abdulrazak Namdas canvassed improved funding for the Nigerian Army.

Namdas, represented by a member of the committee, Ibrahim Rabah, promised that the committee was committed to providing more funds for

the Nigerian Army.

According to him, the army, together with other security agencies, had done well in the fight against banditry, kidnapping and other crimes in the country.

Rabah, who was conducted round by the General Officer Commanding the division, Major General Uwem Bassey, to inspect the various executed projects said the security challenges bedevilling the country had subsided.

UNICEF Condemns Discrimination against Children Kuni Tyessi in Abuja In a report published ahead of World Children’s Day, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has said discrimination against children based on ethnicity, language, and religion are rife in countries worldwide.

This was revealed in a statement by UNICEF’s Executive Director, Ms. Catherine Russell,

said systemic racism and discrimination put children at risk of deprivation and exclusion that can last a lifetime.

On rights denial, she added that the impact of discrimination on children shows the extent to which racism and discrimination impact children’s education, health, access to a registered birth, and a fair and equal justice system, and highlights

widespread disparities among minority and ethnic groups.

“This hurts us all. Protecting the rights of every child – whoever they are, wherever they come from – is the surest way to build a more peaceful, prosperous, and just world for everyone,” Russell said.

The statement further explained that among the new findings, the report shows that

children from marginalised ethnic, language and religious groups in an analysis of 22 countries lag far behind their peers in reading skills.

On average, the statement said students aged 7-14 from the most advantaged group “are more than twice as likely to have foundational reading skills than those from the least advantaged group.

Senior Lawyer Canvasses Energy Investments to Curb Poverty Victor Ogunje in Ado-Ekiti

Deputy Vice Chancellor, Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti (ABUAD), Prof. Damilola Olawuyi (SAN), has called on the Federal Government to scale up responsible energy investments needed to defeat rising energy poverty levels and energy injustice across the world.

Olawuyi, also Global Vice Chair of the International Law

Association, pointed out that emphasis on decarbonisation, without commensurate flow of investments, funding and technologies to Africa might result in unjust transitions, massive economic crises.

He canvassed the position in the text of the Inaugural J. B and Maurice C. Shapiro Distinguished Lecture on Global Climate Change and Energy Law he delivered recently at the George Washington University

Law School in Washington DC, United States.

The lecture was titled, “The Search for Climate and Energy Justice in the Global South: Shifting from Global Aspirations to Local Realisation.”

The lecture series featured globally recognised experts and leaders invited to address pressing issues in climate change and energy law, and to inform and inspire the legal and global community

in the United States and beyond.

Delivering his lecture, Olawuyi analysed how efforts to address development concerns, such as delivering clean, affordable, low carbon energy to address climate change, might complicate energy poverty and injustice, in vulnerable and low-income communities, especially in Africa, if appropriate safeguards are not put in place.

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NEWSXTRA

Gunmen Kill Five Security Operatives in Enugu, Ebonyi Gideon Arinze Gunmen yesterday killed five security operatives in Enugu and Ebonyi States, two incidents that aggravated security conditions in the South-east states.

While three police officers were killed in Agbani, the headquarters of Nkanu West Local Government Area, Enugu State, two members of Ebubeagu Security outfit were murdered in Ebonyi State

The incidents occurred less than 24 hours after Enugu State Commissioner for Rural Development, Mr. Gab Onuzulike and his elder brother, Elvis Onuzulike were killed.

In Enugu, the incident occurred at the roundabout close to the Agbani Divisional Police Station.

The policemen were reportedly on a stop-and-search duty at the spot when the assailants sighted them and immediately opened fire.

Final Year Student Commits Suicide over Failed Relationship David-Chyddy Eleke in Awka

A young man, whose identity is yet to be ascertained, has allegedly committed suicide over a failed relationship.

Findings by THISDAY revealed that the incident happened on Friday at Federal Polytechnic, Oko, Orumba North Local Government Area, Anambra State.

It was gathered that the man, who is a final year student of the polytechnic, was already doing his Industrial Attachment (IT), preparatory to graduation, when his lover jilted him.

A student of the institution, Iyke Orji narrated the incident describing the deceased as one

who was “full of energy and life, and an intelligent boy with close to distinction (First Class).”

Orji further said: “He was a student of Public Administration. He decided to stay in Oko for his one year industrial training, (but) instead of focusing on his training, he decided to search for true love.”

The account said that his girlfriend recently broke up with him, and the news devastated him. On Friday, when he could not endure it, he drank sniper insecticide and died.

He was said to have been rushed to a hospital in the area by neighbours, but was later announced dead.

Buhari Rejoices with Former President Jonathan at 65 Deji Elumoye in Abuja

President Muhammadu Buhari has felicitated with his predecessor, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, as he marks his 65th birthday anniversary on November 20.

Buhari, in a statement issued yesterday by his Media Adviser, Femi Adesina, noted the unique position of the former president in the growth and development of the nation, sacrificing personal ambition for the greater good of the country, and successfully winning the hearts of Nigerians and the world as a man of peace, by carrying on his legacy of truce and amity to many countries.

The president joined the family, particularly his wife,

Patience, and mother, Eunice, in celebrating another milestone in the former President’s life, recalling his political journey, which has been evidently shaped by the mercies and grace of the Almighty God, starting as Deputy Governor, 1999-2005, Governor, 2005 -2007, Vice President, 2007-2010 and President, 2010-2015.

The president believed the friendliness, loyalty, and humility of Jonathan continue to open opportunities for service to humanity while defining a path for the former President to invest in people, institutions, and nations.

Buhari prayed for his wellbeing and that of his family.

Foundation to Raise N700m to Fund Empowerment Scheme Alex Enumah in Abuja The organiser of African Humanitarian Awards (GAHAWARDS), GMYT Foundation has commenced a plan to raise the sum of N700 million in skill acquisition funds that will empower 1000 women and youths in 2023.

As part of activities to kickstart the fund raising and commemoration of the foundation’s 10th anniversary, N56 million would be distributed to 1000 women.

In a statement by its Founder/ Chief Executive, Kelechi Oghene, the foundation said GAH-AWARDS would be recognising and encouraging humanitarian organisations / individuals championing charitable courses all over the world on December 9.

The statement said: “GAH-

AWARDS intends to also kick off the empowerment program with empowerments worth 56,000,000 which will include skill acquisition tuition fees, start-up funds, sewing machines, and partnership investment, among other things.

“These empowerments will be given to one hundred (100) emerging designers who are passionate about becoming fashion entrepreneurs on the event day.

“For the 2023 goal, GAHAWARDS aims to raise N700 million in partnership with GMYT Fashion Academy to provide free hybrid skill-acquisition training, hostel accommodations, start-up capitals, empowerment sewing machines, and other services to one thousand women (1000) women and youth through the GMYT Foundation.”

The gunmen shot into the air as they fled the scene while residents scampered for safety.

A video of the incident showed sympathisers, lamenting the incessant attacks on police officers serving in the state by the “unknown gunmen”.

The latest attack comes less than 24 hours after former Commissioner and his elder brother were killed at their Nkpokolo-Achi hometown in Oji River by gunmen.

Meanwhile, Enugu State Police Command have apprehended some members of the gang who murdered the state’s former commissioner and his elder brother.

Onuzulike, a former Chairman of Oji River Local Government Area and his brother were murdered on Friday evening at Nkpokolo Achi on their way back from a burial ceremony.

In a statement yesterday, the police said two of the assailants who had infiltrated into Oji-River from neighboring Anambra State community were neutralized by a Joint Police/Army Team, who swiftly responded to a distress call on the incident.

The statement said the hoodlums were intercepted at Inyi community of the same LGA, as they were escaping back into

Anambra State.

It said: “The Team further recovered an AK-47 rifle with two magazines loaded with ammunition, while a Toyota Land Cruiser Jeep belonging to the deceased victims, a Toyota Camry car the assailants attempted to snatch from another victim and a RAV4 Jeep they used for the heinous criminal operation, amongst other incriminating items, were also recovered.”

The statement further read that manhunt of the assailants, many of whom escaped into nearby forest with severe degrees of gunshot wounds in the ensuing gun duel,

as a result of the superior firepower of the Joint Team, is still ongoing.

In a related development, an in-law to the immediate past chairman of Enugu East Local Government Area, Alex Ugwu has been abducted by unknown gunmen.

The victim, identified as Pepe, was said to have been trailed to the Onugwu Market Square, Ibeagwa where he was kidnapped on Thursday, November 17.

Another shop owner at the market square was reportedly abducted alongside a Keke rider who was caught making a video of the incident.

EXHIBITING YOUNG VISIONARIES L-R: Director of Strategy, 9mobile, Karn Gulati; Managing Director, Weststar Associate Ltd, Mary Ojulari; Managing Director/CEO, Gravitas Investments Ltd, Mr. Olufemi Babalola; Director, Gravitas Investments Ltd, Mr. Ferdinand Agu; and Director/Lead Architect, Studio Elementals, Stefanie Adisa, at the exhibition of Gravitas young visionaries on the Gracefield Island in Lekki, Lagos... yesterday ETOP UKUTT

Zulum Writes UN over Killing of Humanitarian Worker in Borno Michael Olugbode in Abuja

Borno State Governor, Prof.

Babagana Zulum has written a condolence letter to the United Nations following the killing of a humanitarian worker by an unruly soldier, on Thursday in Damboa.

Zulum addressed the letter to the UN Resident Representative in Nigeria, Matthias Schmale.

The letter, titled “condolence and solidarity” was dated Friday, November 18.

The letter read: “I am shocked and deeply saddened by the incident that happened in Damboa Thursday. My condolence goes to the family of Mrs Alem Muluseta, her colleagues at Medicine de Monde, the whole Humanitarian Community and the United Nations, who continually make huge sacrifices to support our people.

“My condolence also goes to the families of gallant soldiers who lost their

lives in trying to restrain the perpetrator.”

“This was a sad isolated incident, the likes of which we have not seen before, and which may not be unconnected with the mental health of the soldier involved.

“The injured pilot has been adequately attended to and he is recovering well. We will do all we can to continue to support him to get what he needs until he recovers.

“I want to assure our partners

and the general public that this is an isolated incident and the military is investigating what happened.

“We remain confident that our Military and other security agencies are committed to ensure peace and security of lives and property in Borno state.”

“We will continue to work together with the Military, and our partners to support Mental Health Programs in the Theatre,” Zulum said.

Group Alleges Plan to Delay Announcement of NDDC Board Members Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt

The Niger Delta Alliance for Economic Survival (NDAES) yesterday alleged that some staff and contractors with the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) had perfected plans with some key officers of the National Assembly to

frustrate the decision of the President Muhammadu Buhari to reconstitute the Board of the Commission.

In a statement by its President, Mr. Tubonemi Chibisi yesterday, the alliance said they had information that some management staff and big contractors of the NDDC had perfected plans to get the

senate to sit on the list of the new board members to perpetrate the continuous balkanisation of the commission’s monthly allocation.

The Minister of Niger Delta Affairs had hinted that a list of nominees for the NDDC Board had been submitted to the Senate.

The minister had assured

that as soon as the Senate reconvened after their recess it would announce the list as directed by the president.

The statement said in part: “We have Information that there is a deliberate plot by the Senate to delay the announcement of the new list of the NDDC board nominees as directed by Mr President.

CSOs Explain A’Ibom State Assembly Budget Hearing Boycott Okon Bassey in Uyo The guild of civil society organisations (CSOs) in Akwa Ibom State yesterday explained why they boycotted the 2023 budget hearing held at the State House of Assembly.

The guild claimed that its member organisations resolved to boycott the hearing follow-

ing the non-consideration of their valuable contributions during budget hearing in the previous years.

In a statement by its chairman, Harry Udoh yesterday, the guild regretted that their contributions were only received and later discarded.

The statement said the participation of the CSOs at the

previous hearings was just to fulfil all righteousness, saying even if citizen-recommended projects and needs were captured in the budget they get zero allocations.

The statement said: “When they do eventually get allocations in subsequent years, they are marred with lack of releases to implement such citizens

input.

It said in part: “Every successive year, our inputs and contributions on what should be and should not be in the budget are only received and then studiously ignored, no matter how germane the points we make. It would seem that civil society participation has become just to ‘fulfill all righteousness.

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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 NOVEMBER 20, 2022

NEWSXTRA 779 million Lack Basic Sanitation Facilities in Africa, WHO Claims Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said out of the estimated 800 million African populations, only 290 million people had access to basic sanitation services between 2000 and 2020.

The world body said 779 million people still lack those basic sanitation services, while 208 million still practice open defecation in Africa.

WHO’s Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti made the observation in a message she delivered to commemorate the World Toilet Day 2022, which reflected sanitation and groundwater in legislation.

She said the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme report on progress on drinking water and sanitation showed that only 29 percent of health care facilities in Africa have basic sanitation services.

She said: “According to the Joint Monitoring Programme 2020 data, 33 percent of households in Africa have basic sanitation services, with 21 percent using safely managed sanitation facilities.

“Two out of three people lack safely managed sanitation services. The same report shows that in Africa 27 percent of rural and 5 percent of urban

populations still practice open defecation.

“We must work on average four times faster to ensure everyone has a safe toilet by 2030. The connection between sanitation and groundwater cannot be overlooked,” the regional director said.

Moeti said the report further showed that in densely populated urban settings, pit latrines and septic tanks sited close to water points that draw from shallow aquifers create potentially serious health risks.

“This has a profound impact on public health and environmental integrity. For women and girls, in particular, toilets at home, school and at work help them fulfil their potential and play their full role in society, especially during menstruation and pregnancy.

“The indignity, inconvenience, and danger of not having access to safely managed sanitation is a barrier to their full participation in society,” she said.

The regional director said access to safely managed sanitation services as a combination with safely managed drinking water services and good hygiene practices, is fundamental to ensuring public health.

She said safely managed sanitation services will lead

to fulfilling the SDG 6 targets and is essential for the realisation of all other sustainable development goals.

General Overseer, Foursquare Gospel Church, Nigeria, Rev. Sam Aboyeji, yesterday said the government alone could not provide education for the youths in the country, calling on Nigerians to join hands with the church to do its own part.

Aboyeji, the visitor to the institution, said joining hands with the church would serve as a way of complementing efforts of the government towards giving the teeming youths in the country qualitative education to attain greater heights in life.

Aboyeji made the remarks at the seventh convocation of McPherson University, Seriki

Sotayo, Ogun State.

He maintained that nongovernmental organizations and well meaning individuals in the society should participate in funding and providing infrastructural support that would engender suitable learning environments in universities across the nation.

He noted that the Foursquare Church had been subsidising school fees of the students by almost 100 per cent and also giving additional rebates and scholarships to them so as to achieve academic excellence.

Aboyeji said the church has strived to build a world class university that is committed to churning out graduates with competence and suited

Gboyega Akinsanmi The governorship candidate of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Prince Ugo Beke yesterday lamented that the federal character principle had destroyed Nigeria, noting that the principle should not be encouraged in the interest of economic growth and development.

Beke, a merchant banker and financial consultant, also listed economy, human capital development and security as

Zamfara State Governor, Alhaji Bello Matawalle has inaugurated the state’s Presidential Campaign Council of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his Governorship Campaign Council.

Matawalle, while inaugurating the two councils, urged members to deploy all available resources for the victory of the APC at all levels.

According to a statement by the Publicity Secretary of the APC in Zamfara State, Yusuf Idris Gusau, Matawalle expressed satisfaction with the composition of the two campaign councils.

He urged the presidential campaign council to let all people of Zamfara State know that Tinubu who has continued to build bridges in the Nigerian political space, has a great mission of taking Nigeria to higher development pedestals.

Matawalle told the people of the state that supporting the APC standard bearer and other candidates will translate into greater prosperity for them.

He said there should be wider consultations with all stakeholders including community leaders, religious leaders, traders and other interest groups when

This year’s theme, “Sanitation and groundwater,” focuses on the impact of the sanitation crisis on groundwater.

core priority areas that his administration would focus on if elected in the governorship election scheduled to hold on March 11, 2023.

He faulted the principle at a session with journalists in his Ikoyi residence yesterday, pointing out that the principle was undemocratic, unethical and antithetical to national progress and development.

The principle was enshrined in Section 14 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) to

promote national unity, and also to command national loyalty thereby ensuring that there shall be no predominance of persons from a few states or from a few ethnic or other sectional groups in that government or any of its agencies.

However, Beke argued that the principle “has further divided Nigeria,” saying it had failed to deliver the best outcome that could guarantee unprecedented growth and development for the country.

Beke, an indigene of Ikwerre that produced the state’s last two governors, said: “Like the federal character principle, zoning is undemocratic. It cannot give the best result that can take the country to a greater height globally. It further divides Nigeria.”

According to him, if you go back to certain points in the history of Nigeria, Sir Herbert Macaulay did not think of zoning when he supported Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe to lead the National Youth Movement.

Edo Denies Plan to Demolish NUJ Building Adibe Emenyonu in Benin City The Edo State Government has debunked reports making the rounds that the government plans to demolish the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) Edo State Council building in Government Reserved Area (GRA), Benin City.

to tackle the challenges facing the country.

He however called on the graduates to focus on their pursuit of excellence and not to rest on their oars until they are counted among the best, urging them to be worthy champions and ambassadors of the university wherever they find themselves in years ahead.

Also at the convocation, the Vice Chancellor of the institution, Prof. Francis Igbasan said 10 students made First Class Honours, 57 are in the Second Class Upper Division, while 32 graduated with Second Class Lower Division and others fall into the Third Class category.

Matawalle Unevils Tinubu’s Campaign Council in Zamfara Udora Orizu in Abuja

sanitation crisis and achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6: “Water and sanitation for all by 2030.”

Federal Character Has Destroyed Nigeria, Rivers APGA Candidate Alleges

Govts Alone Can’t Provide Education for Youths, Says Foursquare GO Kemi Olaitan in Ibadan

World Toilet Day is celebrated annually on November 19 with the objective of addressing the global

strategising campaigns to achieve the desired goals.

The governor, who is the North West Zonal Coordinator of the Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council, said Zamfara had never been as politically united as it is now.

He expressed confidence that the members have the capacity and all it takes to ensure the victory of APC at the polls in the 2023 general elections.

He urged them to ensure that all electioneering activities are conducted within the ambit of the law, particularly the Electoral Act 2022 as the party is founded based on respect for the rule of law.

In a statement, the Edo State Commissioner for Communication and Orientation, Hon. Chris Osa Nehikhare, described the report as unfortunate and filled with misinformation.

He said, “The Edo State Government is aware of an unfortunate report issued by the Edo State Council of the Nigerian Union of

Journalists titled: “tObaseki Plan to Make Edo Journalists Homeless.”

“There is no plan whatsoever to demolish the NUJ building nor build a museum on the NUJ site. The Edo State Government is doing some initial survey and study work in connection with the preservation and protection of the ancient Benin walls

and moats.

“The NUJ site borders some of the most visible sections of the walls and moats in the city, and archaeologists and specialist architects have visited areas around the moats with a view to determining how best to assist the National Commission of Museums and Monuments with the preservation of the moats.”

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER NOVEMBER 20 , 2022

79

SUNDAYSPORTS

Edited by: Duro Ikhazuagbe email:Duro.Ikhazuagbe@thisdaylive.com

Host, Qatar, Ecuador Kick off First World Cup in Middle East

A

fter 12 years of preparations for the first FIFA World Cup in the Middle East and the Arab world, history will be made today as the 22nd editionofthetournamentkicksoff attheAlBaytStadiuminDohawith hosts Qatar taking on Ecuador.

Before the kick off, Qatar has promised the best of Arab culture in entertaining the over one million football fans that have stormed this peninsula nation in perhaps, the most expensive tournamentever.Over$220billion, almost 20 times what Russia spent four years ago, is believed to have been pumped into the hosting

by Qatar.

The global football community will also be glued to television sets to see what will be unraveling at this edition that has drawn so much attention in the build up to the tournament.

Will hosts Qatar be able to keep the tradition of the host nation not defeated in the opening games? It is this legacy of the last 21 editions of the tournament that Qatar will strive to keep alive as they take on Ecuador in this their debut appearance at the mundial.

Led by renowned coach, Felix Sanchez, the Maroons as the Qataris are known by their fans, will hope to make a statement against the more seasoned Ecuadorian national team that are participating in the tournament for the fourth time.

Sanchez was the first coach to hold a pre-match news conference yesterday ahead of Sunday’s opener against Ecuador.

The Qatar coach was realistic about his side’s ambitions at their first finals, considered Ecuador clear favourites and suggested their Group A rivals may have

Qatar Coach Coach, Felix Sanchez (third left) left), perfecting a game plan ahead of this evening’s clash with Ecuador in the opening match of World Cup 2022

already written the hosts off. The coach spoke highly of the team’s preparations in the lead-up to the momentous occasion.

“We kept calm. We are in good form. All the players come here with the highest motivation for Sunday.We will try to give a good performance and be competitive.

“We have to be realistic around

possibilities, but we have to do well.”

Sanchez believes Qatar are“worthy to be here”, but his realism was reflected in his analysis of a group that contains the Netherlands and Senegal, as well as Ecuador.

“It’s three games, and we know the level of our opponent,” said Sanchez. “Due to their history,

their individual talent, their careers where they play, they are ahead of us.

“On paper, they should get the three points. Maybe they count on the three points already.

“But we are here to show we can be a competitive team. We will bring our‘A game’and try to get good results that will bring so much joy.”

Fired by the knowledge of six consecutive clean sheets since they held Argentina to a 1-1 stand-still in March, Gustavo Alvaro’s Ecuador men know nothing will gladden the hearts of their traveling fans from South America but the first three points of the 2022 edition of the World Cup in their kitty.

Oliseh Assigned Technical Study Role in Opening Match

W

ith Super Eagles clearly out of the World Cup party starting today, Nigeria will not be totally out of the picture as ex international, Sunday Oliseh,

will be one of the two FIFA’s Technical Study Group (TSG) members who will be on duty at the opening game between host Qatar and Ecuador this evening.

Oliseh told THISDAY at the Virtual Stadium hall of the

Sunday Oliseh...on FIFA TSG duty on opening day

Main Media Centre here in Doha yesterday evening that he’s Nigeria’s ambassador here at the World Cup and was not going to disappoint.

Oliseh was one of the six TSG egg heads expected to provide cutting-edge analysis

of all FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 matches. Four years ago, another of his Super Eagles teammate, Emmanuel Amuneke was involved in similar role at Russia 2018 World Cup. This unique team is led by FIFA’s Chief of Global Football Development, Arsène Wenger.

The former Arsenal manager has former German international and coach, Jürgen Klinsmann (Germany); Former AC Milan and Inter player, Alberto Zaccheroni (Italy); Former Korean international, Cha Du-Ri (Korea Republic); Oliseh (Nigeria); Former Colombian USA ‘94 and France ‘98 star, Faryd Mondragon (Colombia); and Current FIFA’s Senior Football Expert, Pascal Zuberbühler (Switzerland).

The TSG will be supported

by FIFA’s Head of High Performance Programme Ulf Schott and Group Leader Football Performance Analysis & Insights Chris Loxston, as well as by a team of football analysts, data engineers, data scientists and performance analysts based in both Qatar and Wales.

Qatar’s Human Rights: Infantino Accuses the West of Hypocrisy

F

IFA President Gianni Infantino has accused the West of“hypocrisy”in its reporting about Qatar’s human rights record, on the eve of the World Cup. In an extraordinary monologue at a news conference in Doha, Infantino spoke for nearly an hour and made a passionate defence of Qatar and the tournament.

The event has been overshadowed by issues in Qatar including deaths of migrant workers and treatment of LGBT people.

Infantino, who was born in Switzerland, said European nations should apologise for acts committed in their own histories, rather than focussing on migrant workers’ issues in Qatar.

He opened by saying: “Today I have strong feelings. Today I feel Qatari, I feel Arab, I feel African, I feel gay, I feel disabled, I feel a migrant worker.”

In February 2021, UK’s the Guardian said 6,500 migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka had died in Qatar since its successful World Cup bid.

Infantino said: “We have been taught many lessons from Europeans and the Western world. I am European. For what we have been doing for 3,000 years around the world, we should be apologising for the next 3,000 years before giving moral lessons.

“If Europe really care about the destiny of these people, they can create legal channels - like Qatar did - where a number of these workers can come to Europe to work.

Give them some future, some hope.

“I have difficulties understanding the criticism. We have to invest in helping these people, in education and to give them a better future and more hope. We should all educate ourselves. Many things are not perfect but reform and change takes time.

“This one-sided moral lesson is just hypocrisy. I wonder why no-one recognises the progress made here since 2016.

“It is not easy to take the critics of a decision that was made 12 years ago. Qatar is ready. It will be the best World Cup ever.”

DStv, GOtv Flag off Live Broadcast of Qatar 2022

Q

atar, host country for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, will take on Ecuador for the opening match of the biggest football tournament at the Al Bayt Stadium on Sunday evening.

The match which will be broadcast live on World Cup Central channel (DStv channel 202 and GOtv channel 31) at 5:00pm will kick-off a 64-game tournament comprising 32 teams from 6 continents of the world.

Qatar led by renowned coach, Felix Sanchez, is hoping to make a statement against the more seasoned Ecuadorian national team that is participating in the tournament for the fourth time. But, Gustavo Alvaro’s men will be no pushover as they have kept six consecutive clean sheets since they held Argentina to a 1-1 stand-off in March.

The other teams in Group A, Senegal and Nederland, will take on each other on Monday at the Al Thumama Stadium, Al Khor.

Netherlands, under the tutelage of veteran manager, Louis Van Gaal, are considered one of the tournament’s favourites.

Having failed to qualify for the last edition, the Dutch national team will be keen to remedy that blimp in their World Cup history and put the disappointment of the past behind them as they roll out their campaign to possibly lift the coveted trophy for the first time.

The Teranga Lions of Senegal on the other hand, are the reigning champions of Africa and they are tipped as tournament dark horses because of their talented squad. Their tie with the Dutch nationals will be broadcast live on World Cup Central channel (DStv channel 202 and GOtv channel 31) at 5:00pm.

DStv and GOtv customers can watch the 64 games from the tournament live on their decoders in HD and with the commentaries options in Pidgin English, Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo.

Sunday November 20, 2022

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MISSILE

Ortom to Atiku “Nigerians, for the sake of equity, fairness and justice, expect that after eight years of President Buhari, the next President should go to the South irrespective of political affiliation and that is the right thing to do.” – Benue State Governor, Dr. Samuel Ortom, insisting that only a southerner should succeed President Muhammadu Buhari

WAZIRIADIO POSTSCRIPT

Initial Comments about Likely Outcome of 2023 Polls

T

he landmark 2023 presidential poll will hold in about three months.

Though we are almost two months into the official segment of the long campaign season introduced by the Electoral Act 2022, the campaign machines are yet to fully crank to life. The political parties and the candidates seem to be conserving their energies and resources for the last two months of the campaign window.

This makes sense, as presidential campaigns cost a fortune.

However, the political space is already suffocated with permutations and projections about who is likely to win and their possible paths to victory, about how competitive the elections will be, and about the probability of a major upset at the polls on 25th February 2023. While some of these permutations and projections are anchored on reality, most are merely fuelled by hope, expectations and exuberance.

This remains a truism: a day is a long time in politics. But as a life-long student of Nigerian politics and elections, a political commentator for more than two decades and as an observer with no horse in this particular race, I think I have seen enough to make a few calls. My comments will be qualified as preliminary and will be updated as we get closer to the polls, precisely because things can change rapidly in politics.

Below are my three initial thoughts about the likely outcome of the 2023 presidential election.

Divided Opposition Puts APC in Strong Play: All over the world, elections are usually a referendum on the ruling party. The All Progressives Congress (APC), ordinarily, should be on the ropes, and should land on the canvas with just a few deft jabs. For one, President Muhammadu Buhari, APC’s dominant vote machine, will not be on the ballot. In two election cycles before APC’s victory in 2015, Buhari polled excess of 12 million votes mostly from the core North where he enjoyed a fanatical following. The consensus, even within APC, is that Buhari’s near cultic appeal is personal, and therefore not transferrable.

Two and related is that Buhari’s main base of North West has no stake in APC’s current presidential ticket. This is the zone with the highest number of registered voters (currently 22.1 million out of 91.9 million), and with more than average voters’ turnout (roughly 50%). With seemingly no skin in the game and bearing the debilitating brunt of banditry, the North West that gave APC 46% and 39% of its total votes in the country in 2015 and 2019 respectively is not likely to be hot on APC this time around.

Three and most significantly, APC’s stewardship at the centre has not been stellar.

While APC can point to solid achievements in physical infrastructure and key legislations, the unflattering fact is that most indicators, especially those that directly impact the quality of life of citizens, have worsened. Public finance is in a muddle, characterised by low revenue, rising debts, suffocating debt service and soaring petrol subsidies. Insecurity has become more widespread. The rates for unemployment, poverty and inflation, especially food inflation, continue to shoot up.

On paper, all these factors should make it easy to trounce APC at the polls next year. But it takes more than declining socio-economic situation or growing public disenchantment or a term-barred incumbent to defeat a party in power in the developing world. A solid electoral machine, backed by a united front of

INEC Chairman, Yakubu

political parties and tendencies, is needed. The only time a ruling party has been defeated in Nigeria was in 2015, but that wasn’t the only time an incumbent party was vulnerable. In fact, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had been vulnerable since 2003. Forget the bluster about the party planning to rule Nigeria for an unbroken period of 60 years. PDP managed to hang on until there was a formidable coalition to take it on and out in 2015.

Though in existence barely two years before 2015 elections, APC was formed from a merger of three legacy parties (the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC; the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN; and the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP) and splinter groups from PDP and the All Progressives Grand Alliance, (APGA). Apart from having Buhari, Atiku Abubakar, Bola Tinubu, Musa Kwankwaso and others within its fold, APC also had 15 sitting governors, significant members of the members of the National Assembly and states’ legislature by the time it took on the PDP behemoth. Most significantly, APC went into the 2015 election not just as formidable force but also as a united front.

APC would have been counting its days at the centre by now if it were faced in this election with the kind of formidable and united front it had posed to PDP in 2015. Yes, there is growing opposition to APC, but it is a divided opposition.

And yes, there is a PDP with 13 governors and decent spread across the country. But this is a seriously weakened PDP, fractured into four camps within and outside the party: the Main PDP with Atiku as the presidential flagbearer; the seemingly unaligned G5 or G6 (group of five or six governors PDP governors) with the entertaining and rebellious Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State as its arrowhead; Peter Obi who was Atiku’s running mate in 2019 but is now the presidential flagbearer of the Labour Party (LP) and Kwankwaso, the presidential flagbearer of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) who until recently was also a ranking PDP member.

Atiku, Obi and Kwankwaso are each expected to score some reasonable number of votes. Wike and his group are playing either spoilers from

within or positioning themselves as beautiful brides and are winking at all interested suitors.

The sum of all these is that opposition votes will be shared among the three presidential candidates rather than be added up as a bloc.

And since we operate a first-past-the-post system, this gives a massive lifeline to the ruling party.

A candidate doesn’t need to score above 50% of votes cast to be declared winner. All that is needed to score the highest number of votes and meet the spread requirement. In 1979, Shehu Shagari of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) was declared winner with just 33.77% of the valid votes cast.

This doesn’t mean that APC is home and dry. No. But a united opposition to APC would have been a different proposition. There are suggestions this may still happen. For logistics and practical reasons, it is quite unlikely that all the strong opposition parties and factions will band together, except if the election goes to the second ballot.

The Race is Still between APC and PDP: I know this will earn me loads of abuses and insults from certain quarters (the defining character of this election cycle), I will say it all the same: my considered view is that the 2023 election is still between the two leading political parties—APC and PDP. Earlier in the year, I wrote a piece on this page about the possibility of electoral upset next year and concluded that PDP was best positioned to be the beneficiary of such as upset, not any of the third-force parties. There were a few direct and indirect rejoinders to that piece, and torrents of abuse.

Many interesting things have happened since that January 16th piece, especially following the emergence, about six months ago, of Obi and Kwankwaso as the presidential candidates of LP and NNPP respectively. Their candidature, especially that of Obi, has introduced some zing into the political space. There is a whole movement, now called the Obidients, both online and offline. There have been colourful and well-attended marches and rallies. And there have been cheerful stories in international media and some interesting polls. On the basis of all these, some observers and most of Obi’s supporters have concluded that the LP presidential candidate will win the election outright or at the second ballot. Those in Kwankwaso’s camp are equally optimistic though less bullish.

I think both of them will do well in the polls, possibly better than the candidates that came third and fourth in the five presidential elections held between 2003 and 2019 (the highest percentage polled by a third-party candidate was 7.45% by Atiku of ACN in 2007). I think we are likely to see our most competitive election in the Fourth Republic so far in 2023 and possibly witness a result close to the very competitive 1979 presidential election. Obi and Kwankwaso are strong threats to APC and PDP. However, I don’t see either Obi or Kwankwaso scoring the highest number of votes in 2023, and I will address the issue of runoff shortly.

Kwankwaso, propelled by the red-cap Kwankwasiyya Movement, is likely to score the highest number of votes in Kano, and may pick up some decent votes in a few North West and North East states. Obi, the beneficiary of the angst of urban youths against the establishment, will score the highest number of votes in the five South East states, based on home advantage,

and he is likely to put in a decent showing in Lagos, FCT, some parts of the South South and maybe one or two states in the North Central. Based on the balance of votes across the country, neither of them, however, is likely to be the first to cross the finishing line.

Obi and Kwankwaso will take votes off both APC and PDP in key states. But both the field of play and the state of play advantage the two leading parties. Despite their respective baggage, APC and PDP are the only one with the spread, the experience, and the resources that it takes to be competitive in the huge undertaking that is the presidential election in a complex and complicated country like Nigeria.

This is a structuralist reading of elections in Nigeria. To be sure, there are different ways of organising to win elections. And there are indications that a different way of politicking is taking root. But I don’t think this new way is sturdy enough to dislodge the establishment in the next three months. I may be wrong. We will know the answer in February.

A Runoff Seems Unlikely: Based on the way the competition is squaring off, a lot of ink has been spilled on how a runoff seems inevitable in the 2023 presidential poll. The electoral management body has just announced that it has a contingency plan for that. This is forward thinking by INEC. It is better for the electoral umpire to be over-prepared than to be caught napping. INEC thus deserves commendation for this, as not conducting the elections within the prescribed time has implications for the transition and for constitutional order.

However, my considered view is that the election will be won at the first ballot.

I am aware of permutations that are hinged on possible alliances if the election goes to runoff between the parties with the two highest votes. These are permutations built on the hope of something that may not happen. In 1979, Obafemi Awolowo’s Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) also hoped for a runoff and was counting on support at least from Aminu Kano’s People’s Redemption Party (PRP) and Waziri Ibrahim’s Great Nigeria People’s Party (GNPP). It is difficult to know if party members would have obeyed their leaders down the line but in any case, the Supreme Court ruled that the spread requirement was met by Shagari’s NPN. The difference between 2023 and 1979 is how long the parties have been in existence and in power. In 1979, the five political parties were contesting for the first time, even when they were mostly offshoots of the First Republic and pre-independence parties that had been dissolved 13 years earlier. But both APC and PDP have been in existence and have been in power in one form or the other since 1999.

APC and PDP are so deeply rooted across the country that it is inconceivable for either of them not to secure 25% in at least 24 states and FCT. For example, both parties will likely meet the spread requirement in the 19 states in the North and FCT, and will easily get 25% in five states in the South to make the balance. Also, one of them is likely to score the highest number of valid votes cast. And with both constitutional conditions met, a winner emerges at the first ballot.

A runoff will thus be necessary if neither APC or PDP scores the highest number of votes cast, which in my view, as at today, is quite unlikely.

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