Nigeria abroad issue 5

NIGERIA

NIGERIA ABROAD IS A SUPPLEMENT TO AFRICAN VOICE - ISSUE NO. 599

Abroad

African Film Awards 13 November 2015

NIGERIA @55 President Buhari & Ministers

Are these the true change agents Nigerians are eagerly awaiting?

Dele Ogun, the Partners and staff at OGUN The Law Firm send their best wishes to all Nigerians on the occasion of the 55th anniversary of Nigeria’s Independence.

OGUN The Law Firm 16 Babatunde Kuboye Street Lekki Phase 1 Lagos Tel: +2341 293 1085, Email: law@ogun.com, Web: www.ogun.com

COMMENT Powering Nigeria and Diaspora Bail Out

Contents 3 Comment Powering Nigeria and Diaspora Bail Out 4 Opinion Corruption and impunity 5 The President & His Ministers The Change Agenda Team?

8 Forum Nigerian Professionals offer views 12 Economy Value Added Agriculture 14 Young Diasporan Nigeria’s view A clash of culture

Adebisi Akindayini, Miss Nigeria UK 2014

15 African Film Awards London 13th November, 2015 NIGERIA ABROAD ISSUE 5 IS A SUPPLEMENT TO AFRICAN VOICE ISSUE NO. 599

African Voice Newspaper London Office: Unit 7 Holles House Overton Road London SW9 7AP

Tel: 020 3737 3077

Email: sales@africanvoiceonline.co.uk africanvoicenews@gmail.com African Voice is published by African Voice UK.

By Mike Abiola Nigeria’s 55th Independence anniversary celebration on 1st October this year depicts a season of hope for Nigerians with the belief that the country’s new administration is poised to bring about the desired change.

With a 72-year-old president that witnessed a prosperous Nigeria before independence, who has had the opportunity of running the affairs of the state as a military Head of State from January 1984 to August 1985, he should be in a position to know the problems of the country first hand.

It is expected that the president will assemble a team of ministers that will support the change agenda. Nigerians are expecting a clear departure from the impunity of old.

However, the nation turns 55 at a time of sober reflection, with terrorism, insecurity, insurgency, kidnapping and corruption in high places rife. This season do not call for celebration, as the challenges are enormous. Most crucial of all is the unemployment of millions of able-bodied youth making up over 40 percent of the population; a ticking time bomb that must be prevented from detonating.

A nation like Nigeria, so blessed with human and natural resources, should not have problems generating revenue or creating employment. But greed, selfishness and corruption is the order of the day and the needful act of building infrastructure and human capital is neglected.

A country as blessed and diverse as Nigeria must take steps to prosper from the entertainment industry, which has proven it can earn the nation foreign exchange from global acceptance as well as provide employment to a teeming youth.

The industry has demonstrated its capability through the many hands it currently engages in Nollywood and Kannywood across the country.

Britain, for example, generates revenue from the financial and services sector despite North Sea Oil, while America and India derive huge amounts from Hollywood and Bollywood respectively. According to Indian Economy, Bollywood’s contribution to India’s GDP is $2.85 billion in a $2.5 trillion economy.

While Nigeria’s challenges may be many, attention must be focussed on how best to generate revenue to provide employment for the teeming population in the face of a dwindling monolith revenue stream from oil exports.

New start The current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari must focus on two agendas; providing a stable electricity supply to power small to medium-scale industries and generating multiple revenue streams. The administration is slowly gaining the confidence, so it can only be hoped that promises will be matched by action.

Vice President Prof. Yemi Osinbajo recently promised the nation that the administration will increase power supply from the inherited 3,500 megawatts to 5,000 megawatts by December of 2015 and to 6,000 megawatts by the first quarter of 2016.

Diaspora Bail Out Nigeria’s Diaspora is an asset that cannot be ignored. Since the huge brain drain from the nation, successive governments have not extracted the maximum benefit from the Diaspora. The nation is blessed with successful professionals that have passion, loyalty and a willingness to contribute to nation-building beyond regular money transfer remittances.

The administration has presented a Diaspora Bond to the House of Representatives to increase the bond to $300million - beyond this the government must engage with the Diaspora regularly. Engagement with the Diaspora should include regular news dissemination - the era when the Diaspora could be excluded from policy formulation is gone.

Nigerians in Diaspora can help to fuel perception rightly or wrongly. Therefore the incoming information minster must devise a way to carry the Diaspora along with government plans and intentions.

These are some of the issues the urgently needed Diaspora Commission will help coordinate.

At 55, Nigeria has a glimmer of hope, but the political class must embrace the leadership example of President Muhammadu Buhari, a man of integrity.

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OPINION

President Buhari should tackle corruption from the root and branches

By Emmanuel Urhiofe As Nigeria celebrates 55 years of independence it is pertinent to ask if we have achieved any meaningful development or change. Coincidentally we are also witnessing over 100 days of a new administration of President Buhari. How do we define change?

In simple terms, change is defined as moving into a different template and structure from what was originally in existence. Countries that have not experience any change should not expect to benefit from the new development structures that change brings. Although Nigeria is experiencing change at the moment, the process of change is still the same. We need a big structural change. President Buhari’s administration has introduced a new ozone structure in the social and political life of Nigerians with the reinvigorated war against corruption. The President should continue with an unrelenting, objective, and sartorial war against corruption by invoking the constitutional guidelines that make it mandatory for all governors, ministers, National Assembly (NASS) members and well as other officials in Local administration to declare their assets. Public life is still seen as an avenue for primitive accumulation of capital on a grand scale. The present war should embrace the kind of synergy, vision and template that should usher in an egalitarian society in which all Nigerians should be proud of their motherland. There is too much class inequality perpetuated by a few class of bourgeois compradors that have continued to loot the treasury, thereby making the it comatose. The President should go after this peculiar class of extractive, exploiters who have made Nigerians to live in the state of social obloquy.

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Corruption and development Nigerians are a very impatient people.

They are expecting miracles from the present regime. But this will take some time. It will take another two to three years for us to actually view the present regime in terms of the change process.

In my own subjective view, one barometer with which we can measure the change process is the extent to which President Buhari has been able to tackle the root and branches of corruption in Nigeria. Merely tackling the branches is not enough. Corruption is rooted in the cultural nuances and cleavages of the Nigeria people. It has transformed to assume many names such as ‘egunje,’ ‘palm greasing’ ‘kola’ ‘pepper’ ‘drop something,’ ‘wet ground’ and some many contemporary colloquial usages.

Redressing this hydra -headed problem will require a lion heart of a leader and I think the President has this in abundance. Over the years there have been excessive leakages of stolen money to banks in the West, either through collaboration or by cooperation with bankers in western countries. More than £400 billion of stolen oil money has been allegedly lodged in banks in the western world either as slush fund, illegal transfers, money laundering and sometimes brazen looting. But ending this morally bankrupt practise would require a transformational leadership which we all know has been in short supply in Nigeria. The tragedy of the matter is the situation where stolen money which has helped to further develop the western economy is repatriated and returned home only to the same pot from which it was stolen in the first place. There is therefore the risk that the same money will be embezzled again due to lack of any form of transparency. Nigeria past leaders have laid into the underbelly of the Nigeria state to provide a more or less transactional leadership with all the pitfalls and failures attached. Nigeria is just a gliding giant galloping into nowhere, No direction, no purpose no vision. It is instructive to note that Nigeria has not attained a requisite pass mark for many aspects of the millennium development Goals (MDG). This is in contrast to less endowed states with fewer natural resources which are moving fast into the 21st century with hope. A cursory look at the MDG report for Africa shows that Nigeria’s status

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is off track as regards major indices of development such as the promotion of universal primary education, promotion of gender equality, eradication of child mortality and maintenance of maternal health. This is in contrast to countries such as Rwanda, Mozambique, Ghana, Morocco and Tanzania who have resources than Nigeria.

How do we define development?

In sociological terms, development is harnessing the dividends of economic growth. While growth is merely statistical, development is the process by which the proceeds of growth are dispatched to improve the welfare of the citizenry. Nigeria in 55 years has witnessed growth without development. In most cases it is stunted growth. In the era of globalisation and commercialisation it is important that Nigeria moves out of the primordial moorings of kleptomaniacs and vestigial ethnic cleavages.

Management Professor Pat Utomi, who can be regarded as one of the foremost contemporary development thinkers of modern Nigeria put the problem in good perspective when he said that lack of management is at the heart of the development imbroglio. According to the erudite Professor, “rigour, discipline and judicious application of resources to goals and monitoring outcomes with clear monitoring capabilities are where we have fallen flat.”

Whereas Nigeria has some of the best development plans in the world since independence, she has not produced the necessary capacity or managers to manage or implement the plans.

Added to this management crisis is a pervading trend towards unbridled narcissism, self interest and lack of utilitarian values that place the common good at the forefront. We read of law makers who have failed to bring good ideas to the legislative houses which can be regarded as “market place of ideas”. Rather we read of sleeping legislators.

Based on this analysis, Nigerians may need to task the present regime to produce a blue print for the vision or future of the country. Where is the template for a development trajectory that would usher us into the next Millennium? We are yet to see a new nirvana. It is not yet uhuru. But we are optimistic that there will be a new dawn

The President and his Ministers

Are these the true change agents Nigerians are eagerly awaiting?

President Muhammadu Buhari has assembled a team of men and women as ministers after a delay to “put new rules of conduct and good governance in place�.

There is palpable anticipation among Nigerians from every nook and cranny with many expecting a selection of men and women of integrity. The ministers are expected to be a model for change from the old ways.

The official list of ministers have only been submitted to the Nigerian Senate for approval. Here are some of the likely names on the list.

Let us have your comment on twitter: #africanvoice2 or www.africanvoiceonline.co.uk

Babatunde Fashola

Amina Mohammed

Chief Audu Ogbeh

Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi

Senator Chris Ngige

Senator Aisha Al-Hassan

Kemi Adeosun

Dr. Kayode Fayemi

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President Buhari’s Ministerial Team Gen Dambazzau

multinational companies and some Wall Street firms.

He has worked at the World Bank and is Chairman of the Chapel Hill Denham Group. He was also the cofounder and Executive Director of Stanbic IBTC. He also sits on the Board of a number of other companies and NGOs. Mr. Edun holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from the University of London and a Masters Degree in Economics from the University of Sussex, England. He has been touted as being instrumental in increasing Lagos State’s IGR when former President Obasanjo withheld revenue from the government. His nomination is said to be based on the quality of work he has done for the government so far.

Festus Odimegwu

Gen Dambazzau, the first Nigeria army chief to hold a PhD degree, and currently a Senior Visiting Fellow of the Centre for Peace, Democracy and development, University of Massachusetts, Boston, as well as a fellow and Associate of the Weatherhead Centre for International Affairs, Harvard University, said he is not desperate holding any political appointment.

Before he retired from the army as the 17th Chief of Army Staff, in 2010, he was the General Officer Commanding (GOC), 2 Division, Ibadan. Before then he was the Chief of Army Standards and Evaluation; a Directing Staff and Director, Higher Military Organization and Operations at the then National War College; Principal General Staff Officer (PGSO) to the Hon Minister, Ministry of Defence; ChiefInstructor, Support Weapons Wing, Nigeria Army School of Infantry; Academy Registrar, Nigeria Defence Academy (NDA); Commander, Provost Groups of 3 Division and 1 Division, respectively.

As a young officer, he served as ADC to the Chief of Army Staff and special Investigator, Special Investigation Bureau of the Military Police. Outside the military, he was a part time lecturer in Criminology in the Faculty of Law, Ahmadu Bello University for about four years. In the last five years since his retirement, General Dambazau has been engaged in business as security consultant and estate development. He is also the Founder and Chairman, Foundation for Victims of Child Abuse (VCAF).

Wale Edun Wale Edun was a former finance commissioner in Lagos State and served for an unprecedented two terms. Edun served as the Head of Treasury and Deputy Head of Corporate Finance at Chase Merchant Bank. He has gained international experience in merchant banking, corporate finance, economics and international finance through affiliations with various

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Festus Odimegwu was the former Managing Director of the Nigerian Breweries. A first class graduate of Chemistry from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Odumegwu progressed from Trainee Brewer to CEO over the course of 26 years. He attended Stanford University’s Graduate School and Unilever Four Acres Training Centre. Apart from his background in Chemistry and the Natural Sciences, he has acquired certification and experience in various fields such as business strategy and planning, strategic planning and leadership.

After leaving the Nigerian Breweries in 2006, Odimegwu refused an appointment with the Heineken Company in Germany to pursue personal business interests. He is the founder of the Royal Lifestyle Services Group of Companies Ltd and other strategic business units. He has served as the Chairman of the National Population Commission (NPC) under former President Goodluck Jonathan. Odimegwu has distinguished himself among Nigerian corporate heads, and has served on the boards of other companies such as Dangote Cement PLC, Union Bank of Nigeria as well as Transnational Corporation of Nigeria.

He is known for being a man of excellence, diligence, and integrity, which influenced his appointment by the past administration.

Prof. Pat Utomi Kaduna State born Prof. Patrick Utomi is an indigene of Delta State.

Patrick Utomi studied at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He later attended Indiana University, USA for his masters and doctorate degrees.

Utomi is a professor of political economy and a management expert. Currently a teacher at the Lagos Business School and now a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants of Nigeria, he was a scholarin-residence at two universities in the United States.

He is the founder of Centre for Value Leadership and the African Democratic Congress party under which he made a failed bid for Presidency in 2011. Utomi has served in senior positions in the private sector as Chief Operating Officer for Volkswagen Nigeria as well as in government as a consultant on some public policy papers, and Special Assistant to former President Shehu Shagari.

Olagunsoye Oyinlola Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola was a member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) under which he was governor of Osun State for about seven years before defecting to the All Progressive Congress in 2014.

Oyinlola was in the military for 30 years before he retired with the rank of BrigadierGeneral. He served in various capacities within the military and participated in the United Nations Peacekeeping exercises in Chad and Somalia.

He is a firm believer in preserving his culture and made sure the Osun-Osogbo festival became a tourist destination.

He also established Osun State University during his tenure and put facilities in place that made the school into the topnotch educational institution it is now.

Kanu Agbi (SAN) Kanu Agabi (S.A.N), was born on July 9, 1946. He attended St. John’s Primary School, Gboko, Benue State. His secondary education were at Maryknoll Secondary School, Okuku, Ogoja in Cross-River State and Uzuakoli, Abia State.

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Later, when he concluded his Secondary School, Kanu Agabi got admission to study law in University of Lagos from where he proceeded to the Nigerian Law School after he obtained his Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) degree. Kanu Agabi, after having practiced law for well over 35years successfully, was conferred with the status of a Senior Advocate of Nigeria in the year 1997.

In the year 1999, Kanu Agabi was appointed the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, which position he held for about one year before he was transferred to the the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development. After the assassination of Chief Bola Ige, Kanu Agabi was recalled back to the ministry of justice.

Femi Falana Femi Falana is a lawyer who has become a household name in Nigeria for his strong opinions on government activities and human rights advocacy.

He studied law at the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University and was called to the Nigerian bar. After his youth service, he joined the Chambers of Alao AkaBashorun, a renowned legal activist. In 1991, Falana started his own Chambers, Femi Falana, which later became Falana and Falana Chambers.

Abubakar Malami, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, was born in Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi State and has served in various capacities including being a state counsel and magistrate in Kebbi State and teaching law at the Usman Dan Fodio University before going into private legal practice. He currently serves as the National Legal Adviser for Congress for Progressive Change, CPC. But his main interest lies in floating an NGO to help deepen the content of our laws by sponsoring private citizen bills in the National Assembly.

Other nominees include Senator Chris Ngige and Dr. Ogbannaya Onu, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, publicity secretary of the All Progressives Congress, Dr Kayode Fayemi the immediate past governor of Ekiti State; former governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola and former governor of Rivers State, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi.

Others nominees are Senator Aisha Alhassan, a former senator and APC governorship candidate in Taraba State, Yusuf Tuggar, Umaru Abubakar Dembo and Faruk Adamu Aliyu, Chief Audu Ogbeh, Solomon Dalong, Ahmed Isa Ibeto, Sulaiman Adamu and Ibrahim Jibril.

Other names on the list include Amina Mohammed, current special adviser to the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon and Kemi Adeosun, Ogun state former commissioner for finance, Senator Hadi Sirika and a former governorship candidate on the platform of the CPC, Adebayo Shittu.

FORUM

Diaspora professionals offer views and opinion to the new administration in Nigeria On May 29, when Muhammadu Buhari - the first opposition figure to win a presidential election in Nigeria since independence in 1960 - was sworn in, he promised to bring “increased prosperity” to Africa’s most populous nation.

He also vowed to tackle “head on” the issues of corruption and the insurgency from militant Islamist group Boko Haram.

Six months have now passed since the 72-yearold leader of the All Progressives Congress was propelled – this time by democratic process - to his second term in office. A good time, then, for Britain’s No. 1 African Newspaper to canvass the advice of UK-based Nigerian professionals to Nigeria’s new administration.

What follows is a selection of brief submonitions from an allegiant Diaspora.

Nigerians in Diaspora must be mobilised

India and China have shown us how a Diaspora can help develop a nation. Theirs have built their countries into fastgrowing economies because they offer encouragement to their people abroad to bring back the knowledge and experience they have acquired. They involve their Diaspora in developing their country and community. Every community, state, ministry and the Federal Government of Nigeria can do the same.

Nigerians in Diaspora are a force to reckon with. We have industrialists, businessmen/women, medical doctors, engineers and educationists to mention a few, who are shaping the economics of the other coun-

Dr. Engr. Sunday Popo-Ola, Imperial College London. Email: s.popoola@imperial.ac.uk

tries in which they live, so why can’t you trust them to do the same for their home country, Nigeria?

Mr President, we are ready to serve and work for our country, so please just tell us what you want us to do as we are waiting for your call o. Na only we go sabi waka come back to deliver and develop our country and no foreigners can nor must do it for us. God has blessed Nigeria, we therefore say May God Save Nigeria and Thank God for Nigeria.

Make Health Facilities Accessible To All Nigerians My perception of the state of health in Nigeria is contemporaneous with injustice and a lack of equity and fairness.

There is terrible inequality in the dispensation of healthcare to the vast majority of Nigerians.

Many Nigerians are still languishing from lack of access to health facilities due to poverty, lack of good roads and poorly co-ordinated government policies.

For hundreds of millions of people in Nigeria, the kind of medical care that is often taken for granted in developed nations is simply not available or else unaffordable. The focus of the new government should be on long-term strategies that improve health and income - such as manufacturing, the provision of good roads, a stable electricity supply, an affordable and sustainable healthcare system and building capabilities.

Dr Henry Okosun, Consultant Obstetrician & Gynaecologist is a Director at Regency International Clinic, London

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FORUM

The Right to Light If a problem is too big to be fixed in one go, logic says you identify the most important and focus on it. The problem of light is much more fundamental than the problem of corruption and, since it requires human engineering rather than human re-engineering, it should be easier to resolve.

Only the beasts of nature can be excused for continuing to order their affairs according to the dictates of the Sun and the Moon. It is time to end our complacency over this issue. If the homes in Pompeii had pipeborne water before Christ and Abeokuta had lit-streets before the Egbas lost their Independence and became

merged with Nigeria in 1914, the minimum that we should expect of this Government is that the commercial capital (Lagos) and the political capital (Abuja) should have 24-hour light.

Fifty-five years on from Independence, it is time to recognise the Right to Light as a fundamental human right.

Dele Ogun, is a Barrister and Author

High expectations from Buhari Government I was an early believer in the second coming of President Buhari, primarily because of his disciplined nature and incorruptible attitudes.

My conviction got stronger the moment Prof Yemi Osinbajo was nominated as the Vice Presidential candidate because, having been his senior at Igbobi College Yaba along with his public track record, I was sure this will be a team to arrest Nigeria’s downward spiral.

I expect that once the ministers are appointed, hopefully by September, the government should pri-

2. Agriculture and agro-allied Not only to revive cotton produced in the North for our textile mills but also to add value to other produce in all zones through appropriate storage conditions and processing. This will start improving our foreign exchange earnings.

3. Corruption and Impunity The corruption and impunity mentality in our national psyche should be relentlessly pursued; otherwise any achievement in the above-mentioned sectors will come to nought.

Create an all-inclusive Nigeria where hard work, not corruption pay I congratulate President Muhammadu Buhari for the admirable courage and resilience that made his dreams come true.

Nigeria where hard work, not corruption and impunity, pay and we are all equal regardless of our tribe or religion. We need an exemplary leadership that will create opportunities and credible role models for our younger generation and restore investor confidence in Nigeria.

The challenges facing Nigeria at this time are great but not insurmountable. Some people argue that our issues stem from a lack of strong institutions but I believe that it is more about a lack of committed, credible and selfless leaders with the will to combat and end corruption.

The President’s reputation as a man with integrity gives me hope and confidence. I would therefore urge him to concentrate on the war against corruption, repositioning our economy, restoring security and above Jenny Okafor is a Lawyer and all, creating an all-inclusive human rights advocate.

Engr. Olumuyiwa Olu Aiyegbusi is the Chairman, Olu Olu Group Worldwide

oritise these sectors of nation; viz 1. Power So that cottage, small and medium-scale employers can propel our employment regeneration.

4. Finally, the educational sector is in a sorry state The Buhari administration will not completely rescue Nigeria out of the deep water in 4 years, but if we all cooperate to an extent in his vision we can start enjoying a good turnaround by the end of his first term as President.

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FORUM

Diaspora voting must be given special attention

Nigeria’s economy, a priority

Otunba Tajudeen Obafemi Adenuga is the CEO, Femade (UK) Limited

President Muhammadu Buhari’s government must promote transparency and accountability in governance by probing and prosecuting any public officer that is found to have engaged in corrupt practices, whether in previous administrations or within his government.

Those found guilty must be made to refund every amount they fraudulently accrued and also jailed for the offences committed.

This will serve as a deterrent to present and future holders of public office.

Corruption is blamed for many of Nigeria’s woes, including but not limited to

erratic electric power and fuel supply.

Therefore, the issue of electric power should be the number one priority of the present government. As a development issue, electricity must be given the highest priority by the President closely followed by security, which will surely improve if the electric power supply is stable.

As a Nigerian in Diaspora, the issue of Diaspora voting for Nigerians outside the country must be given special attention to enable us perform our civic duty in terms of voting. Therefore, hearing the President state at the Diaspora forum held in Abuja that the issue of voting by Nigerians in Diaspora is to become a possibility in no distant time is a welcome development.

Chief Adebayo Oladimeji, Chairman of Nigerian Elders Forum, UK

Since coming into office as elected president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Buhari has been turning the wheels of progress.

Corruption has been tackled head-on. A number of loopholes that have aided corruption have been blocked. Corrupt individuals have been named, shamed and arrested. Boko Haram sects have been confronted and even Army chiefs are now living around the ‘battlefields’. This is a sign that President Buhari takes the lives and property of Nigerians seriously.

Sanitising Nigeria’s economy has been put on the front burner.

There is now a Treasury Single Account policy. The state of our liquidity could now be transparent.

Any would-be investor can be at ease in gauging the state of our economy.

Other governments are now building confidence around Nigerians as business partners. Within the country, small businessmen and women including petty traders are beginning to smile as state governors from all political parties have been bailed- out; leaving them able to pay salaries owed to workers. Within the last one hundred days, the foundation for glorious years ahead has been laid.

Buhari can soldier on, there are better years ahead.

Human Security and National Security – A must for Nigeria The principle of collective security and the notion of human security started before and after the end of the Cold War, It has become necessary that human safety is paramount after all that transpired during and after the war. It has become necessary that safety, peace and the pursuit of prosperity can be threatened in many ways other than by armed conflict, which can lead to poverty and Progressive

inequality.

Examples are: international crime, environmental degradation, population movement, human trafficking, food scarcity, water scarcity problems and so on.

The present Nigeria government under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari has pledged that the issues surrounding our national security are pivotal on their agenda. Although recent newspaper reports coming out of Nige-

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Gbenga Adenuga ria suggest that members of the militant group ‘Boko

Haram’ are surrendering in large numbers to the Nigerian Military, there are conflicting stories as well as inconsistent information that the same Boko Haram militants are killing innocent people all over the Northern part of Nigeria, making the whole situation very worrying. I honestly hope that the present regime will confront the issues surrounding human security in Nigeria head-on, Nigerians are waiting.

God bless Nigeria.

FORUM

Re-orientation of the Police Force

The government should look at making the system more efficient from an enforcement point of view; all enforcement agencies must collaborate to make them more robust and efficient.

with dignity and pride. They must know under which powers or legislation they operate and, if challenged by the public, must be able to quote chapter and verse.

Up-skilling. We have very good officers who have had the pleasure of working with colleagues from all over the world, and have developed much experience by the time

Yemisi Jenkins is the President of the Association of BritishNigerian Law Enforcement (ABLE) Officers All agencies must be fully equipped, not only with weapons and personal protective equipment (PPE); they need training and retraining. Officers who carry a weapon must be trained on how to make it safe and assessed (psychologically, emotionally etc.) to ensure it is treated with care and employed judiciously.

Agencies must seek to partner with their foreign counterparts, i.e. MOUs for intelligence sharing purposes and sharing of best practises.

Officers must be empowered to carry out their duties

they return to Nigeria. These skills are not utilised because their agency does not create an enabling environment for them to flourish. For the officers to be a step ahead of the criminals, they must be well trained.

Members of the public must have access to the powers and legislation under which each agency operates, either online or in print. This will ensure officers are accountable for their actions in the event of any challenge to their authority. All officers must be equipped with all that is required for them to discharge their duties.

Don’t just tackle corruption, initiate the task of re-orientation alongside the onerous battle So far, so fair. It is possible that a cross-section of Nigerians will opine that the nation has had a fair outing in 2015. The conduct of elections unmarred in the main by most of the shenanigans of previous runs; an outgoing government that was ‘graceful in defeat’ and a new government that is inclined to plead the righting of wrongs of the not-too-distant past as extenuation for its slow take-off.

The euphoria of victory for the new henchmen and the licking of wounds (of defeat) by the vanquished should no doubt have subsided by now and the task to advance the cause of functional governance should be on all discerning minds.

To state that corruption has almost destroyed the existential fabric of our society as a virile nation of citizens able to hold their heads high anywhere in the world is akin to stating the annoyingly obvious. The government of President Muhammadu Buhari in its stance will do well to maintain the battle on this herculean front, but equally worthy would be the mission to re-orientate.

The task of nation-building should in truth embody an all-round development.

But successive governments in Nigeria have almost always dwelt solely on infrastructural construction at the expense of other areas of development. Be that as it may, a cursory look at Nigeria’s chequered history will no doubt highlight hordes of well-intentioned edifices and supposedly uplifting policies that have ended up as car-

Segun Martins Fajemisin is a freelance writer

casses of their objectified originals. Myopic machinations and selfish motives have been elevated to national pastimes, especially when coloured as tribal and regional championing.

The government must go all out to identify a benchmark of sorts - a cut-off level to start the task of reorientation as a way of encouraging a re-invigorated generation of Nigerians.

This is far more desired, but should go alongside the building of bridges and infrastructure. Otherwise these hurriedly constructed structures risk ending up derelict, destroyed or mismanaged by an undisciplined and corrupt citizenry.

We have been lucky so far.

There have been those precarious moments when the country has tottered dangerously on the brink, the so-called precipice, where a mere slip could have been the end of the assemblage as we know it.

But luck by its sheer nature is liable to run out. So the government of GMB must initiate and sustain a national re-orientation project to begin the journey of ultimately transforming Nigeria from a gallery of perpetual despair.

Such a re-orientation could well trigger a couple of delightful illuminations. Therein may lie the hope of rejuvenation for the comatose giant.

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ECONOMY

A missing part of Nigeria’s agricultural history today is the legacy of the groundnut pyramids which were such an architectural construct of food produce in middle of Nigeria centennial existence and accounted for export earnings. The north of Nigeria is not the only part of the country that seemed to abandoned the possibility of ‘Eden’, but it can such a terrible accident of fortune that a legacy that had all the trappings of an future, massive export yield and could even position Nigeria for politico-economic influence was given up too early in the day. Today, the gross domestic produce of groundnuts would hardly satisfy local consumption where waste due to inadequate transportation network, storage facilities, and inadequate pricing in the face of its inclement conditions have not contributed to the gradual deterioration of this feature. It would perhaps be a fitting testimony to read the report of Ian McCall in this personal account of his while he visited Nigeria decades ago but published only a decade back.

The Groundnut Pyramids of Kano

By Peter Olorunnisomo

I have never been to see the Sphinx or the pyramids of Egypt. The size of the pyramids is conveyed well in photographs which show them dwarfing everything around. But you didn’t need to go to Egypt for pyramids. They existed in Kano in Northern Nigeria which I had the good fortune to visit in my official capacity during my induction period in Lagos.

Kano is a town very different from the bustling cities of the south of the country. As Geraldine Illes, the daughter of very good friends, said when she saw it on her very first visit ‘It’s just like the pictures in the Bible’. It is in a general sense. It is also very different. A walled city, albeit crumbling round the perimeter, a process initiated by Sir Frederick Lugard`s artillery when he, as High Commissioner for the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, sent out to take over the Royal Niger Company`s sphere when its royal charter was revoked, ordered the shelling of the city as an early step in the subjugation of the Hausas. Its narrow streets snaked across the place seemingly dominated by the water spouts and what looked like battlements topped by decorative upward-pointing fingers rather like the pricked ears of a German shepherd dog. The walls of the older houses were made of red clay decorated in geometric designs. More modern concrete ones imitated the old style as did more recent ones with mud walls with the decorative work carried out on the cement rendering. Men and women enveloped in robes went about their daily business, their heads covered and their faces too in the case of the women. The muezzin calling the faithful to prayer denoted the prevailing religion and the impressive mosque built by the Public Works Department emphasised its importance.

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The desert and camels are not far away and you could occasionally get a glimpse of a Bedouin in his distinctive blue gear shyly shopping in the markets and stores. Rocksalt in from the desert and Cadbury’s chocolate out.

The Hausa/Fulani are the most numerous of the main ethnic groups having about half of the population of Nigeria.

Included in this number are the Bornu and the Nupe and some other minor tribes like the Tiv with whom they live in a tight symbiosis. They have a mutually beneficial partnership, not least the feeling of strength in unity in face of a very different and sometimes seemingly threatening culture in the south of the country. The Hausas are an urban people, their capital Kano being a city of some sophistication. Descended from great centralised monarchies, they are staunchly Muslim. They had not always been so religious. The Hausa rulers had fallen into excesses of good living and were brought back early in the 19th century into the fold of good Muslims after Osman Dan Fodio, of the pastoral Fulani people, overcame them and reintroduced a strict observance of the faith.

He set up the Emirs whose descendants were now dominant in the North. The chiefs there exercised a very considerable authority and had not been noted in the past for giving encouragement to education of ordinary Hausas outside the extended family. As a result, they had come to rely on the more educated Ibos and to a lesser extent the Yorubas to perform the jobs associated with government and with technology. This resulted in townships being built on the fringes of the northern cities, the sabon gari, to accommodate the principally Ibo southerners who were more literate but were also Kafirs or unbelievers, and on whose literacy and entrepreneurial flair they had come to rely.

ECONOMY

Former Minister of Agriculture (3rd left), Farmers’ group Former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina leader in Kano State wheat farm

Pyramids would not have been out of place here. And there they were. Just outside the city of Kano were vast pyramids dominating the surrounding landscape. But no latterday Carter would enter them to get them to give up their secrets.

They consisted of 15,000 tons of bagged groundnuts each.

These large pyramids were the output of many thousands of farmers and had been harvested over a relatively short time.

They came not only from Nigeria but also from the neighbouring French territories where they are called arachides, a word as familiar to some local traders as the English word.

If the price was higher in Nigeria than on their own side of the border, some of the groundnut crop came to the Nigerian side. If the price was lower, some of the groundnuts went the other way. The boundaries between Nigeria and the French colonies of Niger, Dahomey and of Chad and Cameroun were permeable ones, largely because they were artificial in the first place, being fixed by prior claim and by negotiation rather than by any political or cultural analysis.

Nigeria and Senegal, in roughly equal proportions, exported the lion’s share of the world’s exports of groundnuts in the 1950s, Senegal just having the edge.

An annual meeting took place between officials of the two territories responsible for control of prices, held alternately on the French and British sides of the line that divided them.

It took place to ensure if possible that there was relative parity of price so that orderly marketing could take place and stability ensue. It was my knowledge of French that got me on to the trip to Kano while still on my initial training in Lagos working in my marketing capacity on what was called the `groundnut schedule`. The nuts were stored here to await evacuation to the ports of the south, principally Lagos, but also in some quantities to Port Harcourt. The line was a single track, nearly 800 miles in length and the rolling stock limited. The evacuation of over 800,000 tons in a year was a daunting business which meant holding vast stocks of groundnuts in these pyramids in Kano, sometimes longer than was desirable from the Produce Inspection viewpoint.

Significant consignments, although small by comparison, came down the Benue and the Niger by riverboats belonging to UAC Transport or John Holt Transport to Warri where they were transshipped to ocean-going vessels direct or by way of the stores in which they were kept awaiting shipment overseas.

This meant that precautions had to be taken against deterioration in stocks which could affect the price on the terminal markets or if it was bad enough, could result in no demand for the groundnuts.

Consequently, the bags containing the nuts were stored on sisalkraft made in Nigeria and precautions taken to protect them from the ruinous harmattan winds coming down from the desert. Only a damage limitation exercise could be carried out. The answer was to get them shipped as soon as possible. A second hazard was damage from weevils as a result of infestation. This was limited by sheeting the affected consignments in smaller pyramids of about 300 tons, folding in the sheets to ensure the fumigant to be applied to them didn’t escape and fumigating the lot. Urgent telegrams would be sent to the headquarters of the Marketing Board in Lagos advising that cold harmattan winds were causing untold damage to stocks, and soliciting the assistance of those in authority to get the railways to increase their efforts to evacuate them.

The very best groundnuts were the Bornu hand-decorticated ones. If marketed in countries like the UK they could have commanded a premium price that was commensurate with the effort in removing the shells. Had the Groundnut Marketing Board not existed, then a private firm or firms might have identified a market segment worth exploiting.

There was no advertising telling of the healthful qualities of groundnuts and particularly of groundnut oil as a cooking medium. Like extra virgin olive oil it passes with credit the cholesterol test. In the Sunday groundnut stew it was the basic medium the meat was cooked in.

Nuts were served to accompany drinks at most times and, delight of delights, they were used to make a soup most nights of the week. It was accompanied by sherry or gin peppers. The peppers, capsicums, or Nigerian Birdseye Chillies as they were known variously or officially, were put in the bottom of a bottle containing sherry or gin and left for a few weeks until the combination of the hot spice and the alcohol reached an optimum taste and sharpness. It was then ready to shake on to the soup. Able Baker, an engineer in the Public Works Department, told the story of when he was working in Onitsha and staying in the Catering Rest House there, he had his own bottle of sherry peppers which was placed on his table at lunch and dinner. A visitor from the United Kingdom leaned across AB’s table and snatched the bottle and applied a liberal dose to his dish - and nearly choked. When the visitor had recovered from his paroxysm AB said to him ‘Maybe that’ll teach you to say “by your leave” next time’.

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YOUNG DIASPORAN NIGERIA’S VIEW

Adebisi Akindayini is Miss Nigeria UK 2014

The complex identity of a British-Nigerian

By Adebisi Akindayini Being a young Nigerian in the UK was not something that I thought much about until recently. What was more of a focus for me was being young and enjoying my youth. It was not until I ran for Miss Nigeria UK 2014 that I realised that I myself was nearly lost.

I did not know nearly enough about my own culture, my own heritage nor my own country, Nigeria, and I feel like that is an issue many British-born young Nigerians have to this day.

In order to overcome this and ensure that our children in the Diaspora are not lost totally within British culture, the present administration of Nigeria must invest in young Nigerians in the UK that are doing well; who are impactful and are trying to make a change among young Nigerians in the Diaspora.

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Through this, a bridge will be created closing the chasm between Nigeria and the UK, as Nigerians in the UK will be getting support from Nigeria itself and showing this to the Nigerian youth in the Diaspora.

If taken on board, this will be the best of both worlds. My expectation of our President Buhari is that he remains the man of integrity that he has always been as that gives us hope that laws, rules and regu-

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lations can be upheld and maintained without speculation and consequently make Nigeria better for generations to come.

The government’s priority should be to focus on the youth as the future of Nigeria. We need to instil in them the importance of selfidentity and heritage. Who best to show that example than the ones before us?

I strongly believe that the future of Nigeria lies in the hands of the youth and the foundations built today with them. As the current Miss Nigeria UK and the founder of Young Gifted Initiative (YGI), which is a platform designed to inspire, develop and educate our youth to value their self-worth and achieve greatness, I lay huge emphasis on the integral part the youth play in our future. Let this importance be spread throughout all of Nigeria!

19th African Film Awards Friday 13th November 2015 Stratford Town Hall, London E15 4BQ

Red Carpet 6pm, Film Show 7pm, Comedy & Awards 8pm Organised by

Supported by NIGERIA HIGH COMMISSION LONDON African Film Awards, the most prestigious African film industry awards will hold in London on Friday 13 November 2015 celebrating excellence in Nollywood, Comedy Night, Best of Black British Films and Nollywood UK. A list Nollywood stars and the Best of Black British actors and actresses as well as a host of other celebrities have attended in the past and also will be attending the glamorous awards evening now in its 19th successive year.

The event featuring comedy show, film show and an award ceremony will take place at the historic Stratford Town Hall, 29 The Broadway London E15 4BQ. Time: 6.00pm prompt.

Over the years, African Film Awards also known as Afro Hollywood awards have served the purpose of promoting and advancing the dynamic growth of Africa’s Film and Arts in Europe, especially in the United Kingdom uniting the Africans and Caribbean communities.

Since the awards inception in 1996, popularity of African films has grown in leaps and bounds. Today, there are at least 6 channels dedicated to African films on Sky digital network with several others broadcasting online.

Exploring opportunities, seeking collaboration and funding for prospective filmmakers are the main trust of this year’s African Film Awards as over 250 industry practitioners has received the awards till date.

The 19th African Film Awards has “Tourism in Africa & the film industry” as its theme. The event will showcase some of the great destinations in Africa.

The African Film Awards is organised by African Voice, Britain’s N0.1 African Newspaper. Reaching over 500,000 readers hardly reached by other mainstream publications. Serving the Diaspora community since 2001.

For further information, please contact Golda John UK Event Director on 07814 234 376 or email: marketing@africanvoiceonline.co.uk or golda.john@gmail.com or visit our website: www.africanvoiceonline.co.uk/africanfilmawards

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A F A 1 BRITISH AFRICAN’S PERSPECTIVE TO BREAKING NEWS Tel: 020 3737 3077 Email sales@africanvoiceonline.co.uk www.africanvoiceonline.co.uk