THEWILL NEWSPAPER January 01, 2023

We had finished phase one of production when news that legendary footballer, Pele, real name, Edson Arantes do Nascimento got to me. A few hours later, I came across another legend’s passing, Vivienne Westwood, and a thought crossed my mind: ‘Is this the passing of a generation of legends to make room for the new?’

I found in common with these two people that they both had gifts that placed them way ahead of their time. Vivienne Westwood helped invent the punk look of shredded t-shirts, which, as time went by, evolved to spreading the word about social and environmental issues. Pele, on the other hand, was an athlete like none other.

As I searched images for both of them, I came across one with a quote by Pele. It read: “I always had a philosophy which I got from my father. He used to say, ‘Listen. God gave you the gift to play football. This is your gift from God. If you take care of your health, if you are in good shape all the time, with your gift from God, no one will stop you, but you must be prepared.’ ”

This quote reminded me of a video I had seen once where Kerry Washington spoke about goals and praying. She likened it to wanting to catch a bus, so you pray to catch it, but you must try to catch it when it comes your way; otherwise, you will miss it. And so, borrowing from both statements, the simple message is: As we make our requests(prayers) to our God in this new year, we must try to discover the gifts He has given us and use them in our chosen field. Take care of our health, as our body is where He put the gift and being equipped with that gift, be prepared to grab the opportunity (catch that bus)when it presents itself, as that might be that big break we seek— a kairos moment.

Photo: Kola Oshalusi @insignamedia Makeup: Zaron

Person

conducted by NOI Polls established by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, with support of Atedo N.A. Peterside, ANAP, Foundation, have put Obi ahead of three other front runners, namely Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC and Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP, besides other 14 other presidential candidates.

In early September 2022, the NOI polls scored Obi 13 per cent over 10 per cent each for Atiku and Tinubu and Kwankwaso at 6 per cent. In a recent one released a fortnight ago, the margin increased to 23 per cent, 13 per cent, 18 per cent and 10 per cent respectively.

ENTER ‘OBIDIENT MOVEMENT’

Still bristling from the aborted propolice reform #EndSARs protest in 2020, many Nigerian youths who blamed what they perceived as an irredeemably corrupt, brutal police force on the abnormal system in the country, found a comfortable platform with the ‘Obidient Movement’, to push their viewpoint change on a wider political canvass.

OBI & ’OBidient MOVEMENT’

BY AMOS ESELE

Classical historians agree that there comes a time in the history of a people when the man meets the hour or a movement symbolises the communal aspirations for inclusive change. Nigeria appears to be on the cusp of that accepted dictum with the recent emergence of the ‘OBidient Movement’ and former Anambra governor, Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, in the upcoming presidential election on February 25, 2023.

With a broken political system that promotes mediocrity and self-interested politicians every election cycle, Nigeria’s fortunes hangs in the balance on the eve of a general election this year: With 133 million out of its 200 million population multidimensionally poor, haunted by insecurity of life and property on a daily basis, torn by mutual ethnic mistrust and worn out by anomie, Nigerians are yearning for a viable political alternative that may provide a rope of hope which they can cling to and find a way to reclaim the light in their lives shattered by the failed promises of deceptive politicians. It is in this context of a darkened country that the coming of the ‘OBidient Movement’ and Obi finds place. In traditional Nigerian political parlance, Peter Obi is an Igbo but the 'OBidient Movement’ is not an Igbo business. Since May , 2022 when he became the presidential candidate of the LP, he has grown in stature that many Nigerians now see him as a different politician from the prevailing status quo.

For promoting a new vision for real change, THEWILL Editors unanimously chose Obi and ‘OBidient Movement’, as our Person of the Year 2022.

‘Obidient’, of course is a figurative language of the youths chosen to express their peculiarity as dedicated followers of Obi and also a poetic label that has found resonance in millions of Nigeria voters yearning for progressive change through this year’s ballot.

With members drawn from hundreds of support groups scattered across the country with no sympathy for the ethnicity, religious and cultural fault lines and barriers that have always split Nigerians at decisive moments in the search, plan and doing of crucial matters of nationhood, the ‘Obidient Movement,’ has raised the hope for a better and brighter Nigerian future driven by generation next.

The young men and women of the movement are ‘considered very strong-willed, independent-minded and contemptuous of older politicians who they say have done nothing for them.”

According to Comrade March Oyinki, President of one of the most formidable support group in the movement with base in North Central and South South zones, “the ‘OBidients’ are fighting against principalities and powers that are doggedly, fighting and unwilling to relinquish power to a popular incoming government championed by Peter Obi. This is the reality of the challenges before us."

He added: "It is the responsibility of the ‘OBidient’ movement, as the real change agent that must deliver the new Nigeria of our dream against all odds, to double her efforts to rescue the nation from the claws of our oppressors.''

OBI AS BEACON OF HOPE

As a measure of the impact he is making towards a new Nigeria through the 2023 polls, opinion polls and some movers and shakers of Nigerian politics have thrown their weight behind his ambition. Successive opinion polls

As an indication of the nationwide support coming the way of LP due to Obi’s phenomenal growth with less than 60 days to the general poll, here is the reason stated by former Secretary to Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, when his faction of the Northern Christian leaders declared their support for the Obi/Datti presidential ticket:

“As one of the foremost critics of APC’s single-faith presidential ticket, and also in defference to those who have patiently waited for our guidance as to where to pitch our tent, after a painstaking review and analysis of the alternative presidential tickets, we now wish to recommend the Obi/Datti presidential ticket.”

This same view has prompted leaders of the Middle Belt Forum to support the Obi/Datti ticket, alongside Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the PanIgbo cultural organisation.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his kinsman, Pa Ayo Adebanjo, who have become fanatical supporters of Obi candidacy, jointly expressed the dame viewpoint recently at the burial of the late Minister of Aviation in the first republic, Mbazulike Amechi.

Pa Adebanjo, leader of Southwest sociopolitical group, Afenifere which has declared support for Obi, told reporters that Obasanjo and himself have set aside their differences to unite in supporting Obi’s ambition because the candidate symbolises the equity, justice and fairness that Nigerians dearly need to rebuild their country.

Speaking rhetorically about the matter, Obasanjo said at the Amechi burial on November 1, 2023; “What I believe and what Chief Ayo Adebanjo believes is not ethnic, sectional and religious. It is Nigeria and Nigerians.

“When I go out and people thank me, I say, '' What are you thanking me for?. I believe in equity, justice and one Nigeria. I have shed blood for this country. I have gone to prison for this country, so what are you going to frighten or threaten me with? The only thing my senior brother, Adebanjo, has not done is that he has not shed his blood, but he has gone to prison. Let us leave it at that.”

Obi, the man of the hour, sums it all up, succinctly: "Let me tell you what Ayo Adebanjo and Afenifere are standing for today and what will make the future of Nigeria. They are standing for equity, they are standing for justice, they are standing for fairness and only equity, justice and fairness will be the foundation of which we will build a united Nigeria.”

“It is the responsibility of the ‘OBidient’ movement, as the real change agent that must deliver the new Nigeria of our dream against all odds, to double her efforts to rescue the nation from the claws of our oppressors

THEWILLNIGERIA THEWILLNG

Democrat

the Almajiri Education System, and was the Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Needs Assessment of Nigerian Public Universities.

conducted since he assumed office had been inconclusive.

He said the commission can only resort to declaring elections inconclusive whenever the circumstances warrant it. He said, “First, what is an inconclusive election? It’s an election in which a winner has not emerged on the first ballot, which is essentially what it is. So now you mobilise and remedy the problem and make a declaration. Is it strange in Nigeria? It’s not strange. In 2013, was the Anambra governorship election concluded on the first ballot? In 2015, the governorship election in Taraba state was declared inconclusive; the commission remobilized and concluded the election two weeks later. In 2011 and 2015, the Imo governorship election was inconclusive, the commission remobilised. In 2015, Abia election was inconclusive, the commission remobilised.

“There are two sections of the Electoral Act that we need to focus on. The first one is Section 26, which says “in the event of violence or natural disaster, INEC should not proceed with an election and if the total number of registered persons in the place affected is more than the margin of lead where you have conducted the election, then don’t make a declaration until you go back and complete the election.''

MAHMOOD YAKUBU:

AN ACADEMIC TECHNOCRAT AS MANAGER OF ELECTIONS

Prof. Mahmood Yakubu was born on May 1962 in Bauchi, Bauchi State. He is a Nigerian academic and current Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Definitely, all eyes are now on him both within the country and the outside world as the nation gets set for a general election in a few weeks' time. He had his first degree at the University of Sokoto now Usmanu Danfodiyo University (UDU), Sokoto. He is also an alumnus of the prestigious Oxford and Cambridge universities. Yakubu was a lecturer, guerrilla warfare expert, and Professor of Political History and International Studies at the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA). He was however pulled out of the classroom to answer the national call, first as the Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, (TETFUND) after being appointed to office in 2007 by then-President, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and later as the Chairman of the INEC by President Muahammadu Buhari on October 21, 2015. During his tenure as TETFUND Secretary, a National Book Development Fund was established, supporting 102 journals of professional associations.

Also, while on this job, he worked as a member of the Federal Government team on the Renegotiation of the Federal Government Agreement with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) under the leadership of Deacon Gamaliel Onosode. He was on the Presidential Task Team on Education, the Committee on Presidential Scholarship for Innovation and Development (PRESID), the Implementation Committee on the Presidential Fund for the Revitalisation of Nigerian Public Universities, the Ministerial Implementation Committee on the Establishment of Nine New Federal Universities,

By the time he finished his five-year tenure in 2012, Yakubu was credited for not only improving but also bringing innovations to the country’s higher education system. These innovations include the Academic Staff Training and Development programme, which paid for over 6,000 lecturers from different Higher Education Institutions to get postgraduate degrees at Nigerian universities and over 2,000 lecturers to get postgraduate degrees at universities outside of Nigeria. He also served as a technical member of the Implementation Monitoring Committee (IMC) for the Presidential Special Intervention Fund for the Revitalization of Nigerian Public Universities in 2013.

Yakubu was the Assistant Secretary of Finance and Administration at the 2014 National Conference organised by the then President, Goodluck Jonathan and in 2013, he was awarded an honorary fellowship to the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR).

Yakubu achieved a new national record when he received President Muhammadu Buhari’s endorsement for a second term as Chairman of the INEC in 2020. With the extension of his tenure as INEC boss for a second term of five years, Yakubu becomes the first head of an electoral agency to achieve tenure elongation in postIndependence Nigeria.

All his 11 predecessors served just one term. Thus, of all the country’s 12 electoral chairmen since independence, Yakubu becomes the first to serve two terms, having been appointed by Buhari in 2015 to succeed Professor Attahiru Jega. But to keen followers of this illustrious Bauchi indigene, this would not be the first time Yakubu would be cracking records. In the University of Sokoto (now Usmanu Danfodiyo University) where he obtained his first degree, this academictechnocrat owns the exclusive glory of being the first Northerner to obtain a First-Class in History in the school. His tenure as INEC boss was a call to glory but like all good things; it wasn’t all rosy at the beginning. He started slowly and received a lot of criticisms. He was however resilient and showed doggedness and determination to succeed.

In August 2016, INEC was accused of conducting too many inconclusive elections within a short period of Yakubu’s appointment. In fact at some point, critics dubbed Yakubu “Mr. Inconclusive,” an annotation to the spate of hung elections that INEC under him conducted with results delayed beyond the electoral cycle.But in defending this accusation, Yakubu said that the accusation was “ill informed”, “misplaced and undeserved.”

He explained that “inconclusive elections are caused by violence and over-voting and that the notion of inconclusive election is not strange to our law (see Section 26 and 53 of Electoral Act 2010 as amended).”

In October 2019, shortly after the general election, Yakubu dismissed insinuations that all elections

Despite this criticism, Yakubu may have found the saving grace for his career in the two governorship elections INEC conducted in 2020. In Edo, the commission conducted what was adjudged a free and fair election, reflective of the true wishes of the electorate. Governor Godwin Obaseki, who had left the governing party at the Centre, All Progressives Congress (APC), for the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) won the September 29, 2020 election. INEC repeated the feat in the Ondo governorship election of October 10, the same year that saw the incumbent Governor Rotimi Akeredolu winning the poll. Those two elections certainly upped Yakubu’s reputation. Why change a winning team? So it was not a surprise when President Buhari granted him a second term in office. On the road towards this year’s election, INEC had also received kudos for the successful conduct of two elections in 2022. The governorship election in Ekiti last June and that of Osun State in July 2022 had brought hope to many Nigerians who hitherto were skeptical of INEC’s capability to conduct a free, fair and credible election. The result was evident in the thunderous crowd of youths that came out to obtain permanent voter cards for the coming election.

One thing that has kept Yakubu and the INEC under him going is his determination to succeed where others had failed. The number of litigations against INEC or in which INEC were joined is enough to send a lily-livered person out of office, but not Yakubu, as he vowed to always stand on the side of the law no matter what it takes. Many watchers of political developments have also commended INEC under Yakubu for its insistence on the use of modern technology, particularly the Bimodal Voter Registration System (BVAS) and the Election Result Viewing Portal (IReV). The technology is important to bequeath transparency and by extension, credibility to the crucial presidential election in February 2023. It is instructive that Yakubu has maintained that there is no going back on the use of the technology notwithstanding the call by some persons for his resignation or removal over his position on the matter.

The BVAS is a technological device used to identify and accredit voters’ fingerprints and facial recognition before voting, while the IReV is an online portal where polling unit level results are uploaded directly from the polling unit, transmitted and published for the public. At the front end of the online portal, members of the public can create personal accounts with which they can gain access to all uploaded results stored as PDF files. This accessibility of polling unit level results increases transparency and public trust in the process. The success of some off-cycle elections, especially in Ekiti and Osun, have been attributed to the use of BVAS. The 2023 Election is Yakubu’s date with history, will he succeed?

Nigerians and all lovers of democracy all over the world are enthusiastic and waiting as they wish him success.

One thing that has kept Yakubu and the INEC under him going is his determination to succeed where others had failed. The number of litigations against INEC or in which INEC were joined is enough to send a lily-livered person out of office, but not Yakubu, as he vowed to always stand on the side of the law no matter what it takes

“

AYO ESAN

POLITICS

INEC, Security Operatives And 2023 Election

Yakubu Baba

With less than 60 days to the Presidential election, Nigerians are agitated about having a free, fair and credible poll. Their anxiety is anchored on the conduct of past elections which were not satisfactory to the generality of the Nigerian electorate.

Aside from the politicians, two bodies are very important to the determinant of a successful election in Nigeria. The two bodies are the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), saddled with the conduct of the elections in the country and the Security operatives led by the Nigeria Police Force and the National Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC; the Nigerian Army, among others that are expected to provide security for INEC officials, facilities and the voters.

Successful conduct of the next elections therefore rests squarely on how effective these two bodies carry out their assigned duties.

The question on the lips of Nigerians now is, how prepared are the two bodies for the coming elections?

While INEC has consistently assured Nigerians that the 2023 elections will be free, fair and credible, the insecurity that has pervaded the country for years now is giving Nigerians some fear.

The recent incident which has to do with the attack on INEC facilities across the country has made people doubt the readiness of the police and other security operatives for the coming elections.

Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has equally raised the alarm that the 2023 general election might be jeopardised if the spate of attacks on its facilities across the country is not checked.

Yakubu raised the alarm while speaking at a public hearing by the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee investigating attacks on INEC offices and facilities across the country.

“

Okoye in a chat with THEWILL also said that the electoral umpire will continue the usage of Bimodal Voter Authentication System (BVAS) which he said worked perfectly in some recent state elections conducted in the country. As if reiterating the importance of security agencies to the successful conduct of the coming election, only last Wednesday, President Muhammadu Buhari charged security agencies that would be engaged with various support services in the 2023 elections to maintain a high sense of professionalism

He stated that despite the attacks, the Commission was determined to continue with the preparations for the elections, warning, however, that the implications would be far reaching if not curtailed.

“We are determined that we will continue with our

preparations for the 2023 general election. All the facilities would be rebuilt or alternatives found and materials would be replaced. However, should such attacks continue at the pace at which they are happening at the moment, the Commission may find it increasingly difficult to recover in time for the election? If it is about the attacks, yes we can recover, but if the attacks continue, it would be very difficult for the commission to recover. That is why concerted efforts to stop these attacks have become imperative and we hope this public hearing would contribute to the required outcome,” he said.

He added: “The attacks have far-reaching implications on preparation for the general election. First, the facilities that are destroyed, especially offices, would take time to rebuild. They are not like items of procurement that you can procure off the shelf.

“So, an alternative arrangement has to be made. In some of the states, in addition to these malicious attacks, other matters that have arisen as a result of fire and flooding, we would have to make alternative arrangements by renting. In some places, we can find facilities to rent. In some of the remote areas, we may not find facilities to rent. So, we have to look for alternatives to damaged facilities.

“Secondly, several materials lost would have to be replaced. In the recent attacks, some of the PVCs for instance were lost. For the PVCs, we have instructed our state offices to send the Voter Identification Numbers of the PVCs lost so we can reprint. We can, from our database, quickly regenerate and reprint the cards so that citizens are not disenfranchised.

“The Commission and security agencies must also continue to provide safety around the facilities and this, as I said earlier, may be very challenging, because the security agencies are also protecting all of us and other national assets.

POLITICS INTERVIEW

2023: Obi's Youthfulness, Credibility, Major Advantage - Ohakwe

Don Ohakwe is a businessman and former Imo State House of Assembly Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) aspirant. In this interview with AYO ESAN, he speaks on the forthcoming presidential election, saying despite being a PDP member, he is working for the Labour Party Presidential Candidate, Mr. Peter Obi. He also commended President Muhammadu Buhari for signing the 2022 Electoral Act among other issues of national importance. Excerpts.

Whatis your take on the current state of Nigeria as a country?

The whole system in the country is shut down. We need to move forward, we need to try and see how we will better the country. We need to put the right people in places of authority. If we allow bad people to take over our affairs, the decisions they will take will have an effect on all of us. So, we need to sit down and put the right people in place of authority.

The presidential election will come up on February 25 this year. We have 18 presidential candidates. Who is your preferred candidate and why?

You cannot see daylight and follow darkness. Everybody knows that it is the time for the South East to take the mantle of leadership. Peter Obi has stood out among other candidates. We have watched the antecedents of these other candidates. I have taken my time to monitor the three leading candidates, Atiku, Tinubu and Obi. Obi is the only governor in the history of Nigeria that has kept money after eight years in office. That is a record breaker. Obi kept money in three different banks. And you know why I like him, he will tell you to go and verify. There are several reasons we should vote for Peter Obi. One, he is young. Two, he has a good track record. Three, anything he tells you, he wants you to go and verify. The other two candidates, Atiku and Tinubu are old. To me Tinubu is old and he should give room to younger people. He is also on a Muslim-Muslim ticket, which cannot work in Nigeria. Atiku, if you remember in 2013-2014, he was the one who went out of the PDP Convention to form a newPDP with others and insisted that power must return to the north. He took out

Kwankwaso, Tambuwal and others, saying power must return to the north. He should realise that after eight years of the north, power must shift to the south.

So, I have 100 per cent support for Peter Obi. In essence, me and my household are backing Obi because we know he meant well for the country and the people of Nigeria. With Obi, a good government is coming.

Despite all you have said, some people still believe that Obi lacks the structure

“

There are several reasons we should vote for Peter Obi. One, he is young. Two, he has a good track record. Three, anything he tells you, he wants you to go and verify. The other two candidates, Atiku and Tinubu are old. To me Tinubu is old and he should give room to younger people

to win the presidential election. What is your take on this?

You know in this life, you must count one before you count two. And the reason I like that young man is that he said and I listened , he said when he won the governorship election in Anambra State, All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) had no ward, not even local government , APGA didn’t have a Ward in Anambra State. He said immediately he moved in there, many people started moving in.

So, the issue of structure is no excuse because what we are looking for is a leader. Once the leader leads well, others will follow. When he doesn’t steal and he doesn't pad anything , who are you to pad.

What is your advice to the electorate as we set up for the election in a few weeks' time?

I have been motivating the youths, spending my own money to tell them to obtain their PVCs and move out and vote on election day. I have been telling them to vote and monitor their votes to the point of transmission. The introduction of BVAS is the only thing I like about President Muhammadu Buhari’s government. His signing of the Electoral Act is also a fantastic one . So, the era of rigging may be over.

Are you worried that all the governors and some leaders in the South East are not backing Obi?

I am not worried, before February, you will see changes. I am not bothered. I believe most of them that are not in support of Obi now are doing so because of what they think they will get. They are fighting for their stomach. They are trying to protect what they have been promised. Let us forget them, at the right time, they would align. I am a PDP man but in this election, I will vote for Obi because he has credibility.

...Operatives And 2023 Election

Continue from Page 7

“Now, we have to rebuild the facilities and our funds are over stretched by a number of factors. We cannot continue to replace and rebuild. And what is even more worrisome for us is the attack in Izzi local council of Ebonyi State. The building was first attacked on May 18, 2012. We found the resources in our election project plan budget to rebuild the office and we did so. We rebuilt the office and our staff moved in on Friday. On Sunday that weekend, the office was burnt down again and there are five such offices nationwide where in spite of our best efforts, the facility was attacked not only once, but twice.

We have five offices in which even after rebuilding or trying to rebuild, the offices were attacked again.”

But despite the attack on its facilities, INEC has said that the time has come for it to organise the freest and fairest election in Africa.

The National Commissioner for Information and Voter Education, Barrister Festus Okoye, said this at the 2022 Calabar Carnival, while sensitising Nigerians on the upcoming General Elections.

Okoye, therefore, urged officials of the commission “to

show Nigerians that they have the capacity to do so”.

He said that the commission decided to participate in the carnival to sensitise and encourage Nigerians to collect their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) and vote in the elections.

Okoye said that Nigerians needed to know that their PVCs have potency.

According to him, if it hadn’t, politicians would not be struggling to buy them from prospective voters.

“My message to Nigerians is that only the PVC can change their circumstances.

Therefore, those who do not have their PVCs have no business in the electoral process.

“Our responsibility is to ensure that the PVCs are available for the people and to organise free, fair and credible elections.

“It is also to ensure that those Nigerians say who should win the 2023 election.

“The time had come for us to organise the freest and fairest election on the continent of Africa,” he said.

Okoye in a chat with THEWILL also said that the electoral umpire will continue the usage of Bimodal Voter Authentication System (BVAS) which he said worked perfectly in some recent state elections conducted in the country.

As if reiterating the importance of security agencies to the successful conduct of the coming election, only last Wednesday, President Muhammadu Buhari charged security agencies that would be engaged with various support services in the 2023 elections to maintain a high sense of professionalism.

Buhari who was speaking at the commissioning of the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) newly acquired Estate in Idu-Karmo, Abuja, urged the agencies to handle the distribution and monitoring of classified materials and other logistics ‘‘professionally and in accordance with Standing Operation Procedures.’’

•Continues online at www.thewillnigeria.com

Ohakwe

ICON

that investors in the Nigerian capital market earned over N1.1 trillion from dividend payout by companies listed on the NGX in 2021, with Dangote Cement N340.8 billion topping the list.

“Dividend payment is one of the very few ways available for investors to earn a constant stream of income and shows the prosperity of a firm. “Dangote Group has always delighted its shareholders with reasonable return on investment. A big dividend shows the prosperity path of a company. It resonates in the growth of the economy, ” says Adebayo Sodeinde, a stock broker. Sodeinde added that the $16 billion Dangote refinery in Lagos will drastically reduce Nigeria’s dependence on imported fuel when it becomes operational by mid-2023, thereby fasttracking economic development of the country.

DANGOTE:

BEACON OF NIGERIA’S ECONOMY

BY SAM DIALA

The Dangote Group has emerged the most impactful player on Nigeria’s struggling economy. Its activities touch the five anchors of wealth creation: investment, employment, revenue, export and infrastructure in diverse ways.

By this, the firm has reduced the vulnerability of the economy to crisis, and raised its potential for growth. This is why Alhaji Aliko Dangote, Founder and Chairman/CEO, Dangote Group Limited, is THEWILL Newspaper's Icon of The Year 2022.

STRUGGLING ECONOMY

The Nigerian economy has shown increased vulnerability since 2014 when it suffered the shock of the global oil crisis in the international market. Several disturbing developments have occurred which exposed the economy to further growth constraints. These include recessions, the 15-month border closure, insecurity, COVID-19 pandemic and, of recent, the global impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. During these periods, the economy was exposed to the vulnerability of intense headwinds that impacted all sectors amid worrying policy directions.

While foreign investors cringed with waning confidence in the domestic economy,

the Dangote Group, Nigeria’s foremost indigenous conglomerate, stepped up activities in line with its vision of being a “world-class enterprise that is passionate about the quality of life of the general populace and high returns to stakeholders.” It also walked its mission: “to touch the lives of people by providing their basic needs.” This traversed its subsidiaries in Cement Manufacturing, Sugar Milling, Sugar Refining, Port Operations, Packaging Material Production, Salt Refining, Oil Refining, Fertilizer Production, Petrochemical, Agriculture and Telecoms. With higher stakes in the economy, Nigerians feel the presence of Dangote in their daily lives – by consuming its goods and services, or earning income in direct or indirect employment. This is because the main drivers of growth in Nigeria – oil production and services – do not usually benefit most Nigerians in terms of jobs and business opportunities due to limited linkage.

For instance, to significantly reduce the importation of sugar into the country by 40 per cent, and pave way for the employment of over 30,000 youths, Dangote Group embarked on Phase II of its Sugar project, covering over 100,000 hectares of farmland in Tunga, Awe Local Government Area of Nasarawa State,

The integrated sugar complex, which is the largest sugar plant in Africa comprises 60,000ha sugar plantation and two sugar factories with the capacity to produce 430,000 tonnes of refined white sugar annually. The Group had announced a commitment of $2.3 billion aimed at boosting agriculture in Nigeria’s northern states, to be spent over a three-to-five-year period to boost food production amid rising insecurity.

DATA SPEAKS

Data from the Nigerian Exchange disclosed that Dangote’s major subsidiary, Dangote Cement, ranked top among the 157 quoted companies on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX)’s major growth parameters as of December 31, 2021 (the last FY annual reports): Dangote Cement ranked the most profitable company in Nigeria – N364.44 billion. With Dangote Sugar Refinery’s N22.05 billion, the Group’s quoted subsidiaries recorded N386.49 billion, raising the bar much higher above the others.

Dangote Cement also emerged as the most capitalised on the NGX with N4.37 trillion, or N4.6 trillion combined with Dangote Sugar Refinery. Dangote Cement also has the largest employees among the quoted firms, with 16,700. Dangote group has over 30,000 employers, making it the highest employer of labour in Nigeria after the government. Furthermore, Dangote Cement alone ranked top in company income tax payment with N173.93 billion in 2021. The PAYE of over 30,000 workers singles the Group out for a remark.

A report by the NGX in May 2022, disclosed

The amazing story of Aliko Dangote is not that he is rich, but that he is richer than many people know. Dangote is the most popular Nigerian today because his products and businesses are everywhere. “You can’t consume anything in Nigeria today without having at least one Dangote product as an ingredient in it. There is Dangote sugar, salt, macaroni, noodles, seasoning, rice, juice, water, just to mention it. People now travel on roads built or rehabilitated by Dangote Group or with its products. Very soon, fuel will follow,” Ekemenah Johnson, an investment analyst said.

The Dangote Group is the largest conglomerate in West Africa and one of the largest on the African continent. The company was founded in 1981 as a trading enterprise, importing sugar, cement, rice, fisheries and other consumer goods for distribution in the Nigeria market.

The group which moved into manufacturing in the 1990s, now owns and operates over 18 subsidiaries. Its focus is economic self-reliance through domestic production, consumption and export.

“Our core business focus is to provide local, valueadded products and services that meet the ‘basic needs’ of the populace through the construction and operation of large scale manufacturing facilities in Nigeria and across Africa. “We are focused on building local manufacturing capacity to generate employment, reduce capital flight and increase local value addition,” the company said, as it restates its capacity to wealth-creating opportunities for Nigerians. Aliko Dangote presides over a complex conglomerate that spans different sectors across Africa. According to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Dangote's net worth is estimated at US$19.1 billion as of 29 November 2022, making him the richest person in Africa and the 75th richest person in the world.

The Nigerian billionaire business mogul also topped the 2022 list of Africa’s richest persons for the 11th year in a row, Forbes magazine said in a report in January 2022. It disclosed that Dangote’s wealth jumped from $12.1 billion last year to an estimated $13.9 billion. The magazine attributed the growth to a 30 percent increase in the stock price of Dangote Cement, his most valuable asset.

“A surge in housing developments in Nigeria and growth in government infrastructure spending drove higher demand in the first nine months of 2021,” the magazine had said.

Dangote was born in Kano State on April 10, 1957 into a very prominent business family and is the great grandson of Alhaji Alhassan Dantata, the richest African at the time of his death in 1955. He started business at a very early stage. Dangote, who clocked 65 last year, is a towering giant in Nigeria’s socio-political and economic landscape. He is the first Nigerian non-public office holder to be awarded Nigeria’s second highest honour, the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON), only a rank away from the nation’s president, who is normally the Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (GCFR). “I can remember when I was in primary school, I would go and buy cartons of sweets and I would start selling them just to make money. I was so interested in business, even at that time,” Dangote once said.

This suggests that he is treading the path which destiny cut out for him as he is reputed for crossing the borderline in strategic corporate philanthropy.

While foreign investors cringed with waning confidence in the domestic economy, the Dangote Group, Nigeria’s foremost indigenous conglomerate, stepped up activities in line with its vision of being a “world-class enterprise that is passionate about the quality of life of the general populace and high returns to stakeholders

“

BY ANTHONY AWUNOR

BY SAM DIALA

Investors in the Nigerian equities market gained N5.62 trillion Naira with market capitalisation hitting N27.92 trillion on the last trading day of the year, December 30, 2022. This is a 25.3 percent increase compared with N22.30 trillion the market opened on January 4, 2022. The NGX All-Share Index (ASI) also rose to 51,251.06 basis points (bsp) against 42,716.44 bsp in January.

Notwithstanding that the market closed higher this year, the nation’s elevated inflationary environment has eroded the real gains to investors who should be laughing all the way to the bank for the handsome returns on their investment. This is compounded by a struggling economy that has multiplied misery across the strata of the society.

Inflation rate quickened for the 10th straight month to a new 17-year high of 21.47 percent in November 2022 – driven majorly by food and petrol/diesel inflation. This has pushed the cost of goods and services beyond the reach of the ordinary citizen with a lean income as Nigeria maintains the infamous title of ‘World Poverty Capital’ since 2016.

The consistent rise in inflation rate has left many Nigerians poorer and also constrained business growth, with investors losing huge sum of money as Naira

depreciation becomes a worst victim of the high cost of doing business. This has made investors high level losers in equities market that appears immune from the slide in the economy, especially since 2022.

The Nigerian Exchange (NGX) hit the peak of its growth on Friday, May 27, 2022 when it recorded a market capitalisation of N29.15 trillion and an All-Share Index (ASI) of 54,085.30. It was a historic performance being the highest since the birth of the establishment in 1961. It was also the peak of a bullish trend that began in 2020 when Nigeria emerged the best performing stock exchange in the world amid COVID-19 pandemic which spread human suffering and destabilised the global economy in the worst dimension in 100 years.

“Inflation discourages investment and savings. You can see that the market looks good this year even in the midst of a poor economic outlook. But N10,000 of yesterday is far less in value today than when the investment was made. The money is big, but the value is small,” said Mike Abbah, an investment analyst.

A curious angle to this development is that the Nigerian equity market achieved the feat amid a downturn that saw the economy hemorrhaging from severe headwinds.

he Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE) has said that Nigeria’s current tax regime is stifling investment

Muda Yusuf, director of the organisation, made this known in a statement detailing CPPE’s economic and business environment review for 2022 and agenda for policy makers for 2023.

The policy think tank said that an economy that desires job creation, economic inclusion, investment growth and poverty reduction, should

AVIATION/CAPITAL MARKET

Airline Operators Risk N5m Fine, Imprisonment Over TSC Default

a passenger for an airfare, in a contract relating to carriage of persons or goods for hire and reward in the case of air transportation not involving the issuance of air ticket and many others.

The section 23(3) of the new Act also states that NCAA may delegate the power to collect the charges from airlines.

Capt. Musa Nuhu, the DirectorGeneral, Civil Aviation (DGCA), had recently lamented that indigenous airlines owed it over N19 billion and $7.8 million accruing from the 5 percent TSC/CSC.

The 5 percent TSC/CSC is statutory and deducted from the total air ticket paid by air passenger to airlines and the same applies to cargo charge.

The sum is shared among four aviation agencies: NCAA, Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMET) and the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB).

Equities Market: Inflation Erodes Investors’ N5.62trn Gain

Continued from page 11

One of the reasons for the strong performance is that the NGX is backed by stocks of strong firms which reflect the backbone of the economy, such as Dangote Cement, MTN Nigeria, Airtel Africa, Nestle Nigeria, among the others.

Dr. Paul Uzum, a Stockbroker and Head of Securities Trading at Planet Capital, attributes the bullish trend in the equities market to major listings and the attitude of bargain hunters, including institutional investors.

Uzum explained that the market got two major listings during the year: Buafood and Geregu Power. The two companies added N1.5 trillion to the NGX market cap for the year as domestic investors take position amid rapid exit of foreign investors.

“

5 percent, especially from a recalcitrant debtor airline and from those who are not on the tripartite agreement with the regulatory body.

These are contained in the New Civil Aviation Act 2022 made available to THEWILL Newspaper.

President Muhammadu Buhari had assented to the New Civil Aviation Act 2022 in August, which repealed the Civil Aviation Act 2006.

The New CAA 2022 section 23(1) states that there would be a 5% of airfare, contract, charter and cargo sales charge payable to the NCAA and this applies on all international and domestic air transportation originating in Nigeria, irrespective of place of sales, issuance of air ticket or execution of the contact of carriage.

The new Act in section 23(2), also stipulates that the 5 percent of airfare, contract, charter and cargo sales charge would be chargeable on the total amount, excluding statutory fees and taxes paid by

There has been a huge tussle between NCAA and airlines, especially the domestic carriers over their failure to remit the sum to NCAA.

NCAA before the repeal of the Civil Aviation Act 2006, got 58 percent from the total 5 percent of charges and it is still the major revenue earning for the agency, while the other four agencies shared the remaining 42 percent in different proportions.

However, it is not clear if the 58 percent collection is still retained in the new Act 2022, but Capt. Musa Nuhu, the Director-General, Civil Aviation (DGCA), warned that the renewal of Air Operator’s Certificate (AOC) is still tied to the payment of the debt by airlines.

A source close to the agency recently confided in Daily Independent that a particular airline owed NCAA about N10 billion of unremitted TSC/ CSC, while Azman Air was in September grounded for its failure to remit to NCAA over N1.2 billion accruing from the same charges.

Nuhu had to compel the management of the airline to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) of N50 million monthly on the repayment of the N1.2 billion legacy debt before it could be allowed to return to operations.

The New CAA 2022 section 23(1) states that there would be a 5% of airfare, contract, charter and cargo sales charge payable to the NCAA

Meanwhile, NCAA had earlier in September warned domestic airlines to come up with a plan for debt repayment within a month or face suspension.

The agency ordered the airlines to begin repayment of debts over N45.29 billion ($108.8 million) or face suspension.

Nuhu had equally called on airlines to formulate a plan and come to an agreement with the agency within the next month as the country's aviation industry faces increasing financial challenges.

There was also a selective stock rally in Airtel Africa which gained over 50 percent in share price during the year and added N2 trillion to the NGX market capitalisation.

“Despite the rough financial year for the general economy, many listed companies turned out fantastic results. First was the Agric sector with strong numbers from Okomu and Presco.

“The Banks did very well too. Consumer Goods struggled but were still better than last year with improved earnings seen in the breweries sector, notably Nigerian Breweries and Guinness. PZ, Cadbury Nestle, Buafoods and Flourmills showed strong numbers,” Uzum explained.

Further analysis showed that Industrial Goods struggled to catch up with the performance of 2021, though not really impressive as seen in Dangote, Wapco and Bua Cement.

Oil and Gas recorded mixed fortunes with the downstream doing well, as seen in Seplat which took advantage of the rise in price of crude and the market rewarding the stock with a 69 percent leap in price during the year.

Uzum said, “The downstream sector barely replicated their 2021 numbers. Insurance sector recorded impressive performance as seen in some select companies like Mansard, NEM, Custodian, but the market remained adverse to the sector. In all, it was a good year especially when compared to what

happened in the markets of the developed nations in North America and Europe.”

A Stockbroker and the Doyen of the Stockbrokers, Mr Sam Ndata, said the political season is creating opportunities for people to make money and invest in the equities market.

“This is election period and people are getting money from the politicians to do one assignment or the other. Part of this money will enter the pocket of wise investors who will bring it to the capital market to earn returns by way of dividend, capital appreciation and bonuses,” Ndata, who is a Chief Dealer/COO at Hedge Securities and Investment Co. Ltd, told THEWILL in a note.

The National Coordinator of Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria, Prince Dr Anthony O Omojola, said the gain in the equities market today goes a long way to compensate for the unintended losses in the year.

He added that it is also a signal that the market will be more stimulated in the new year as evidence that the market support the passing of 2023 federal budget and the supplementary budget presented by President Muhammadu Buhari.

At the end of the last weekday of trading on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NGX) last Friday, a total of 890,682,055 shares in 3,566 deals, corresponding to a market value of NGN 7,355,665,086.39, were traded.

Compared with the previous NGX trading day (Thursday, December 29), last Friday’s data shows 199 percent improvement in volume, 35 percent improvement in turnover, but 20 percent decline in deals.

A curious angle to this development is that the Nigerian equity market achieved the feat amid a downturn that saw the economy hemorrhaging from severe headwinds

Nigeria Tax Regime Stifling Investment – CPPE

have an accommodating tax regime for investors.

The CPPE said: “Corporate tax in Nigeria is 30%. But effective corporate tax is much more than that. There is tertiary education tax of 2.5% of profit; NITDA Levy of 1% of profit; NASENI Levy of 0.25% of profit; Police Trust Fund Levy of 0.005% of profit. This brings effective corporate tax to about 34%.

“This rate is one of the highest in the world. Average corporate tax rate for Africa is 27.6%; Asian average is 19.52%; European Union is 19.74% and global average is 23.37%. Meanwhile new taxes are still being proposed by the National Assembly. These include Tertiary Health Tax of 1% of profit; and NYSC levy of 1% of profit. There are numerous other taxes imposed on businesses by the states and local governments.”

The multitude of taxes, the statement said, is crippling investment in the Nigerian economy and there is need for an urgent review.

“The current tax regime is in conflict with the National Tax Policy which prescribes that there should be less emphasis on direct taxation in order to incentivise investment. Meanwhile, investors are grappling with numerous macroeconomic, structural and regulatory headwinds,” it noted.

“They incur huge expenditure on stuffs which the government should normally provide – electricity, security, water, waste management, human capital etc. These are implicit taxes, as it were. There are also numerous state and local government taxes which businesses have to pay.”

The statement noted that as at January, headline inflation was 15.60% and rose to a peak of 21.47% in November 2022. Meanwhile, food inflation consistently outpaced headline inflation and core inflation during the year.

“For the basket of goods and services consumed by the average Nigerian, costs have accelerated by between 50% to 100% in 2022,” it said.

“The inflationary situation was the worst in recent history and the impact on citizens and the SMEs was very devastating. The world bank reported that 5 million Nigerians have been pushed into poverty in 2022 amid a slump of

purchasing power by 35% driven largely by surging inflation.”

In order to tackle inflation, the government must address the key drivers of inflation and boost productivity in the economy to drive output growth, stem the depreciation of the naira exchange rate, address the illiquidity in the foreign exchange market, minimise the monetisation of fiscal deficit.

The CPPE noted that the CBN financing of deficit should be strictly limited to statutory threshold spelt out in the CBN Act while government devise creative ways of addressing insecurity in order to pave way for farmers to return to their farms.

Commenting on GDP growth, the statement noted that Nigeria’s GDP is valued at over N200 trillion [in nominal terms] as at third quarter of 2022.

It added that the GDP grew by 3.11% in the first quarter; 3.54% in the second quarter; and decelerated to 2.25% in the third quarter.

“Given the enormity of the macroeconomic headwinds and the numerous fiscal and monetary policy shocks, the Nigerian economy could be adjudged to have demonstrated remarkable resilience in 2022,” the statement said.

“The fragile growth performance was a reflection of the diverse headwinds bedevilling the Nigerian economy. These include: the macroeconomic instability, shrinking fiscal space, soaring public debt, heightening inflationary pressures, currency depreciation, foreign exchange illiquidity, surging energy cost, weakening purchasing power, legacy structural constraints, lingering insecurity, and crippling trade facilitation issues.”

With regard to management of the foreign exchange crisis, the statement said that it was a major predicament that investors grappled with in 2022. The dimensions of this dilemma, it said, included sharp currency depreciation; forex market illiquidity, especially at the official window; volatility of the exchange rate which created considerable uncertainty and unpredictability for investors; and transparency issues in the forex allocation ecosystem.

*Continues online at www. thewillnigeria.com

United Nigeria Airlines Woos Passengers With Installment Payment For Tickets

BY ANTHONY AWUNOR

In its avowed commitment to revolutionize the aviation industry, United Nigeria Airlines Company Limited has introduced an innovative payment system that will boost the capacity of its passengers to fly the airline at a minimal cost.

The new payment system, known as Pay Small Small (PSS), will allow passengers to plan for their trips through installment payments for tickets.

According to the airline, the payment system is being offered to the traveling public in partnership with Kalabash, a payment solutions company.

A statement by the airline said the PSS service “will be available for all United Nigeria Airlines passengers and will give them access to great travel deals, allowing them to lock down the best prices by paying as little as 25 percent of the total cost as down payment and splitting the balance into convenient installments from 24hrs to 6 months, starting from 18th November 2022".

It noted that the “PSS service is very straightforward, with no credit checks or scrutiny necessary.”

It further stated that “PSS is a flexible travel payment plan that is designed with experienced and intending travelers in mind.”

Speaking at the unveiling of the PSS system recently in Lagos, the Chairman of United Nigeria Airlines, Prof. Obiora Okonkwo said the airline will do its best to offer its clients opportunities that will make traveling seamless for them.

According to him “we are continually looking for opportunities and collaborations that will foster innovation, happiness, and convenience for our loyal customer base”.

Also commenting, the Chief Executive Officer of Kalabash, Ladi Ojuri said the PSS system will ease the burden of a one-off payment for travel on United Nigeria Airlines.

“Technology, in our opinion, has the power to drastically alter daily life in Africa. We are thrilled to have partnered with United Nigeria Airlines to meet its travelers' demands for a payment solution to make travel convenient and affordable given the current economic climate of the country”, he said.

Microsoft Builds on 'Skills For Jobs Programme'

BY ANTHONY AWUNOR

Building on the success of its Global Skills Initiative, Microsoft has launched the next step in its skilling work, introducing the Skills for Jobs Learning Pathways. Since the Global Skills Initiative was launched in June 2020, Microsoft said it has helped over 80 million people access digital and foundational skills.

In Nigeria, 507,000 youth and government employees have been impacted through the global skills program, while 372,000 Nigerian youth and government employees have been trained in digital, rolebased foundational and technical training.

A statement from the company shows that, what Microsoft has learned is that skills alone aren’t enough for people to get the jobs they want, especially in the most indemand jobs. People, especially those changing careers need to be able to show hiring managers that they have these skills.

Digital transformation has accelerated across all industries, creating new tech and tech-enabled roles and powering economic growth.

The Microsoft Skills for Jobs Learning Pathways program is focused on ensuring that economic opportunity is inclusive – so job seekers around the world have access to the skills, technology, and opportunity they need to succeed in a changing economy.

The statement further pointed out that the Microsoft Skills for Jobs Pathways provide people excluded from the digital economy with indemand foundational, role-based and technical skills, certifications and connections to jobs and opportunities.

"By 2025, Microsoft will help train and certify 10 million people with new skills. Microsoft and LinkedIn will provide free access to 350 new courses and easy-to-follow learning paths, and six Career Essentials Certificates for six of the most indemand jobs. The courses will be available in eight languages, including English and Arabic, to help job seekers showcase their skills to employers, and help them get jobs".

"Microsoft is helping learners prepare for tech and tech-enabled roles with new learning paths and certificates for some of the most in-demand roles in the digital economy including Administrative Professional, Project Manager, Business Analyst, Systems Administrator, Software Developer and Data Analyst".

The company has invested not just in unlocking content but developing content for each of the career essential certificates paths to ensure it is a better fit for learners.

L-R: Actress, Sola Sobowale; Chief Executive Officer, NGX, Temi Popoola; Founder/CEO, Kemi Adetiba Visuals, Kemi Adetiba and Director, Nigerian Exchange Group, Ojinika Olaghere, during a Closing Gong Ceremony to mark the final day of trading activities for the year 2022 in Lagos on December 30, 2022.

Year NewYear New Happy Happy

Entertainer

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Asake’s Mr. Money With the Vibes has been described as “the highestcharting Nigerian album of all time on the US charts. It was named by Rolling Stone, The Fader and the New York Times as one of the year’s best records, with the NYT’s Jon Caramanica, describing the album as “enveloping and inspirational, mellow but assured

aka Asake. Impossible right? Or na lie, as we tend to dismiss things we think are almost impossible in Nigeria. But facts are facts, as London newspapers reported the following day. After the rumpus at O2, the Culture / Music writer for Standard, Elizabeth Gregory, wondered in her piece: “Who is Asake?” She provided the answer herself. “The Nigerian singer-songwriter who sold out the O2 Brixton Academy in minutes.”

PHENOMENAL AFRO BEAT HIPHOP ARTISTE CALLED ASAKE

From Lagos to London and elsewhere, Ahmed Ololade aka Asake, has become the rave of the moment. He wowed audiences in the US last September with his debut album Mr. Money With the Vibes, described as both a critical and commercial success. His fan base is increasing in equal measure making THEWILL zero in on him as one of the most popular figures in the entertainment industry in Nigeria today. Michael Jimoh writes.

Ten days before last Christmas in faraway O2 Brixton Academy in the south of London, thousands of paying guests settled in their seats to watch a musician perform. With nearly 5, 000 capacity and having hosted dozens of rock stars in the past, there were as many people outside trying to barge in at O2 on December 15, to sort of gate crash. Many of them had no tickets or couldn’t afford to buy one because the concert was already sold out. They became uncontrollable because there was a crush of those who wanted in. They failed and thus began the resulting free-for-all. By the time the Bobbies arrived to restore order, eight people had been wounded, some in critical condition, all of them hospitalised. A woman was reported dead in the crush.

Was the crowd there to see a travelling be-jeweled, tattooed rock band from Seattle, say, Indiana? Certainly not! Were they staking out their money on an over famous dreadlocked reggae artiste from Kingston in Jamaica? Again, no. The musician they had all come to watch in performance, that some of them had travelled from afar to see live on stage is a 27-year-old Nigerian, Ahmed Ololade

Another writer for The Guardian of London, Shaad D’Souza, has called Asake “one of 2022’s breakout acts,” musically that is. The previous September, Asake represented himself at the 15th Annual Headies Award in Atlanta, Georgia. For a musician his age, exposure in the US is a plus. The O2 Academy concert was to broaden that exposure. Apparently, Asake’s fame had preceded him across the Atlantic thus the crush at O2 Brixton Academy.

Asake’s Mr. Money With the Vibes has been described as “the highest-charting Nigerian album of all time on the US charts. It was named by Rolling Stone, The Fader and the New York Times as one of the year’s best records, with the NYT’s Jon Caramanica, describing the album as “enveloping and inspirational, mellow but assured.” The album was No 22 on the UK album charts when it came out in September. Before the O2 concert, however, Asake had performed in Birmingham where he was booed because he got on stage late. The money man silenced them not with a soporific song but money he shared to those in the front row. The audience at O2 never had any such opportunity of sharing the singer’s largesse. People were hurt instead. “They said outside is f****d already,” Asake announced right on stage when news filtered in that there was pandemonium outside. “So we have to end the show. I don’t know why. It’s not me.”

Asake later said in a statement shared widely on Instagram. “My heart is with those who were injured last night and caused any form of discomfort. I pray you get well soonest. I am also in the process of reaching out to individuals.”

“After years of being part of Nigeria’s underground Afrobeats scene in the past 12 months,” D’Souza wrote in The Guardian, “the 27-year-old Lagos-based singer has collaborated with Burna Boy and released his debut album, Mr. Money With the Vibe, to widespread critical and commercial success.”

Born on January 13, 1995 as Ahmed Ololade to parents living and working in Lagos, Asake became his adopted stage sobriquet via his mother’s maiden name. He claimed in one interview that he grew up in a place in Lagos “considered dangerous, a neighbourhood where everyone wakes up to hustle for their daily meals. It taught me how to survive in good times and bad times. So, I draw inspiration from my real life experiences to encourage everyone who thinks their present reality is constant; I want them to always remember that there is light at the end of the tunnel.”

It is light at the end of the tunnel for the rising

star among a constellation of Nigerian artistes at the moment. In a poll conducted by Premium Times late December, Asake was number one, topping the likes of Kizz Daniel, Burna Boy and, wait for it, Wizkid. The reason the online publication gave for their choice couldn’t have been more correct.

“It is undeniable that YBNL’s signee Ahmed Ololade popularly known as Asake dominated the radio waves and became an Internet sensation with his back-to-back hits this year,” the publication commented. “The breakout star came hot with a different style and backup choristers you won’t deny hearing. With his new class, he released hot tracks, including “Sungba,” “Peace Be Unto You” and “Terminator” at the beginning of the year.” The tunnel will most certainly get brighter for Asake if he wins Radio 1’s Sound of 2023 artists for which he has been long listed. He already has one in the kitty – Audiomack’s 2022 Artiste of the year, made evidently possible with Asake’s more than 350 million music streams and over 2 million followers on Instagram.

When the editor of THEWILL sent a message that the newspaper had put down Asake’s name as the Entertainer of 2022, we immediately went to town asking youngsters who was the rave of the moment between Asake and Kizz Daniel. The newspaper met and spoke with two siblings, Idris, 25, and Yetunde, 22, a Food Technology student in one of the polytechnics in Ogun state. With the enthusiasm of any youngster mooning on and on about a favourite star, Yetunde began by telling the reporter that Asake was certainly more popular now. She then proceeded to play half a dozen numbers from her I-phone, some of which she sang along to pretty easily like something she’d listened to over and over again. On his part, Idris was even more of an Asake devotee. For instance, he told the newspaper something close to all you want to know about Asake, his birthplace in Lagos, the neighbourhood he lived in down to his albums from right about 2018 till today. If, for instance, there is a musical video of Asake on television and you try to talk with the chap, you will just be wasting your time to get Idris’s attention.

“Asake is the current reigning entertainer in the country,” Idris said. “He is more known to young people like me now. But he hasn’t got the influence and reach of Kizz Daniel,” Idris conceded. “Kizz Daniel is a bigger star but Asake is the man we are all talking about now.” Nor is Asake himself unwilling to feature some of the big name entertainers in his musical video shoots. There was one with Olamide in “Omo Epe,” another with Burna Boy in Mr. Money With the Vibes which they performed at Madison Square Garden in New York. Of the now famous Mr. Money With the Vibes, Asake told an interviewer once that “making the album didn’t even come with stress for me at all. You know I was just enjoying myself. Life is not that hard. It’s all about the vibes, how I feel at this moment that things I’ve imagined are happening.”

Recently relocated to the United States, the Nigerian music marvel said in the same interview that “I’ve been relaxing and trying to know how to live here... It’s like coming here for another energy entirely. I only go out to make money. My outdoors is when I am on my balcony. I like to see outside, not go outside.”

Two very important events early and later this month will reshape an artiste already on the climb to fame. The first is his birthday on January 13. For millions of his followers, it will present an opportunity to show their love and admiration for a singer, songwriter who has kept them on their feet on the dance floor or glued to their earpiece listening to that favourite number by Asake. The second is when Radio 1’s Sound for 2023 winner is announced. Already long-listed, if Asake does not make the short list, he will, as he has done consistently in the last couple of years, entertain his teeming audience with his compositions. If he wins, then his fan base is sure to increase and even catapult him to unimagined heights, certainly more than where he is at the moment.

2022 came with colourful memories for many celebrities and socialites who found love and walked down the aisle. Some of those weddings trended because of the personalities involved who have waited for the cupid god to smile at them while others trended because of the controversies they generated. Shade Wesley-Metibogun has compiled 20 weddings that lit up 2022.

CELEBRITY WEDDINGS THAT LIT UP 2022

Rita Dominic, Fidelis Anosike

Nike Laoye, Kunle Adeyoola

Nollywood actress, Rita Dominic and media entrepreneur Fidelis Anosike’s wedding was one of the most anticipated weddings of 2022. Dominic, who is a darling of movie lovers, received massive applause and support after stating that she had found love. The screen goddess got married at the age of 47 and proved that age is no barrier to finding love. She unveiled Anosike, the founder of Folio Media Group, a multimedia company which owns Daily Times Nigeria two years ago by sharing their loved-up pictures on social media. Many were excited as it was the first time the actress would go public about her love life. Though her husband was married, his first marriage was to a lady known as Chioma, the union crashed, and he got married to another lady named Sidi. The marriage also did not stand the test of time as well. A few years after being left heart broken, the media guru found love in the beautiful actress. They had their traditional marriage in April in Imo State which was well attended by her colleagues. Her white wedding was held in November, at Manor North Yorkshire, England. The event was well attended by her friends and colleagues who left the shores of Nigeria for the ceremony.

Yul

Edochie, Judy Muoghalu Uchechukwu

Nollywood actor, Yul Edochie’s marriage to his colleague, Judy Muoghalu Uchechukwu, aka Judy Austin, joined the league of romantic relationships that trended in 2022 because of the controversy that surrounded the union. The talented actor was married to May Edochie, his first wife for 18 years before he became entangled in another relationship with Judy Austin. In 2021, rumour was agog that the father of four had impregnated the actress. Edochie was threatened with an expose for welcoming a love child. This prompted him to quickly marry Judy in a traditional low-key ceremony which was kept a secret. Fans were shocked when Edochie took to social media and posted a picture of his fifth child from Judy Austin and made it known that he had married the actress. He was hugely criticized for his actions and his first wife whom he married when she was 22. The actor’s public apology did not change May’s mind as she felt betrayed by her husband who she felt could have found a better way to correct his mistake.

Best friends turned lovers, Nike Laoye and Kunle Adeyoola, otherwise known as Soul Snatcha, one half of the gospel music singing duo, Rooftop Mc had a fairy tale wedding in March 2022. The two were not first timers in the marriage institutions when they met and kicked off their relationship. Nikki Laoye was once married to Alexander Oturu in 2011 but the marriage hit the rock in 2018 as a result of irreconcilable difference and the fact that their purpose did not align again. Soul Snatcha on the other hand had lost his wife in 2019, but they had four children before the unfortunate demise of his wife. He proposed to the singer in December 2021 in the presence of their four children and a few months after that, they both walked down the aisles. Their marriage trended in 2022 because of the terrible experiences the two had and the fact that they got a second chance to love and smile again. It was an epic moment for Nikki Laoye who had no child from her previous marriage but was fortunate to have four little children trusted in her care as an icing.

Olumide Akpata, Osayamon Michelle’s Wedding

Former president of the Nigerian Bar Association, Olumide Akpata and his lover, Osayamon Michelle walked down the aisle in an elaborate wedding in October, 2022 in Mauritius. They had their traditional ceremony in Benin City, Edo State earlier in May. The learned gentleman who has not been linked with any woman has been on the lists of eligible bachelors having clocked 50 in 2022. His achievement in the law profession despite the fact that he is not yet a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN made many look forward to knowing the lady who would eventually capture his heart. His wife, Michelle has a Master of Law, LLM from Queen Mary University of London and a Bachelor of Law degree from the University of Essex. She is a top executive and the Financial Markets Legal Adviser at the Central Securities Depository, the firm licensed to carry on the depository, clearing and settlement of all transactions in the Nigeria Capital Market.

David Adeleke, otherwise known as Davido and his lover of many years, Chioma Rowland Avril, also known as Chef Chi’s wedding was one of the most anticipated weddings as many thought it would hold in the new year. Many of their fans who had followed their love story from when it started looked forward to a fairy tale wedding but the circumstances which surrounded their secret and hasty union prevented them from watching the razzmatazz which would have characterized the wedding ceremony. The two lovers had a secret wedding after the unfortunate loss of their only son, Ifeanyi Adeleke. The threeyear-old boy had drowned in the singer’s swimming pool at his home in November. Their grief further brought both families closer and united in it Davido married Chioma. Besides, Davido’s father, Adedeji Adeleke, also wanted the two to settle down and stop existing as just lovers. Today, they both live as husband and wife.

Abubakar Malami, the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation married Nana Hadiza, President Muhammadu Buhari's daughter with his first wife, Safinatu in July 2022. Malami had two wives, Aisha and Fatima before falling in love with 41-year-old Nana who was a divorcee. So she ended up being his third wife. She was once married to Abdulrahman Mamman Kurfi but it ended in divorce after six children.

Media personality, Ifedayo Olarinde, otherwise known as Daddy Freeze and his wife, Benedicta Elechi got married in September 2022 in the United Kingdom. It was both their second attempt at marriage. Daddy Freeze was formerly married to a lady called Opeyemi but the marriage crashed in 2014 as a result of domestic violence and adultery. The two were blessed with two children before calling it quits. Elechi was also married before meeting Daddy Freeze. She was still legally married to Paul Odekina and had three children when she met Freeze. She had filed for divorce in 2012 from Odekina but the process was not finalized when she moved in with the controversial personality and welcomed a son with him. Odekina took Daddy Freeze to a Port-Harcourt High court for sleeping with his wife while she was still legally married to him. The controversial personality was found guilty of committing adultery with a married woman. He was ordered to pay the sum of N5 Million to Odekina. The court also dissolved the marriage between Elechi and Odekina because of her adulterous act.

Nollywood actress, Ini Dima Okojie’s wedding to her lover of many years, Abasi Ene-Obong trended in 2022 after a tale of the actress crashing her beau’s former marriage surfaced online. The duo met a few years ago after the actress cried on social media that she couldn’t get her favourite chocolate, Malteser, to buy in Nigeria. Ene-Obong, the founder of 54Gene, slided into her direct message, requesting to send her a bag of her favourite chocolate. The two got close and finally ended up as lovers. It was alleged that Okojie started dating the entrepreneur when he was still married to his former wife. She allegedly contributed to the break-up of the union. Ene-Obang later made a lengthy post where he revealed that he filed for divorce in 2018 from his first wife who had two daughters for him. He reached out to Okojie after he had commenced his divorce proceeding from his first wife. Ene-Obong and Okojie got engaged in July 2021 and had her civil union on May 19, 2022. Their traditional wedding took place on 21th May and their outdoor ceremony was at Five Palm event in Oniru, Lagos on May 28.

THEWILLNIGERIA THEWILLNG THEWILLNIGERIA

Rapper Jude Lemfani Abaga, popularly known as MI but now known as The Guy married his lover of many years in September 2022. The Chocolate City Record boss proved that it is never too late to find a life partner when he got married at 40 to his 37-year-old cerebral partner. The two started following each other on social media and became friends before they started a relationship. The iconic rapper and Mafe who grew abroad made their relationship known in February, they had their traditional wedding on September 22 while their white wedding took place on September 25, 2022.

Jude Abaga, Eniola Mafe

Clara Chime

had

a

Abia State. She met her husband through one of the daughters of the late President of Nigeria, Umaru Yar’adua who was her classmate in school. Clara’s first marriage was filled with unpleasant memories which made her stay away from the institution for a decade before giving love a second chance. She was abused by the former governor who stopped her from working, limited her interactions with people and arrested friends who came to visit her. She fell into depression as a result of the maltreatment and was sedated and locked up like a dog. Some of her siblings also allegedly supported her abusive husband then because of the crumbs they were allegedly getting from the state governor. It was the letter she sneaked out to Femi Falana, SAN that saved her as the human right activist did all within his power to rescue her. Chime tried to exonerate himself by organizing a press conference and asked her to denounce the accusation made against him. She had to succumb to pressure and do his bidding because her brother who was feeding from the largesse of her then husband also testified to the fact that she had mental issues.

Mercy Chinwo, Blessed Uzochikwa

Gospel artiste, Mercy Chinwo quit the bachelorette’s club in 2022 after she married Blessed Uzochikwa, the presiding pastor of The Water Brook Church, Lekki, Lagos State. Since she has not been romantically linked with any lover before, many were eager to know the man that would sweep her off her feet and they were not disappointed when she unveiled her man. Pastor Uzochikwa is an I.T professional and human right activist who supported the fight against Xenophobia in South Africa in 2020. The duo got engaged in June and had their marriage introduction in July. They went to the registry on August 4th, while their traditional marriage took place on August 12th in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, the white wedding was on August 13th.

Natasha Akpoti, Emmanuel Uduaghan

Natasha

Deborah Enenche, Sam

a very young age, and she divorced her husband when she was 21 years. She welcomed three children before her marriage packed up. Uduaghan is alleged to be still married to his first wife Vero which produced three children.

Gospel singer, Deborah Enenche, the first daughter of clergyman, Pastor Paul Enenche of Dunamis International Gospel Centre walked down the aisle with her heartthrob, Sam Hawthorn Uloko on December 17, 2022. She first kept her fans in suspense after posting a man putting a ring on her finger without showing the face of the man. A few days after the suspense, she introduced her heartthrob officially, a successful entrepreneur who is a graduate of Economics. They had their traditional marriage on December 15th, 2022. Her choice of wedding gown generated controversy after the ceremony as many felt it was not fashionable. They also criticized the fact that she held a bible instead of a boutique.

Hawthorn Uloko Simon Guobadia, Porsha Williams

Georgia born former Real Housewives of Atlanta star, Porsha Williams walked down the aisle with her Nigerian beau, Simon Guobadia in a fairy tale wedding which trended for its uniqueness in 2022. The duo who are both divorcees have had a fair share of the marriage institutions. Guobadia, is a self-made, first-generation entrepreneur in the oil and gas business. He is a native of Benin City in Edo State and Chief Executive Officer of Simcol Petroleum Limited. He is a relative of Aisha Guobadia, a former gold merchant and socialite jailed in the United States for some time before returning to Nigeria in 2000. The businessman is also a citizen of Atlanta. He is a father of five children and has been married thrice before he decided to give love a fourth chance with Porsha. Williams on the other hand was married twice before meeting Guobadia. She was married to Kordell Stewart and then got engaged briefly with Pilar Jhena Mckinley whom she welcomed a daughter with. Williams and Guobadia had their traditional wedding which was the talk of the town in November 2022 at Four Season Hotel, Atlanta, United State. Their white wedding took place the following day at the Methodist church in Atlanta, Georgia, United States.

Clara Chime, former wife of Sullivan Chime, one time governor of Enugu State joined the league of people who got married in 2022. The entrepreneur

her traditional marriage to

wealthy northern businessman in Amuda Isuochi, Umunneochi Local Government Area of

Akpoti, the 2019 Governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP in Kogi State and her beau, High Chief Emmanuel Uduaghan, the Alema of Warri Kingdom in Delta State who is a cousin to Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan, former Delta State governor had their carnival wedding in March 2022 in Obeiba, Ihima Kogi State. The duo welcomed their first child, a boy four months after getting married. Both Akpoti and Uduaghan were formerly married to different partners before falling in love and ending up in each other’s arms. Akpoti had married at

Tokini Peterside, Gregoire Victor Schwebig

Tokini, the first daughter of investment banker Atedo Peterside, founder of Stanbic IBTC Bank, Anap Business Jets Limited and the Atedo N. A. Peterside Foundation, tied the nuptial knot with her Caucasian lover at the Balmoral Event Centre, Lagos in 2022. Atedo spared no cost to ensure that he gave his daughter a befitting wedding. The very colourful and beautiful event had cultural dancers from Peterside’s native Rivers State adding flavour to the ceremony. And to further spice things up, super star David Adeleke aka Davido thrilled the guests from his repertoire of songs. A very cerebral being, Tokini is the founder of Arts x Lagos, the first international art fair in West Africa. A graduate of INSEAD and London School of Economics, Tokini chose a career in marketing, and subsequently became Head of Marketing at Moët Hennessy, part of the LVMH group, in Nigeria. She founded TPCollective in 2012, providing strategy, business planning and marketing consulting to luxury and culture businesses in Nigeria. A recipient of several awards, her most recent recognition was being included in Apollo magazine’s 40 Under 40 list. Her husband, Gregoire Victor Schwebig, a French national is the founder of Africa Works, a pan-African flexible workspace provider chain, operating in nine cities across eight countries and counting. He also runs Haussmann Africa, a corporate real estate company.

Blossom Chukwujekwu, Winifred Akhuemokhan

Nollywood actor, Blossom Chukwujekwu gave love a second chance when he walked down the aisle with Winifred Ehinome Akhuemokhan on June 17. The white wedding took place at Loveworld Incorporated, also known as Christ Embassy. The couple already held their traditional wedding about three weeks ago in Benin City, Edo State. Blossom was previously married to Maureen Esisi, a fashion designer but the marriage packed up three years after for reasons they are both unwilling to disclose. Blossom's new wife, Winifred, is the niece of the Founder of Christ Embassy, also known as Believers Love World, Pastor Chris Oyakhilome. She is also a very active pastor in the ministry. She is said to have appeared in a few Nollywood movies as an actress, but more engaged in pastoral ministry.

Tim Godfrey, Erica Jones

Tim Godfrey and Erica Jones made headlines with their union which no one saw coming. The official holy matrimony took place in April 2022, and it was bliss to watch Tim Godfrey finally have a woman to call his own going by how some of his female band members went into a frenzy and allegedly dumped their singing engagement with him barely three weeks after he announced his engagement with Erica and made public his intentions to spend the rest of his life with her. His three top female leads in his Extreme Musical Band dumped him and moved on. The ladies, Blessing, Rejoice and Ibeekay allegedly gave no prior notice before they threw in the towel. More shocking is the fact that the ladies were among five of his crew that he surprised with saloon cars not too long ago. Their shocking exit has got people wondering if there is more than meets the eyes with Tim Godfrey’s engagement.

Enitan Adeyeye Ogunwusi And His Expanded Harem

Businessman and Chairman of SIFAX Group, Taiwo Afolabi completed the final leg of his first

wedding ceremony with a lavish nuptial in faraway United Arab Emirates, Dubai, in November. The wedding reception was held at one of the world’s most luxurious hotels, the prestigious Four Seasons Resort Dubai at Jumeirah Beach. The white wedding was held about two weeks after their traditional wedding took place at her father’s luxury hotel, Lagos Marriott. The final marital rites also happened barely three months after Afolabi celebrated his 60th birthday in grand style and almost two months after his twin, Kehinde passed on in his sleep. Mariam is the Group Executive Director, Compliance of SIFAX group. She is also the Chief Executive Officer of Style Loft Box, a fashion, beauty, and lifestyle mall located on the Island. She is also a fashion designer and oversees Mazelle Fashion and Studio, her fashion brand.

Acclaimed movie producer and director, Kemi Adetiba tied the knot with her Ghanaian music executive lover, Oscar Heman-Ackah, just a few months after she turned 40. Oscar and Kemi had been together for quite a while before they tied the knot in Lagos. Oscar is a music producer, songwriter, sound designer, vocal instructor and media solutionist. He has functioned in widely varying facets of the music industry from composing orchestral music, coordinating choirs and providing scores and soundtrack for movies. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Soltracka Productions, a creative marketing, advertising, media agency, music label and production company. Born to a Ghanaian father and Nigerian mother, his father, Apostle Dave Heman-Ackah is the founder and Senior Pastor of Rainbow Christian Assembly, Warri, Delta State, while his mother, Pastor Rhoda Heman-Ackah assists her husband with ministerial duties.

The Ooni of Ife, His Royal Majesty, Oba Enitan Adeyeye Ogunwusi, made history in 2022 after marrying six wives within the space of two months. The traditional ruler made the decision to add six women to his harem after the collapse of his third marriage with Olori Naomi Silekunola in December 2021 which produced a son. On September 6, 2022, the monarch married Mariam Anako, a top executive with Nestol Limited, an oil firm. On October 9, almost a month after, he married both Elizabeth Akinmuda, an Electronic Data processor and Olori Tobi Philips, a former beauty queen and fashion designer as second and third queens respectively. On October 14th, 2022. He married Ashley Adegoke, a chartered accountant with a master’s degree in Accounting and Finance from University of Greenwich as his fourth wife. A week later, he married Princess Aderonke Ademiluyi, the great-granddaughter of a former Ooni, Ajagun Ademiluyi. Aderonke is the founder of Africa Fashion Week Nigeria and London Fashion Week. The royal father also married Princess Temitope Adesegun, a Lagos based media personality with experience in the private and public sector as his sixth Olori.

Additional stories by Ivory Ukonu

daughter's

Former governorship aspirant and lawmaker, Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi, has joined the sexagenarian club. The former lawmaker who is one of the pro-democracy advocates in Nigeria has been on the quiet side for quite a while now.

Encomium and congratulatory messages flooded major newspapers and online platforms for the man who has paid his dues in the political sphere in Lagos State. His sojourn in politics started when he became a special adviser to Babagana Kingibe, the National Chairman of the Social Democratic Party in 1992. In 1999, he became the senator for the Lagos West Constituency at the start of the fourth Republic under the platform of the Alliance for Democracy. He was re-elected for the second term in 2003. After completing his second tenure as a lawmaker, he attempted to vie for the governorship seat of Lagos State in

2007 but failed to secure a ticket which lead to his political oblivion for a short period before he was appointed as Commissioner for Tourism in Lagos State under the Babatunde Raji Fashola led administration. One of his major projects he worked on when he was commissioner for tourism was the Sunborn Yacht hotel, said to have cost N5 million and would serve as a four-star hotel and one of Lagos State tourism attraction spots but unfortunately, it never saw the light of day. Many questioned him about the project but were met by his constant silence on the issue. He later became the chairman of Lagos State All Progressive Congress election committee in 2017. The lawmaker later switched allegiance from Ahmed Bola Tinubu to the immediate past governor of Lagos State, Akinwunmi Ambode. The decision cost him his political relevance as Ambode couldn’t secure his second term ticket to return to the seat of power in Lagos State. Afikuyomi left the scene but was able to retrace his steps to Tinubu. Many are already praying for his godfather ahead of the 2023 general election so that he can become politically relevant once again.

The crisis rocking the Oloja stool in Lagos Island has resurfaced again after Prince Tiamiyu Abiola Olojo became the Oloja-elect. The stool became vacant after the death of Chief Bola Ige in 2017 and it was left vacant for three years because of a lawsuit over who would become the next king. The Chief Executive Officer of Zoo and Gardens was elected to take over the stool in 2020. He got a total of nine votes while other candidates got no vote. However, after his name was announced, some members of the Kosoko clan rose against his emergence as the Oloja-elect. Nollywood actor, Jide Kosoko was one of the delegates who headed the peace keeping committee to resolve the leadership tussle but unfortunately, his efforts and that of the committee went down the drain as some faction still insisted, they are the one to produce the next king. The warring faction of the Kosoko clan insisted that it wasn’t the turn of Tiamiyu to take over the vacant stool as it belongs to the Akinsanya ruling house, the first ruling house to present a candidate according

to the registered chieftaincy declaration of 1983. A press release was circulated on behalf of the Kosoko family and Lagos Island residents were instructed to wait for the state government’s intervention in the kingship tussle. The letter also called for the ratification of the registered chieftaincy declaration, adding that the declaration that produced Tiamiyu should be questioned as it was not the right declaration to follow.

The leader of the Kosoko clan, Chief Mutiat Abimbola Alli-Balogun had to step in by issuing another release on behalf of the Kosoko family where she denied that the family ever issued the first press release and insisted the king makers chose Tiamiyu according to the registered

declaration of chieftaincy title. She also added that the public should shun the first press release as it is from the people who are hell bent on disrupting the peace of Lagos Island.

Homto Dokpesi, serial entrepreneur and daughter of media guru Raymond Dokpesi has added agricultural business to her growing list of business endeavours. The Nigeria ambassador at the University of Westminster Alumni Association has ventured into the exportation of some agricultural produce such as cocoa seed beans, soybeans seed, black charcoal and cassava chips through her brainchild company, Kehlora Global limited. She sourced for her produce locally and processed them using top quality equipment to produce chocolate and soya bean oil which are uniquely packaged under hygienic conditions and prepared for exportation. The gifted fashion designer boasts of a large warehouse and factory where the agricultural products are processed, stored and preserved into quality for retail and wholesale distribution. Dokpesi became a serial entrepreneur after leaving Daar Communication, her father’s media company many years ago. The mother of two is also an accountant, writer, poet and financial consultant to many notable companies.

Olori Ladun Sijuade, one of the delectable wives of the late traditional ruler, Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuade who joined his ancestors in 2015 is back in the social circle. The woman of style took a back seat after losing her beloved husband seven years ago. She took time off to mourn him and pay respect to the memory of the man she was married to for over three decades before his unfortunate demise. The Buckingham University of Law graduate who enjoys staging high octane shindigs shunned any form of celebration when she clocked 60 a few years ago, just to keep a low profile. Though she had finished mourning her late husband then, she deliberately opted for a low-key ceremony and also stayed off the social scene. She was briefly sighted about two years ago when Biodun Laja, the founder of British International School was laid

to rest. However, she thereafter withdrew into her shell again to manage her food business, Dalora Ventures and take care of her grandchildren. The woman with an addictive smile was spotted recently at Ade Bakare’s exclusive private couture fashion show which took place two weeks ago. The mother of two who is aging gracefully took time out to chat with friends and the fashion designer before taking her leave.

Former beauty queen, Mbong Amata, has long moved on from her failed marriage to her first husband, Jeta Amata who is a director cum producer in Nollywood. The duo met during an audition in Calabar in 2001. Mbong who was very young then was groomed by Amata who doted on her and ensured she found her footing in the make-believe world. They got married in 2008 and welcomed their first child, Veno in 2009. Their marriage packed up in 2012 because the actress felt caged and couldn’t find fulfillment with the way Amata over protected and controlled her.

Almost a decade after walking away from her first union, the former Miss Akwa Ibom found love again in the hands of Thomas Sule, a native of Kogi State. The two had their marriage in Akwa Ibom State in November.

Sule is a corporate executive with over two decades of experience.

He is the Chief Executive Officer of Glosskode Technology, a I.T firm and BCTEK Engineering, a telecommunication solution company which shares passive telecom infrastructure in Nigeria. He had worked in the oil and gas industry before setting up his own communication and I.T companies. He was the Chief Information and Corporate Service Officer of Oando Plc where he worked for almost four years before calling it quits. He is also a professional Engineer who bagged his first degree at the Federal University of Technology, Minna. He has a master's in engineering at the University of Waterloo and attended leadership training in Harvard Business School. Sule is also a consultant in telecommunication, I.T companies and Oil and gas firms. The astute businessman and the actress met through a cordial friend, they became close and decided to spend the rest of their lives together. In 2021, when Amata took to Instagram to cry out that Mbong was missing, by then, she was already engaged to Sule and a wedding was on the card which was why she took time off social media to prepare for her new home. The telecommunication expert is 15 years older than the actress.

SportsStar

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OLUWATOBI AMUSAN:

THE WORLD AT HER FEET

BY JUDE OBAFEMI

In the annals of Nigeria's participation in sporting events, both continental and international, the month of July of 2022 will go down in history as one of the most truly unforgettable. In the unmistakably best-ever performance by a Nigerian in an individual competition, Oluwatobiloba Ayomide Amusan put previous massive disappointments aside to engrave her name in gold and bathe her country in glory when she ran to a semi-final World Record of 12.12 seconds in the 100 metres hurdle event at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Oregon, United States. As an icing on her record-breaking feat, she topped her proud accomplishment with an eye-watering 12.06s, wind-assisted final to leave the rest of the field in her taillights as she claimed an unprecedented gold milestone for Nigeria. It was a moment of pride that was best encapsulated in the tears of joy she shed as she stood on the podium while the Nigerian national anthem was played.

On Tuesday, September 20, the 100m hurdles World Record that Amusan set at that World Athletics Championships in Oregon, America, in July, was formally ratified by the World Athletics, placing a stamp of confirmation on the status of the 25-yearold being the first Nigerian to hold a World Record and entering same into the record books. Those who doubted her abilities after her July exploits in America were soon left astounded by her accomplishments in competitions following the Oregon Championships as Amusan continued to leave her competitors in her wake. After retaining her African title ahead of Oregon, she successfully defended her Commonwealth title in a Games record of 12.30 in August before capping her season with victory in the Wanda Diamond League final with another record, this time a meeting record of 12.29. These accomplishments saw a meteoric rise in her ranking by World Athletics.

On Friday, September 18, Amusan, who was rated 43rd in September 2021, climbed an entire 38 positions to become the fifth-ranked athlete in the world. All these accolades resulted in a season-ending nomination for the World Athletics Athlete of the Year 2022. Amusan was nominated alongside nine other outstanding athletes and put forward for the public to join in deciding which of these athletes deserve to be the best overall in a two-part, three-way voting process that first determined five women finalists for the first part before a winner emerged from those five in the second part. The three-way voting was distributed thusly: World Athletics Council (50%), World Athletics family (25%) and a public vote (25%) via Facebook, Instagram and YouTube likes and Twitter retweets on the post for the specified athlete. Challenging Amusan for the prize were American shot putter Chase Ealey, who won the World Championships and Diamond League titles and holds the numbers 2-5 farthest throws in American history; the 35-year-old Jamaican 100m sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, who won the World Championships and Diamond League titles also and ran a record seven sub-10.70 races in one year; Peruvian Race Walk athlete Kimberly Garcia, Peru, who

won World titles in the 20km, 35km events; and Jamaican 200m sprinter Shericka Jackson, who won the World Championships and Diamond League titles and notched the second-fastest time in history.

The others are Kenyan 1500m athlete Faith Kipyegon, who won the World Championships and Diamond League titles and ran the secondfastest time in marathon history; Ukrainian high jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh, who won the World Indoor Champion, finished as a World Outdoor silver medalist while equalling the national record clearance; American 400m hurdles athlete Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who broke the world record twice, lowering it from 51.46 to 50.68, won world titles in 400m hurdles, 4x400m relay and is the seventh-fastest relay performer in history; Bahamian 400m athlete Shaunae Miller-Uibo, who won World Indoor and Outdoor titles; and Venezuelan triple jumper Yulimar Rojas, who won the World Indoor and Outdoor Championships and Diamond League titles as well as breaking her own indoor (and overall) world record.

Even though the American 400m hurdles athlete McLaughlin-Levrone took home the World Athletics award for female athlete of the year, the progress that Amusan made in 2022 stands her shoulders above most of the field. The height she attained came through her dedication to improvement despite the odds and these counted in her favour in being nominated for athlete of the year. In the publication of the nominations on the World Athletics website, the international governing body for the sport of athletics itself wrote in the description of Amusan's journey: "After narrowly missing out on global medals in 2021 and 2019, Nigerian sprint hurdler Tobi Amusan established herself as the world No.1 in 2022." These outcomes were not the result of only how Amusan performed in July but a summation of everything that had come before as part of the regimen of preparation and training all targeted at emerging as the one above every other competitor. And, that is where every cadre of Nigerian sportsmen and women can take a page out of the Amusan manual for success.

Long before her exploits of July 25 at the World Athletics Championships at Hayward Field in Oregon, the lady, who was to put Nigeria's flag at the top of the podium and have the world sit and listen while the Nigerian anthem played to millions watching and streaming the competition, had to scale what was her first hurdle. She had to go against her father's wish to prevent her from taking to her dreams of becoming an athlete. It goes to show that her gift of overcoming hurdles is innate and requires the steadfastness of dedicated grooming and disciplined determination to carry her to the glory of the present. Her father's refusal to allow her waste time running around the stadium had the potential to derail her ambitions from the onset but for her supportive mother that abetted her in escaping to practice as long as it did not impede her academic work. From that strict upbringing, she began to learn the value of time management and the priority of a good education alongside the progress of her talents and gifts. Although these talents first turned to football, it

was when she began to sprint faster than wellcoached contemporaries that she turned her full attention to the tracks. Glimpses of her pace continued to flash with every appearance she made on the tracks at local competitions but it was her silver medal outing at the 2013 African Youth Championships in Warri that she began to garner attention all the more. However, she immediately faced a check on her progress and ambitions at the 8th IAAF World Youth Championships World Athletics Under-18 competition in Donetsk, Ukraine that same year. As she raced towards the finish line, she inadvertently infringed onto the lane of a competitor in the 200 metres sprint semi-final race and was forthrightly disqualified. That letdown was painful and hurt the hardworking athlete, who had invested so much into reaching that stage of the competition. She was one of the country's medal hopefuls and was putting in a proper showing before being penalised with disqualification. What may have broken the spirits of others at her age and bearing only served to buoy Amusan's determination to succeed. It was grists to her mill.

Having been in contention for medals in the sprints so far, Amusan's switch to the hurdles also came under circumstances that forced the decision. She was not included in the Nigerian selection to race the 4x100m relay at the trials for the African Youth Games the following year and not wanting to be completely removed from the trials, she entered the competition for representing the country in the Hurdles event. The events of July 25 prove how inspired a decision this turned out to be. There were signs from the start as she breasted the tape ahead of the field at the trials and finished second on the podium for Nigeria at the African Youth Games in Botswana. The diminutive girl from Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State, was going places. She continued to do exploits with an African Under-20 gold in Ethiopia in 2015, and what truly was a significant accomplishment followed when she breezed to victory at the AllAfrican Games in Brazzaville, Congo.

In 2016, the Ijebu-Ode born athlete qualified for the Rio Olympics in Brazil, which was a fulfillment of another personal dream of becoming an Olympian and representing the country at the Games. She went as far as the 100m Hurdles semi-final but missed the cut for the final. Amusan shook off that disappointment at Rio and returned to training with her eyes on improving her results ahead of the 17th World Athletics Championships scheduled for Doha, Qatar, at the renovated multi-purpose Khalifa International Stadium. Though her ardent efforts could only manage her a fourth-place finish and though it was tough to ingest given how close she was to bring on the medal podium, it was progress for Amusan. And, for the last child of three Amusan children, coming first was within her reach. It helped that she was incurably optimistic of her abilities and preponderantly self-motivated because her quest for Olympic medals ended up as another "almost there" as she finished fourth again at the delayed 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan last year. But, she dusted herself off and took the African record at the All Nigerian Championship in June this year.

The doggedness that has seen her surmount the odds stacked up against her is typified in one of her reactions to get world record feat where she said: “I was the ‘almost girl. I got fourth, fourth, fourth. Now I finally did it.” That is the story of her journey. It encapsulates what many have termed "The Nigerian Spirit" and have envisaged that the country can continue to reap from if other sportsmen and women can tap into it to reach enviable heights in their own specific fields of competition. Yet, it must be pointed out that Amusan's never-say-die spirit alone could not have broken a world record and shave off extra time in the final all by itself. Amusan took advantage of every opportunity that came and with her positive attitude and determined focus on her goal, realised her set objectives. She was a scholarship recipient at the University of Texas, El Paso in 2016 and worked assiduously with Jamaican coach Lacena Golding-Clarke, threetime Olympian and the 2002 Commonwealth Games 100m hurdles winner to continuously cut down her personal best time. These are what earns her the THEWILL SportsStar of the Year.

The international governing body for athletics wrote in the description of Amusan's journey: "After narrowly missing out on global medals in 2021 and 2019, Nigerian sprint hurdler Tobi Amusan established herself as the World No.1 in 2022

Tribute to "O Rei" – The King – Pele

BY JUDE OBAFEMI

Edson Arantes do Nascimento, popularly known as Pele, died on Thursday, December 29, after his frail body conceded to the impact of colon cancer with renal and cardiac dysfunctions.

Yet, as football players from Lionel Messi to Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappe to Gareth Bale, Erling Haaland to Samuel Eto'o Fils and other personalities from Barack Obama to Gordon Brown, from the Guinness Book of World Records to the American National Space Agency (NASA) paid their tributes to the legend of Pele, one fact remained obvious: his name will be etched in the annals of football history forever.

Born on October 23, 1940 in Três Corações, Brazil, Pele began his professional career at the age of 16 with Santos FC and quickly became one of the most promising young players in the world, helping the team from 1956 to 1974 to a string of titles and his country to a trio of World Cup trophies. His football artistry was recognisable from the beginning and in a single league season, after he turned 17, he scored an impressive 66 goals in 46 matches.

His talent was so inimitable that even the Brazilian government tried to prevent him from leaving the country, despite numerous offers from European clubs. As a result, once he turned 18, Pele was called up for mandatory military service, which allowed him to continue playing for Santos FC in Brazil.

Pele's skills on the field brought joy and hope to the Brazilian people and even caught the attention of President Jânio da Silva Quadros, who named him an "Official National Treasure" in 1961. This further made it difficult for Pele to leave the country without Government authorisation, but it also meant that he could continue to share his love of the game with fans in Brazil and around the world.

By 1963, just eight years into his career, Pele had already won multiple Copa Libertadores, Intercontinental Cups, Brazilian Cups, Paulista Championships, and World Cups. He went on to win another World Cup in 1970.

Despite the interest from European clubs, Pele never played professionally in Europe. However, he did travel with Santos on tour to play against European teams, where, in all, he scored an impressive 144 goals in about 130 matches. He faced grueling schedules, including once playing 19 matches in 39 days, but consistently delivered for fans who came to watch him embody the sport of soccer.

He was such a force on the field that he broke the 100goal season record three times in his career. Pele's talent, charisma, and dedication to the game cemented his place as a true legend of soccer and a symbol of excellence in sportsmanship.

Pele's career achievements are truly staggering. He won three FIFA World Cups with the Brazilian national team (1958, 1962, and 1970), a feat that has never been matched by any other player in the history of the sport. He also won numerous individual accolades, including a Guinness World Record for scoring 1,279 goals in 1,363 games across his career, was inducted into the United States National Soccer Hall of Fame in 1993, for the time he played three seasons with the Cosmos, won an NASL championship in 1977 and was named as a first-team NASL all-star in all three seasons he as in America, sparking a new love for the game in North America.

He was also given a special Ballon d'Or at the award ceremony in 2014, the first ever Ballon d'Or Prix d'Honneur. Pele was named Athlete of the Century by the International Olympic Committee in 1999 and Football's highest authority also designated the player nicknamed "O Rei" – the King - as FIFA Player of the Century, an honour he shared with Argentina's Diego Maradona.

Pele's impact on the game of soccer was immeasurable. His technical ability, vision, and flair for the dramatic made him a joy to watch, and he inspired countless

young players around the world to pick up a ball and start playing. He was a prolific goalscorer, as the World Record he holds testifies to, and was known for his creative playmaking and tireless work ethic on the pitch.

Off the field, Pele was also just popular for his graciousness and humility. Despite his incredible success and fame, he remained a down-to-earth and approachable individual, and used his platform to promote the sport he loved and to make a positive impact in the world.

This demonstrates that Pele's legacy extended far beyond the football pitch. He is considered one of the greatest athletes of all time and his contributions to the sport coupled with his larger-than-life persona have been recognised by numerous organizations and institutions around the world. He has received a plethora of honours, including the American Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal.

There is a legend that Pele played a role in bringing about a temporary ceasefire during Nigeria's Civil War in the late 1960s. According to the story, when Pele and his team, Santos, arrived in Lagos to play a match on January 26, the guns fell silent for 48 hours. During

that time, Santos played to a 2-2 draw against the Super Eagles, with Pele scoring both goals and receiving a standing ovation from the home fans. However, other accounts place the ceasefire in Benin City two weeks later, and recent research has called the veracity of these stories into question.

Nigerian blogger Oloajo Aiyegbayo has scoured contemporary newspaper accounts of the period and found no mention of a ceasefire during Santos' stay in Nigeria. It is possible that the Benin City bridge was opened for the match, but this was a standard practice on match days and not a specific effort to allow Biafrans into the stadium during a time of high tensions and recent atrocities. While Pele's legend and charisma may have brought some temporary joy and respite to the people of Nigeria during this difficult time, it appears that his role in the ceasefire may be more myth than reality.

THEWILL remembers his incredible career and the joy he brought to millions of fans around the world. He will always be remembered as a true legend of the game, and his contributions to football will be remembered for generations to come. Pele's legacy will live on forever as a symbol of excellence, sportsmanship, and dedication to the beautiful game. It was a blessing that he was able to finish life surrounded by the love of his family and the gratitude of football fans around the world.

A date has been announced for Pele's funeral and the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has declared a threeday period of national mourning in Pele's honour. His former team Santos released a statement on the burial that read: "The body of the greatest football player of all time will be laid to rest at Estadio Urbano Caldeira, in Vila Belmiro, where he enchanted the world. The body will go straight from the Albert Einstein Hospital to the Stadium at dawn on Monday [January 2] and the coffin will be placed in the centre of the lawn. The public wake is expected to begin at 10am."

Meanwhile, President Bolsonaro, whose presidency ends on January 1, issued a decree that read: "Official mourning is declared throughout the country, for a period of three days, counted from the date of publication of this Decree, as a sign of regret for the death of Edson Arantes do Nascimento, Pele, a former football player."

It will be the end of earthly time of an icon who rose from barefoot poverty to become one of the greatest and best-known athletes in modern history, and whose legacy will live on.

“Pele's legacy will live on forever as a symbol of excellence, sportsmanship, and dedication to the beautiful game. It was a blessing that he was able to finish life surrounded by the love of his family and the gratitude of football fans around the world

Pele

Pele

2023: We’ve Not Endorsed Any Presidential Candidate – Miyetti Allah

candidates. So, until we receive one, before we begin to analyse and consider within the shortest time we have and decide whether we can endorse or not.”

Life-ND Project: Emerging Farmers Receive Inputs For

Business

The National President of MACBAN, Alhaji Baba Usman-Ngelzarma,

in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), on Friday in Abuja.

He said: “First of all, I will have to make clarification because there are two Miyetti Allah groups. We have the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore and the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), which is the one I represent as the National President.

"As far as my association, the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria is concerned, we have not endorsed any presidential candidate.

"We are still waiting for all the presidential candidates to answer our questions on the seven- point demands we raised and presented copies of a letter containing our demands to them.

"Uptil now, we have not received any consent from any of the presidential

Usman-Ngelzarma said that all the major political parties have not included the challenges facing the Nigerian pastoralists in their manifestos.

” I personally presented our demands to the presidential candidates of the three major political parties, it is only the Labour Party that I didn’t personally submit but I have met with some representatives of the party and submitted the letter to them.

”So, before we decide on which presidential candidate to support, we have to sit together, analyse and discuss with the congress because that is our difference with the other pastoralists association.

"We are going to show our numerical strength in this year’s elections. Whoever we agree to vote for will get a block vote.

"And whichever candidate we endorse will win the election, because we have about 16 million registered voters from the pastoralists community in Nigeria,” Usman-Ngelzarma said.

Tennis Association, SWAN Partner to Develop Table Tennis in Cross River

The Cross River State Table Tennis Association in partnership with Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN), Cross River State chapter, is organising a two day Table Tennis Challenge for youths across the state.

Veterans and media practitioners across the state are also included in the competition.

At least 100 people are expected to participate in the tennis competition and the winner will pocket N150, 000.

Vice Chairman of Cross River Table Tennis Association, Usen Umoh , disclosed that the objective is to popularise the game and encourage

everyone to play table tennis for physical well-being.

He encouraged sports loving individuals/ members of the organised private sector to invest in sports as part of their corporate social responsibility-CSR.

"We are trying to contribute our quota in order to curb youth restiveness and reduce unemployment in the state and country at large. In that direction we are giving out N150,000 as prize money for this competition," he said.

The Chief Coach of the state table-tennis team, Richard Edem, assured that the two-day event will be memorable, asides popularising the game as part of end of year activities.

About 37 emerging poultry farmers in Cross River State have received 16,000 day old chicks to boost their budding poultry business in Cross River State.

Similarly, 15 emerging fish farmers have received 21,000 juveniles (cat fish) to boost their enterprise.

The donation is courtesy of the Livelihood Improvement Family Enterprises - Niger Delta (Life - ND) project.

The project is funded by IFAD, alongside the federal government, states within the Niger Delta region as well as the Niger Delta Development Commission.

The State Project Coordinator for the project, Innocent Moses, disclosed this in Calabar while giving an update on the project.

According to him, 37 youths have been provided with 16,000 day old chicks and each person has an average of 492 chicks.

"Similarly, 1,160 others have been trained and some of them have been provided with working capital.

"About 339 hectares of land has been surveyed out of the 2,000 hectares acquired for the project with 105 hectares developed and 5.7 lkm of Earth roads have been completed.

"On fish production (cat fish), 15 fish farmers were supported with 21,000 juveniles for the first cycle of production", he said.

He explained that the project has a 12-year life span which is broken into two phases and is targeting 4,250 people.

He listed the ten LGAs in the state which are beneficiaries as Akpabuyo, Akamkpa, Biase, Yakurr, Obubra, Ikom, Ogoja, Yala, Obanliku and Obudu.

He said the overall goal of the project is " to realise a transformed rural economy in which the rural population can drive prosperity and equal benefit.

"Our objective is to enhance income, food security and job creation for rural youths and women through agri-enterprise development on a sustainable basis in the Niger Delta region," he said.

The total budget outlay for the project is $94 million with IFAD providing $60 million while other partners will provide $34million.

Kano Traffic Agency Arrests 3,245 Offenders

The Kano Road and Traffic Agency (KAROTA) arrested 3,245 offenders from January to December, 2022. This is contained in a statement issued by the Public Relations Officer of the Agency, Nabilusi Abubakar, on Friday in Kano.

He said the number of offenders reduced in 2022, compared to the previous year when KAROTA recorded 7,835 offenders.

According to the statement, “in the year under review, the Agency succeeded in registering a total of 52,242 tricycles under the Kano Tricycle Permit System.

“This registration is very important to us, hence anyone whose tricycle is duly registered will not use it to commit crime knowing fully well he will be caught.

“So far a lot of bad eggs among the tricycle operators have been arrested.

“With the registration we have been able to identify and arrest phone snatchers who intimidate people in the state, using tricycles for such crimes.

“KAROTA has succeeded in recruiting over 500 new personnel which has further increased our presence in the state, particularly within the metropolis as well as created new zonal offices at Tudun Wada and Doguwa, respectively,” he said.

Abubakar further explained that during the year, the Kano Traffic Agency Law, 2022 (Amendment number one) was passed by the State House of Assembly.

He added that with the law, it would conduct its operations smoothly in the state.

“Through our legal department, the Agency obtained court warrants to successfully demolish illegal structures blocking roads within the metropolis and in some major markets which obstructed free flow of traffic.

“Anyone who erects any illegal structure on any of our roads will not be spared,” he said.

He expressed gratitude to the general public and assured them of doing more in the coming year to safeguard them while using the roads.

Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) said it had not endorsed any presidential candidate or political party in the 2023 general elections.

made the disclosure

L-R: President Muhammadu Buhari receives the Ogun State Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, at the State House, Abuja on December 30, 2022.

BASSEY ANIEKAN, CALABAR

BASSEY ANIEKAN, CALABAR

BASSEY ANIEKAN, CALABAR

Bolanle Raheem: When Will Police Brutality Stop?

he killing, last Sunday, of a young and promising Lagos lawyer, Bolanle Raheem, by yet another trigger-happy policeman right in broad daylight is not only sad but condemnable. The Christmas Day shooting of the upcoming realtor, who had bright prospects for herself and her family, unfortunately took the joy of the season away from many Nigerians, especially friends and family members as well as business associates of the Lagos lawyer.

It is not only sad but painful as well that all the dreams, plans and hopes the deceased had for the New Year and the future came crashing like a pack of cards with a single bullet from a careless and heartless cop. More tragic is the fact that the mother of one was expecting twins. In essence, the police man had, by his action, terminated three lives: the lawyer and her unborn twins.

The sad incident, which happened in the LekkiAjah axis of Lagos, was not the first on that spot as a young man was also said to have been killed by a police bullet around the area

Tjust two weeks before the Christmas killing.

The unfortunate incident has brought to the fore, once again, the sad experiences of many Nigerians, which led to the nationwide protests against police brutality over two years ago in what has become known as the ENDSARS protests. The spontaneous protests which rocked the country to its very foundation were crushed by the authorities with fatalities recorded across major cities in the country.

Despite all the promises made by the Federal Government to reform the police and stop the brutality against innocent Nigerians by men and officers in uniform, the latest incident is just another evidence that nothing has really changed. It is unfortunate that the Federal Government has continued to demonstrate sheer intolerance to sincere and genuine criticisms despite consistent calls for real reforms of the police in Nigeria.

It is rather amusing that the same government that has refused to do the needful but would rather apply brute force to suppress peaceful demonstrations by Nigerians is now in the forefront of the condemnation of the recent incident. More annoying is the reported decision of a section of the National Assembly to probe the

incident as the failure of the lawmakers to initiate laws that would have stopped police brutality has in fact contributed to this incident.

Rather than playing to the gallery with the purported probe that would lead nowhere, the lawmakers should up their game and promulgate laws that would guarantee more protection and safety of lives and property for the average Nigerian.

The unfortunate killing of

another innocent Nigerian, sadly on a Christmas Day, is an eye-opener to everyone that it is not yet Uhuru for the policing system in Nigeria. Practical reforms, rather than mere rhetorics and grandstanding, are what Nigerians need at this point in time, and urgently too.

We align with all the condemnations so far, though that would not bring back the dead, they have all gone to show that Nigerians are more united in the call for more discipline in the handling of guns by policemen in the line of duty. We also call for the authorities not to sweep this case under the carpet and ensure that justice is not only served but seen to have been served by giving the prosecution the urgency it deserves.

The unfortunate killing of another innocent Nigerian, sadly on a Christmas Day, is an eye-opener to everyone that it is not yet Uhuru for the policing system in Nigeria. Practical reforms, rather than mere rhetorics and grandstanding, are what Nigerians need at this point in time, and urgently too

We reaffirm our belief that the life of every Nigerian really matters and every Nigerian has the right to life. Nothing should therefore be done to infringe on this right to life.

While we commiserate with the family, friends and associates of the deceased, especially her husband, daughter and aged mother, we pray that God will give the late Bolanle Raheem eternal rest. We also hope that such acts of police brutality and callousness will not happen in this manner as we step into the New Year.

2022: A Year in Review

BY REUBEN ABATI

The year 2022 has ended, and across the world, people are speaking of a new year with fresh expectations but when we look back on the year that has just passed, in terms of achievements, high points, successes, failures and experiences, it would be recalled that the year 2022 was indeed more than ordinary. It was the second anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, which up-ended our lives, exposing us all to an international public health crisis, countless deaths, compulsory stay at homes, a redefinition of the world of work, and the depths of human resilience. The year began on a cautious note, as many countries, while opening up their borders, still insisted on proof of vaccination against COVID. The importance attached to this was most vividly demonstrated when Novak Djokovic, the tennis maestro was denied participation at the January 2022 Australian Open because of his blunt refusal to take the vaccine. He was slammed with a three-year ban from the Australian Open.

As the year progressed, the world opened up further, and whereas, in 2022, China still reported cases of COVID in its major cities, and insisted on the zero COVID policy, by year-end, that zero-COVID policy had been significantly revised. It is a much more open world today than it was two years ago. Many international meetings including the African Development Bank (AfDB) conference in Mauritius, in May 2022; Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Rwanda, in June 2022; the G20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia, in October 2022; Conference of Parties (COP 27) in Sharm El Sheik, in Egypt, in November 2022 as well as other international events were held in-person or through a hybrid of physical attendance and virtual participation. Airlines took to the skies again in large numbers and the world of tourism bounced back. In October 2022, Hong Kong promised to give away 500, 000 free flight tickets to attract tourists back to the city. In November 2022, one million foreign tourists visited Japan, one month after it fully re-opened. Hitherto, Hong Kong, the Chinese Special Administrative Region

and Japan had some of the strictest COVID rules, forcing airlines – Virgin Atlantic, British Airways and American Airlines to suspend flights to the city-state. Wedding parties and events that were suspended in the full swing of COVID are now being held. In 2022, our world began to reconnect. Djokovic has now had his three-year ban from the Australian Open lifted, and hence, in January 2023, the nine-time Australian Open Champion has serious guarantee, without fear of ambiguity, that he will be welcomed back to Melbourne.

The world’s gradual recovery was, however, abbreviated, very early in the year, when Russia and its President, Vladimir Putin, declared a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February. It was not enough for Putin that he had annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, and supported the seizure of territory by separatists in the Donbas region, the 2022 invasion was a direct assault on Ukraine’s right to exist. More than 300 days since the war began, over 14 million people have fled Ukraine as refugees, the largest refugee crisis since World War II, more than 300,000 Russians have also fled their country, Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has been damaged, a fifth of Ukraine’s territory is in Russian hands, thousands of people have died. The international community has imposed sanctions on Russia including putting a price cap on Russian oil, the mass exodus of Western companies from Russia including Volkswagen, Toyota, Pepsi, Daimler, LG, Adidas, Burger King, Sony, Siemens Visa, MasterCard Xerox, and many others that have either suspended operations in Russia or have left completely. Russia has also been kicked out of SWIFT, the international payment system, thus disconnecting its financial institutions from the global network. A US-backed global task force has frozen more than $330 billion of assets from Russian oligarchs and the country’s Central Bank. Members of the task force include Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and The European Commission. Affected Russian oligarchs include Suleiman Kerimov, whose yacht was seized. Roman Abramovich, the former Russian owner of

English football club, Chelsea FC, was forced to sell it off without any direct profit. No other event has connected the world together more than the Russo-Ukrainian war. But, it is also a war of attrition that has inflicted much pain on the world. Russia supplies about 40% of the gas used in Europe. Russia decided to weaponize the energy supply by shutting down Nord stream 1, the biggest gas pipeline from Russia to Europe, which has the capacity to deliver 55 billion cubic metres of gas a year, thus creating an energy crisis across Europe. Before then, Gazprom, the Russian energy giant had insisted on payment for supplies in rouble -the Russian currency – until Russia eventually shut down supplies, compelling European countries to seek alternative sources of supply and adopt the rationing of power. The cost of energy of course went up, throwing many households into a panic. Power cuts are something developing countries in Africa are familiar with, but it is becoming a pattern in Europe due to the war in Ukraine.

The spot price of oil also spiked soon after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, up to about $92.81, resulting in higher revenues for oil-producing companies, which made huge profits, and also, the oil exporting countries. Sadly Nigeria, a member of OPEC, could not take advantage of this, it could not even meet its OPEC production quota due to crude oil theft, infrastructure collapse and general decay in the country’s oil and gas ecosystem. Russia in comparison profited from the war it started: within 100 days, it had earned about 93 billion Euros from exports of oil, gas and coal. Ukraine President, Volodymyr Zelensky, has continuously asked the world to stop trade completely with Russia. China, India and the United Arab Emirates continue to buy from Russia. The bigger blow was the disruption of the global supply chain.

•Continues online at www.thewillnigeria.com

Etymology of Atiku Abubakar as Stepping Stone For Igbo Presidency

BY MAGNUS ONYIBE

As it may be recalled, a lot of verbal missiles were hauled at Anambra state governor and former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo, when he contended in a recently published article titled: “History Beckons And I shall Not Be Silent (part1)”, that nobody from the Igbo nation has a chance of becoming president of Nigeria in 2023.

“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. The brutal truth (and some will say, God forbid) is that there are two persons/parties seriously contesting for president: the rest is exciting drama!”

The masterpiece by Soludo was a realistic and pragmatic analysis of what l would like to characterise as the ‘Igbo dilemma.’

Whereas the frank advice should have woken up the Igbos from what can be likened to a fantastic wonderland dream of presiding over the affairs of our country from Aso Rock Villa in 2023, instead, it got a good number of them so incensed that the level of bile directed in rebuke at Soludo, was as if he committed some kind of heresy or apostasy.

In order for readers to better understand the anger of the Igbos against Soludo or any other Igbo man or woman who does not subscribe to the Igbo presidency of Nigeria in 2023, it is important that we put into context the propelling force for their quest to occupy Aso Rock Villa when the incumbent president, Mohammadu Buhari, exits next year.

The truth is that the anger of the Igbos, which culminated in the vitriolic attacks on Soludo, stems from the over half of a millennium years old determination of the tribe to regain their lost pride and glory because they were at the commanding heights of the political, economic and social architecture of Nigeria, pre-January 1966 coup by the military, which resulted in the death of the first republic (1963-66) and the crash of the Igbos from power in practically all the spheres of life in our country.

Not satisfied with their loss of power, particularly of the political hue in the Nigerian nation, the Igbos sought self-

determination by engaging the Nigerian state in a civil war from 1967 to 1970 when the country failed to allow her to secede.

But at the end of the war, rather than achieve their objective of returning to the pre-eminent position that they had occupied pre-independence or before the British colonialist exited, by granting Nigeria independence from colonial rule in 1960, the region got worse off.

That is simply because a significant number of lives of the Igbo people got dispatched prematurely to meet their ancestors, just as the infrastructure in the eastern region got wantonly destroyed in the course of the horrific war and the situation has not changed much to date.

In addition, the Igbos, who lost the war, have thereafter become systematically relegated to the bottom or even got excluded from the mainstream of the political system in Nigeria. And that is evidenced by the reality that currently, the leadership power equation in the only country that the Igbos can call their own, seems to have been skewed against them, as none of them is the head of the executive, legislative or judicial arms of government, which is largely responsible for the enduring secessionist tendencies currently bedevilling the region in particular, and the whole country at large.

Arising from the above, and being a realist, l would argue that Soludo’s pragmatic assessment of the chances of an Igbo man/woman becoming president of Nigeria in 2023 as he marshalled in his published treatise: “History Beckons And I Shall Not Be Silent (part 1) was on point. But Igbos appear not to be ready to accept the inconvenient truth, hence, Soludo’s advice was discountenanced and he was disparaged and excoriated.

Before the Anambra governor’s matter-of-fact advice that elicited the ire of some Igbos that generated the firestorm that almost literally consumed him, another prominent Igbo politician, senator Orji Uzor Kalu, the current chief whip of Nigerian Senate and ex-governor of Abia state, had also admonished members of his tribe not to seek to become president of Nigeria in 2023.

Below are his reasons:

“I have no problem with an Igbo man becoming president, but we have to do it with other Nigerians.

“If you don’t do it with other Nigerians, it’s not going to work, no matter how popular you are. This is the president of Nigeria, not the president of Igbo land.”

He was quoted as basically stating that the Igbos must wait for another time when Nigerians would agree to zone the presidency to the east.

It is unsurprising that Kalu’s renunciation of the Igbo presidency in 2023 did not trigger as much storm as Soludo’s admonishment, which l would like to equate politically with an event recorded in the Holy Bible; ‘Sermon on the Mount’, which is a narrative of the teachings by our Lord Jesus Christ, during which he laid out the blueprint of his doctrine to be followed by his disciples after he must have transformed from the physical into the spiritual realms.

As the Islamic religion has lbrahimic origin, which is why Islam recognises Jesus Christ as lsah – a prophet of God and not the son of God, which is the belief of we Christians, I won’t be surprised if our Muslim brothers and sisters can identify an equivalent of such narrative in the holy Quran.

According to John R.W. Stott, “The Sermon on the Mount is probably the best-known part of the teaching of Jesus, though arguably it is the least understood, and certainly, it is the least obeyed.”

So, Soludo’s solution obviously struck the wrong chord amongst not only some Igbo elites, but also a critical mass of the hoi poloi, who are perhaps living in a parallel universe and as such unable to process the reality that it is not yet time for Igbos to call the shots from Aso Rock Villa and the reason the visionary Soludo was largely misunderstood.

•Onyibe is an entrepreneur, public policy analyst, author, development strategist, an alumnus of Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA and a former commissioner in Delta state government.

•Continues online at www.thewillnigeria.com

FEATURES

First Day Meeting Maxim

BY MICHAEL JIMOH

Ihave never seen Maxim angry or drunk. And I have known him for a quarter century, from my very first day in journalism at The Post Express office on 22 Warehouse Road Apapa. It was a Monday in late January or early February 1997.

CV handy, a friend had sent me to Mary Kanu, Managing Editor of a promising newspaper hobbled by management challenges in its later years but was also the first mainstream media house to go online in Nigeria.

From her office on the first floor, Mrs. Kanu, in turn, sent me to Arts & Culture Editor, Nduka Otiono. In a spacious newsroom on the same floor overlooking Apapa Wharf, the hulls and masts of berthed ships and schooners visible from the windows facing the waterfront, I found Otiono somewhere around the Sports desk in conversation with late Dave Enechukwu and Harry Iwuala both on the same beat. There was a fourth guy. This was Uzor Maxim Uzoatu!

Though he would later become chairman of the Editorial Board at some point, Maxim was not a staff of the newspaper then. You couldn’t tell at the time, especially because he was always around not only to see his friends Otiono and Akin Adesokan, Otiono’s deputy, or Harry Garuba, a member of the Editorial Board, but he also contributed, perhaps, more than any other writer of his generation, to the weekly literary pages aptly named Post Express Literary Supplement - PELS for short.

Unlike now that you just spider-touch your lappy then knock out a readable piece in one hour or two of unblinking concentration, you had to write your reports, stories in long hand for days with the inevitable intermittent breaks, finished at last and then passed along to impatient editors who were sure to cross out unreadable or meaningless passages tending towards verbosity. To the best of my knowledge, Otiono never complained once about Maxim’s copies, which was why he was almost always at ease with whatever Maxim sent in for the week, a poem, literary essay or even a short story.

“Oh, I don’t have any problem with Maxim’s manuscripts,” Otiono would often say, as we pored over dozens of contributions from professors of English and Literature in Nigerian universities, writers and the literary smart set across the country every week, beginning from Thursdays. By Saturday morning, the four-page literary pull out would be on newsstands, waiting to be snapped up by students of those same professors who had written for PELS.

In many instances, Otiono would also show me badly written scripts by some other contributors, those writing to impress or just rambling on and on without ever taking into consideration the cardinal rule that “writers should be their own first editors.”

Of course Maxim was, one such meticulous writer which another editor, the great Sonala Olumhense, recognised from the get-go at Rutam House, Isolo birthplace and headquarters of The Guardian newspaper in the mid-eighties.

Fresh from youth service around that time, Maxim bee-lined it to the elite newspaper for a job placement. He knew no one there except through their bylines. He met SO in person. Around that time, too, a conference of Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting CHOGM was taking place in Auckland New Zealand in 1985. It was in the papers, of which SO had a sheaf right on his table.

After browsing the papers in SO’s office downstairs, Maxim went upstairs to write a piece on the ongoing CHOGM meeting. He made short work of the assignment. While waiting for the result, Maxim heard a booming voice calling him out immediately. It was Andy Akporugo’s, Executive Editor of African Guardian, then: “Who do you think you are? Who are you to think that you can write so well?” Or something to that effect. Akporugo was clearly impressed with what he’d read but again wouldn’t want to admit so to a twentysomething year-old fresh from service.

Of course, Maxim did not set out to impress either SO or even Akporugo. At University of Ife where he studied Dramatic Arts under no less an influential and inspiring instructor than Soyinka himself, I recall Maxim telling me of some of his friends with common interest in reading and writing, friends like Owei Lakemfa, passing TIME, Newsweek and Readers Digest magazines from hand to hand. There were Spear and Drum magazines as well from South Africa.

By the time Maxim got to The Guardian for his unscheduled and impromptu test with SO whom he has become lifelong friends with since then, he was more than ready. Having gorged on essays and reports by the likes of George J Church, Otto Friedrich, Lance Morrow in TIME, George F. Will and Robert Jay Samuelson in Newsweek and, say, a real life drama story by Frederick Forsythe in Reader's Digest, writing about a mere Commonwealth conference was like telling a riveting moonlight story to an appreciative audience – old and young – in his Umuchu community in Anambra state where he comes from.

“Maxim’s humour is the most distinguishing quality about him,” Osha wrote in the tribute. “He is exceedingly serious without really being serious. He could dispel problematic knots of hostility by merely being present. It is almost impossible to remain angry in his luminous company which is invariably filled with light and laughter while he earnestly plots his next avalanche of literary and journalistic spates of activity

Of course, Maxim got the job, and thus began his journey in journalism. He would later meet and become one of SO’s best reporters at This Week, where the former Rutam House editor went to work for Nduka Ogbaibena as pioneer editor of the magazine.

If you have it, so the saying goes, you flaunt it. If you don't, you fake it. That may apply to those with an inclination for material possessions. But it just doesn’t work with writing. If you don’t have it as a writer, you can’t even fake it because discerning readers will see through you.

In a birthday tribute published last February as “The Mystique of Maxim” in Premium Times, another writer and poet teaching in Pretoria South Africa, Sanya Osha, captured the essential Maxim that

most of his friends have become familiar with.

Recalling their time in Ikate, Surulere back then when Maxim was the self-proclaimed Obi of Ikate, Osha laid bare for readers what it was to spend some precious moments with the man aka Borojah.

“Maxim’s humour is the most distinguishing quality about him,” Osha wrote in the tribute. “He is exceedingly serious without really being serious. He could dispel problematic knots of hostility by merely being present. It is almost impossible to remain angry in his luminous company which is invariably filled with light and laughter while he earnestly plots his next avalanche of literary and journalistic spates of activity.”

I myself have been privy to “the most distinguishing quality about him” – Maxim’s humour and he was sure to get you in fits of laughter whether at a watering hole or even at work. He, it was who told us one day at one such spot off Toyin Street, Ikeja Divine Bar and Restaurant about one such incident.There was a GO in the person of Obed Awowede, a senior journalist and now a biographer.

In his undergraduate days at Ife, Maxim recounted once, he was at the table with the great Ugandan poet Okot p Bitek who was teaching in the university at the time. The poet made a habit of not paying his bills promptly. So, the impatient proprietress, a professor’s spouse, approached Bitek and reminded him of his unpaid bills. Anyone would reasonably expect an apology from the poet, perhaps wringing his hands in the process. Not Bitek!

Instead, according to Maxim, the poet looked at the woman straight in the face and told her thusly. “It does seem that your husband did not f***k you well yesterday. When you get home tonight, tell him to do so.”

The woman fled! Whether the Ugandan bard settled his bills or not in the end, Maxim did not say. But he had some more risible stories to tell us. Another was of a village bumpkin from one of the south eastern states who began having ideas about befriending a city woman in Lagos.

The chap in question used to frequent the woman’s restaurant and bar. Besotted with the woman like a teenager in love, the man timidly made his intentions known to the lady of the bar. Of course, the woman in question would have none of that and repulsed the ambitious fellow in the most humiliating manner. Unknown to the lover boy, the woman reminded him how he journeyed to Lagos from the village atop a truckload of onions – alubosa. He never stepped foot in the bar from that day on. From one rib-cracking tale to another, Maxim has them aplenty, as another journalist wrote to THEWILL last Friday.

Muyiwa Moyela also worked in The Post Express in the late nineties. “Egbon Uzor,” Moyela told the newspaper, “is essentially a good man with a kind heart filled with mirth and passion for the Arts, and clearly his talents and zest for life have been the defining features of his personal and professional life. My encounters with him have always left me smiling but I have come to realise that beneath the humour and laughter is a man whose capacity for absorbing the ups and downs of life with equanimity is the most unlimited. I therefore respect and admire him very deeply.”

Most of Maxim’s friends will say that about him, a man “they respect and admire deeply.”

Still on his tribute and sort of corroborating Moyela, the Nigerian teacher, Osha, in the South African university agrees. “Maxim welcomes everything and everyone because his heart is as expansive as the sea. But Maxim is also a magician, an alchemist of sorts, because he is able to penetrate sorrow and gloom with brightness. He is the undying sun-child who transmogrifies desolate horizons at the mere touch of his hands. But he will discourage you from harping on this marvelous gift. This gift of life, laughter and unspoken love.”

That life of laughter Maxim loved so much once eluded him. He was far away in the United States many years ago around this Yuletide period. He’d gone on a scholarship to the States. In his telling, his stay that winter period was a disaster. “I was alone in my room at home, no visits from anyone.”

Worse still, he had only peanuts to eat. To keep up his spirit, he retired to a library nearby. There, he began to think about his home in Anambra state, the festive ambience in his father’s compound that very moment in stark contrast to his solitude in a library under punishing arctic conditions. He left the US back to Nigeria.

Thankfully, as he was a year older on December 22, the writer/ journalist formerly known as Obi of Ikate didn’t have to spend the Yule in wintry conditions. He was surrounded by family and friends at his father’s compound in Umuchu to raise a toast and to also wish him well on his special day and in the coming years.

SHOTS OF THE WEEK

Photo Editor: Peace Udugba [08033050729]

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Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu (middle), addressing the Chairman and members of the Island Club, during the Club’s Christmas Eve Dance at the Peacock Multipurpose Hall, Onikan, on December 24, 2022.

L-R: Regional Security Head, Enugu State, Airtel Nigeria, Fabian Onoh; Regional Enterprise Head, Enugu State, Airtel Nigeria, Ogochukwu Amaefunah; Regional Retail Head, Enugu State, Airtel Nigeria, Kenneth Uchechukwu and Area Sales Manager, Enugu North, Airtel Nigeria, Umoinyang Nkanga, at the presentation of 1,000 food packs during Airtel `5 Days of Love’ yuletide program in Enugu on December 15, 2022.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, (right), receives in audience the Vice Chancellor (VC), Olabisi Onabanjo University, Prof. Ayodeji Abgoola, at the State House, Abuja on December 22, 2022.

Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila (with mic), while commissioning the Makinde road project completed by the Surulere Local Government Chairman, Hon. Sulaimon Yusuf (left) on December 29, 2022.

L-R: Group Chief Executive Officer, Airtel Africa, Segun Ogunsanya; Celebrant and Group Managing Director, CMC Connect Limited (Perception Managers) and President (APRA), Yomi Badejo-Okusanya (YBO), and his wife, Barrister Oyinkan Badejo-Okusanya, at the Thanksgiving Service of Yomi Badejo-Okusanya’s 60th birthday, at Grace Assembly Church, Kudirat Abiola Way, Oregun, Lagos on December 24, 2022.

President Muhammadu Buhari (right) receives briefing from the Chairman, Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Ms. Lauretta Onochie, at the State House, Abuja on December 28, 2022.