THEWILL NOV 07 - 13EDITION

VOL 1 NO.39

NOVEMBER 13, • NOVEMBER 07 –

2021

IYINOLUWA ABOYEJI

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Will Odili Survive ‘The Onnoghen Treatment’?

State of The States

This special publication of THEWILL x-rays the potentials of the 36 states and the FCT to achieve a quantum leap in development through investment and job creation. The prevailing cash crunch in the country makes the project more compelling for policy-makers, investors and other stakeholders.

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COVER

Will Odili Survive ‘The Onnoghen Treatment’?

BY AMOS ESELE

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ending further investigations, the Supreme Court position on the attack on Justice Mary Odili’s Maitama Abuja residence on Friday, October 29, 2021 appears to be the most worrisome among the unfolding scenarios on the matter.

The apex court’s statement said, “The attack unfortunately depicted a gory picture of war by some armed persons suspected to be security operatives representing different agencies of government, who seemed to have come to either kill or maim their target under the guise of undertaking a search whose warrant was questionable and baseless.”

“There is even an Imo Crescent in Garki,” said Chief Mike Ozekhome, SAN, in a brief interview with this newspaper. Garki is 9 kilometers from Maitama, an upscale district in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

“There was no name on the search warrant. A search warrant is meant to search a human being and not a graveyard. Why would you not put a name on it?”

Ozekhome, who was promptly at the Odili’s residence immediately the news broke that fateful Friday, said.

The Senior advocate of Nigeria, who, alongside many angry youths, kept vigil at House number 9, Mataima, Abuja in solidarity with the Odilis, added, “So if they had done due diligence and their motive was not to embarrass her and the issue was not politically motivated, to set her up and to humiliate her husband, with only a few days left to the National Convention of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) where he is a big fish, then what was their mission?”

THE UNFOLDING DRAMA So, what is the mission of those who are after Justice Odili? Emerging details suggest that it is part of the power play around the unsuccessful attempts made by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to prosecute her husband and former governor of River State, Dr Peter Odili, over alleged money laundering for the past 12 years.

A dependable government source, who dismissed the view that the ‘invasion’ of Justice Odili’s residence was part of an orchestration to ensure she does not succeed Justice Mohammed Tanko, Chief Justice of the Federation, said the matter was different.

“Dr. Odili had since 2007 got a court injunction to prevent the EFCC from investigating or arresting him and probing the account of the state government, and his wife, Justice Odili, is said to be the one behind that perpetual court injunction against the anti-graft agency,” said the source.

The source said it was strongly believed that the continued attempts by the Commission to overturn PAGE 4

the court injunction took the case to the Supreme Court where it appears to have been stalled.

Several phone calls made to the Head of Media and Publicity at EFCC, Mr Wilson Uwujaren, were unanswered. In fact, the lines were literally dead.

The Commission has, however, denied reports that its operatives stormed the Maitama, Abuja home of Justice Odili on October 29, 2021 purportedly to execute a search.

In a statement issued on that day, Uwujaren urged the public to disregard the report, describing it as false and saying the EFCC did not carry out any operation at Odili’s residence.

He said,” If there was any such operation as claimed by the media, it was not carried out by the EFCC. The Commission enjoins the public to discountenance the report.”

The immediate past Chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, had expressed his frustration on the matter shortly before his tenure was probed and his appointment terminated by the present government on grounds of insubordination.

Magu, who once described Rivers State as “next to Lagos in terms of crimes” and the “headquarters of money laundering because there is a lot of oil money here,” vowed to contest the court order that Dr Odili obtained to stop the EFCC from investigating and prosecuting him for alleged money laundering.

“Nothing is going to stop us. Even the issue of the court order allegedly obtained by Dr Peter Odili and co, to stop the EFCC from investigation and prosecution is still at the Supreme Court. We are on it.

We will follow it up,” Magu had said.

Malami

The purported search warrant unusually bore no name. The street name on it was No 9 Imo Rivers Street. Justice Odili’s house number is 7 and Imo Rivers Crescent is the location of her house, about a stone’s throw from the Close.

Onnoghen

Investigation by THEWILL shows that her yet-to-be identified attackers could have done exactly what the court feared.

Although appointment to the office of the Chief Justice of Nigeria is by seniority, with age factor playing a key role, there is no official evidence to show that the current CJN, Justice Tanko, would retire before Justice Odili.

Justice Odili is second to Justice Tanko in rank, but she is older. According to her bio-data, she is 69 years-old and due for retirement in 2022 by official rule when she turns 70. Justice Tanko is 67 years, meaning he still has three years to go. In fact, Justice Odili is the oldest Justice of the current 16-membership list of the apex court.

The others are, Justice Olukayode Ariwoola 63; Musa Datijo, 64; Muhammad Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, 63; Chima Centus Nweze, 63; Justice Amina Augie, 68; Justice Ejembi Eko, 69; Justice Uwani Musa Abba Aji, 65; Justice John Inyang Okoro, 62; Justice Lawal Garba, 62; Helen M. Ogunwumiju, 65; Addu Aboki, 63; I.M. M. Saulawa, 62; Adamu Jauro, 65; Tijjani Abubakar, 68; and Emmanuel A. Agim, 61.

The other view that Justice Tanko is indisposed cannot be proved as he is said to be as fit as a fiddle.

“Tanko is still there. I was with him two weeks ago when I went to see him and we spoke on crucial legal issues facing the country. He spoke clearly and uprightly. So I do not know where these conjectures are coming from,” Ozekhome said.

A former Deputy National Chairman of the PDP, Chief Olabode George, however described the incident as a further illustration that nobody is safe in the country.

Speaking at a ceremony to mark the successful conduct of the party’s convention in Lagos last Friday, George described the invasion as “a testimony about our state of aberration and uncertainties”.

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COVER He went on, “It will not be an easy task. Look around you. The nation is distempered in factional largeness.

There are divisions everywhere. Bandits and nogooders roam freely in all the corners of our nation.

“From the Savannah to the Atlantic, from the Niger Delta to the hills and the forests, dark arbiters of ruin and destruction freely plow their dirty trade, sowing discord and destruction everywhere.

“These dark avatars are not interested in the unity of our nation. They are indifferent to the happiness of our people and they want to drag us all down towards the grim slope of perdition.

“They must be stopped. They must be halted. They must be confronted with the superiority of our own bright vision”.

THE JUSTICE ONNOGHEN TREATMENT? Investigation also shows that linking the incident with the removal of the former CJN, Mr Walter Onnoghen, from office in controversial circumstances does not hold water, given that Justice Odili would retire before the current CJN, Tanko, many months before the 2023 general election. Also, she does not pose a political threat beyond what is seen as an alleged attempt to stall her husband’s trial by the EFCC. EFCC’S RENEWED WAR On September 15, 2021, a month and two weeks before the drama unfolded on House No 9, Mataima, Street, Abuja, the EFCC had signaled its intention to re-open the probe of Dr Peter Odili. The Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) claimed, in response to a suit filed by the former Rivers State governor in a Federal High Court, Abuja, challenging the seizure of his passport by the NIS, that the EFCC had “placed Peter Odili on its watch list.”

Counsel to the NIS, Jimoh Adamu, said he came to court to file a counter affidavit to oppose Odili’s suit, while Ifedayo Adedipe for Odili did not oppose the request for adjournment of the suit.

“Part of the war on this matter is to embarrass, harass, intimidate and that was the agenda on the raiding of Justice Odili’s home,” said the government source.

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BATTLE OF WITS There is no doubt that a battle of wits has taken off with the Nigeria Bar Association wading in to whip the different parties into line. The National President of the association, which is the umbrella body for lawyers in the country, Mr Olumide Akpata, said the NBA would constitute a panel to unravel who authorised the search warrant reportedly issued by Mr Emmanuel Iyanna, the Chief Magistrate in Abuja and ascertain the level of involvement of the AttorneyGeneral and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, with the promise to report Malami to the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee and the Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee, which would consider if the AGF should be stripped of his title of a senior advocate, if found culpable.

Ozekhome said, “NBA for too long has been prostate and not barking. Under Akpata, the organisation has notched up some achievements. The NBA is right in calling the AGF to order and putting up a petition against him because he is first a lawyer and answerable to the NBA. The judiciary has been the whipping child of governments since the colonial times. It should be able to bark and bite. In a democracy, it is an independent arm of government and should not allow itself to be intimidated by either the judiciary or the legislature.”

In his reaction, the spokesman for the AGF, Dr Umar Gwandu Gwandu, said the move by the NBA was pre-

“

Part of the war on this matter is to embarrass, harass, intimidate and that was the agenda on the raiding of Justice Odili’s home

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emptive as security agencies were still investigating the affair.

Gwandu reportedly said, “Members of the committee will not be dancing to the tune of mischief makers to satisfy the whimsical aspersions of certain individuals.

“By saying ‘to take action against the AGF’ makes it confusingly pre-emptive, antithetical to doctrines of fair hearing and presumption of innocence, prejudicial, conclusive and does not give any room for further investigation at a time when the matter is being investigated by relevant agencies.”

As at press time, no substantial head way had been made on the drama. The Office of the AttorneyGeneral and Minister of Justice, which had denied authorising the magistrate to issue the purported search warrant, is yet to empanel members of the committee to probe what transpired as at Friday November 6, 2021, a week after the ugly incident and five days after it denied any involvement. The Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba Alkali, said the force had intensified investigation to unmask the unknown security personnel that carried out the invasion.

CSP Lawrence Ajodo, who led the operation to the Odilis’ home, has been identified and suspended by the police authorities. He reportedly wore and identity sign by AGF office.

Uncertainty will continue to hang over the matter until the various investigation and probe panels come to equity with their findings. Until then, the Supreme Court’s position will still remain the most probable reason for the invasion.

“Although there have emerged discordant tunes from the various security agencies that allegedly participated in the dastardly act, we are not lying low on this dehumanising treatment meted out to one of our own.

“We have commenced a full-scale independent investigation to unravel the true masquerades behind the mystery as well as the real motives behind the whole incident,” the supreme court statement said.

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NEWS Nigeria Endowed With Unique Cultural Features – NCAC Boss

BY JANEFRANCES CHIBUZOR

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Ogun State Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun (right), rewarded Dr Joy Adesina for emerging the best Graduating Medical Student from the Faculty of Medicine, Obafemi Awolowo Universit (OAU), with a new house and cash gift, at the Governor’s Office Abeokuta, Ogun State on 3/11/2021.

Things Will Get Worse Without Lawmaker Charges Restructuring, Says Ndoma-Egba Judiciary on Democracy FROM UKANDI ODEY, JOS

FROM BASSEY ANIEKAN, CALABAR

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former Senate leader and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN), has lent his voice to the call for restructuring.

Speaking in Calabar, capital of Cross River State, on Friday, Ndoma-Egba said that things will get worse in the country if calls for restructuring are not heeded.

“Things will only get worse if we insist on retaining the current structure.

We have to go back to the drawing board. We must restructure one way or the other,” he said.

On the modalities for restructuring, the legal luminary said a national consensus has to be reached.

“For any amendment to pass a near national consensus must have been reached. The Constitution does not provide how that consensus can be reached.

Therefore, the process of arriving at that consensus has to be outside the constitution.

“It will require any national conversation, which may as well be beyond the structure of the country, but also its vision and destination.

It has to be a conversation that will involve everyone more so as the powers of the National Assembly to amend the constitution are severely circumscribed,” he said.

Stressing that the current federal structure is no longer workable, the former Senate leader noted that the centre had become overburdened and unwieldy, with more than 70 percent of the federal expenditure going to recurrent expenditure and less than 30 percent reserved for capital expenditure.

He also said that Nigeria had reached the point of structural implosion, as the economy lost its productive capacity.

Kano Promises to Advance Future of Tourism

BY JANEFRANCES CHIBUZOR

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he Kano State Government has emphasised its commitment to further reposition the tourism sector for growth.

Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, made this known during a courtesy visit to his office by a delegation from the National Association of Nigeria Travel Agencies (NANTA). Ganduje, who also emerged NANTA Governor of the Year, for building a solid support base for tourism infrastructure and providing adequate security architecture, said he had turned around the facilities at the Kano International Airport to provide the best air services operations.

According to him, the development would make Kano Airport attractive to international carriers and further boost trade and tourism services in the ancient city.

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The governor said, “We consulted Emirate airlines and they worked with us to upgrade the Kano International Airport, but for COVID-19 and the ongoing diplomatic efforts to resolve Emirate airlines flight issues to Nigeria, the airline would have been operating out of Kano by now. That is how serious we are here about making Kano a competitive destination.”

Ganduje said his administration had worked to eliminate bottlenecks, built bridges and fixed roads, which he described as critical to the movement of goods and people.

Speaking earlier, the Vice-President of NANTA, Yinjka Folami, said that tourism infrastructural development in Kano under the Abdullahi Ganduje administration could not be overemphasised.

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member of the House of Representatives, Hon Beni Lar (Langtang North/Langtang South), has called on the judiciary to stand its ground and be committed to sanitising and saving Nigeria’s democracy from systemic abuse.

Lar made this call while addressing journalists after a court ruling reinstated the Chairman of Langtang North Local Government Area, Joshua Laven Ubandoma. She saluted the judiciary, describing it as the only organ that checks the excesses of the other arms of government by providing the legal basis for constitutional order.

Lar asked why the Governor of Plateau State, Simon Lalong, would want to abuse executive power and flagrantly violate the Constitution by truncating the mandate given by the people for a definite tenure.

Also the lawmaker described the Justice Kunda Ishaku judgment, which restored Ubandoma to office, as a “landmark” judgement and a lesson against abuse and corruption of power.

She argued that INEC would not have conducted itself like the Plateau Independent Electoral Commission (PLASIEC), which conducted elections into an office whose mandate was still subsisting and expressed the opinion that the recovery and restoration of Ubandoma’s mandate had brought joy to the entire Langtang North LGA and the people would have more dividends of democracy before the end of his tenure in October 2022.

PLASIEC had curiously terminated the tenure of the PDP-led administration in Langtang North and included it in a controversial local government election in which it declared the APC candidate winner on October 9, 2021.

he National Council of the Arts and Culture (NCAC) has described Nigeria as one of the most culturally diverse nations globally.

The NCAC Director-General, Otunba Segun Runsewe, expressed this view while endorsing the Ohafia Heritage Festival and Slave Route Tour (OHFESRT), scheduled for January 2-3, 2022, in Ohafia, Abia State.

Runsewe pointed out that Nigeria has over 250 distinct ethnic groups, each with a unique cultural manifestation, clearly giving her a comparative advantage over other African nations in the cultural tourism sector.

He expressed hope that the culturalcum-tourism event would add value to the economic agenda of the present administration in the state, adding that the gains from the festival would trickle down to everyone: the tour guides, art and crafts makers, transporters, car rental operators and hotels, as well as other tourism-reliant businesses.

“It is important to note that festivals serve as a catalyst that attracts recreation seekers to destinations with great tourism offerings. This means that visitors are likely to spend more days in a given destination when attracted to the cultural festivals in that destination.

“This long stays help to improve the revenue-base of the people and also impact on the local economy,” he said Runsewe also disclosed that the NCAC was working closely with state governments and key stakeholders in the arts, culture and tourism sector to develop, harness and promote these cultural products as rich economic assets to drive the Federal Government’s diversification agenda.

“It is in the light of the above that the Council has given its full endorsement for the take-off of OHFESRT,” he explained.

According to him, Ohafia boasts a rich and colourful cultural history anchored on the creative artistry of its people. He pointed to relics from the slave trade era and the Ohafia War Dance with its fearsome war-like display rendered in rhythmic drum percussion, energetic and intimidating dance steps as some of the materials that can be developed into rich tourism attractions.

OHFESRT is a festival conceived to showcase and celebrate the heritage of Ohafia and old Bende people in Abia State. The organisers said the event aimed to drive tourist traffic to Ohafia and Abia/North and, by so doing, boost tourism in the state.

They said, “It is a festival aimed at providing a platform to create content to celebrate the culture, history, creativity and artistry of the culture-active people of Ohafia and by extension the old Bende region. The festival is also designed to create tourism content and develop a tourism economy for the people.”

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POLITICS PDP: New Executive And Road to 2023 he was not comfortable with the domineering posture of the PDP governors in the affairs of the party.

Speaking with THEWILL, a public affairs analyst based in Abuja, John Mayaki, said the governors had hijacked the PDP and anybody who desires any position in that party must receive the blessing of the PDP Governors Forum led by Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State.

He said, “The governors’ emergence as power brokers within the PDP may be the beginning of a crisis as they may also insist that one of them will carry the party’s flag in the 2023 presidential election.

“This may frustrate other presidential aspirants in the party.

In fact, the convention has showed that you need to get the backing of the governors to get any position in the party. Look at the humiliation given to Oyinlola, who was even a former governor of the party. Between him and Arapaja, who should be picked if the governors are sincere and love the progress of the party?

Tambuwal

“So what I am saying is that one of the governors may emerge as the party’s presidential candidate and you know that about three of them have already indicated their interest to contest”.

BY AYO ESAN

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he main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has successfully conducted its National Convention and elected a new executive that will lead the party to the 2023 general election and conduct its affairs for the next four years. To political analysts and observers, the party has scaled the first hurdle and its triumph, in terms of the unity of purpose displayed at the convention, may have reinforced its hope of becoming the next occupant of the Aso Rock Villa, having occupied it for 16 years at a stretch (between 1999 and 2015).

The use of consensus and elections to decide the composition of the new executive, some observers believe, has also shown that the present PDP is a more coherent and stable political party. Eager to see how this description fits the party, many political observers are also waiting on the wings to see how the PDP will navigate the ‘more dangerous river ‘ of choosing its standard bearer for the 2023 Presidential election.

THE CONVENTION The PDP Convention was held at the Eagles Square, Abuja, between October 30 and 31, 2021. Political observers have described it as successful due to the carnival-like atmosphere that was devoid of rancour, which was common during elective conventions of political parties in the past.

At the convention, Prof Iyorchia Ayu, who had earlier been chosen via consensus, was affirmed as the new National Chairman of the party.

Others elected alongside Ayu in the PDP National Working Committee are Deputy National Chairman (North), Umar Damagum; Deputy National Chairman (South), Taofeek Arapaja; National Secretary, Samuel Anyanwu; National Treasurer, Ahmed Mohammed; National Organising Secretary, Umar Bature; National Financial Secretary, Daniel Woyegikuro and National Women’s Leader, Prof Stella Effah-Attoe; National Youth Leader, Muhammed Suleiman; National Legal Adviser, Kamaldeen Ajibade; National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba; and National Auditor, Okechuckwu Daniel, among others.

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The elected officers are products of zoning and micro-zoning arranged by the party. This was adopted to bring a sense of belonging to all zones and areas of the country.

Most members of the new executive are also products of consensus arrangement. But where consensus could not be reached in a few positions like the Deputy National Chairman North and South, an election was conducted.

Following a failed attempt to persuade a former Governor of Osun State, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, to step down for a former Deputy Governor of Oyo State, Taofeek Arapaja, PDP governors ensured that state delegates were mobilised for the latter. At the poll, Arapaja got 2,004 votes to defeat Oyinlola, who polled 705 votes, while a total of 165 votes were declared invalid.

The wife of late former Minister of Finance, Alhaji Adamu Ciroma, Hajia Inna Ciroma, also refused to step down from the race for the National Deputy Chairman (North) in favour of Umar Damagum. At the end of the election, Damagum polled 2, 222 votes to beat Ciroma who got only 365 votes.

GOVERNORS EMERGE POWER BROKERS One outcome of the PDP National Convention was the emergence of state governors as the top financiers and power brokers of the party.

All the convention committees were headed by the governors.

Also, all the new members of the National Working Committee were on the governors list. The few that were not elected through consensus, also won their elections by a landslide.

Political analysts and observers believe this development is dangerous for the party as the elders and founding fathers of the party are being relegated to the background. They believe these elders may be frustrated into quitting the party, which would still need their input in future elections.

It would also be recalled that the former President Goodluck Jonathan, who was billed to speak at the convention, failed to attend. Although, he was said to have an official engagement outside the country, but some people close to him said

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THE WAY FORWARD Still basking in the success of the party’s National Convention, many PDP Leaders are optimistic of a good outing in the 2023 presidential election. Most of them have expressed the opinion that the days of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Aso Rock Villa are numbered.

For instance, former Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, noted that the PDP would reap a bountiful harvest from the crisis bedeviling the APC. He said that some members of the ruling party had been planning to defect to the Peoples Democratic Party, ahead of the 2023 general election.

Saraki also hinted that there would be a gale of defections.

He said, “We have the potential to turn the country around and that is why I believe with the right leadership, things can change in the country. I often say that no one can give whatever he does not have. In 2023, we have to get it right and to do that, we need the right kind of leadership.

“We already knew that some state governors would leave. We were not surprised that they defected to the APC. Since then, we have had some bigwigs that joined us.

“Aside from that, we know that some of the leaders in the ruling party will not defect early. Instead, they will do it late.

You saw that during the 2015 election. So, keep watching.

Nigerians will not be surprised when they begin to see some defections from the ruling party to the PDP. “On the question that if I decide to run and don’t get the ticket, would I defect? I think that is not really fair. In 2015, I ran for the presidency and didn’t get it, but I offered myself to be the Director-General of the Atiku Campaign Organisation and I worked hard.

“I’m a team player. Personal ambition is not what the issue is today; what is important is to get this country right. I have my children and grandchildren and we must leave a better country with jobs for our talented youths. The fact that I said some people would defect does not mean I would defect.”

The new PDP Chairman, Prof Iyorchia Ayu, also boasted that the party would rescue Nigeria from the mess that the APC had plunged the country as he dared the ruling party to conduct a national convention, which he pointed out might never happen because the APC has 92 chairmen in 36 state chapters of the party. *Continues on Page 10

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POLITICS/INTERVIEW

Nigeria Needs New Political And Economic Models – Omokhodion Former Speaker of the Edo State House of Assembly and one-time Commissioner for Finance in the state, Bright Omokhodion, speaks with AMOS ESELE about the current state of the nation and other issues. Excerpts:

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ow would you assess the current state of affairs in the country, with non-state actors asserting their power every passing

As we speak, many local government areas in the North-West and North-Central are in the hands of bandits. I think the Federal Government should heed the call of lawmakers and other stakeholders who have demanded that the bandits be branded terrorists so that security agencies will be able to apply the correct measures in dealing with them. They are not the same thing: banditry is like scout action, while the terrorists plan assault on the integrity of the country.

We have to be more proactive in handling the situation because every part of the country is being threatened by their activities. In the South-West and SouthEast we now have separatists and secessionists, with people called unknown gunmen shooting and killing people in the South-East. It is so bad that the Anambra governorship poll may witnessed the election of an unpopular government because the voting pattern, in an atmosphere of fear, may not reflect the general mandate of the people but political expediency.

Would you support the view that the country’s prevailing economic and political models have collapsed and there is a need for new ones?

That is truism and a reality for a long time, not even in a decade. When I worked in the banking industry, we used to have cocoa industry, warehouses and industrialists like Adebowale, who was manufacturing and assembling electronic gadgets; Dunlop, PAN and textile industries that employed a lot of Nigerians.

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Omokhodion

day?

Call them what you will, I think our country is being vitiated by forces and non-actors threatening the stability and foundation of the country. It started with the terrorism in the North-East, which looked like a skirmish but has turned into a conflagration as every part of the country is virtually feeling the impact of kidnapping, vandalism and banditry.

They made Nigeria a great economic hub with Lagos, Kano and Port Harcourt as economic centres of Africa. None of these industries exists anymore. They have been transformed into worship centres. We have become import dependent, a consumer economy. On the streets of many Nigerian towns and cities today, you find roving masses with no destination.

Who is to blame?

The lack of visionary leadership is to blame. It is like there is an economic conspiracy against the destiny of Nigerians. Nigerians are the greatest enemies of their country. Since we discovered oil at Oloibiri and abandoned agriculture, things have never been the same again for the country. If we had a food policy, for instance, and not make it look like we are dealing with eating, then we would have been able to develop the agri-business value chain that sees farm produce

as economic products. Take palm oil, for instance.

From it we can make toothpicks, vegetable oil, wine and cake, all of which we still import. That was how the Chinese developed chopsticks.

After importing cutlery for a long time they discovered that with a huge population importing cutlery was constituting a drain on their economy. By the time they developed a culture of using chopsticks, they found out they had taken the right step and thereby enriched the producers of their cutlery for millions of their people. When the government established the National Economic Fund (NEFUND) sometime ago, it was to give loans to investors. We interrogated many of the investors when I was in the bank, but the effort was sabotaged and the country started importing oil, wine and the initial investors and their companies stagnated.

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POLITICS/INTERVIEW

Do you think some of these issues you have raised can be taken care of during the ongoing constitutional and electoral amendment?

A serious country does not depend on constitutional and electoral development. That is why leadership is at the top and the masses are at the base of the pyramid of development. Those who think for a country are usually a minority. We have to decentralise power and restructure the country such that national development policy can be adapted by each region to which power is devolved. If we restructure and devolve resources, the various enclaves would develop faster.

You and some other prominent Nigerians have formed a new group called Eminent Elders Forum. Is it aimed at the 2023 general election?

No, we are not partisan or sectional. We are engaging in every aspect of life in politics in the country. We intervene on issues along the lines we have been talking about in this interview. Take the collapsed building in Lagos, for instance. We would ask about the building policy of Nigeria, who authorised and supervised the structure?

Your party, the All Progressives Congress came to power to solve three major challenges, namely corruption, economy and insecurity. It would appear they are failing on all of the promises.

What is your take on this?

There is nothing wrong with failing. They appear to be failing due to the circumstances in which they wanted to implement these policies. If a foundation is weak, you cannot put something concrete on it. I am not an apologist for APC on this matter. Suffice it to say that Nigerians in APC are not different from you and I. Ours is a country that is not properly structured, where industries have turned to worship centres and there are no productive processes going on. Corruption is not about taking money; it is a culture. One of the greatest errors in our development stride in Nigeria is the lack of orientation and that is where the National Orientation Agency comes in.

The politics of 2023 is gradually building up. What would say about that as a politician?

Yes, 2023 is around the corner. It is very clear that there will be a change of guard and another person will come in as President. I would say that we have the opportunity to ensure we improve on what has been done so far because democratic governance is run that way. We must ensure that we do not continue to do the same thing in the same way as we have been doing so the country can continue to move on.

We need change agents with capacity, capability and character so we can continue to see progress. I make bold to say that the country can best be ruled by people like us who grew out of poverty, excelled out of poverty and survived out of poverty. When I was commissioner of finance in Edo State, the only person that said I did not do well was someone who wanted me to open the treasury for him and I refused. I told him if he was using his own parameter to assess me, I agreed. We paid all civil servants and pensioners.

Lecturers at Ambrose Alli University were paid their outstanding salaries.

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...Executive And Road to 2023 *Continued from Page 7

Ayu described those who imagined that the PDP would break up at the convention as dreamers and assured that the party was poised to reunite all parts of the country.

“When we started this party 23 years ago, we never in any way imagined that the journey will get us to this stage, a stage where we ruled for 16 years. We went into rough times, but for anybody who will bother to see, the PDP is back. The PDP is back to rescue Nigeria from the terrible mess we have been in the last six years.

“Many people imagined that this convention would lead to the breakup of the PDP. Those people were dreaming in wonderland.

“We will move ahead to develop this country. We did it before. We are going to do it again. I believe the other party can never hold a convention because even state congress they cannot hold. They have produced 92 state chairmen for 36 states. How can they hold a convention? We are watching.

This is a challenge to them. Let them come and hold a successful convention, which the PDP has done. This is a quit notice. PDP is back and is taking back the country to develop it,” he said.

“The six key positions are the President, Vice president, National Chairman, Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF).

“Naturally, this means that if the Presidency goes to the North, the Chairman of the party goes to the South and vice versa. These positions are zoned because of the necessity of national belonging and accommodation. Every section of this nation must have a sense of equitable participation in our national life. This has been the enduring pivot of our democratic experience since 1999.”

He further said, “There is now threat to this unwritten doctrine. The zoning arrangement, which gave the North the chairmanship of our party and leaves the Presidency open is incongruous, unwholesome and a recipe for disaster.

“Once the chairmanship is now in the North, the presidency must come to the south. There must not be any ambiguity at all. This should be crystal clear. Hanging the presidency in the air like a hovering craft without a landing zone is dangerous, unfair and wrong.”

Also speaking with THEWILL, a member Board of Trustees of the PDP and former Minister of Transport, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, said Nigerians are looking up to the PDP to rescue them in 2023. He said the party with its new executive should not disappoint the people, ”Our party will bounce back and we will provide the right leadership for the country. We are going to win the next presidential election and ensure that Nigerians enjoy new life,” Babatope said.

One contentious issue that the PDP’s new executive may find it hard to handle is whether to zone its presidential candidate or throw it open to all the six geo- political zones.

The party had zoned the national chairmanship to the North, while it left the slot for presidential candidate open. Many southern PDP leaders are now calling for the zoning of the presidential candidate of the party to the South.

Speaking with THE WILL, a former Deputy National Chairman of the PDP, Chief Olabode George, said zoning is about equity and fairness.

“There is an old, enlightening principle laid down by the founding fathers of our party since 1999 that six key positions must always be zoned to the six geo- political constituents of our nation to ensure equity and orderly balance of power.

Fintiri

When I was Commissioner of Finance in Edo State, I also had cause to visit the rubber factory at Urhonigbe, which used to produce fluid for tyres.

Now we are importing tyres and brake fluid that oil palms can take care of. The point I am making is that the country must have a specific and dynamic policy for every aspect of its growth and development that is scientifically measured and supported by continued research. That is what developed countries do.

Nigeria Will Be Blissful – Maharajj ji

BY AYO ESAN

T

he founder of One Love Family, Satguru Maharajj ji has said that despite the insecurity bedevilling the country, Nigeria will bounce back and be blissful.

Maharajj ji who was speaking in Lagos with journalists on the 61st independence anniversary of Nigeria said Nigerians top the list of foreign nationals who have the highest number of investments in Abu Dhabi, Jordan, Egypt, France and Panama Islands.

He urges governnent to seize the opportunity of the 61st birthday to call on Nigerians who have been blessed to be encouraged to do little extra humanitarian services towards reconstructing and rehabilitation of schools and school buildings and provide employment for youths.

He said doing this will be better than “allowing stolen money to be used against Nigerians through manipulation by foreign partners to establish companies that would endanger our

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health and also caused health hazards for producing products for overseas companies right from Nigeria”.

He further said that “ It is time for all of us to assist the Buhari governnent to flush out all the Fulani herdsmen who have taken over some Local Government areas of Benue State and return same to the Benue since there was no war between the Benue people and the adjoining states like the Arab attack on Israel that failed in 1967 Israel and Arab War”.

Maharajj ji has also called on President Muhammadu Buhari to ask Governor Mala Buni to resign as Acting Chairman of the APC. He said this is necessary because Buni is doing another job as the incumbent Governor of a state, saying there is the need for a new person whose sole responsibility should be for the party , not party and state, as at present.

He said the current dual position of Buni “violates the constitution of the APC and is a very dirty act”.

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POLITICS

PLHA: This House is Falling last September, the members expressed concern over the spate of killings that were going on in the state and called on him to rise quickly and safeguard the lives of the people.

The ultimatum also requested the governor to visit the areas affected by the nocturnal attacks and commiserate with the people and provide them material intervention.

Before the ultimatum, however, the Speaker had taken the initiative to provide or express official concern over the killings by visiting some of the affected places. This outing, according to sources, hit Lalong above the midriff, as he feels the Speaker did this more for political ego massage than for humanitarian considerations and respect for mankind.

Lalong

Beyond the foregoing are issues that have to do with accountability and transparency in government and governance. The Speaker, Abok, is said to have become weary of the state’s debt profile and a culture of loans accumulation without results to show for the loan facilities already procured. As a matter of fact, the Speaker is contemptuous of how the loans collected have been used and he is not willing to allow the legislature under him to become an instrument for the executive arm to embrace ostentation and self-aggrandisement while the state’s developmental aspirations are compromised or plunged into oblivion.

The Plateau State House of Assembly is on the brink of implosion due to the actions of divisive forces working from within and externally, UKANDI ODEY writes

D

uring the emergent politics of post-state of emergency Plateau State , Joshua Dariye and Simon Lalong, as governor and speaker, respectively then, were constantly on the run because a raging intra-PDP opposition, spear-headed by Ibrahim Mantu, then Deputy Senate President, coalesced some interests and forces, which forced the state executive headed by Dariye and a section of the legislature led

by Simon Lalong, into a political symbiosis that was strengthened as much by a ferocious EFCC manhunt as other subterranean interests.

Fifteen years later and with critical changes to the dramatis personae, the actors are either regrettably unavailable or playing the agent provocateur.

Less than a fortnight ago, at a thanksgiving church service held in Jos, the m state capital, Prophet Isa El Buba, who is also the vice president of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, could not have asked for a better opportunity to pull a master stroke, with Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in the congregation. Much to the relief of most worshippers in attendance at the service session, Prophet El Buba openly challenged and urged Governor Simon Lalong to go and fix the problem in the Plateau House of Assembly. It was barely two days after a drama took place in the House of Assembly and ended in the ‘impeachment’ of the speaker, Abok Ayuba, by only seven lawmakers in a 24-member House where eight were required to form a quorum and two-thirds for impeachment.

Although Governor Simon Lalong denied complicity in the festering crisis threatening to bring down the House and the state, it was clear to the Vice President that all was not well that had not ended well. This was even

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more obvious as Lalong’s claims and rebuttals angered many of those who were in attendance, forcing them to abandon the service before the minister in charge of the proceedings for the day ordered an immediate closure of all the doors so as to stave off an obvious embarrassment before the august visitor.

However, the seven members loyal to Lalong, who are claiming to have impeached Abok, are accusing him of incompetence and corruption. They also allege that he has a matter to reconcile with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and so must give way for investigation of his tenure. This, however, has not impressed many, especially now that Government House betrayed its own complicity in the plot by the zeal and relief it displayed in receiving and pledging cooperation with the ‘new House leadership’.

The following Monday, Prophet Isa El Buba’s admonition in the church received prophetic grace and endorsement as the premises of the State House of Assembly was besieged by hundreds of youths, apparently in solidarity with Speaker Abok and his 14 colleagues opposed to the impunity, parliamentary rascality, procedural absurdity and atrophy which the other seven lawmakers wrongly called an impeachment.

Since last Monday, normalcy in the House has been on holiday. With the Assembly complex under security lock, legislation and parliamentary proceedings have lapsed into a state of stasis. As at press time last Wednesday, the debacle had claimed its first casualty as Edward Egbuka was replaced by Bathlomew Nnamdi Onyeaka as Plateau State Police Commissioner “with immediate effect”.

Favoured to emerge as speaker by Governor Lalong when the Assembly was inaugurated in 2019, what went awry between the governor and the head of the state legislature? Abok’s situation is said to be a synthesis of local politics and the 2023 aspirations, as well as the calculations, of some political force majeures in Jos East Local Government Area as the two leading political parties in the state are billed to get governorship running mates from the Plateau North Senatorial District, in which Jos East is a key factor in the permutations of one of the parties. To that extent, Abok is said to be haunted by a political mogul from the same area, who assesses Abok’s subsistence as speaker as inimical to his chances of becoming deputy governor in 2023.

Immediate past governor of the state, Senator Jonah David Jang, has condemned the development and warned of its ugly implications for democracy and negative impact on the development aspirations of the State. Noting that the situation at hand in the House of Assembly goes beyond partisan politics and parochialism, he has called on the elders of the state to rise, intervene and save the Plateau project from being destroyed by the greed and ambition of a few individuals.

Ironically, the same force that gave impetus to the emergence of Abok as Speaker of the State House of Assembly is also at work in the plan for his political dethronement and annihilation. Enter Lalong and the sentiments and trajectory of the poorly handled crisis arising from the killings in Rigwe land of Bassa Local Government Area in July and August this year, which forced the legislature to issue the governor an ultimatum and frowned at his complacency and display of lack of passion for the plight of the deceased and their grieving people.

In the ultimatum the House of Assembly issued Lalong

Nevertheless, Governor Lalong, whose public perception, with rating in local opinion polls, has been plummeting since the frenzy of killings that peaked last August and now in another free fall as a result of the executive-induced imbroglio in the State House of Assembly, said Jang was simply politicising the matter.

In a riposte to the statement issued by Jang, Lalong’s Commissioner of Information, Dan Manjang, called on the people of Plateau to ignore the call-to-duty alarm

by Jang, saying he lacked the “democratic credentials” and “moral authority” to roll out the drums in this matter.

As the debacle subsists, many people are wondering the circumstantial and contextual nexus between Lalong’s claim that crises in Plateau are caused by politicians and the ongoing executive-legislature imbroglio.

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NOVEMBER 7 - NOVEMBER 13, 2021 T H E W I L L N E W S P A P E R • www.thewillnigeria.com

SHOTS OF THE WEEK PHOTO EDITOR: PEACE UDUGBA [08033050729]

L-R: Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Lagos State, Dr. Idris Salako; Permanent Secretary, Lagos Ministry of Health, Dr. Olusegun Ogboye; Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu; his Deputy, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat and Commissioner for Special Duties and Inter-Government Relations, Lagos State, Engr. Tayo Bamgbose-Martins, during the governor’s media briefing at the site of the collapsed building, in Ikoyi, Lagos State on 3/11/2021.

L- R: Marketing Manager, Nestle Waters Nigeria, Gloria Nwabuike; Managing Director /CEO, Nestle Nigeria PLC, Wassim Elhussieni and Corporate Communications and Public Affairs Manager, Nestle Nigeria PLC, Victoria Uwadoka, during the official media launch of new Nestle Life Sparkling Water at Oriental Hotel Victoria Island , Lagos on 4/11/2021.

Image Credit: Peace Udugba/Thewill.

L-R: Commissioner of Police, Ogun State, Lanre Bankole; Commander, Amotekun Corps, David Akinremi; Governor of Ogun State, Dapo Abiodun; Commander, Traffic Compliance and Enforcement Corps, Seeni Ogunyemi; Inspector General of Police, Baba Usman Alkali; Assistant Inspector General of Police, Zone 2, Johnson Kokumo and the General Officer Commanding (GOC) 81 Division, Nigerian Army, Major General Lawrence Fejokwu, during the 2021 Capacity Building Workshop with the theme, ‘Internal Security Operations in a Democratic Dispensation’, held at Continental Hotel, Lagos on 2/11/2021.

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila (2nd right); Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Hon. Benjamin Kalu (2nd left); DG, National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies, Prof. Abubakar Sulaiman (left) and the Resident Representative, Konrad Adenauer Stifung, Mr Vladimir Kreck (right), at the opening of a capacity building workshop for members of the committee held in Abuja on 1/11/2021.

L-R: Governor of Imo State, Hope Uzodinma, with the Deputy Commandant and Director of Studies, National President Muhammadu Buhari (right), received APC chieftain and former governor of Borno State, Sen Ali Modu Defence College, Major-Gen Emeka Victor Onumajuru, when Course 30 of the College paid a working visit to the Sheriff (right) at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on 31/10/ 2021. governor at Government House, Owerri on 4/11/2021.

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EDITORIAL

The Ikoyi Building Collapse

T

he recent collapse of a 21-storey building under construction at Ikoyi, Lagos, is a huge tragedy and a sad commentary on our national life. Over 30 persons were confirmed dead and many injured in the ghastly incident that trapped the workers and visitors to the site.

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has expressed displeasure and also ordered a probe into the incident.

While we await the outcome of the fact-finding panel, we unequivocally condemn the frequent building collapse that Lagos has become notorious for.

The Ikoyi tragedy apparently overshadowed the case of a two-storey building that failed on the same date, November 1, in the Lekki area of the state. The building, which was also under construction, was said to have caved in after the downpour on that night.

Earlier, the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LAS BCA) had confirmed the partial collapse of a three-floor structure in Aguda, Surulere area on October 25, 2021, which was attributed to the wrongdoing of the landlord.

The General-Manager of the LAS BCA, Arc. Gbolahan Oki, revealed that the owner had carried out illegal renovations

and added attachments to the building without recourse to the agency.

In July 2021, a three-storey building at Church Street on Lagos Island partially collapsed in the night while residents were asleep. The LAS BCA said that the structural failure of a part of the beam carrying a water tank was responsible for the incident. In the same month, a two-storey building under construction at Isawo community in Ikorodu described as an attachment, collapsed and killed the owner According to the Nigerian Institute of Building (N IOB), no fewer than 43 buildings under construction collapsed in Nigeria in 2019 and many lives were lost in the incidents. The National President of N IOB, Kunle Awobodu, said that 17 of the cases were recorded in Lagos alone. The rest occurred in other parts of the country.

While we condemn this ugly incident across the country, the frequency with which buildings collapse in Lagos, the nation’s commercial hub, is worrying.

The fact that virtually all the cases were traced to abuse of process and application of inferior materials suggests that intransigence has become common in the sector. The act of deliberate negligence and collusion of regulatory authorities cannot be ruled out.

It is improbable that property owners, contractors, builders and other professionals

would embark on building constructions with impunity for wrongdoing, at a great cost to human lives and resources.

The development brings to question the relevance of the Cement Grade Policy introduced by the Standards Organisations of Nigeria (SON) in 2014 under Dr. Joseph Odumodu, former DirectorGeneral, to curb the menace of building collapse across the country.

Majority of the stakeholders during the public hearing submitted that “non-adherence to professional ethics, wrong combination of materials, poor supervision, corruption”, were responsible for the building collapse. They called for decisive enforcement and monitoring of the National Building Code. But SON went its way and ‘enacted’ the controversial Cement Grade

On its part, Lagos introduced the state’s Building Code and Regulation with statutory agency and instrument setting out the minimum requirements for the design, construction and maintenance of buildings

Publisher/Editor-in-Chief

Austyn Ogannah Editor – Olaolu Olusina Deputy Editor – Amos Esele Politics Editor – Ayo Esan Business Editor – Sam Diala News Editor (Online) – Felix Oboagwina Copy Editor – Chux Ohai Cartoon Editor – Victor Asowata Entertainment/Society Editor – Ivory Ukonu Photo Editor – Peace Udugba Head, Graphics – Tosin Yusuph Circulation Manager – Victor Nwokoh

The National Building Code created in 2006, was initiated by the National Council on Housing and Urban Development to address the professional and regulatory deficiencies in the building industry. To achieve these laudable objectives, state governments were required to integrate the provisions of the Code into their local laws, particularly those relating to design, construction and maintenance (postconstruction) and efficiently monitor the implementation of the Code.

On its part, Lagos introduced the state’s Building Code and Regulation with statutory agency and instrument setting out the minimum requirements for the design, construction and maintenance of buildings. It is obvious that compliance to the requirements of the extant Building Code has been in the breach. The failure to decisively enforce and comply with the building control code or law has largely been responsible for varied building failures in the state.

We call on Lagos and other states to ensure strict compliance with the National and State Building Codes.

Government should ensure strict enforcement of the Builders Liability Insurance/ Insurance of Buildings under Construction. This component of the Compulsory Insurance Scheme launched in 2003 requires that every owner or contractor of any building under construction with more than two floors, must take an insurance policy to cover liability against construction risks caused by the negligence of the contractor, owner, servants, agents, consultants which may result in death, bodily injury, or property damage to workers or the public.

The insurance must be undertaken from the construction stage. The purpose is to guard the public against construction risks that may be caused by negligence. The insurance should also cover the collapse of the building.

The Lagos State Government must ensure adequate investigation into the incident and see to it that all those found culpable, no matter how highly placed, are made to face the law.

Nigeria Bureau: 36 Remi Fani-Kayode Street, GRA, Ikeja. Lagos, Nigeria. info@thewillnigeria.com / @ THEWILLNG, +234 810 345 2286, +234 913 333 3888.

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

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Policy, overlooking the priority that should have been given to the existing rules.

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OPI N ION

Conjoined Nigerian Twins Called Democracy And Military Rule

BY UZOR MAXIM UZOATU

T

he grotesque Nigerian twins called democracy and military rule are crucially joined at the stomach.

The military politicos and the civilian politicians eat into the same fat stomach like Siamese twins.

It is little wonder then that two generals of the military, who were former heads of state, have served as civilian presidents since Nigeria’s much-ballyhooed 1999 return to democratic rule.

No Nigerian can forget in a hurry that on May 29, 1999, a military head of state handed over power to a civilian president who had pulled off his army uniform after serving as a military head of state.

Call it “Army Arrangement” and Fela Anikulapo-Kuti will take a bow in his grave.

What passes for democracy in the old country is what has come to be seen as the recycling of old military power.

The military potentates are being lionised by their toadies for giving Nigerian democracy iron teeth, a feat beyond the soft ways of civilian politicians. The most despicable lackey of current Nigerian power – his name is not important - has come up with the baloney that his master Buhari towers over legendary leaders, such as Zik and Awo. The rotund lickspittle in the house of power was wise enough to leave out the names of Ahmadu Bello and Tafawa Balewa in the Buhari popularity effusion in order not to ruffle feathers in his master’s hisbah constituency. A slice of suya for the very wise court jester!

Back in history, Nigeria’s first military coup was arranged by Emmanuel Arinze Ifeajuna, Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu and their fellow majors with the aim of cutting off the 10-percent,

big-for-nothing thieving stomachs of corrupt politicians.

with the military brass-hats.

The naïve young majors were, of course, swept aside for corruption to take full sway in the country where the inheritor head of state, Yakubu Gowon, made broadcast to the world that Nigeria’s problem was not money, but how to spend it!

The erstwhile hypothesis of Nigerian politicians and soldiers being joined at the stomach like Siamese twins has since become a thesis.

To help him spend the overdose of Nigerian money, youthful Gowon packed his cabinet with ancient and modern politicians and soldiers of fortune.

Fast forward to the much-abused “clueless” watch of the then President Goodluck Jonathan when a military lord in the shape and size of Sambo Dasuki took the special charge of distributing cash to ill-assorted politicians for consultancies and prayers!

Whilst Gowon and gang were busy eating into the same stomach, the ports jammed up with cement armada of acute and chronic corruption constipation.

Fela Anikulapo-Kuti will never truly die, so long as his lines, such as “Soja don put everybody for reverse” remain on the lips of all and sundry.

No-nonsense Murtala Mohammed then rose to power and in his characteristic manner of shooting first and thinking later, he hot-headedly killed the civil service in the same manner that he had massacred Asaba men who had come to pledge support for the federal soldiers during the Nigerian Civil War.

If it is military rule we want in this benighted country, let’s call it by its name instead of abusing the hallowed name of democracy.

With the aid and collaboration of military jackboots, politicians can steal as much as they like without the constitutional order being respected at all.

Murtala’s promise of ceding power to the politicians of stomach infrastructure was fulfilled by his successor Olusegun Obasanjo, who added the twelve-two-third bugaboo.

It was the former chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole, who put it out boldly that all sins of every corrupt politician are forgiven once he or she joins the party.

The Second Republic of President Shehu Shagari took barely four years to be overthrown by Muhammadu Buhari, who, incidentally, is back in power today as a civilian president. Yes, indeed, things change only to remain the same in Nigeria.

The story was told of rugged politician S.G Ikoku telling his wife on the morning of the Shagari overthrow: “There is no coup. It’s only the military wing of our party, the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), steadying the ship of state!”

Many opposition politicians of the Second Republic were sentenced to uncountable years of imprisonment, while the potentates of the ruling NPN supped into the same stomach

The stomachs of the soldiers and the politicians keep enlarging, while the workaday Nigerians are suffering and smiling and dying. Army generals openly admit publicly to the fact that that they bought ornate houses in Dubai under a constitutional democracy without the heavens falling.

The due process is suborned at will in this land where soldiers and politicians share a large stomach that is indeed bottomless.

Let me end with the words of my late great friend, Chima Ubani, who told me before his problematic death: “Revolution is inevitable in Nigeria.”

Africans And Relative Causes of Child Labour

BY ADEPARUA DAMILOLA

I

once attended an event that kept me until late at night. On my way back home around 8.30pm, I saw this young girl of about 10 or 11 years hawking sachet water. She was running after moving vehicles in order to sell her wares, mindless of a possible accident that could end her life, not to talk of the danger of being kidnapped or raped. But then, how many of such children must have been killed in a car accident or actually kidnapped, raped or trafficked?

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund( UNICEF), nearly one in 10 children are subjected to child labour worldwide, with some forced into hazardous work through trafficking.

Child labour is not strange to every Tom, Dick and Harry in this part of the world. In fact, saying it is practised in Nigeria will amount to nothing other than an understatement, but it is not peculiar to this country. It is seen and practised in other parts of the world, although at different levels and percentage.

The emergence of COVID-19 has brought about an increase in child labour. Available statistics show that roughly 160 million children were subjected to child labour at the beginning of 2020, with 9 million additional children at risk due to the impact of COVID-19.

According to International Labour Organisation (ILO), the term “child labour” is often defined as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, which is harmful to their physical and mental development. It refers to work that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to children and/or interferes with their schooling by depriving them of the opportunity to attend school; obliging them to leave school prematurely; or requiring them to attempt to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy work.

The worst forms of child labour involves children being enslaved, separated from their families, exposed to serious health hazards and illnesses and/or left to fend for themselves on the streets of large cities often at a very young age.

According to Wikipedia, Child labour refers to the exploitation of children through any form of work that deprives them of their childhood, interferes with their ability to attend regular school, and which is mentally, physically, socially and morally harmful.

As posited by a source, child labour can manifest in the form of THEWILLNIGERIA

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slavery or similarpractices, child trafficking, forced recruitment into armed conflict, sexual exploitation, drug production and trafficking or other illegal acts, debt bondage, hazardous work that can cause injury or moral corruption.

The latest ILO global estimates on child labour indicate that Africa has the largest number of child labourers; 72.1 million African children are estimated to be in child labour and 31.5 million in hazardous work. Another source posits that most children working below permissible age limits (72 million) live in Africa, followed by Asia(62 million). Anyone under the age of 18 is considered a child, according to the United Nations.

In the olden days, African men married many wives to give birth to numerous or even uncountable children as evident in some cases. These children are needed for nothing other than to help them on their farmlands as labourers and such men were seen as wealthy and influential due to the profits they make from their children’s hard labour. Unfortunately, even after the emergence of western education, some of these parents are still engaged in the practice and nowadays,many children are still going through the effects of the archaic culture.

Apart from the aforementioned cultural origin of child labour, what about the particular religious belief, which encourages child labour?

According to a source, the Almajirai system, which encourages begging for alms, is prevalent in northern Nigeria and practised specifically by Muslim children. In that region, Muslim families send their children from their homes into major towns and cities to live with and receive qur’anic education from Islamic teachers called “Malams”.

These children are known as “almajiris”. It has been estimated by the Ministerial Committee on Madrasah Education in December 2010 that Nigeria has about 9.5 million almajiris.

The usual Islamic law is that the almajiris have to ask their host community for food only if they are hungry and when they are satisfied, they go back to the classroom. Unfortunately, these teachers “Malams” transform the children into professional beggars by forcing them to beg for money in the street and do other menial jobs for money from dawn to dusk and surrender the proceeds (money).

The outrageous part of this is the fact that many of these children follow strangers to strange and dangerous places, which may likely endanger their lives, to beg for alms and this makes the

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research, as posited by a source, feasible that children on the move risk being forced into work or even trafficked, subjected to violence, abuse and other human rights violations.

One of the causes of child labour is poverty. Since unemployment is on the rise, the aftermath is poverty and this explains why there are many professional beggars on the streets. Parents who even have one or two children can hardly feed them, talk less of those who have numerous children. Since these parents are unable to cater for their children, it becomes expedient for the children to fend for themselves and hence, child labour.

Even right from the olden days, poor African parents who are indebted used their children as collateral!

Also free education is not compulsorily accessible to all. Many children who are interested in getting educated either hawk or go to work early in the morning before going to school so as to buy their learning materials and also pay their school fees.

Till date, government keeps advertising free education, which is not actually free. Many parents, who cannot even afford the advertised free education, end up engaging their children in child labour. Yet, the majority of Nigerian leaders enjoyed free education with other benefits attached in their own time.

Research shows that 30 million children live outside their country of birth, increasing their risk of being trafficked for sexual exploitation and other social ills. Family size also leads to child labour. Africans are fond of marrying many wives and giving birth to many children they cannot nurture and when poverty knocks on their doors, they end up sending their children either to theirrelatives or places where they can start working and fending for themselves as househelps or factory workers.

In addition, a broken home can lead to child labour. Many married couples break up with only their interests in mind; they are not concerned about the well-being of their children, who may end up being taken far away from home or to relatives who will not get them enrolled in school due to their inability to take proper care of them or who, due to their personal gains, engage them in child labour.

What about orphans who have no one to support them, who should be the responsibilities of the government but are left alone to roam about aimlessly and get kidnapped or trafficked for child labour?

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eNaira App Throws 40m Adult Nigerians Off Scheme

BY SAM DIALA

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otwithstanding the massive response to the recently unveiled Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), eNaira, which about 367,000 consumer wallets and over 58,600 merchant wallets have been downloaded in the first week, findings have shown that about 40 million adult Nigerians will be excluded from the scheme. The CBDC will also not deepen the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) financial inclusion strategy in the manner it is being promoted. The eNaira Speed Wallet that is now available on both App Store and Play Store points to this fact.

A basic requirement for accessing the speed wallet App is a bank account. Applicants must have a valid and verifiable account with a deposit money bank as the process demands customer’s key data, such as Bank Account Number, Date of Birth, and the 11-digit Bank Verification Number (BVN).

Users must input the required details or create an account before they can be linked to the wallet. Any discrepancy or omission leads to denial of access.

Both President Muhammadu Buhari and Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, have expressed optimism about the positive impact of eNaira on the socio-economic life of Nigerians. The President stated that alongside digital innovations, CBDCs can foster

Matters Arising As Airport Concession Plan Gathers Steam ANTHONY AWUNOR writes on stakeholders’ fears and expectations as the Federal Government intensifies efforts for airports’ concession

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he Federal Executive Council (FEC) in 2016 approved the concession of four major airports in the country, in a move to have them run efficiently and profitably.

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The airports are Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) Lagos, Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja, Port harcourt International Airport (PHIA) and Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport (MAKIA), Kano.

Continues on page 15

economic growth through better economic activities, increase remittances, improve financial inclusion and make monetary policy more effective. He expressed optimism that the use of CBDCs can help move more people and businesses from the informal to the formal sector, thereby increasing the tax base of the country. ”In recent times, the use of physical cash in conducting business and making payments has been on the decline. This trend has been exacerbated by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resurgence of a new digital economy.

It is on the basis of this that the CBN sought and received my approval to explore issuing Nigeria’s own Central Bank Digital Currency, named the eNaira,’’ The President said.

Also commenting, Emefiele said, “The Central Bank of Nigeria decided to introduce a central bank digital currency (CBDC), the eNaira, which would help in attaining our goals of fostering greater inclusion using digital channels, supporting cross border payments for businesses and firms as well as providing a reliable channel for remittances inflows into the country.”

But the eNaira will exclude 40 million adult Nigerians confirmed to be unbanked. Financial inclusion is a strategy put in place to ensure that individuals and businesses have

MORE INSIDE Ogun Distributes 100,000 Cocoa Seedlings To Farmers PAGE 39

COP26: PUTTRU Evaluates President Buhari’s Energy Plan PAGE 39

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NIMASA Empowers IDPs in FCT With Relief Materials

BY JOY ONUORAH WITH AGENCY REPORT

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he Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) on Friday donated some relief materials to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to empower Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the FCT. NIMASA’s Director-General, Bashir Jamoh, said the donation was part of the agency’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), adding that the Continues on next page 39 THEWILLNIGERIA

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AVIATION/BANKING Matters Arising As Airport Concession Plan Gathers Steam

eNaira App Throws 40m Adult Nigerians Off Scheme Continued from Page 14

Continued from Page 14

As part of the process, the Federal Government also proposed a concession tenure of between 20 and 30 years for the four major airports billed for private ownership.

According to the government the plan would enable private investors to own, operate and recoup investments made on these four viable airports.

The Federal Government, however, gave a condition that the operation might be extended, depending on performance and ‘Nigeria’s best interest’ subject to negotiation and approval by the FEC. The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, who gave an update on the project, recently said the Federal Government was starting with the most strategic asset “because successful delivery of the programme would give stakeholders the confidence to consider other possibilities in the sector.”

This posed delays on the project and the process has continued to linger. But recent developments have shown that the government has started making progress in the process. So far, the Request for Qualifications (RfQ) phase of the Nigeria Airport Concessions Programme (NACP), has been closed since October 25, 2021.

With the closure of the phase, the Ministry of Aviation, the Transaction Advisers and the Project Steering Committee, have notified the ICRC of this development, and have now stopped receiving submissions in response to the published RFQ. Sirika said, “The amount of response to the request for pre-qualification by highly reputable international airport operators across the globe is indicative of the level of confidence that people have in our concession programme and by extension, the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

“Like we promised from the onset, we remain committed to ensuring the highest level of transparency and accountability till the end of the process. This is because we believe that the programme is in the best interest of Nigerians as a people, and Nigeria as a nation.”

The Ministry of Aviation had, therefore, reminded all stakeholders that the RFQ stage would be followed with a Request For Proposal (RFP), which would be published and sent directly to qualified bidders for their response.

Despite all the efforts put in by the Federal Government, aviation labour unions, including Air Transport Senior Staff Association of Nigeria THEWILLNIGERIA

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(ATSSSAN), National Union of Air Transport Employee (NUATE), Association of Aviation Professionals (ANAP) and Nigerian Union of Pensioners (NUP), airport branch, have vowed to ensure that the airport concession plan will not work as it is not in the best interest of airport workers.

The unions have continued to criticise the manner with which the aviation minister is carrying out the concession of the four airports without carrying the workers’ unions along.

The Secretary-General of NUATE, Comrade Ocheme Aba, while addressing airport workers recently, said that the concession project would not favour the workers. Instead, he added, it would further impoverish them with anticipated job losses if allowed to succeed.

Aba emphasised that the process had not been transparent since it started.

The Chairman of ATSSSAN, FAAN branch, Comrade Ahmed Danjuma, described the concession as a one-man project by Sirika.

According to him, the planned concession was being facilitated clandestinely in connivance with the Infrastructure, Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC).

In his reaction, the Secretary-General of ANAP, Comrade Abdulrasaq Saidu, also stated that, so far, the concession plan in the aviation industry had been marred by controversy.

Saidu also assured that the aviation unions would not fold their hands and allow the concession process to continue.

Similarly, a former Chief Operating Officer of the Nigerian Aviation Handling Company Plc (NAHCo aviance), Herbert Odika, has expressed fear for the fate of the workers if the airport concession plan falls through.

Odika said, “I believe we had an interview on the issue of airport concession a few years ago, which I am not against.. However, I must stress that it will only be fair to ensure that the existing staff are well taken care of, if there is going to be any transition.”

“Honestly, I am not in the mind of the honourable minister and everybody else. However, I saw an article where he assured the staff that they will be taken care of, if there is any reason for transition which we all know happens when there is some kind of concession or buyout, merger or take-over”. *Continues online at www. thewillnigeria.com THEWILLNIGERIA

access to useful and affordable financial products and services (transactions, payments, credit and insurance) that meet their needs, delivered in a responsible and sustainable way. It has been a herculean task to attain by CBN. Nigeria failed to meet its National Financial Inclusion Strategy target for 2020 to include 80 percent of its adult population into the financial system. This means that 36 percent of Nigerian adults, or 38.1 million of the country’s 106 million (18 years and above) adults, remain completely financially excluded.

“This is a true challenge to the eNaira project. It will remain in the corridor of mainly the urban dwellers and those who have the privilege of accessing bank accounts already. About 40 million unbanked adult Nigerians will remain spectators to the digital currency initiative. They will not benefit from whatever the scheme offers for now until they are financially inclusive, and that will take a very long time,” said Mr Bamidele Johnson, a financial analyst.

He said it is important to draw attention to this anomaly so that the government and the regulatory authorities should quicken action in translating eNaira into real benefit for the less privileged. “It is misleading to claim what the eNaira cannot offer or what it is handicapped to produce so that the necessary corrections can be made,” Johnson added While the barriers to financial inclusion have been a long time problem, a number of avenues are helping to broaden access to financial services.

These windows aim to remove the barriers that exclude people from participating in the financial sector and using these services to improve their lives according to demographic imperatives.

This calls for advancements in financial technology (fintech), as simple as engaging the services of the ordinary GSM handset and services.

Industry experts have urged the government to expand the Payment Service Bank (PSB) licence to the telecommunication service operators to participate actively in the mobile money banking service. Since they have the penetration and the technology, they will fill the gap that the unbanked 40 million adult Nigerians have created pending the time they will become financially included.

“With the little object (telephone handset) in your hand which contains a tiny sim card, you can transact your business from anywhere, and have the goods and services you require delivered to you – at affordable cost. This was never imagined before the advent of the GSM revolution, 20 years ago. It makes life easier for everyone and creates employment for the courier and logistic firms,” said Agnes Agebona, a Mobile Money/Agent Banking operator in

“

This is a true challenge to the eNaira project. It will remain in the corridor of mainly the urban dwellers and those who have the privilege of accessing bank accounts already. About 40 million unbanked adult Nigerians will remain spectators to the digital currency initiative Lagos.

A study showed that financial inclusion activities boomed during the first three quarters of 2020: January-March (Q1) before lockdown; April-June (Q2) when there was the COVID-19 lockdown; and July-September (Q3) after lockdown – when gradual relaxation of restrictions was effected. Findings revealed that COVID-19 crisis had mixed impacts on POS facilities – minimal in the aspects of transaction in volume and value only. But there was an overall accelerated tempo made possible by telecom services.

Analysis of the findings showed that POS transactions value, which recorded N1.009 trillion in the first quarter of 2020, dropped by N32 billion to N976.91 billion in the second quarter during lockdown, representing 3.17 per cent; to climb

by N223 billion to N1.20 trillion in the third quarter or 22.82 percent.

The N3.18 trillion total transaction value for three quarters of 2020 was 83 per cent compared to N1.74 trillion in the corresponding period of 2019.

Transaction volume of 138.62 million in the first quarter did not record significant change for the second the quarter of 2020 hit by the COVID-19 lockdown. The figure for the second quarter was 138.65 million showing the severe impact of the lockdown on businesses.

Most businesses that use POS for transactions were forced to shut down their operations and close their physical offices following the restriction of movement ordered by the government.

However, activities picked up in the third quarter with transactions Volume hitting 162.62 million – a difference of 23.97 million representing 17.38 per cent rise.

Total Volume for the three quarters was 400 million as against 289 million for the corresponding period of 2019 representing 38 per cent upward trend. The rise was occasioned by the return of most businesses and companies to the normal working hours attended before the coronavirus outbreak.

Findings also showed that many people resorted to POS business as alternative activity to sustain their means of livelihood hit by the lockdown. *Continues online at www. thewillnigeria.com

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BUSINESS FEATURES

Assessing Gains of AfCFTA On Air Transport, Tourism In Africa

BY ANTHONY AWUNOR

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Therefore, aviation practitioners and the sector as a whole cannot be ignored. Serious considerations have to be given and put in place by governments, civil society, and regional institutions to assist and resolve all aspects hindering the aviation sector to thrive for full and better implementation of ACFTA and SAATM

represented an important step forward. But what does this agreement exactly mean in practice and how will it affect us, especially with regards to the aviation sector in Africa?

To make this happen, the physical movement of people and goods cannot be ignored. In fact, it is the principal catalyst that will act as evidence of the existence of a free trade zone.

Therefore, aviation practitioners and the sector as a whole cannot be ignored. Serious considerations have to be given and put in place by governments, civil society, and regional institutions to assist and resolve all aspects hindering the aviation sector to thrive for full and better implementation of ACFTA and SAATM. Africa is a big continent. You could fit the US, China, and Europe into the continent and still have space to spare. But in economic terms, individual countries are still very small. Take Ghana and Rwanda, for instance. These are some of the fastestgrowing economies in the world. But in terms of size, they are ranked 82nd and 139th, respectively, out of 211 economies in the world, following the IMF ranking in 2019. This matters because small economies often struggle to attract the most needed investments.

Collectively, the story is very different. The African continent and all 54 economies together have a

Aisuebeogun

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ver the years, there has been a serious interplay and connectivity between tourism and transportation.

Realising this obvious fact, the Institute for Tourism Professionals of Nigeria (ITPN) instituted the National Transportation Tourism Summit and Expo few years ago, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Tourism, the Federal Ministry of Transportation and the Federal Ministry of Aviation as an annual event that focuses attention on the inter-play and connectivity between tourism and transportation.

ITPN led by the National President, Chief Abiodun Odusanwo is the professional body for hospitality, travel, Tourism and allied occupations in Nigeria.

It is the premier awarding body and membership institute for professionals working in all sectors.

Already this year’s expo, which is in its fourth edition has been slated for November 15 and 16, 2021 at the International Conference Centre, Abuja.

It is expected that the expo will x-ray how comprehensively the various stakeholders and key players in the two industries at both public and private sector levels have fared in exploring the enormous opportunities and benefits inherent in synergising them.

The theme of the expo, ‘Tourism, Transportation, Connectivity: Leveraging the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Regime for Economic Sustainability’ is coming at a time free trade is being promoted on the continent that is capable of enhancing air transport and tourism in Nigeria and Africa as a whole.

This is derived from the AfCFTA trade agreement, which is a common market to grow trade in ‘madein-Africa’ goods and services by reducing tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade among African countries.

Former Managing Director of Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Nnamdi Udoh, disclosed that the African Union is gradually making great strides towards achieving and making sense of the wisdom behind this famous adage in its efforts to liberate Africa from colonial demarcations.

Mr Udoh said that apart from the physical barriers put in place by Africa’s former colonial masters, there are other intangible barriers that have been existing, which will still continue to be of great hindrance to Africa’s emergence if not brought down.

The former NAMA boss added, “The African Union’s recent actions of putting into place an African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA) and the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) are giant steps toward recognising the over 1.3 billion inhabitants of the continent as one people, one market, one geographical space, and one nation, provided Africans see and reason into this together”.

According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the ACFTA goes beyond free trade in a broader sphere to establish free movement and investments across Africa. In March 2018, at the historic meeting of the African Union in Kigali, Rwanda, member states agreed to create an African Continental Free Trade Area. Subsequently, 52 of 54 African Union member states signed up to the agreement, representing a remarkable degree of consensus across the continent.

Following an opinion poll survey carried out in November 2018 by the Rockefeller Foundation, over 2,000 citizens across the continent confirmed that an impressive 77 per cent of Africans believe that the Continental Free Trade Area Agreement

collective GDP of $2.5 trillion USD that making it the eighth largest economy in the world, just behind India. With 1.3 billion potential customers, it makes the continent much more attractive to investment, both from within and from outside the continent. This will encourage business people to make the required investments necessary to sustain economic growth and create the job opportunities the continent badly needs.

Perhaps, most significantly, Nigeria has signed the AfCFTA pact. Securing the participation of Africa’s largest and most populous economy marked a significant achievement.

Nigeria’s signature followed a lengthy domestic consultation with both trade unions and private businesses. Nigeria accounts for 17 percent of Africa’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), ranking just ahead of South Africa and with a domestic nearing 200 million people – as much as Ethiopia and Egypt combined. Its involvement is set to significantly bolster the AfCFTA’s strength and size.

Air Transport specialist and a former Managing Director of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mr. Richard Aisuebeogun, said that with AfCFTA, it would be easier for airlines to grow in Africa, just like what is obtained in Europe.

Aisuebeogun said, “There is virtually no part of Europe that you cannot fly into from one particular spot because you have airlines crisscrossing the entire continent of Europe. We know that is not the case in Africa. I don’t want to go deep into that. We have talked about it for over 30 years. The challenge of flying across Africa is a major challenge. If we find it as a major challenge to fly across Africa or within Africa via intra-Africa transport system, then, you can imagine how it is going to limit the economic development of the region”.

“I keep saying that in all the interviews I have been granted and in my presentations in the last two years. We need to have citizens travel cards that enable us to go to South Africa, Banjul, Nairobi, Cairo without any limitations for legitimate reasons to do business that will engender economic growth of Africa and its citizens, business that will create wealth, business that will reduce poverty, business that will reduce unemployment and that is what Africa Continental Free Trade would do and I keep saying it that this can only be successful when we have SAATM to complement, he added THEWILLNIGERIA

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STEPHANIE COKER-ADERINOKUN

THEWILLNIGERIA

THE MATCH MAKER THEWILLNG

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TV presenter and actress, Stephanie Coker-Aderinokun, opens up on her career, motherhood, her marriage and current project, a podcast titled Hook me up with Stephanie Coker, in this interview with IVORY UKONU

okun Coker-Aderin

HELPING WOMEN MOST REWARDING THING I’VE DONE – STEPHANIE COKER-ADERINOKUN Y

ou recently joined the league of podcasts owners. What is yours all about?

It is basically about relationships, marriage and hooking people up literally. So Hook me up with Stephanie Coker is more or less like having an ‘agony aunt’ to whom you tell all your issues.

Then a guest and I will talk about these issues and try to help out.

There is a segment where people call in, seeking my help to find love.

That is pretty much the premise of the podcast.

What inspired it?

I have always loved dating shows. I recorded a dating show about five years ago, but I never aired it. Since then, I have always felt like I need to do this. Besides, I am really big on love, happiness and marriage. I just think that everyone deserves love. So, in my own way, I have been hooking people up. I even hook people up in my day-to-day life and I have hooked many of my husband’s friends up.

Really?

Yeah Did it work out?

Yeah! I mean, I have got people whom I hooked them up with and they are still together. Some are still in the talking stage. None of them has, however, led to marriage yet, but we are working on it.

How long has this been in the making?

During the pandemic, I began an Instagram live session where I was helping people out and they really loved it and wanted me to continue. So, I found another way to do this that is more seamless because Instagram live can be a bit clumsy. The podcast started in September. I wanted something that would be episodic so that people could go back and watch it, but the dating show started six years ago.

Did you meet your husband this way?

I met my husband in real life, here in Nigeria, in person, the old fashioned way. I met him at a restaurant and lounge in the Lekki area of Lagos. The place is by the water. Some people were even saying I had mermaid spirit for meeting him there. I hope not, but I met him there. I have met some other cool people in some other places in Victoria Island. I will not mention their names. Also I met someone else in Café Royale. So this is free information on the location to meet a possible significant other.

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Will you be mentioning strategic places to meet people in your podcast?

I don’t think so.

Would you have liked it if you were hooked up with your husband in the first place?

I wouldn’t mind if someone introduced me to someone. I feel like all the people I have dated in the past, I met them myself. I feel like we are always meeting somewhere. Maybe it’s due to the places I stayed or went to.

Do you hope to transition to a talk show?

Yes, that’s my main aim, but I am still working on that and the show will be a weekly one. It’s a visual podcast, not just audio.

You mentioned earlier about talking to entertainers. Why entertainers and not regular people?

The guests will be in entertainment, but the people that discuss issues are regular people. So for now we just have entertainers come on the show and give their opinions and advice and share their stories. There is one episode in which a popular actress told us how her friend was sleeping with her boyfriend. Her boyfriend cheated on her with her friend.

Your acting career is on fire now, with appearances in Toyin Abraham’s The Fate of Alakada, The Wedding Planner and King of Boys 2. What determines the kind of movie you feature in?

I am quite choosy when it comes to the movies I feature in. I really just want to stick to movies that are organised and not very large, you know, not like ‘oh come on set and just do this character.’ I really want to absorb the character, even if it’s like a two-minute scene. I really want to be able to do that.

Not many people know you started off your career on radio Yeah, I actually started on radio. When I moved to Nigeria I started with Cool FM, stayed with them a couple of months. Then I was with MTV for five years. During that time, EbonyLife TV started. I joined EbonyLife TV, too. I was the first presenter on EbonyLife TV because I was the co-host during Mo Abudu’s search for presenters.

I did their first reality show with two other females. Cameras were following us around. I hosted the Wardrobe Diary on EbonyLife TV

as well. I also hosted a couple of big shows on EbonyLife TV. I was also on Tinsel at that time as well. I was working on every single network and people would ask me how I was able to do that. I was on EbonyLife TV, MTV, Africa Magic Plus and Tinsel, all at the same time. And then I got to co-host The Voice season 1 and 2. I was still with MTV when I was doing that and most recently, in season 3 as the host of the Red Room How do you juggle all of this?

I am used to it and I like to think of myself as someone who can multi-task. But juggling between motherhood and work gives you this ‘Mom guilt.’ Whenever you leave the house you just feel guilty.

But I am happy that my daughter is in school now so that gives me more room to juggle.

You said you had her through in-vitro fertilisation. Why did you feel the need to reveal that?

My mom actually told me not to talk about it. Most people who go through IVF do not like to talk about it because they feel it’s like a stigma and people are going to look at you differently.

You were married for only three years and then you tried IVF Yes. Why? Well, for a couple of reasons. But the main one was that I felt like I was wasting time. So I just thought if there’s a quick solution to something, as opposed to the whole process of trying and trying, why not give it a trial. What happened was that I developed ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, which is a situation where your ovaries hyper stimulate, and I got really sick. It was really bad and life threatening.

I was in the hospital and I was on anesthesia every day because they were trying to drain liquids out of me after the egg retrieval to make embryos. I got really sick and felt like I was actually done. Besides, other things were going on. A lot of young people do it, although they just don’t talk about it because of what other people may say. People are too quick to jump into conclusion; they don’t usually think it might be due to genetic or medical issues.

I guess that is the more reason why people should talk about it Exactly. But you know the older generation feels like they don’t need to tell other people what is going on inside so they don’t think that THEWILLNIGERIA

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do. Somebody said something about love; that people are really lucky in marriage to actually be in love. I was like does that mean not everyone in marriage is in love? Because you’re in love with your partner doesn’t mean it is like that with everybody. I just can’t imagine being in a relationship with someone I am not in love with.

Some people are just lucky to be in love. Some people say love is not enough to sustain your marriage. I think the best keys to a lasting marriage are love, friendship, respect and patience.

there’s something wrong with their daughter or son. I know a lot of people who got surrogates to carry their babies, yet they just post pictures of themselves pregnant.

Surrogacy is yet to be openly accepted here That is the same thing we have argued about because some people still go to church and they claim God did it for them. Obviously I know that God is involved because without God science won’t be available, but some people keep saying it was because their pastor prayed fervently that they gave birth to triplets. We all know that triplets are mostly from IVF. And the problem of not being open is that people end up feeling like God neglected them. Meanwhile, this person has probably done IVF and she is not saying what she did, only says that the pastor was amazing and now she is pregnant. Don’t get me wrong, I know it happens, but the truth is that there are other things involved.

Your husband is 50 and you are 32. Did you ever imagine you would be attracted to a much older man, let alone marry him?

No, I never imagined that I would get married to an older man. I have never dated anybody that was five years older than me. I didn’t know he was that old because he didn’t look that old to me. So I didn’t actually know until later when it was too late. I didn’t marry him because of anything but his personality. I don’t really see the age difference because he acts like he is my age and doesn’t treat me like a much younger person. He has friends in different age groups. The day he turned 50 I said I was going to ask his mom if she was sure that he’s really 50. It doesn’t make sense because this man doesn’t behave like a 50-year-old.

Will you be discussing your IVF experience on your podcast?

I will definitely have an episode on getting pregnant and people blaming women all the time. I have a lot of women who send me messages on Instagram about this and I talk to them. Then a couple of months later they tell me that they are pregnant and I think that’s the most rewarding thing I have done till date. And it’s so crazy because a lot of women are just covering up for their husbands. In this part of the world, you can’t really share everything. A lot of women say they have suffered in the hands of their in-laws because they can’t say the problem is from their son. So they just blame the woman.

okun Coker-Aderin

Are you going to try IVF again?

Yes. I have an ‘adult’ now in the house because my daughter, even though she is two years-old, is now so independent.

How was your pregnancy experience?

I kept my pregnancy out of the public eye because I didn’t know what to expect and you know the media is generally not kind with words. I didn’t want a case where I would be pregnant and people are stressing me by writing things in the news or on social media.

I didn’t want anything like that. For example, maybe they saw my husband in a restaurant and then post that he was with some lady and you’re pregnant and don’t want to be reading such things. It can turn into something else and then the comments will start. I can handle that when I am not pregnant, but I can’t handle it during pregnancy because one’s hormones react to things a lot. Anything can just trigger you. I felt like I wasn’t going to go through that kind of thing.

So, I just stayed off social media.

What is it about your growing up years that has shaped you to be who you are today?

I will say being exposed to different people. While in London I grew up in a multicultural setting with different types of people who had different upbringing and opinions. That was what taught me not to be judgmental. I think that allowed me to be open-minded and also to be able to express myself. It also taught me to be resilient because my mom works very hard. She did a lot, like shuttling between three jobs, and she inspired me to really hustle and work hard. I feel one really needs to pay her dues and work hard. Everything used to be based on merit. Although that is changing now, I still believe that one should work hard. Sometimes you’re given a job just because you’re popular on Instagram. Everything isn’t based on talents anymore, unlike he past.

Most people don’t believe that you are Yoruba My mum is from Abeokuta in Ogun State and my dad is from Badagry, Lagos.

What was growing up like for you?

It was good. I have a brother who lives in the United Kingdom and works at the London Stock Exchange. My growing up years is very nostalgic. I grew up in London, but our home was a typical Nigerian home. I used to listen to music by Salawa Abeni, Lagbaja, Haruna Ishola, Kwam1 and Sunny Ade. I think when you have an accent people just believe that maybe you don’t listen to those kinds of songs. And I used to attend a lot of owambe parties in London. When I was in the university, I would come to Nigeria on holidays. At one time I stayed for almost a year. It was on one of such occasions that I met my husband.

Why did you eventually move to Nigeria?

Although Nigeria lacks a lot of structures, there is something about it that allows you to be independent. You know in the UK, there are safety nets and structures put in place to make life easy. You go to work and come home. Everything is available. There is electricity and water, but the thing is that when you’re an ambitious person you have to also be around ambitious people and I felt like there are so many ambitious people in Nigeria, especially in Lagos. When I moved back, I really hustled, even though my own suffering was the ‘ajebutter’ type. My mom gave me money whenever money finished in my account. I was living in a two-bedroom flat in Lekki. Before then, I lived in Ebute Metta and Maryland. All of a sudden my mom cut me off because I was always going to eat at ‘The Palms’ shopping mall. She told me to go find a job. So I started managing my money like in the morning I would buy ‘puff puff’, then in the afternoon I would buy indomie noodles and then I would watch Africa Magic Yoruba all day with the house maid. And then I would create a proposal and concept about shows. I feel things were better than now, because now, everybody was just trying to make it and there weren’t Instagram people who were showing off.

That was when the middle class was coming up Yeah, everyone was hustling then. Everyone was trying to become what they have always dreamt about. I used to go to places like Oriental Hotel, GET Arena, and people like Wizkid would be playing and then Davido came to Cool FM. I was actually the first to interview him because at that time everybody said he was arrogant.

I don’t really think he remembers the interview. That time was such a beautiful time to be in the entertainment industry. Now it’s so much harder to really make friends because everyone is just trying to see what they can get from you. In those days, people were more genuine. We have set a pace, no doubt, which is great because the THEWILLNIGERIA

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Why did you decide on a destination wedding and what was the significance of having it in Greece?

Well my name is a Greek name. I just wanted somewhere that my people from the UK can get to easily. So I thought where is it that Nigerians can’t get to easily and that was how we settled for Greece.

Our plan backfired because the people I wanted to come couldn’t make it because they couldn’t get visa. And I wanted a small wedding and I had like 70 people, which was kind of too much for a destination wedding. Mykonos is a beautiful island, even though there’s the Greek mafia and all of that. When you talk about Greece, people feel it’s exotic and that was why we chose the country. It was actually going to be held in South Africa, but because we wanted a small wedding, we had to do it in Greece.

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people coming behind are really doing well.

I don’t think the younger generation is willing to make that kind of sacrifice No they don’t. They’re not really paying their dues. In time, that will come to bite them later because they don’t have respect for the position that they occupy because they got it easily, compared to what we did. It’s like when you make money easily, you don’t really respect that kind of money since you didn’t suffer to make that money. A lot of young people now are just about fame, they’re not really about the profession. They see journalism or being a presenter as an avenue for them to be famous. They don’t even care about the profession. They do not understand that broadcasting isn’t just about having a cute face or being able to speak well. These days, brands just see this popular person and decide to use them. It doesn’t work like that. Shows like Big Brother are endorsing all kinds of people.

I mean it is a great platform for them, but it’s not reality because a lot of impression comes with fame that people don’t talk about, especially overnight success. The thing is you can be up today and down tomorrow and then the pressure of not having your privacy anymore.

If you were not involved in the entertainment industry and media, what other profession would you have been comfortable with?

I have no clue. Maybe law. I studied Media and Communication. I have always known what I wanted to do.

How is married life?

My marriage is really in a good place. There is so much bad news, when it comes to marriage and the thing about marriage is that it is always going to have its high and low moments. I know people change, but I think that from the beginning when you know the kind of person you are married to and you know their bad and extreme parts, I don’t think you will be really shocked by anything they

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Most actresses are now into movie production. Are you thinking along that line in the near future?

Yeah, I am actually working on a documentary centred around the Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), a hormonal disorder common among women of reproductive age. Women with PCOS may have infrequent or prolonged menstrual periods or excess male hormone (androgen) levels. This syndrome affects about one in 10 women in the world and it is one of the major causes of infertility, but people don’t talk about it. And I have a studio where I will be producing it with my all female team. We will be producing documentaries and hopefully, films and TV shows.

A few months ago, the Olowu of Owu Kingdom Oba Adesanya Olugboyega Dosunmu bestowed on you and your husband the chieftaincy titles of Akinruiyiwa and Yèyé Akinruiyiwa of Owu kingdom. What is the significance of the titles?

My husband’s title means ‘Warrior that brought dignity home’. So by default, I got the title as well. I believe that my husband is very deserving of this. He has definitely brought dignity to his hometown.

He has gone through so many challenges and adversities and overcame them and continued to also recognise the people in his hometown by helping, through our foundation, to make life easier for them. My family is grateful for being honoured with these titles.

Why were you both singled out for the titles?

Because the King saw what my husband has done for Owu Kingdom as well as in communities around Abeokuta through his initiatives. Everyone is very proud of him, including former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is not only an Owu indigene but was also physically present when we were conferred with the chieftaincy titles.

How do you plan to impact humanity with your titles?

As a couple, we have always been about charitable deeds and helping the people around us. Through the Olumide Stephanie Aderinokun Foundation, we have been impacting women and children and making donations to schools, built boreholes in communities, etc. We have supplied electricity to communities that do not have any source of light. We plan on doing so many other things, but I personally have been using my platform to help and I am planning a project that will be beneficial to the Owu Kingdom, Abeokuta and Lagos State. This will revolve around children and fashion.

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STORIES BY IVORY UKONU

HOW GBOLAHAN OKI WAS SACRIFICED FOR LASG’S INEPTITUDE A

s investigation continues to unravel the circumstances that led to the collapse of the 21- storey building in Ikoyi, which occurred on Monday, November 1, 2021, it becomes obvious that the Lagos State Government can no longer be absolved of any blame in the tragic incident. Speculation was rife as to the exact number of floors approved by the government for the building, which is situated on 44 B,C,D Gerrard Road Ikoyi. While the suspended General Manager of the Lagos State Building Control Agency (LASBCA) – the agency that gives approval for construction of buildings in the state – Architect Gbolahan Oki, said only 15 floors were approved for Fourscore Heights Limited owned by Femi Osibona, an alleged relative of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, the Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Dr Femi Hamzat, insists that the company got approval for all 21 floors.

Ironically, a document has surfaced, which clearly contradicts the deputy governor. Titled ‘Original,’ the

Ireti Doyle Using Police to Harass Fraudulent Daughter’s Victims A

Oki

document shows a permit from the Lagos State Physical Planning Permit Authority (LASPPA), filled for Fourscore Heights Limited, which gave approval for a residential building of 15 floors of three different blocks of buildings only.

The permit, with registration number 1V2019/DO/033/67 dated 5 April 2019 and a development permit number DCB/DO/2442IV dated 9 April 2019, was signed by the General Manager of LASPPA, Kehinde Osinaike.

The document clearly states, among other things, that the site of the building should be demarcated in accordance with the site plan and that non-compliance with the approved planning permit would automatically void the permit.

This, no doubt, proves that there is a strong cover-up by the state government in a bid to exonerate itself and have someone else take the blame for the tragic incident that has since claimed 40 lives. Only nine out of over 50 people buried in the rubble of the collapsed building

have been rescued so far.

Unfortunately the targeted scapegoat is the boss of LASBCA, Gbolahan Oki. Shortly before he was suspended indefinitely, Oki had revealed that not only did Osibona illegally exceed his approved limit, the reinforcement used for the collapsed high-rise were made of inferior materials.

Oki, who had only been on the seat for four months, also revealed that Osibona at some point during the construction of the building was arrested by officials of his agency, who had gone on an inspection visit, for resisting attempts to inspect the construction work going on at the site.

Using his connections, Osibona got off the hook easily and construction on the site continued with the hierarchy of the state government looking unashamedly, the other way until the day of that unfortunate incident.

Now a six-man panel has been inaugurated

by Governor Jide Sanwo-Olu. One may wonder what else the panel hopes to unravel when despite sounding the alarm, Oki was circumvented by the highest echelon of the state government to allow Osibona carry on without sanctions.

Double Posthumous Honours For Fela Anikulapo-Kuti

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e may be late, but the legacy of Afrobeat king, Fela AnikulapoKuti, which still speaks till date keeps fetching him accolades and recognition both at home and abroad.

About a week ago, Fearless Energy drink honoured him with a posthumous award as Africa’s foremost talent with positive energy, a creative genius, intentionally different and a premium quality brand considered most deserving of the Fearless Man of Africa award.

The award formed part of this year’s edition of the week-long Felabration event, which was held in October with the theme, Viva Nigeria, Viva Africa. The award was aimed at celebrating Fela’s musical prowess. It was also hinged on the concept of courageous people in all spheres of life, including music where he has been selected as Africa’s Most Fearless man, in ideas, performance, courage and leadership and whose style of music continues to influence talents all over

the world. Through his music, Fela created a cultural crossroad that other parts of the world could connect with against tyranny and for a better society. These and many more formed the background to the award for the global icon.

The Founder of Felabration, Yeni Anikulapo-Kuti, who is Fela’s eldest daughter, and her younger brother, Kunle Anikulapo-Kuti, received the award on behalf of the family.

Fela was also honoured with a blue plaque in Shepherd’s Bush, London by English Heritage, a charity organisation that manages historic monuments. The honorary blue plaque was mounted on the 12 Stanlake Road residence at Shepherd’s Bush, a district of West London, where Fela first lived when he arrived in the United Kingdom to study music. The plaque reads, “Fela Anikulapo Kuti (1938-1997), singer, multi-instrumentalist, composer and Nigerian activist, lived in this house as a student in 1958 to study Music at the Trinity College of Music rather than Medicine which he left Nigeria for.”

With the blue plaque, the late singer joins other notable artistes who have received such honour, such as the late Jamaican singer, Bob Marley.

bout three weeks after her acting career spanning two she warned the public decades. not to associate her with According to the report, the her daughter’s business, married mother of one, who is a Nollywood actress, Ireti Doyle, hair vendor and self-proclaimed has now been accused of using ‘biggest wig manufacturer in Interpol and the Nigerian Africa’, allegedly made a living police to arrest victims of her defrauding unsuspecting daughter’s fraudulent business customers and entrepreneurs for accusing her of refusing to who desired to buy from her to call her daughter to order. resell.

The actress took to microThrough Kachi Hair ventures, blogging platform, Twitter, which is situated somewhere to issue another warning to in Ikeja, Kachi would post on those dragging her over the her business social media fraud issue but do not know handle, photos of affordable the entire facts. Writing in and beautifully made wigs fluent and pidgin English, Ireti for retail customers, as well as called such people purveyors offer mouthwatering deals to of violence who may end up wholesalers. having to ‘hang’ themselves Many would-be customers for not getting their facts allegedly made payments right. But instead, a human into a bank account she rights-oriented organisation, Concerned Nigerians, has accused Ireti of using Interpol and the Nigeria Police to pick up, harass, and intimidate victims of her daughter’s fraudulent business who had called her out on social media.

The platform also warned the actress to stop using her connections and corrupt people to intimidate innocent Nigerians as it is an abhorrent abuse of power. The organisation then asked the victims to reach out to it via social media direct messages as it plans to contend with Ireti and fight for them.

A few weeks ago, THEWILL had published a report, which revealed how Ireti’s first daughter out of wedlock, Kachi Ngozi Onyeluo, through her actions, was bent on tarnishing her mother’s image and destroying her mother’s Doyle reputation and the legacy of

provided, but that is where the transactions ended. Kachi neither delivered the products to her retail customers nor to the wholesalers, some of who paid millions of naira for the mouthwatering deals.

And while many have tried unsuccessfully to either retrieve their money or get the product they paid for, Kachi carries on as if everything is normal, even announcing hair sales every quarter in different cities.

Despite several petitions written to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Council and the intervention of a popular media personality, there is no stopping Kachi, or so it seems, as she continues in her fraudulent ways.

American Wife Threatens Mr Patrick With Deportation

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hings are not really looking up for Nigerian standup comedian based in the United States, Patrick Onyeke, otherwise known as Mr Patrick, at the moment. The comedian’s American wife, Tammy Varner, has threatened to get him deported for

The Onyekes THEWILLNIGERIA

marrying her for her papers and allegedly dumping her.

Sources close to THEWILL reveal that Mr Patrick cheats and lies arbitrarily to Tammy, whom he married a few years ago after he arrived in America. It was also alleged that after he had fulfilled the conditions required to become a bonafide US citizen and was conferred with citizenship, the comedian dumped Tammy and took off to Texas from New York to start a new life.

Although Mr Patrick once said in an interview that he didn’t marry his wife to obtain a green card, Tammy’s threats have now proved otherwise.

Mr Patrick came to limelight after his comedy skit, The Adventures of Mr Patrick went viral online. Over time, he built on his talents as a standup comedian, gaining fame and winning hearts. The humour merchant has also organised his own comedy show tagged Jokes Apart in Nigeria, South Africa, Malaysia, United Arab Emirates, but to mention a few. His contemporaries are the likes of Basketmouth, Ayo Makun, I Go Dye etc.

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STORIES BY SHADE METIBOGUN

BBN Star Fakes Ambassadorial Deal

MERCY JOHNSON-OKOJIE, OTHERS UNITED

BY MARITAL WOES OF HUSBANDS’ EX-WIVES

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N

ollywood actresses, Mercy Johnson, Ini Edo, Nuella Njubigbo and Lizzy Anjorin-Lawal share a lot in common.

Beyond being seasoned actresses, who have paid their dues, they were (are) also married to men whose marital lives were shrouded in controversy. Although Mercy and Lizzy are enjoying marital bliss now, they both had to fight through thick and thin to bask in the euphoria of the happiness they are experiencing today. The same cannot be said of Ini and Nuella, both of who had to return to the singles club as quickly as they left it.

Mercy’s marriage to her husband, Prince Odianosen Okojie, was enmeshed in a lot of fuss right from the time their engagement was announced in 2011. Okojie’s estranged wife, Lovelyn, accused the actress of snatching her husband and the father of her two children, Precious Okojie and Harmony Okojie. She tagged the actress a home breaker and made frantic efforts to stop their wedding. However, Prince Okojie was able to secure a divorce proceeding at Igbueben Area Customary Court in Edo State, 72 hours before his wedding to Mercy. Although he was separated from Lovelyn before his wedding to Mercy, he only started the divorce proceedings after his engagement with Mercy had been announced and a four-day wedding extravaganza declared. Their wedding eventually held amidst tight security and anxiety over the shape the much talked about ceremony would take, because of the controversies surrounding it.

Like Mercy, Ini Edo’s marriage to Philip Ehiagwina was faced with bitter tales as well.

Her husband’s, ex-wife, Ruth Okoro, made a public accusation against the two before they got married. She sent several messages to the actress on MySpace, an American social networking site, under disguise. She accused the actress of snatching her husband and also made efforts to tarnish Philip’s image. She went as far as lying that he was under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and that he was being hunted by them. However, Philip denied the allegations and proceeded with the wedding ceremony, but their union couldn’t stand the test of time, as it packed up five years later over allegations of infidelity on the part of Ini. Philip gave marriage a third chance a few months ago.

As for Lizzy Anjorin-Lawal, she got married to her lover of 14 years, Lawal Adegboyega, in 2020. Not long after their marriage, one of her husband’s exes, Fola Tinubu, accused him of abandonment. She also accused Liz Anjorin of snatching her husband and making him forget his four other ‘wives’ and children. Lawal denied the allegations stating that he never got married to any of the women and he wasn’t sure of the paternity of the child the accuser claimed to be his own. He later requested a DNA test to ascertain the paternity of the child, a request that is yet to be fulfilled up till date. To further make a joke of Fola, Lizzy, who put to bed a few months ago, recently posted her own child’s DNA test to prove that Lawal is the father of her child.

Actress and entrepreneur, Nuella Njubigbo, got married to movie producer Tchidi Chikere in 2014 in a star-studded wedding and they welcomed their daughter in 2015. Before then, Tchidi was married to actress and beauty entrepreneur, Sophie Williams, but was dating Nuella on the side.

Much as Sophie tried to make Tchidi not to leave her for Nuella, Tchidi dumped her and their three kids after nine years of marriage, for Nuella.

He was with Nuella for seven years before they parted ways in 2020. When the marriage broke down, many blamed the mother of one for her marital woes. They accused her of wrecking her husband’s first union with Sophie. While Nuella is back in the single’s club, Sophie is already in another altar-bound relationship.

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Iweala

MEET NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA’S MEDICAL RECORD -BREAKING SON, UCHECHI

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he social media was agog about a week ago after former Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, celebrated the laudable feat her son, Dr Uchechi Iweala, achieved within a few years of his medical practice.

The amiable gentleman was one of the first spinal surgeons in Maryland, United States to perform a successfully navigated lumbar spinal fusion, using a robot.

THEWILL reliably gathered that Uchechi is an orthopaedist in Baltimore, Maryland who has been practising for less than three years now. He grew up in Maryland and attended one of the most expensive boarding schools in Washington D.C, St Albans School. He bagged both his Bachelor and Master’s degree from Harvard University and Harvard Medical School. He specialised in Robotic Spine Surgery, Minimally Invasive Spine Surgery, Cervical and Lumbar Disc Replacement, Spinal fusions, Spinal injections, Spinal deformity and Degeneratic Disc.

Uchechi completed his residency training in Orthopaedic Surgery at George Washington University and has a fellowship in Spine Surgery at New York University. He is an accomplished author and researcher with numerous published books and academic papers, including International Journal of Spine Surgery and the Journal Orthopaedic to his credit.

With a passion for meeting surgical needs around the world, Dr Iweala has worked on many health projects in Ghana and South Africa. He recently co-founded a surgery centre, Capital Health Surgical Centre Abuja with his father, Dr Ikemba Iweala, who is a trained neurosurgeon.

Uchechi belongs to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, North American Society and North American Spine Society. Just like his mother, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, who has scored many firsts in her career trajectory, especially as the first woman and African to lead the World Trade Organisation, Uchechi is also walking in her footsteps as one of the first spinal surgeons In Maryland to perform a successful surgery and Baltimore Magazine’s top doctors.

He is married to Chioma Achebe, the granddaughter of the late literary icon Prof Chinua Achebe.

wo weeks ago, Pascal Chibuke Okechukwu, also known as Cubana Chief Priest, accused Big Brother Naija star, Maria Chike Benjamin, of snatching his relation, Maryanne’s husband, Kelvin Anene, a Dubai based entrepreneur who is incidentally his friend. He revealed that Maria also threatened Maryanne and for that he vowed not to fold his hands and watch her disrespected.

According to him, Maryanne gave up on her marriage after finding out that Kelvin sponsored Maria for the Big Brother Naija reality show. He posted the divorce petition that she filed at an Abia State High Court in September. He also claimed to have introduced Maria to Kelvin before she went for the reality show.

But it turned out that Okechukwu was only fighting to protect his own interests as it concerns his dealings with Kevin.

Apparently, he allegedly pimped on the side for some of his friends, one of whom is Kelvin, and got rewarded handsomely by the same people who also patronise his businesses.

The bubble burst when one of Kelvin’s sidechicks, who was introduced to him by Okechukwu, called his home. Maria answered the call and warned the caller to desist from calling her man. The caller reported the incident to her benefactor who promised to deal with Maria. That was what led to Maria being called out and the series of accusations leveled against her.

In the same vein, Paul Okoye the CEO of Upfront & Personal, a global management company that manages Maria, who couldn’t watch his client’s name being dragged in mud rose, to her defence. He warned Okechukwu to get his facts right before accusing his client. But Okechukwu was not bothered and he continued to call out Maria. The matter was yet to die down when the light-complexioned lady uploaded a video and broke the news that her management had secured a juicy deal for her. She thanked Okoye for clinching the deal, which was said to be worth N150 million.

However, investigation has revealed that contrary to her claim of clinching a multi-million naira real estate deal, what Maria and Okoye had was a business meeting. The video was posted to mislead and divert the attention of her accusers from further opening more cans of worms about her husband snatching prowess. Many of her fans who watched the video questioned Maria for smoking shisha while having an important ambassadorial meeting. According to them, it shows that the video was intended for clout chasing as no serious discussion took place in the few minutes they spent together. It was also gathered that Khurram Ali and Giibert Mapanda, the two Arabian real estate experts who allegedly signed the deal, have not owned up to signing any ambassadorial deal with the reality show star.

Benjamin

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STORIES BY SHADE METIBOGUN

ALEX EKUBO’S EX-FIANCEE, FANCY ACHOLONU, BOUNCES BACK F

ancy Acholonu has obviously moved on after calling off her engagement and wedding to handsome Nollywood actor, Alex Ekubo. She has not only stopped following him on social media, but also deleted everything that would remind her of the good times they had together. The beautiful model cum actress is now focused, even expanded, on her business.

Fancy recently unveiled the commercial she shot for a liquor brand, Remy Martin, in one of her social media posts. The

Helen Paul Unveils Fashion Stores in America

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billboard campaign, which was shot last month with popular American singer and songwriter, Usher Raymond, graces strategic locations in Los Angeles, USA. The juicy deal was arranged by her modeling agency, Daniel Hoff Agency, in the United States.

Fancy took to her social media space to express her profound gratitude to her agency and the liquor brand for the opportunity to work with them. The model cum entrepreneur also jetted out of Los Angeles last month on a business trip to Miami, Florida to restock her zodiac sign store,

Zodiacaa, and also to unwind after some months of hard work.

It would be recalled that Acholonu officially called off her engagement to Ekubo in August, saying that it was important for everyone to find their happiness and live their truth. Alex had proposed to her in Los-Angeles, United States in March and their traditional marriage was scheduled to hold on 20 November, 2021 in Imo State, while their white wedding was scheduled for November, 27 before they broke up and went their separate ways.

Artquake’s Ice K And ADX Reunite

t looks like comedienne, Dr Helen Paul Bamisile, popularly known as Tatafo, has dumped comedy for fashion. The petite comedienne recently opened two fashion stores named Helen Paul Apparel in the United States. Both stores are located at Painted Trees, a shopping mall in Atlanta, Georgia. The stores boast African fabrics, interior décor, hats and other accessories.

The Edo State-born comedienne claimed she ventured into fashion business because she wanted to promote African culture and for the fact that most people in the United States always desire to replicate her Nigerian attires any time she wears them. The stores became quite busy after they were launched, with prominent Nigerians and foreigners among the regular patrons.

Helen Paul, who has been shuttling between Nigeria and the United States since the commencement of her post-doctoral study abroad, appears to have dumped standup comedy, which launched her into the limelight, and now focuses on her business and studies.

She opened a bridal fabric boutique in Lagos, Nigeria Bamisile in 2012 called ‘Massive Fabrics and Bridals’ and later consists of a dance studio, expanded with three outlets rehearsal studio, photo studio, in different parts of Lagos. digital library, editing studio In 2014, she opened a film and a hostel for students. and theatre academy, which Helen Paul also lectures on

an ad hoc basis in the United States. She bagged a Doctor of Philosophy, PhD in Theatre Arts from the University of Lagos in 2019.

Femi Akintunde-Johnson Celebrates 60th Birthday in Style

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easoned journalist, Femi Akintunde-Johnson, otherwise known as FAJ, celebrated his 60th birthday on Saturday, October 30, 2021. The diamond jubilee, which was marked virtually with a colloquium, was conceptualised in a story telling format and titled, Did Anything Good Come Out of the 60s? Lessons and Memories of Nigeria’s Formative Decade.

The media icon also launched four collections of his

Tomowowe & Adeniran

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he duo of Olakunle Tomowowe, otherwise known as Ice K, and Adegbite Adeniran, also known as ADX, of the defunct musical group, Artquake, have both resolved their differences and are now on speaking terms. The two were a force to reckon with in the 1990s and mid-2000.

They both created the dance step, Alanta, which was coined from one of their hit songs.

The singers parted ways due to irreconcilable differences. It was gathered that their squabble started after they decided to take a break from music. One of the reasons for the break was because their marriages was slowing down their music careers and they both had other profitable interests to pursue.

After the break, they rebranded and launched their record label, Achieving Quality Music Records (AQM). They signed four artistes to the

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label, but it soon fizzled out after one of their signees, Emeka Oputa, professionally known as Dollarsyno, released his hit song titled Farable.

Ice K accused his partner, ADX, of being responsible for their musical woes. When he decided to go solo, he made the announcement without consulting ADX. It was much later that ADX learnt about his decision and confronted him, but Ice K wasn’t apologetic about not carrying his partner along. The duo went their separate ways afterwards and started pursuing solo careers.

They put aside their grudges and linked up three weeks ago during the launch of Ice K’s luxury apartment and party hub, Ice Empire, in the Abule-Egba area of Lagos State. They both performed some of their hit songs, such as Alanta and Gyration at the event.

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books - a collection of poetry which is FAJ’s first literary work, titled Miasma: Undulating Poetry of Identity. The collection has 60 odd poems spanning eight chapters and collected over 40 years ago while trying to understand and organise life and its contrasting realities, frustrations and tragedies. The second work is a compilation of six short stories and a play, which cuts across different epoch, titled Demolition Squad and other stories. One of his memoirs captures the circumstances that led him to detention at Kirikiri Maximum Prison.

The memoir depicts in graphic illustrations his struggles and resilience and it is titled, It’s a Dog’s life: Kirikiri Prison Dairy and other memoirs while the last work, Fame: The untold stories of its rise and fall, recounts the vicissitudes faced during his odyssey at Fame Magazine. It encompasses the birth, challenges and loss of the Fame project between 1991 and 1997. The event was chaired by Pastor Babatunde Bakare, while media entrepreneur and founder of Daar Group, Chief Aleogho Raymond Dokpesi was the chief launcher.

FAJ now spend his time as the Chief Coach at Basic Skills Academy, BSA (a media/ communication strategy training model), and is the national coordinator of Music & Entertainment Gospel Awards (MEGA).

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BUSINESS NEWS FG Suggests Cassava Peels For Maize In Poultry Feeds FROM: SEGUN AYINDE, ABEOKUTA

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he federal government has suggested the use of cassava peels as components for producing poultry feeds to reduce total dependence on maize as a solution to the feeds crisis in the poultry production.

Dr. Tunde Amole, the Country Representative, Nigerian International Livestock Research Institute, said that except the federal government and Nigerians come up with new ideas to address feeds crisis the cost of poultry produce, the problem of escalating prices would continue.

He spoke at the 3-day Poultry Show in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, with the theme ‘De-risking the Nigerian Poultry Industry’.

L – R: Mr. Temi Popoola, CFA, Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Exchange Limited; Dr. Kingsley Obiora, Deputy Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Mr. Bola Onadele Koko, Chief Executive Officer, FMDQ during the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) 2021 Fellowship Investiture themed: Nigeria’s Rising Debt Profile: Issues & Implications for Sustainable Economic Development at the weekend in Lagos.

NIMASA Empowers IDPs in FCT With Relief Materials

Ogun Distributes 100,000 Cocoa Seedlings To Farmers

Continued from page 14

FROM SEGUN AYINDE, ABEOKUTA

gesture would ensure the wellbeing of the IDPs while on camp.

The Director-General was represented by the Assistant Director, Seafarers Services/ILO Relations Maritime Labour Department of NIMASA, Dr Amos Kuje.

“We are complimenting what FCT is doing, particularly in meeting the needs of the IDPs that are staying within the FCT. We know that when you are displaced from your normal life, everything you face becomes abnormal.

The agency this year thought it wise to look at the critical needs that will sustain the wellbeing of the IDPs while within the camp.

We have palliatives, of course, and we are also looking at empowerment, we want to continuously engage them in spite of the fact that they are not in their homes.

By engaging with the society, it will go a long way to positively impact their state of being because anyone who is displaced faces psychological and mentally challenges among others,” Jamoh said.

The NIMASA boss expressed confidence that the items donated would get to the persons intended and would affect them positively.

Receiving the items, the Permanent Secretary FCTA, Adesola Olusade, expressed gratitude to NIMASA for reaching out to the IDPs through them and urged other agencies and wellmeaning Nigerians to take a queue from the gesture.

Olusade said,“ We are here to receive various items donated to FCT by NIMASA in support of our IDP. It’s a composite set of items consisting of basic foods, empowerment materials such as Keke Napep, welding and sewing machines among others as well as educational materials.

This will address not just immediate needs but also future needs of IDPs. With the objective of ensuring that whenever the time becomes right for them to return, they will return to their destinations with value addition, having their children trained and their basic needs.

Many agencies have been reaching out to support us in various ways and we appreciate them.

It is not surprising that NIMASA has deemed it fit to support us and we are entirely grateful to them we are still open to other various supports”, Olusade added.

Equity Market Records Mixed Performance

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total turnover of 1.428 billion shares worth N12.373 billion in 23,987 deals were traded this week by investors on the floor of the Exchange, in contrast to a total of 3.001 billion shares valued at N34.547 billion that exchanged hands last week in 25,932 deals.

The Financial Services Industry (measured by volume) led the activity chart with 1.010 billion shares valued at N7.992 billion traded in 12,208 deals; thus contributing 70.75% and 64.60% to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.

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million in 878 deals. The third place was Consumer Goods Industry, with a turnover of 62.779 million shares worth N1.326 billion in 3,814 deals.

Trading in the top three equities namely FBN Holdings Plc, Sterling Bank Plc and United Bank for Africa Plc (measured by volume) accounted for 402.924 million shares worth N3.063 billion in 3,208 deals, contributing 28.22% and 24.76% to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.

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gun State government says it has distributed over 100,000 improved cocoa seedlings to farmers and provided lands to prospective investors to boost production This according to the governor, Dapo Abiodun was part of his administration’s plan to fulfil all listed pre-conditions necessary for a mega lift in the cocoa support initiatives for cocoa farmers, stakeholders and investors in primary production.

He stated this in Abeokuta at the Second Cocoa Farmers’ Day Celebration, organised

by Cocoa Farmers Association of Nigeria (CFAN), which witnessed participation by farmers from 13 cocoa producing states in Nigeria The governor, who was represented by the Commissioner for Agriculture, Dr. Adeola Odedina said that documentation of additional candidates, off-takers and processors had been submitted to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to enable the farmers to access the needed intervention that would restore the lost glory in the sector.

Speaking, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Muhammad Abubakar, represented by the Federal Director of Agriculture, Mrs. Karima Babangida, said that the ministry had carried out different intervention programmes for cocoa farmers in the country.

Abubakar said that the programmes included free distribution of improved cocoa seedlings, cocoa solar collapsible dryers, procurement of insecticides to farmers, collaboration with Cocoa Research Institute to assist cocoa farmers, among others.

He, therefore, urged cocoa farmers to continue to improve in their productivity, to enhance their livelihood, assuring them of the government’s continued support.

“I urge you to continue to contribute meaningfully to increase cocoa production, to move cocoa farming to an enviable level, in order to improve livelihood of farmers and other actors in the cocoa value-chain.

•Continues online at www.thewillnigeria.com

Amole, who attributed the scarcity of feeds for poultry farming across the world to the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic and climate change, noted that it was high time Nigerians and researchers in the poultry sector created alternative components for poultry feeds rather than depending on maize.

He, however, called on Nigerians to adjust to the new normal, invent sustainable ways to address global crisis, look inwards for areas of comparative advantage towards solving the problem of food crisis both for human and livestock consumption.

The Ogun State Commissioner for Agriculture, Dr. Adeola Odedina said that the state being the largest producer of broiler and egg in Nigeria had trained 45 youths to rear 1,000 broilers each, with the profit of N150,000 in three cycles, adding that such gesture would be replicated across the 20 local government areas of the State.

COP26: PUTTRU Evaluates President Buhari’s Energy Plan

BY ANTHONY AWUNOR

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s deliberations continue at the COP26 Summit in Glasgow, Scotland, PUTTRU, a foremost energy facilitation platform in Africa, which is ready with a Discussion Paper on the conference titled: ‘Africa’s Sustainable Energy Transition: Assessing the True Costs…Reflections for COP26’, has lauded FG’s plan for a decentralised solar-powered energy solution as announced by President Muhammadu Buhari to world leaders at the event. The President had at the summit announced that Nigeria was targeting the provision of solar power to 5 million homes in Nigeria by 2030.

While commending the idea, PUTTRU’s founder and chief executive officer, Monica Maduekwe however says the fast-growing population of the country would make the commendable projections insignificant.

Citing forecasts based on World Bank data, Maduekwe explains that Nigeria’s population in 2030 will be around 260 million. “While grid electricity provides a more cost-effective option for electrification, in some cases, decentralised energy solutions are the best options to reach remote communities, especially those communities with low population density and other factors that could make grid extension a more costly electrification option in the short term.

However, this target from the Nigerian government if reached by 2030, as the government has set, will not change the energy access situation in Nigeria by 2030.

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STATE OF THE STATES

BY SAM DIALA & OLAYEMI SHABA

our governance space while frugality assumes the back seat.

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As such, the sub-nationals are hemorrhaging huge resources in paying salaries and other emoluments of a bloated bureaucracy. To survive, they are urged to diversify their revenue base, embark on aggressive internally generated revenue (IGR) and depend less on the shrinking federal allocations.

Introduction:

here are concerns that Nigeria’s worsening revenue challenge may escalate into a financial implosion, with the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (subnationals), being the worst hit. The situation is aggravated by the nation’s escalating public debt stock (now over N35 trillion). The debt stock comprises domestic and external loan obligations of the Federal Government and the sub-nationals.

With over 70 percent of the nation’s revenue committed to debt servicing annually, governments at all levels are struggling to survive. There is little left for capital budget, pay salaries and undertake other priorities to grow the economy.

Moreover, there is a limit to which the people and corporates could be taxed. Yet, profligacy and waste take the centre of

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auchi State was created in February 1976 from the former North Eastern State. Its capital is Bauchi.

Located in the North-Eastern part of the Nigeria, it is bounded

by Kano and Jigawa to the north, Yobe and Gombe to the east, Kaduna to the west, Plateau and Taraba states to the south.

The entire western and northern parts of the state are mountainous and rocky. This is as a result of the closeness of the state to the Jos Plateau and Cameroun Mountains.

Bauchi state spans two distinctive vegetation zones – the Sudan Savannah and the Sahel Savannah. The Gongola and Hadejia rivers make a transverse across the state. The climatic condition of Bauchi is very hot in the months of April and May, while December and January are the coldest months.

Its major agricultural products, are maize, rice, millet, groundnut and guinea corn. Irrigation farming is practised and supported by the use of dams like Balanga Dam among others.

Cattle and other livestock are also reared in the state.|

The purpose of the State of the States project, is to present evidence-based alternatives. These include avenues for the sub-nationals to become more viable and less dependent on the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) – referred to as Abuja handout.

State of the States, a bi-weekly publication, features two states per edition. It endeavours to unearth hidden treasures in each state and ascertain, through consultations and

BAUCHI

This week periscopes Bauchi and Gombe.

College of Education : State - 1

Total IGR: N12,50bn (20.28% of total revenue)

College of Agriculture: State -1

FAAC: N49.14bn (79.72% of total revenue)

Nursing School/Health & Science: (3) Federal - 1, state - 2

Domestic Debt: N1102.81bn

Technical School: (7) State - 7

External Debt: $134.91m

Total Revenue: N61.64bn @ 2020

Unemployment rate: 34.22% @ 2020 Airport: 1 Tourist Attractions Yankari Game Reserve, Rock Paintings at Goji and Shira, The Emir’s Palace, Tafawa Balewa Tomb, Sumu Wildlife, Dukkey Wells, Wikki Natural Warm Spring , Marshall Cave &Fish Pond, the State Museum, Gubi Dam. Natural Resources: Alluvial tin, columbite, cassiterite, coal, limestone, iron ore, antimony, marble, Wolfram, gypsum, Linite, gold, cassiterite.

Agriculture: Bauchi state economy is mainly propelled by Agriculture.

Products such as maize, rice, millet, guinea corn, millet, sorghum, corn (maize), yams, cassava (manioc), tomatoes, and vegetables are its major produce. While coffee and groundnuts are its cash crop. The people also practise livestock farming such as goat, sheep and cattle rearing. Irrigation farming is supported by the dams.

LGA: 20 Land Area: 18,965sq mi Population: 6,28 million Est. @ 2019 Registered Businesses: 159

Mohammed

Public Primary Schools: 2,610 circa

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We have featured Lagos and Ogun, Kwara and Kogi, Anambra and Enugu, Benue and Taraba, Kebbi and Sokoto, Cross River and Akwa Ibom, Ekiti and Osun.

Total Tax: N 2.07bn

FACT-FILE

University: (2) Federal - 1, state - 1

Furthermore, State of the States will examine existing realities that hinge on sector-specific areas of competitive advantage – Agriculture, Tourism, Transportation, Education and Skill Acquisition, Wellbeing and MSMEs. Ultimately, the project seeks to create the desired spotlight on the subnationals to motivate them to venture into something different for better results.

Polytechnic: (2) Federal – 1, state – 1

Weaving and dyeing, tanning, and blacksmithing are also traditional activities in the state.

Public Secondary Schools: 290 circa

evidence-based survey, areas of comparative advantages and economies of scale. The publication will show-case, in no exaggerated terms, the socio-economic status of each state and highlight the opportunities and threats.

As a measure to overhaul the state agriculture sector to achieve food security, improve productivity, boost the economy and provide employment opportunity, Bauchi state government recently commenced sales of farm inputs, fertilizers, herbicides and seedlings at subsidised rate.

The government targets 90 communities to benefit from the small ruminant breeding programme packages which include farm input, boiler cocks, Napier grass cuttings among others.

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STATE OF THE STATES Bauchi With Bank of Industry Promotes Private Partnership

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o achieve sector-specific development, Bauchi state government partners with the Bank of Industry (BoI) to execute strategic projects in the areas of youth empowerment and small and medium enterprises.

In 2020, BoI implemented 27 projects worth N172 million aimed at empowering the youth in the state.

According to the state government, the projects located in 11 LGAs were among the 67 of such projects designed for Bauchi.

The projects are in the areas of agro-processing, printing

and solid minerals, among others.

the proposed ginnery in the state.

Following the discovery of oil in Bauchi, the state government said it has earmarked some very important projects that are needed to develop the communities where oil was discovered.

It is working hard to industrialise the state by resuscitating the cotton ginnery.

It said that the new ginnery would be operated under the public-private partnership agreement with reputable experts in the marketing and processing of cotton with the collaboration of Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to address the production, processing and marketing of the product from the ginnery to make it viable and of international standard.

The state government had set up a cotton revival committee to mobilise the citizens to engage in massive cotton production that would serve as raw materials for

Challenging Factors: Insecurity in the North East; legion of uneducated youth, poor electricity supply, high cost of living, hindering cultural values.

ENDOWMENT AND INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES

Food processing

Textile Industry

Mechanised Farming

Rice Milling

Dairy Farming

Leather Works

Hotel Development and Management

Fruit & Vegetable Processing

Groundnut oil Extraction

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STATE OF THE STATES

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GOMBE STATE

ombe State is located in Northeastern Nigeria. It was created out of Bauchi state on 1st October, 1996 by the then military Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha.

Gombe state shares boundaries with Yobe to the North, Borno and Adamawa to the East, Bauchi to the West and Taraba state to the South. It is known as Jewel in the Savannah. The capital and largest city is Gombe.

Gombe is blessed with natural resources like Uranium, Gypsum, and Limestone. Recently, petroleum deposits were reportedly discovered in the state.

Population: 2.35 (2006 Estimate)

The people of Gombe state are primarily farmers. They produce food and cash crops which include Cereals: maize, sorghum, rice and wheat. Others are Legumes: cowpeas, groundnuts, soya beans and Bambara nuts. Fruits: orange, lemon, mango, guava, paw-paw and grapes. Vegetables: tomatoes, pepper, onions, okra, pumpkin and melon. Tree Crops: gum Arabic, kenaf, sugar cane, sunflower and ginger.

It also produces cotton as cash crop.

Proportion of cultivation of major crops: Potatoes 90% Cassava 80% Rice 70% Soya Beans 70% Beans 80% Yam 80%

Land area: 20,265km2

These products provide raw material for agro-based industries like the Tomato Company, cotton ginnery and groundnut oil mill already in the state. Other industries are cement, furniture and block-making among other small scale industries.

Revenue: 48.46bn

FACT-FILE: LGA: 11 Public Primary Schools 1,734 (2020) Public Primary School Enrolment 479,746 Public Junior Secondary Schools: 267 (2014) Public Senior Secondary Schools: 175 circa University: (2) Federal – 1, state – 2.

Polytechnic: 1 - state College of Education: State – 2 College of Nursing and Midwifery: State – 1 Registered Companies: 80 Domestic Debt: N84.96bn (2020) External Debt: $192.47m FAAC N40bn (82.32% of total revenue) IGR 8.43 (17.62% of total revenue) Total Tax: N6.57bn

10-Year Development Plan: Gombe State Government has unveiled its 2021 to 2030 10year Development Plan in February 2021, aimed at harnessing the potentials of the state, by taking advantage of emerging opportunities and tackling challenges and threats.

Speaking during the official unveiling of the plan in Gombe, Governor Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya, said the road map for the transformation of Gombe State was aligned with Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations SDGs. According to him, the Gombe State Development Plan, which was referred to as Development Agenda for Gombe State, DEVAGOM, was the road map for the transformation of Gombe State and a product of wide consultations from all stakeholders in the state.

He said DEVAGOM was an agenda of the people, by the people and for the people and giving the state the opportunity to define its vision through the eyes of its people.

The United Nations Resident Co-ordinator, Edward Kallon, and heads of other UN agencies, promised to support the quantum leap of the Yahaya administration.

Ultra-Mordern Park

Yahaya

2021 Budget: 120.34bn

Tourist Attractions Tourist attractions in the state includes Balanga Dam, Dadunkawa Dam and Babayaro Tomb, Emir’s Palace, Tule Battlefield, Tangale Hill, Dadunkawa Dam is located in Yamaltu Deba Local Government Area, about 37km from Gombe town. The dam was designed to have a reservoir capacity of 2.8 billion cubic meters to include the generation of 34mw electricity while irrigating 44,000 hectares of farmland, and providing about 19 million gallons daily potable water to Gombe capital.

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STATE OF THE STATES Gombe Firing From All Cylinders To Drive Development

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uided by the Gombe State Development Plan DEVAGOM (2021-2030) strategy, the government is fast-tracking development from different angles, mainly infrastructure, industries and human capital. The N8.2 billion Ultra-modern Central Motor Park started in 2012 and sitting on 28 acre-parcel of land has attained 75% completion under the current government. Solar energy, youth skill acquisition and cottage industry processing industry are springing up rapidly.

According to the Hon. Commissioner for Information &

Culture, Hon. Julius Ishaya Lepes, the 40 MW hydropower facility in Dankuwa will boost industrial activities in many sectors. He said the park will take advantage of it when fully operational because of many businesses that will be cited there.

He disclosed that the state had awarded a contract of N16.4bn energy facility to provide power to the industrial park where civil works, road infrastructure and other facilities are designed to attract big-term investors – many of whom have indicated interest to that effect. “Gombe is

blessed with lots of mineral resources. Of recent, we signed an MoU with Magudu Cement to establish a factory here; they are bringing in $600m. We are establishing companies in Kwambo and Kwalli. The process is ongoing.

We have signed an MoU with Rift Oil. A 50,000 bpd modular refinery to serve the north-east is being established.

Very soon, Gombe will join the league of Nigeria’s oil producing states”, he told visiting team of Business Editors and Financial Correspondents Association of Nigeria in Gombe recently.

Challenging Factors: Insecurity in the North East; legion of uneducated youth, poor electricity supply, high cost of living, hindering cultural values.

ENDOWMENT AND INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES

Food processing

Mechanised agriculture

Transportation (Haulage)

Meat processing & packaging

Oil services (Engineering, Procurement, Construction, Installation)

Bakery Industry

Starch Manufacturing

Commercial Rice Production

Poultry

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Mama Roz’s Chronicles

The Long Nights (1)

BY ROZ AMECHI

Child sexual abuse is an all-too-common facet of our society but the tragedy is that the perpetrators are protected by the silence forced by our African culture.

Many women in private conversations would admit to having experienced some form of attempted or actual sexual abuse as children but in most cases it went unreported. The perpetrators are usually trusted people like fathers, uncles, older cousins, neighbours and even in some cases, domestic employees like drivers, gardeners or stewards.

The traumatizing effect of sexual abuse on a child can last a lifetime. A study by psychologists suggests that adults who had to go through sexual abuse in their childhood show symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), anxiety and depression. Oftentimes the symptoms manifest much later in life after the victim has kept the secret buried for several years. In this two-part story, Kristal shares her experience of sexual and physical abuse from her early years through to her teenage and highlights the impact of her childhood trauma on her present life.

Note: The real names have been changed to protect the identities of the people in the story.

K

Kristal’s Story ristal sat on the front porch and watched the other children make their way to the village school. She was six years old but hadn’t started formal school yet. Uncle Donald called out to her “It’s time for ‘school’, bring your books let’s begin”. She went back inside and picked up her books and pencil and sat beside Donald as he started taking her through her daily lessons which she really enjoyed. Donald was a good teacher and he spent considerable time making sure she got her tenses right and produced neat and well written work.

Donald watched Kristal as she counted on her fingers working through the calculations, he had set for her. He was very fond of his niece who had been pretty much abandoned by her parents and had taken it upon himself to home school her.

Kristal’s mother was his younger sister, Mercy who had fallen in love with a young man, Callistus whom she met while she was still in school. Her parents lived in Obulu-uku, a town not far from their village, Ubulubu in Delta state which the family regularly visited. It was on one of those visits to the village that Mercy and Callistus met and formed a relationship.

Callistus had promised to marry Mercy and even went to her parents to ask for her hand in marriage. Her parents, who had buried six out of their twelve children, were not keen on her getting married at all. They had only one surviving son and planned that Mercy being their first daughter would stay home and bear more children for the family. This was an accepted village custom. Callistus had another girlfriend in

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a neighbouring village who he was more disposed to marrying so he did not spend much time trying to convince Mercy’s parents to allow him to marry their daughter.

Within a couple of months, he married his belle and Mercy was left with a pregnancy that her parents wanted more than she did.

Devastated by Callistus’ betrayal and facing the possibility of raising a child alone which in 1969 was a huge challenge, Mercy went to the local midwife and asked her to prepare concoctions that would flush out the pregnancy. But her mother, Nwanonaku was a few steps ahead of her. Having got wind of Mercy’s plan, she visited the same midwife who was in fact a friend of hers, and asked her to give Mercy medication that would strengthen the baby in her womb and not kill it. And so it was that Kristal came to be. Three months after she was born, twenty-year old Mercy left for Lagos to continue her education and find work in the city. She hardly came home much after that and Kristal grew up with her grandparents and her mother’s siblings

“

Kristal loved these errands. It gave her a certain level of freedom to wander away from the homestead. Skipping all the way and humming to herself, Kristal made her way to the farm, plucked the required quantity of ogbonno and turned round to head back home but Ifeanyi had other ideas

including Uncle Donald who had appointed himself her teacher. Once she had completed the work Donald had set out for her for the day, Kristal was free to go out and play with the other little children in the village. Sometimes she accompanied Nwanonaku to the farm and helped her to plant and harvest crops like corn, cassava, yam, ogbonno, ugu, water leaves and several others.

Two years later, Kristal was deemed old enough to start her formal education and was taken to the local school to get registered. The lessons Uncle Donald had given her turned out to be a disadvantage in a way because she had completed all the class work for Primary 1 and 2 but was too young to join Primary 3.

So, she went back home again to continue with the home-schooling rather than waste time in the lower classes doing work she had already mastered.

However, being at home during the day when most people were working and other children were in school had its own drawbacks. One day Kristal was sitting with Nwanonaku when a teenage cousin, Ifeanyi came to ask for ogbonno. Her grandmother sold her crops fresh from the farm to many of their neighbours and relatives living nearby. They would often send any idle children or grandchildren found loitering or available to collect their purchases. Thus Ifeanyi, who on this fated day was for some reason neither in school nor working, was sent by his mother to collect ogbonno from Nwanonaku. Ifeanyi greeted Nwanonaku respectfully and stated his mission. She was busy shelling egusi (pumpkin seeds) and reluctant to leave her chores to visit the farm so instead she sent eight-year-old Kristal in the company of Ifeanyi whose role was to protect her from any lurking danger. Ironically, unknown to Nwanonaku, the real danger lay

closer to home.

Kristal loved these errands. It gave her a certain level of freedom to wander away from the homestead.

Skipping all the way and humming to herself, Kristal made her way to the farm, plucked the required quantity of ogbonno and turned round to head back home but Ifeanyi had other ideas. With no warning at all, he wrestled her to the ground which was quite easy as he was almost twice her size. Kristal was a relatively small child for her age. She had very picky eating habits and was often sick so she had not grown as fast or as big as other children her age. Also, the gaps in her social development due to the lack of a formal education had left her unaware of some of the dangers she could encounter with the opposite sex. She did not have the benefit of sharing tales in the school playground which for most children, served as a preliminary course in sex education.

As such she certainly didn’t see this attack coming. She had heard rumours about this particular cousin and knew he had attacked another girl in the village earlier but she did not know or understand the circumstances. Her introduction to the subject was thus a rather crude and violent one.

She fought him though, as hard as she could, but her small arms were not enough to stop a muscular teenage boy. Eventually she grew tired and stopped fighting. He lay on top of her and tried unsuccessfully to gain entry and finally frustrated, he began to deride her “You mean you have not done this before, what a waste of my time. You are useless”. He went on

and on, irritated and disgusted as he picked himself up and made his way back to the house.

Kristal was shaken and totally traumatised but on reaching home she could not tell anyone what she had experienced. Her relationship with her grandmother whilst cordial was somewhat distant. There was none of the warmth often associated with the relationship of a mother and daughter since Nwanonaku was the only real mother she knew, or even of a grandmother and granddaughter relationship. Nwanonaku had ensured that Kristal was not aborted because she wanted more children but she actually wanted male children and not another daughter. Moreover, Kristal was Mercy’s daughter and Nwanonaku already had a strained relationship with Mercy as a result of what she considered Mercy’s difficult and stubborn nature. In her opinion which was shared by her daughters, Kristal’s aunts, her grand-daughter was exhibiting the same signs of stubbornness as her mother. They all took steps therefore to nip these signs in the bud but rather than weed out the ‘stubbornness’, it simply created a distance between Kristal and her grandmother and a subdued resentment for her aunts. Consequently, this traumatic experience which she struggled to understand, could not be shared with anyone as she felt she would ultimately be blamed one way or another for the incident. She suffered in silence after what turned out to be the first of several similar incidents throughout her childhood and teenage years.

Re: Homeless in Abuja

If you wish to support any of the three women featured in the story, you can make donations to THEWILL Communication Company Limited, UBA Account: 1023834067. Please donation should be specified to which of the persons it is for. Email: rozamechi@gmail.com; (+234) 7087086950 THEWILLNIGERIA

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FEATURES How Technology Destroyed a Place Called Oluwole

BY MICHAEL JIMOH

S

THE STORY OF DENNIS ometime in 1992, a university hopeful tearfully told his father he was dropping out of his studies in Nigeria. He had set his sights on Europe just like two of his friends had done months before. A beloved and an only son, his father lent a sympathetic ear.

A cocoa dealer from an agrarian community in the northern part of what was then Bendel state, money was no problem to the father and so he made provisions for his ward’s long journey away from Africa. Of course, the lad’s starting point was Lagos where he would process the necessary documents needed to travel to Vienna, the Austrian capital where his friends had landed.

Dennis O (not his real name) had been briefed where to go in Lagos: A place called Oluwole. That was how Dennis arrived Oluwole and met his ‘helpers,’ those who would facilitate his journey to Vienna. He was more than elated.

Of course, his supposed helpers saw through him at first glance: in his new surroundings, Dennis’s rural simplicity shone like a greasy mechanic at a banker’s convention International passport? Dennis had none.

Not to worry. Within a week, the helpers had procured an international passport for the chap, complete with the requisite travel documents. Dennis was over the moon.

But first, he had to go back to the village to share the good news with his father and also get his blessings.

Showing off the documents in his possession, Dennis told his father he literally had one leg in Nigeria and the other in Europe.

Prouder than a parent whose son had won a scholarship to an Ivy League institution, his father quickly arranged for a ‘little celebration’ for his departing son. Friends and neighbours were invited to what was a send-off for the lucky lad. There was plenty to eat and drink as some of Dennis peers looked on with undisguised envy.

When it was time for Dennis to leave for Austria, he returned to Lagos for the second time and then proceeded to the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja for his long awaited journey. Inside the belly of a giant Austrian Airlines Airbus 320, Dennis finally relaxed and, as the Yorubas say, he could finally prop his feet up on the table, drink water and put the cup down.

Not quite. No sooner had he got to the arrivals in Vienna and encountered the country’s immigration officers than he realised that all the documents in his possession were counterfeit – passport, visa and just about anything else.

The only genuine items about him were his clothes and luggage.

Needless to say a few days later, Dennis was booked on another flight and parceled back from whence he came.

Like Moses, Dennis saw the ‘promised land’ but couldn’t step into it. But unlike Moses who was denied by a divine decree, Dennis was done in by master swindlers and forgers at Oluwole, a market area in Central Lagos and operational base of dyed-in-thewool forgers who made oodles of cash at the expense of gullible Nigerians.

Dennis had joined the number.

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“

Legend has it that a certain civilian governor of a state in the south west once boasted his signature could not be duplicated to the exact cursive letters and strokes.

A week later, one of his aides showed him two identical samples of his signature from the chaps at Oluwole. The governor chose the wrong one as his Oluwole was home to ersatz documents of whatever nature. If you wanted to sell your father’s house, you could come to Oluwole, get a forged certificate of death, get a fake notarization and voila! Or imagine that you wanted a glowing WAEC result even though you are a confirmed knucklehead, there was only one place to go to make it happen.

Oluwole was also the place to go, if, say, you gained access to a parsimonious parent’s cheque book and wanted a perfect imitation of his signature so you could enrich yourself at his/ her expense.

What about obtaining, say, the blue British Passport or even visa to any European country without necessarily following due process? The road led to Oluwole.

Marriage, birth and death certificates as well as affidavits of all kinds were easily procured at Oluwole not to

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mention letters of invitation, bank statements, cheque leaflets, even booklets and tax clearance certificates. Of course, all of them were duds, perfect imitations of the originals.

Legend has it that a certain civilian governor of a state in the south west once boasted his signature could not be duplicated to the exact cursive letters and strokes. A week later, one of his aides showed him two identical samples of his signature from the chaps at Oluwole. The governor chose the wrong one as his.

One source told THEWILL that as ordinary as it looked, counterfeiters at Oluwole bilked victim after victim of huge sums of money, raking in between $5, 000 to $10, 000 monthly. Business was good for the forgers while the expectations of those who patronized them were never met.

Hello, Hello!

But Oluwole was not only about forged documents.

Long before the advent of GSM, Nigerians of a certain generation who wanted to reach out to relatives and friends abroad hoofed it to discreet corner shops in central Lagos where operators tapped NITEL telephone lines illegally.

According to one man-about-town who claims knowledge of the early beginnings of Oluwole, hustlers in those shops often approached people on the street, Broad Street or Marina, say, and whispered “hello, hello,” a coded message implying you could make calls somewhere nearby. Once you agreed, they would lead you to inconspicuous shops where you could, for a fee, talk as long as you wanted with the receiver overseas.

It goes without saying that such payments were never remitted to the rightful owners – NITEL. Oluwole was a garden of hope from where many ended up harvesting tubers of disappointments. *Continues on Page 46

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FEATURES *Continued from Page 45

...Destroyed A Place Called Oluwole

businesses by cleverly forging them and having the returns come to them instead of the parent companies.

Man-about-town, Joseph Okoduwa (not real names) recalls instances of hapless deportees like Dennis angrily storming Oluwole to register their displeasure sometimes accompanied by police officers. “They come back dejected,” Okoduwa told THEWILL. “First is the shock and disbelief of what has happened and then anger at the perpetrators.”

911 and the decline of Oluwole Nothing, they say, lasts forever. Oluwole entered its final decline following the September 11, 2001 twin tower attacks in America. That attack revolutionized travel, especially by plane and replaced perfunctory airport security checks with more specialized ones.

Continuing, Okoduwa insists the fraudsters/ forgers at Oluwole usually anticipated such confrontations and were more than prepared for the returnees. Questions like “here na embassy, am I an ambassador?” were often thrown at the already hapless victims, that is if they even managed to trace the forgers at all.

Those who know describe Oluwole in its halcyon days as a warren of roads and narrow alleys leading to obscure shops and poky offices smack in the middle of a market of the same name in Central Lagos. The byzantine routes and narrow paths made it possible for counterfeiters to escape easily during unexpected raids by law enforcement agents.

In a Vanguard report of August 2, 2011, for instance, Evelyn Usman wrote of a surprise raid at Oluwole on a Sunday morning headlined “Day of Reckoning for Oluwole Fraudsters as Security Agents Raid Hideout.”

Usman wrote that “activities at the notorious Oluwole market located in central area of Lagos went on as usual last Sunday when all of a sudden an unprecedented invasion of the area by some security agencies changed the course of the day.”

The surprise raid was carried out by a combined team of Nigeria Immigration Service, Nigeria Police and the State Security Service. Recovered from the forgers were fake international e-passports, fake NYSC certificates and vital government documents.

According to Usman, fraudsters “operating there usually played on the gullibility of desperate Nigerians who intend travelling out of the country at all cost…those swindled ended up visiting the area with policemen only to discover that the person they transacted with was nowhere to be found.”

After the raid, the Comptroller General of Immigration Lagos State Command at the time, Mr. Sule Abass Ahmed, was stunned beyond words. He “marveled at the sophistication with which the fraudsters operated,” insisting that they were “well informed about any change either in signature or documents of any country at their disposal…getting the original visa or passport of any given country, after which they will scan into their system and then photocopy the original for willing buyers.”

Another source confirmed to THEWILL how back in the mid to late eighties, “you could get a British Passport, a trifold card board ID or abbreviated form of passport, the old British blue book passport and the red passport to travel from Nigeria to other European countries. If the picture of the Afro or Caribbean person doesn’t look like you, counterfeiters at Oluwole could expertly take apart the passport and replace/ transplant the passport photograph to yours.”

Continuing, the source, now safely ensconced in Canada, neither confirmed nor denied if he ever patronized the forgers, but declared that, for a fee, forgers “could provide you with first grade counterfeit PAGE 46

Countries also upgraded their passports, employing technology to ensure that the identities of travelers were clearly captured. It was the age of electronic passports, biometric requests at embassies and more advanced requirements for travel.

Nigeria soon followed suit as the first African country to issue e-passports which had chips containing the owner’s data embedded in it. The year was 2007 and Shehu Musa Yar ‘Adua was president.

“

The clever rogues they were, the forgers at Oluwole “never saved their money in banks for fear it might be traced to them. They invested in costly necklaces, rings and wristwatches such as Citizen and Seiko watches. They were the Rolex of their time

visa to many countries in Europe, especially Eastern European countries.”

Asked if he knew those who were the criminal masterminds behind such deceptive schemes at Oluwole, the source mentioned one Wella, a tall, huge and faircomplexioned fellow. He may or may not be dead, he went on. Wella seemed to be the number one man of the forgers then, adding that you could distinguish them from others by the very expensive jewelry they wear.

The clever rogues they were, the forgers at Oluwole “never saved their money in banks for fear it might be traced to them. They invested in costly necklaces, rings and wristwatches such as Citizen and Seiko watches.

They were the Rolex of their time.”

To be sure, the counterfeiters operated with a phalanx of collaborators ranging from retired or retrenched staff from ministries, travel agents and even staff of embassies and airlines. There were also the signature experts, sign writers and printers at Shomolu/Bariga.

According to Okoduwa, it was not only individuals forgers at Oluwole ruined financially and emotionally.

They destroyed businesses as well. In his telling, there was a time when luncheon vouchers were the rave in Lagos, travellers cheques, too, and even fuel coupons.

But the counterfeiters at Oluwole put an end to those

But the story of Nigeria’s e-passport began four years earlier in 2003. Olusegun Obasanjo was president and while on a state visit to Malaysia was shown the Malaysian passport. He visited the company that makes it and immediately put in motion a process to upgrade Nigeria’s passport.

When the Mint could not deliver, the Ministry of Interior put out a bid. Five companies emerged top contenders – The Mint, Obethur, G&D, De la rue and a Nigerian company called Iris Smart Technologies Limited (ISTL) At the end of the process, ISTL emerged best in technical and commercial and so was awarded the contract with the first passports delivered and launched by President Yar’Adua in 2007.

Oluwole was good and tried to play catch up but the technology deployed by ISTL was a lot better and with time as most documents became technologically advanced and linked to biometrics, Oluwole entered its full decline.

In fact the ISTL technology is so good that in 2015, according to a source who did not want to be named, when 54 pilgrims died in a stampede in Saudi Arabia during the hajj, the Nigerian government had to rely on ISTL to help identify the dead through their finger prints since they did not have their travel documents on them when they passed.

When THEWILL visited the place that used to be called Oluwole with Okoduwa in tow, we met a completely razed expanse of land where counterfeiters used to converge and operate. It had just rained that early October afternoon. There were puddles here and there over which traders and shoppers skipped. There were quite a number of parked yellow LT buses and private cars all of which was dwarfed by the four imposing, gold-coloured minarets atop the nearby Central Mosque.

In place of hustling counterfeiters who once held sway in the area, there were now tattooed youngsters with sagging pants and finger-length dreadlocks, most of them smoking weed, cigarette, quaffing drinks from satchet or straight from the bottle.

To many, Oluwole had been a place of last resort, a place where, after all else had failed, you were hopeful of finding someone hawking talismans of hope.

That garden of hopes is no more.

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Sack Race And Shelf Life Of Modern Football Managers

BY JUDE OBAFEMI

T

he football calendar is only four months old across Europe’s top leagues and already the shelf life of the modern day football manager has been set in stark relief especially in the very tight-contested top flight football of the English Premier League. The odds against managing a football team in England’s most prestigious competition was no clearer than when Nuno Espirito Santo of North London outfit, Tottenham Hotspurs, clashed against Ole Gunnar Solskjaer of Manchester United on October 30 in Tottenham Stadium, with the heads of not one but both managers set on the guillotine and waiting for the outcome.

A season that began beautifully for both managers had very quickly come to a crunch. In September, Spurs’ boss, Nuno, was announced as the winner of the Manager of the Month award for August in an easily predictable win for the coach, who moved from Wolverhampton Wanderers to Spurs before the season began. Spurs did not just win all the three matches played in August at the start of the season, they did not concede a single time, even though they began the season against reigning England champions Manchester City, whom they defeated 1-0 to kick off their good run.

In that same month, Solskjaer was having it his way every time United took to the road and they were not half bad at home either. After beating Wolves, Nuno’s old side, by a 1-0 triumph from a Mason Greenwood screamer, Solskjaer’s United set a new record of 28 Premier league away matches unbeaten as they came out of the scruffy encounter with all three points to climb to third on the table behind London clubs Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham after match day three at the end of August.

Things were looking up for both managers and they were the toasts of their fans, although the Red Devils’ display often left the fans suffused with anxiety and on the edge of their seats.

However, news of the highly anticipated return of their old talisman, Cristiano Ronaldo, whose contract was in its final stages at the time, and the confidence of a side bolstered with the addition of quality in the form of Raphael Varane from Real Madrid, Jadon Sancho from Borussia Dortmund and Tom Heaton from Aston Villa gave the Old Trafford faithfuls the confidence to hope for better days ahead.

That confidence, which was replicated at Spurs after their dream Nuno start and 3-in-3 August games, was bound to ebb away very rapidly with the slide in form that both sides experienced and which led up to that crunch fixture between Spurs and United in London. The axe of a potential firing THEWILLNIGERIA

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Santo

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awaited either of the managers if the result did not go their way and if the team’s performance did not see some marked improvement over the ties that had taken place in the EPL since that dreamy start to the season in August.

sections of the club to “Trust the Process” of rejigging the club with a fresh set of names that could deliver on the ideals of Arteta and drag them back to reckoning but those voices were almost drowned by the “Arteta Out” army.

From winning all matches in August to losing all matches in September, Nuno had no one to blame for his head being on the chopping board. Crystal Palace, Chelsea and Arsenal beat Spurs by three goals. In the game against the gunners Spurs managed to squeeze one goal in. On their part, the Red Devils, who lost to Young Boys in their UEFA Champions League opening tie of Group F after a first half red card for Aaron Wan-Bissaka, followed that embarrassment up by getting knocked out of the Carabao Cup by West Ham and lost to Aston Villa in the subsequent tie. It was no surprise when a 4-2 loss to Leicester and a 5-0 walloping by Liverpool at Old Trafford put Solskjaer’s position in jeopardy.

In the end, cooler heads prevailed at the Emirates. The club outspent their competition in the summer transfer window that restructured the defense with the introduction of Aaron Ramsdale in between the sticks, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Ben White and Nuno Tavares at the back to complement Gabriel Magalhaes. This sleek move coupled with the tactical inclusion of Nicolas Jover, who replaced Andreas Gorgson as the team’s set-piece coach in an assistant to manager position, has practically changed the fortunes of the Arsenal team as one example of how a little bit of patience, understanding and dedicated focus towards set purposes can make a difference.

Fortunately for Solskjaer, he came out of the crunch match at the Spurs stadium with a 3-0 victory that showed a change of squad formation and defensive game plan. It was a consoling factor for the United board that reserved some patience for the Norwegian manager to redeem himself, but a damaging outcome for his opposite number in the London club. Immediately after the loss, Tottenham President, Daniel Levy, and Director of Football, Fabio Paratici, entered into talks to begin the process of terminating Nuno’s appointment and finally bringing the more tactical and proven winner, Antonio Conte, to Spurs.

The case of the difference a quick managerial change can make was evident at Stamford Bridge and presents a counter example of the wisdom behind bringing about timely, informed and experienced handling to a squad that is disappointingly underperforming. The replacement of the underwhelming Frank Lampard with ex-Paris SaintGermain tactician Thomas Tuchel effectively changed the standard at the heavily-invested team that Roman Abramovic had assembled in London giving them a near-unbreachable defense and a winning mentality that saw them go all the way to win the prestigious UEFA Champions League in the German manager’s very first half-season in charge.

The speed at which they finalised the process was another recurring pointer to the shelf life of football managers in the modern era of the game and how quickly one coach can go from being the toast of the club to having to become the latest example of the more immediate result-oriented culture that dictates the duration of a manager in his position at a club as juxtaposed by the years of ethos-cultivation and club culturebuilding that characterised the times of the Alex Fergusons and the Arsene Wengers of not so long ago in the same English Premier League.

In sharp contrast with the early success and latter slide that was Nuno’s fortune, the patience accorded the manager of bitter north London rivals, Arsenal, while the club saw their worst ever start to an EPL campaign, appears to be bearing fruit currently. Mikel Arteta’s gunners had seen a disastrously painful opening to the 2021/222 season after losing 2-0 to newboys Brentford and Chelsea before Manchester City blew them away 5-0 to leave Arsenal at the rock bottom of the table without a goal, a point and desperate to survive an early condemnation to relegation. There was a clarion call in

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As Conte resumes at the Spurs Stadium, the focus on managerial changes for the betterment of a floundering team’s fortunes returns to the discourse even as the sword remains hanging over Solskjaer and other EPL managers such as Aston Villa’s Dean Smith, whose life has become more difficult with the departure of Jack Grealish to Man City, Norwich City’s Daniel Farke, who looks most likely to be punished for the team’s inability to iron out a single victory while newcomers Brentford have put a couple of victories under their belt. Rafa Benitez at Everton and Brendan Rodgers at Leicester might want to watch their backs too as the pendulum of change at the managerial level swings across the EPL. What is clear is that there is a short lifespan for these managers in the modern game and competing at the highest levels especially in clubs that demand result-oriented stay in position for their managers. When the results are not as forthcoming as demanded, Nuno’s experience shows, it is not long before that manager falls to the very demanding notion of the “sack race”.

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