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Omolori: Why All N’Assembly’s Actions on Service Commission Can’t Stand Deji Elumoye, Chuks Okocha and Udora Orizu in Abuja Determined to seek redress following perceived injustice, outgoing Clerk of the National Assembly, Mr. Sani Omolori, has faulted the National Assembly Service Commission

(NASC) over its decision to compulsorily retire him and 149 others. Omolori said the law cited by the commission for its action never existed and all the decisions made with respect to it were null and void.

In yet another statement,

dated July 16, 2020, and addressed to the chairman of the commission, Ahmed Kadi Amshi, Omolori said the press release he issued on the development, which was queried by the commission, was not intended to undermine the body. He

said he only wanted to clarify the issues at stake in order to ensure peace within the National Assembly workforce.

NASC had on Thursday queried Omolori for rejecting retirement following a press statement he issued describing the decision of the commission

as illegal. He contended that there was no legal basis for the recent mass retirements, as the National Assembly Service Commission Act 2014, upon which the commission based its action, did not exist in law and, therefore, all actions built on it were null and void.

In a letter dated July 15, 2020 and addressed to the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, and Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon Femi Gbajabiamila, a copy of which was sighted at the Continued on page 8

Widow of Ex-Edo Speaker Kidnapped on Her Way to Husband’s Burial…Page 13 Sunday 19 July, 2020 Vol 25. No 9232

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Egbema-Ijaw Leaders Seek Buhari’s Intervention in Share of Marginal Fields Say ongoing bid for 57 marginal fields a ruse, warn of consequences if...

Omon-Julius Onabu in Asaba Leaders of thought of the Egbema-Ijaw people in Edo and Delta States have

demanded equity in the Marginal Fields allocation, asking President Muhamamdu Buhari to intervene in the matter by considering their

proposal.

Specifically, they demanded that Egbema and other host communities of the Niger Delta should "be given the

right of first refusal" in such matters with at least a 25 per cent equity holding on all fields within Egbema territory.

The Egbema-Ijaw leaders

also cried foul over the reported on-going fresh bid for the award of 57 Marginal Fields to prospective oil and gas operators in the

Niger Delta describing it as fraudulent and a sham.

The group, which described Continued on page 12

Olanipekun, Four SANs Lead Cases Seeking to Disqualify Obaseki, Shaibu APC accuses duo of committing perjury, forgery Party's campaign council, state govt disagree over destruction of Ize-Iyamu’s billboards INEC releases final list of candidates Iyobosa Uwugiaren, Chuks Okocha, Alex Enumah in Abuja and Adibe Emenyonu in Benin City Foremost lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Chief Wole Olanipekun, is leading four other SANs in cases of certificate forgery and perjury instituted against Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State and his deputy, Philip Shaibu, at a Federal High Court in Benin City.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) and a member of the party, Mr. Edobor Williams, instituted the cases.

The plaintiffs are asking the court to disqualify the governor and his deputy from participating in the September 19 governorship election in the state as well as prevent their

party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), from fielding any candidates in the election.

In a related development, the APC National Campaign Council for the September 19 governorship election in the state, Saturday, raised the alarm over the destruction and removal of the outdoor billboards and campaign posters of its candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, and his running mate, Mallam Gani Audu, by alleged agents of the state government.

But Special Adviser to Obaseki on Media and Communication Strategy, Mr. Crusoe Osagie, dismissed the allegation, calling it belated antics of a routinely recycled politician.

Continued on page 12

Buhari Names Agbor Railway Complex After Jonathan... Page 13

COURTESY VISIT...

L-R: Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha and Ekiti State Governor/Chairman, Nigerian Governors’ Forum, Dr. Kayode Fayemi; during the governor’s courtesy visit to the SGF in Abuja

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VISIT TO BOURDILLON...

All Progressives Congress National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, with members of the party's Reconciliation Committee on Ondo led by Niger State Governor Abubakar Sani Bello, during their visit to Tinubu at his Bourdillon, Lagos residence...at the weekend tinubu media office

OMOLORI: WHY ALL N’ASSEMBLY’S ACTIONS ON SERVICE COMMISSION CAN’T STAND office of a presiding officer of the National Assembly, the embattled top bureaucrat and lawyer alleged serious anomaly with regard to the National Assembly Service Commission Act 2014 as passed by the National Assembly and assented to by the President.

The said act was signed into law in 2014 by then President Goodluck Jonathan, when Senator David Mark was senate president, and Aminu Tambawul, was Speaker of the House of Representatives.

The seven-page letter

by Omolori, which was also copied to the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, and Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Idris Wase, as well as the 14 principal officers in both chambers of the National Assembly, addressed the on-going controversy over responsibility for final approval of the conditions of service for the National Assembly.

Omolori chronicled the various processes leading to the repealing of the National Assembly Service Commission Act, Cap N7, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, and re-enactment of the National Assembly Service Administrative Structure Bill, and claimed that the bill signed into law

by Jonathan omitted Section 19 (2) of what was passed by the National Assembly.

He said the omitted section 19 (2) was what ought to give legal authority to the National Assembly Service Commission for all its actions.

Omolori explained, “The clear implication, Your Excellencies, is that anything done or purported to have been done under that Act is null and Void.

It, therefore, means that the purported repeal of the National Assembly Service Act, Cap N7 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2014 as contained in Section I (l) of the National Assembly Service Commission Act of 2014 is of no effect as we must fall back on the National Assembly Service Act Cap N7 Laws of the

Federation of Nigeria."

He stated in the letter, “I write to draw your attention to a very serious anomaly with regard to the National Assembly Service Commission Act 2014 as duly passed into law by the National Assembly and as assented to by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“It will appear that the ongoing controversy as to who is responsible for the final approval of the conditions of service for the Assembly, promoted some concerned individuals, present and former lawmakers, who were privy to the process of enacting that Act to draw attention to a huge gap between what the 7th Assembly passed and what is now in circulation as the Act. “In view of my onerous duty as the Clerk of the National Assembly and the seriousness of the concerns raised, it became highly imperative to investigate the facts and circumstances of the matter. My findings are presented below.

“On Wednesday, 15th May, 2013, the House of Representatives resolved into a Committee of the Whole and considered the report of ‘A Bill for an Act to Repeal the National Assembly Service Commission Act, Cap N7, Law of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 and Re-Enact a National Assembly Service Administrative Structure Bill for improved Service Delivery; and other Related Matters') (hereafter referred to as ‘the Bill’).

“The particulars of the Bill as considered, passed and adopted on that day are in Appendix G A’ (pages 876-887). You may wish to note particularly Clause 19 (1) and (2) on page 883. On Wednesday 11th December 2013, the Senate resolved and considered part of the Bill in a Committee of the Whole and deferred further consideration to another Legislative Day. “The Senate Votes and Proceeding marked as Appendix ‘B’. The Senate resumed consideration of the Bill on Wednesday, 9th March, 2014, approved the

Report in Plenary – adopted the Bill – read it the third time and passed it on the same day. As the Bill passed by both Houses had differences, a harmonisation committee was constituted in both Houses in line with Parliamentary rules to meet and reconcile the differences.”

He explained that the details of the harmonisation report, which showed graphically what both chambers adopted and the conference recommendations in the areas they had differences, was contained in Appendix "E".

Omolori stated, “On the 27th May 2014, the House received and adopted the harmonisation report of the Bill. On the Senate side, the report of the Harmonisation Committee was laid on 27th May 2004 and adopted on 5th June 2014. Curiously, the bill signed into an Act by the president omitted Section 19 (2). Your Excellencies, it is obvious from the above sequence that the Act represents any other thing but the wishes of the parliament.

“For to become an Act as a binding law, it must go through the legislative process and duly passed by the parliament. Thereafter, the president assents to it.

The unique but compulsory requirement is that the chain must be unbroken to the extent that the president is to sign the bill as passed by the parliament. No omission and no addition except for a veto, which will call for further legislative action.

“In the circumstances of this Act and with this obvious omission, I advocate that we do the needful.

Indeed, we should be mindful of this omission and, in the least, give expression to the wishes of the parliament.

“As it stands, therefore, the authenticity and legality of the National Assembly Service Act, 2014 standing as part of our existing laws is untenable. To the extent that is it different from what the parliament passed, by any reason whatsoever, it must be expunged from our statute books.

“I need to say, with

emphasis, that the votes and proceedings of the parliament is the sole authority for any law — it is the only document that states the parliamentary resolutions and anything that is contrary to it (either by omission or commission) cannot pass as a resolution of the parliament.”

Omolori maintained, “It therefore means that the purported repeal of the National Assembly Service Act, Cap N7 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2014 as contained in Section I (l) of the National Assembly Service Commission Act of 2014 is of no effect, as we must fall back on the National Assembly Service Act. Cap N7 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria. I intend to take necessary steps to ensure that this illegal Act is consigned appropriately.”

Clarifying his intentions in the three-page release, he said though the statement might appear as insubordination, it was actually meant to obviate a situation where the NASC would be seen as being insubordinate. He appealed to the chairman of the commission to consider the press release as a patriotic duty to save the National Assembly.

Omolori stated, “I am in receipt of the above vide your letter Reference No. NASC CHO/1/2 dated 16 July 2020 and wish to inform you that the press release issued was not intended to dictate to or undermine the commission but to clarify the issues at stake in order to ensure peace and tranquillity within the Assembly workforce.

“As the Clerk to the National Assembly, it is my responsibility to ensure staff matters are clearly disseminated at all times and to see to the efficient functioning of the legislative bureaucracy. The press release was, indeed, issued sequel to an emergency top management meeting I summoned yesterday as soon as my attention was drawn to your press release.

“It is also important to state that I was compelled to issue that statement

via a press release as the circular from your office was brought to our attention via a press release instead of an administrative notice to my office as the Head of Legislative Service. It is imperative to recall my earlier letter Reference No NASS/CNA/15O/VoI3/698 drawing your attention to the defects in what the commission relies on as the National Assembly Service Commission Act 2014 and the consequences thereof.

“You may also wish to recall that you had written a letter to the leadership of the National Assembly canvassing a reversal of the Resolution of the 8th Assembly on the Condition of Service. Management is aware of the following. That the leadership of the House of Representatives rejected the request to reverse the Resolution and you were informed of this decision vide letter No. NASS/HR/ LEG/14/3/30 dated 4th June. 2020.

“Management is also aware that the meeting of the joint leadership of the National Assembly had been conveyed on more than one occasion to deliberate on your request. Management is further aware that no decision had been taken at the joint leadership meeting so far on the matter.

“While Management considers that placing the matter before the leadership of the National Assembly accords with the spirit and intent of the authentic National Assembly Service Commission Act 2014, it will be premature to communicate any contrary decision at this time. It is in view of the foregoing that Management considered it imperative.

“In the circumstances, Mr. Chairman should kindly consider my press release as a patriotic duty to save the National Assembly that we both have committed to serve faithfully. In answering your query, it is important to highlight that while you may rely on Section 65 of the ‘Act’ to issue the query, however, as it relates to the Office of the Clerk to the National Assembly, Section 10 is quite instructive.”

The NASC had on Friday approved the retirements of Omolori and about 149 senior management staff of the parliament and also announced their replacement. The new appointments, which took immediate effect, were contained in a press release signed by Chairman of the commission, Amshi, at the end of an emergency meeting.

According to the new appointments, which he said were in line with Section 6(b) of the National Assembly Act 2014 (as amended), Ojo Amos Olatunde replaced Sani-Omolori as Acting Clerk of the National Assembly, while Dauda Ibrahim ElLadan replaced Nelson Oyewoh, as Acting Clerk, Senate. Patrick A. Giwa remained Clerk, House of Representatives, pending his retirement in November.

Other appointees included Bala Yabani Mohammed, Acting Deputy Clerk to the National Assembly, and Yusuf Asir Danbatta, Acting Secretary to the NASC. The two-page release read in part, ‘’The National Assembly Service Commission at an emergency meeting held today, Friday, 17th July, 2020 has approved the appointments of some senior Management staff for the Service.

“Pursuant to its mandate as provided in the National Assembly Service Act 2014 (as Amended). Section 6(b) which states ‘appoint persons to hold or act in the Offices of: Clerk to the National Assembly, the Deputy Clerk to the National Assembly, Clerk of the Senate, Clerk of the House of Representatives; Deputy Clerk of the Senate, Deputy Clerk of House of Representatives, Secretaries to Directorates; and Holders of other offices that shall be created by the Commission on the recommendation of the Clerk to the National Assembly.’”

Other top management staff numbering over 150, including directors, secretaries, and deputy directors, who had attained 60 years of age or put in 35 years of service, were also affected by the retirement.

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NEWS

Wike: We are Succeeding with Prudent Mgt of Scarce Resources Ernest Chinwo in Port Harcourt Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has said that prudent management of resources has led to massive infrastructural development in the State.

According to him, despite the economic downturn in the country, the State's development agenda is still on course.

Addressing journalists yesterday after an inspection of ongoing projects in the

State, Wike said he would leave a lasting legacy that would remain indelible in the hearts of Rivers people at the expiration of his tenure in 2023.

"We are going to spread development projects across the twenty three Local Government Areas of the State.

"Numerous development projects are completed and ongoing across the state despite the COVID-19 pandemic because of our prudent management of scarce

resources.

"Rivers people will see more development projects until the end of my tenure.

"It is important that when you are given an opportunity to serve, you leave behind legacies that will make people to remember that you are the one that provided a lot of infrastructure that enhanced economic activities.

"As far as I am concerned, from 2015 to 2023, I want to be remembered by the quality of projects I provided for my

people.

"With prudent management of scarce resources, we will be able to achieve. Despite the economic downturn, we are not giving excuses but delivering on our promises, " he said.

The Governor expressed satisfaction with the level of work done by Julius Berger Nigeria PLC, despite embarking on three major flyovers simultaneously including the expansion of the Rumuola flyover.

He noted that the company has the capacity to deliver on projects, hence his insistence that reputable companies execute projects for the state government.

"It is amazing when you see a good job done and you are happy for the money you have spent. I am sure that the residents of the State are happy.

"These projects started in October last year and this is July and they are almost completed. I am impressed

with what I have seen and happy that it is in my tenure that these infrastructures are being built.

"I have told Rivers people to be patient. More and more projects will be provided for them”, the governor added.

Some of the projects inspected include, ongoing construction work at the official residence of the Speaker of the State House of Assembly in Old GRA , Woji Road and Opobo Crescent in New GRA and the Rebisi Flyover.

governor is made to come to terms with the fact that all constitutional powers have limits and responsibilities and that as it has been said by scholars, nobility commands responsibility.”

But in a swift reaction, Osagie insisted that the Edo State government did not bring down APC candidates’ campaign billboards. In a statement, he said the allegations were ludicrous and unfounded.

He alleged in the statement, “Anyone who knows IzeIyamu very well knows that this is his approach to politics. He raises the alarm and cries wolf, when no one is chasing him. The state government has not removed any of his billboards. This is cheap blackmail to score lame political points.

“Ize-Iyamu is a politician that assumes relevance during every election cycle. This is what he does for a living and has no other job. It is not surprising to see these statements from him and his team. He should not be taken seriously, and his statements should be disregarded.

“He would go back to his cocoon after he has been defeated at the September 19, 2020 election and would most likely resurface after four years to repeat this cycle. So, we are used to his childish charades.”

INEC, in compliance with its Timetable and Schedule of Activities, and in accordance with Section 34 of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended), published the final list of candidates for the 2020 governorship election in Edo State by displaying it in the commission’s offices in the state capital and the 18 local government areas of the state.

The list was also uploaded on the commission’s website.

By Section 35 of the Electoral Act and the Timetable and Schedule of

Activities of the Commission, withdrawal and substitution of candidates for the Edo Sate governorship election ended on July 13, 2020.

A statement by INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, listed the governorship candidates and their deputies as follows: AA: Edemakhiota Godwin Osaimiamia, deputy, Sunday Johnbull; ADC: Mabel Oboh, deputy, Reuben Agharese Edokpayi; ADP: Ibio Lucky Emmanuel, deputy, Demond Imasuen; and APC: Osagie Andrew Ize-Iyamu, deputy, Audu Ganiyu. Also, listed were APGA: Lucky Osagie Idehen, deputy, Isah Asekhaimeh; APM: Igbineweka Osamuede, deputy, Obiyan Christian; APP: Amos Osalumese Areloegbe, deputy, Afolabi Ogah; and LP: Osifo UhunEkpenma Isaiah, deputy, Omogbelehan Edomoina Pauline.

Others were NNPP: Agolebun Tracy, deputy, Enobhaysobo Jonathan; NRM: Stevie Nash Ozono Osadolor, deputy, Eghe Festus; PDP: Godwin Nogheghase Obaseki, deputy, Philip Shaibu; SDP: Felix Ikezor Obayangbon, deputy, Omion Omonye; YPP: Jones Osagiobare, deputy, Samson Olukayode Idowu; and ZLP: Akhalamhe Amiemenoghena, deputy, Thompson Osadolor.

Okoye said with the publication of the final list of candidates, no political party could withdraw or substitute any of the nominated candidates or tamper with the list and particulars of the candidates in a manner inconsistent with the intendment of the Constitution and the Electoral Act. “We urge political parties to pay close attention to the timelines stipulated in the Timetable and Schedule of Activities of the Commission as well as the provisions of the Constitution and the Electoral Act," Okoye said.

the current bid exercise lacks transparency and integrity as it was in the past, as the bulk of the 57 Marginal Fields have already been allocated to non-indigenes and cronies of government under the table and this bid round is a ruse intended to give an appearance of following due process.

"We warn that any allocation arising from this exercise that does not take our needs as host communities into adequate consideration would be an exercise in futility as the allotees would not be allowed to effectively farm the fields.

“Therefore, we the people of Egbema Kingdom call on Mr. President to ensure

that our rights and interests as host communities in this bid exercise are not sidelined through any form of manipulations. The result should command the respect and acceptability of the people of Egbema Kingdom in order to ensure a peaceful and productive farming of the fields in our Kingdom.”

To the end, the leaders demanded that, “Egbema people and indeed Niger Deltans should be given the right of first refusal before consideration is given to outsiders; at the minimum a 25% equity holding on all the fields within Egbema territory if the federal wants an unfettered access by prospective winners."

OLANIPEKUN, FOUR SANS LEAD CASES SEEKING TO DISQUALIFY OBASEKI, SHAIBU Meanwhile, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has released a final list of eligible candidates for the September 19 election across the different political parties.

Obaseki and Shaibu, who are contesting the election on the platform of PDP, had contested and won the governorship election in 2016 under APC. In two separate suits filed against them by the APC and Williams, the plaintiffs want the court to stop Obaseki and Shaibu from participating in the September 19 governorship election in Edo State for allegedly lying on oath and submitting false documents to INEC to aid their qualifications in the forthcoming election.

According to them, the alleged offences of the defendants run contrary to the provisions of the Electoral Act 2010, as amended, and the punishment is automatic disqualification.

The plaintiffs are also asking the court to bar the PDP from participating or representing itself in the September 19 governorship election for sponsoring ineligible candidates.

In the first suit marked FHC/B/CS/74/2020, which has Obaseki, PDP and INEC as first, second and third respondents, respectively, the plaintiffs want the court to hold that Obaseki lied on oath in his INEC Form CF 001 submitted in aid of his qualification.

The plaintiffs further accused the first defendant of forging his West African Examinations Council (WAEC) result in aid of his admission for a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Ibadan. In a statement of claim in support of the suit

by Dr. Ehiogie West-Idahosa, the plaintiffs further claimed that Obaseki did not meet the minimum requirements to gain admission into the university, as he had just three credits and two passes in his school certificate results purportedly issued by WAEC. Obaseki was also accused

of perjury for claiming to have graduated from the University of Ibadan in 1976 in his form CF 001 completed in July 2016, while in his form CF 001 completed on June 29, 2020 he claimed to have graduated in 1979.

The plaintiffs in the suit added that Obaseki had also been disqualified from participating in the election by the APC screening committee, which discovered huge discrepancies in documents presented in support of his academic qualifications.

The plaintiffs, in accusing Obaseki of forgery, pointed out that his degree certificate, whose photocopy was presented to INEC, revealed that only the Vice Chancellor of the university signed the certificate and without effective date of award, as against the standard operating procedure of the Examination, Records and Administrative Data Processing Division.

The plaintiffs also want the court to declare that Obaseki's claim that he worked with Afrinvest Limited from 1994 to 2014, when he retired, was false.

Aside the alleged falsification of documents and lying on oath, the plaintiffs want the PDP standard bearers disqualified on the grounds that the waiver granted them by the PDP last month contravened section 177 of the 1999 Constitution.

In the other suit marked FHC/B/CS/75/2020, which has Shaibu, PDP and INEC as first, second and third respondents, respectively, the plaintiffs, apart from accusing Shaibu of also parading false academic documents, want him disqualified for presenting forged tax clearance certificate to INEC in 2006 in aid of his qualification for the 2007 House of Assembly election in Edo State in 2007.

On Shaibu's academic record, the plaintiffs claimed discrepancies and alleged forgery in his WAEC result,

adding that Shaibu's claim that he obtained a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Benin in 2012 was false.

APC Campaign Council Accuse Edo Govt of Destroying Ize-Iyamu’s Billboards Meanwhile, the APC campaign council, which accused Edo State government agents of destroying and removing the billboards of its candidates, said it had petitioned the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Johnson Kokumo, and INEC regarding what it called a "criminal act". It said the billboards and campaign posters were located at strategic points in Benin City and beyond.

National Vice Chairman of the publicity committee of the campaign council, Hon. Patrick Obahiagbon, said at a press conference in Benin City, the Edo State capital, that the action was “unfortunate” and “criminal.”

Obahiagbon stated that the "outdoor billboards and indeed other campaign materials were duly paid for, designed and erected in full compliance with all legal requirements.”

He said, “We are convinced that this act of intolerance, carried out with impunity, foreshadows what the Edo State government has in store for the Edo voters and our supporters in the September 19 election following the emergence of incontrovertible facts that Mr. Godwin Obaseki is on his way to an embarrassing defeat.

“This unfortunate and criminal action took flight on Thursday, the 16th of July, 2020, when the Edo State government allegedly expressly told one Mr. Dave Giwa Amu who is parading himself as the Managing Director of the Edo State Signage and Advertising Agency, to commence

immediate removal and destruction of our billboards."

The campaign council also stated, “The Edo State Signage and Advertising Agency, purportedly led by the so-called Mr. Dave Giwa Amu, an avowed supporter of the incumbent Governor Godwin Obaseki, is an agency that is yet to receive the assent of the Edo State House of Assembly as the bill for its creation and operations is still being considered in the legislative chamber…

“This agency, as of today, is unknown to the laws of Edo State and is being weaponised by the state government, an interested party in the election, to give itself an illegal, unfair, unethical, fraudulent advantage as we approach the polls.

“This is an egregious and opprobrious escalation of other recorded acts of abuse of office and disregard for the law on the part of the Edo State government. It is a new low for a state government and a governor that has blurred and corrosively dimmed the lines on what is personal and official, reserves the interest of the state and that of the parochial interests of the man, who lead it.

“It is unfortunate that as the chief executive of the state, who is expected to commit to peace, rule of law and avoidance of rancour, Governor Godwin Obaseki has continued to heat up the polity with reckless and provocative comments, media blackmail and criminal actions of intolerance, including the mass destruction of opponent's campaign materials.”

Obahiagbon stated that APC and its candidates remained confident that Edo people already knew where to place their thumbs on September 19 and would not be cowed by the “last kicks of a dying horse”.

The campaign council said, “We will, nonetheless, stop at nothing to ensure that the rule of law prevails in the state and that the

INEC Releases Final List of Candidates

EGBEMA-IJAW LEADERS SEEK BUHARI’S INTERVENTION IN SHARE OF MARGINAL FIELDS as a “ruse” the impression that due process was being followed regarding the current bid process for the 57 marginal fields, however, warned that such would end up as an exercise in futility unless the oil-bearing communities, particularly, communities of Egbema Kingdom, were duly carried along.

In a statement by Hon. Joel Bisina and Ambassador Jude Ebitimi Ukori, the Egbema leaders lamented the fact that the federal government seemed to be progressing in error by allegedly following in the old order of utter disregard for the oil and gas host communities while awarding juicy contracts for oil exploitation to those the

group termed "cronies of the federal government".

The leaders urged President Buhari to intervene to halt the injustice against the povertyridden neglected oil and gas host community by ensuring that host communities are adequately consulted in issues of allocation of oil blocs and marginal fields in order to make the process transparent and the oil and gas production, successful.

"It is a well-known fact that Egbema Kingdom is a major producer of oil and gas, which constitutes the revenue base of the country. As a result of the exploration of oil and gas in our communities, the kingdom has suffered

environmental degradation and our livelihoods have been destroyed over the years, yet, the federal government has persistently neglected these communities to live in abject poverty.

"The Egbema Kingdom is host to several Oil Mineral Licenses (OMLs) originally ceded to the international oil companies (IOCs) for exploration and production activities and out of which the Marginal Fields were extracted. The original intention of creating marginal fields was to build indigenous capacity and deepen local involvement in the oil and gas industry.

"Yet, over the years the federal government, in its

typical manner of displaying absolute disregard for the local oil bearing communities, had flagrantly allocated the Marginal Fields, in contravention of the original plan, to its own cronies without any regard for the host communities.

Consequently, some of the Marginal Fields taken away from the IOCs and awarded to these cronies and so-called operators have remained unfarmed many years after.

"From all indications, the current bid round for the 57 Marginal Fields is following the same unproductive and oppressive pattern adopted by the federal government in the past.

"It is widely rumoured that

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Widow of Ex-Edo Speaker Kidnapped on her Way to Husband’s Burial Obaseki orders rescue operation Adibe Emenyonu in Benin City The wife of the late former Speaker of Edo State House of Assembly, Mrs. Asana Garuba was on Saturday abducted and held captive by unknown kidnappers.

However, as at midnight yesterday, unconfirmed report had it that she had regained her freedom. And was in custody of security operatives at Okene. She is expected to proceed to Auchi by day break Sunday morning. Efforts by THISDAY to reach the PPRO, Mr. Williams Aya of Kogi State Police Command by telephone around 1am proved abortive.

The incident occurred between Kogi State and Okpella in Edo State, while Mrs. Garuba and other family members were on their way to Auchi for her husband's burial, Rt. Hon. Zakawanu Garuba.

Garuba, who was Speaker between 2007 and 2009, and a member of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), died in Abuja in the early hours of Saturday after a brief illness. He was aged 54.

Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, expressed shock at the news of the former speaker’s demise and the abduction of his wife by

kidnappers. In a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Communication Strategy, Mr. Crusoe Osagie, Obaseki said a rescue operation commenced immediately the incident was reported to the security agencies in the state and the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Johnson Kokumo, was working with his Kogi State counterpart to ensure the victims’ rescue.

The statement said, “Governor Godwin Obaseki is deeply saddened by this incident, which he described as distressing more so, with the passing of Rt. Hon. Zakawanu Garuba, earlier today. He has ordered the Police Command to ensure that the kidnap victims are rescued. The Commissioner of Police has contacted his Kogi State counterpart and leading the rescue operation."

Earlier in a condolence message, Obaseki said the death of the former speaker was a deep personal loss to him.

The governor stated, “I received the news of the passing of Rt. Hon. Zakawanu Garuba with a heavy heart. He was an outstanding Nigerian and a good man. He worked for the good of the people and contributed his quota to the

Late Garuba development of his immediate community and the state.

"As Executive Commissioner, Corporate Services and

Supervising Executive Commissioner, Operations, at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Nigeria, late

Garuba performed brilliantly, distinguishing himself as a true Edo son with his commitment to duty, innovativeness and sheer dexterity.

"As a politician and Speaker of the Edo State House of Assembly, he performed his tasks diligently, served the people meritoriously and provided sterling leadership to the legislative arm of government. He excelled in his private practice as a constitutional lawyer, bringing panache to the noble profession."

Garuba was elected into the Edo State House of Assembly in 2003 on the platform of PDP. While in the Assembly, he served as Chairman of the House Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights, and Legal Matters. He became Speaker in 2007.

Garuba was born in Auchi, Etsako West Local Government Area of the state, on August 23, 1965. He attended Our Lady of Fatima College, Auchi, between 1978 and 1983 before proceeding to the famous Edo College, Benin, for his Higher School Certificate, and, later, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, where he obtained a law degree in 1989 and was called to the bar in 1990.

Garuba was the Oshioze of Auchi Kingdom, a title conferred on him by the Otaru of Auchi, Alhaji Aliru Momoh, Ikelebe III. He was removed as Speaker of the Edo State House of Assembly under controversial circumstances.

A devout Muslim, the former lawmaker was recently appointed as a member of the Godwin Obaseki Governorship Campaign Council. He is survived by his wife and three children.

Friends and former classmates took to the social media to mourn the passage of the two-time lawmaker after the news of his death broke.

A former member of the Edo State House of Assembly, Mr. Pascal Ugbome, the World Wide President (WWP) of Our Lady of Fatima College Old Boys Association (OLOFOBA), who took to the association's WhatsApp chat group to mourn the deceased, described him as a friend and brother.

Ugbome wrote, "Our friend, brother and passionate Olofobaite, Rt. Hon. Zakawanu Garuba, has gone to be with the Lord. He passed on this morning. Oh God what a Loss.”

Mrs. Asana Garuba suffered similar fate about two years ago along Benin-Auchi road.

Buhari Names Agbor Railway Complex After Jonathan Omololu Ogunmade in Abuja President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday named the newly constructed railway complex in Agbor after former President Goodluck Jonathan.

The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, who made the announcement on behalf of Buhari said the ministry had begun to test-run coaches

purchased to ply Itakpe Warri rail line that has just been completed.

Making the disclosure yesterday, Special Assistant to the President on New Media, Tolu Ogunlesi, on his Twitter handle, @toluogunlesi, quoted the Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, as announcing the president's decision.

"President @MBuhari has approved the naming of the Railway complex

in Agbor - the operational hub of #ItakpeWarriRail Line - after former President @GEJonathan. It will be known as Goodluck Jonathan Railway Station & Complex," Ogunlesi tweeted.

In the same vein, another special assistant to the president, Lauretta Onochie, on her Twitter handle, @ laurestar, quoted the minister as announcing the kick-off of the test-run of coaches on the standard gauge.

She tweeted: "A few days ago, we announced that the test-run for the new coaches on the completed Itakpe-Warri route, would begin soon.

"Today, we started testrun of the newly delivered coaches on the completed Itakpe-Warri standard gauge line - Transportation Minister, Rotimi Amaechi."

The Itakpe-Warri rail line which reportedly connects Agbor was initiated by the

administration of Jonathan and executed by China Civil Engineering Construction Company (CCEC).

However, it was learnt that after the advent of the administration of Buhari, the contract was renewed afresh on the rail line. The Benin - Onitsha rail line is said to connect the Itakpe -Warri standard gauge.

Buhari's decision to name the complex after Jonathan appeared to be a further

appreciation of the former president's peaceful nature which manifested in his unilateral decision to hand over power to him in 2015 after he was declared the winner of the March 28, 2015 presidential election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The president had at different fora acknowledged and commended the former president for his uncommon gesture.

NDDC Scandal: Buhari Urged to Ban IMC, Inaugurate New Board Sylvester Idowu in Warri Peoples Democratic Party Chieftain and former Delta State Governorship aspirant, Chief Sunny Onuesoke has appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari has been urged to, as a matter of urgency, ban the Interim Management Committee (IMC) set up to run the affairs of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and inaugurate a new management board free from any external infringement.

A Chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief

Sunny Onuesoke who made the appeal in view of the alleged corruption, financial recklessness and voodoo fetish oaths in NDDC under the IMC as unveiled at the recent public hearing of the Senate Adhoc Committee investigating corruption allegations, appealed to the President to equally separate the office of NDDC from the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs by returning it to the status quo.

Onuesoke who made the appeal in a statement in Asaba, Delta State, disclosed that the alleged unwholesome practices happening in the

NDDC at a time when the nation is facing dire financial crisis, and the people of the Niger Delta are suffering untold hardship and lack of development, is not just sad but callous.

“As it stands, the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio and the IMC have lost the moral high ground to supervise the forensic audit and run the affairs of the NDDC. What he has put in place to all intents and purposes is a sham exercise", he observed.

Onuesoke who described the IMC as illegal and does not follow the Act, requested

that it must be disbanded immediately hence it serves no functional purpose in the administration of the NDDC. “In fact, Governments set up Special audits every year for ministries’ departments and agencies but not one of them is an excuse to abrogate the law of these agencies as has been done to NDDC. In this instance, the IMC is at best an interloper, a contraption, whose life at the Commission hangs by the thread of an audit it is micromanaging for the benefit of Akpabio and his men,” he alleged.

He requested that the

NDDC Governing Board, which is provided for in line with the law, should be put in place immediately to run the affairs of the Commission.

Onuesoke insisted that infractions against member of the IMC and NDDC must not be treated with kid gloves, if the nation must make progress as a nation.

He argued that the Senate investigation into the Akpabio and IMC alleged corruption should run its full course and all those found guilty must get the appropriate sanctions which include retrieving all money collected inappropriately, stressing

that this should be the minimum in the nation’s drive to sanitise the rots in the public institutions.

Speaking on the way forward for the forensic audit of NDDC, he stated, “The forensic audit has to be done by a reputable independent auditor, creditably and independently, just as the NNPC audit was done by Price Waterhouse a few years back while the legitimate board and management was still in place. The board and management of the NNPC were not set aside for an IMC in order to do the audit. The audit was done independently.

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T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R ˾ JULY 19, 2020

OPINION

ASUU AS HUMAN E XEMPLAR

Nigerian government has failed to live up to its responsibility of providing education, argues Jeff Godwin Doki The clearest symptom of true madness is when a man burns down his own home stead (African Proverb).

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igeria as a country has continued to persevere under the burden of bad governance, political charlatanism and, most painfully, the deleterious role of the political class. And the reason for this is simple: for the past three or four decades, those who are charged with the duty of guarding public patrimony have deliberately abrogated their responsibilities; those who occupy positions of power are parochial, insincere and incompetent; those who are voted, or who rig themselves, into power say one thing in order to get into office but do the opposite once they get there. The Nigerian nation has continued to travel on reverse gear because its journey is bedeviled by untruths, deceit and thwarted dreams and desires. Honesty, honor, truth and humanistic sympathy have all but taken leave of the ruling class and the citizens have been reduced to mere playthings in the hands of the rulers. But let me not sermonize about Nigerian leadership and turn to Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), which is the theme of my story.

It is very clear to anybody with two eyes that in the year 2001 precisely, the Nigerian government signed an agreement with the union of university teachers (ASUU). The chief intention of that agreement was to fund Nigerian universities properly in order to revitalize and burnish them to international standards.

But from the regime of Obasanjo to that of Yar’Ádua, to Jonathan and Buhari, it has been the same drama of sham, indifference and disdain. Promises were made but not fulfilled, negotiations began and were stopped only to begin again and stop. For the past two decades, no Nigerian leader has dealt with the ASUU- FGN agreement seriously, sincerely and honorably. From 2001 to date, the rot in the university system has also continued unhindered; from 2001 to date the university teachers have embarked on several warning strikes and an indefinite strike

all in an attempt to press the Nigerian government to tread the path of honor by respecting its promises. Now, as I write presently, Nigerian university teachers have embarked on an indefinite strike since March, 2020 for the same reasons: adequate and proper funding of Nigerian universities, payment of Earned Academic Allowances and University autonomy among others. Talking about University autonomy reminds one of the federal government’s recent disregard and debasement of intellectual labor by imposing the IPPIS on university teachers. University autonomy is a global practice associated with universities all over the world and if the Nigerian government denies Nigerian universities autonomy it will be another unfortunate reflection of the levity and contempt with which Nigerian leaders treat serious national issues. The on-going ASUU strike may not have profound impact for now because of the dreaded global pandemic COVID:19, but when our medical experts find a cure for this pandemic in the not-too-distant future, parents will begin to ask questions why their children are still at home.

Lamentably, ASUU has earned the wrath of the Nigerian public as an intransigent, strike-prone and insensitive union for embarking on strikes to draw attention to the problems of university education in Nigeria. This kind of attitude is not surprising, it is only amazing.

Here in Nigeria, intellectual labor is not prized and the teacher is treated as a criminal because of his capacity to seek, find and tell the truth. As a parenthetical remark, the Nigerian Medical Association called out it members on a national strike during the present CO1VID:19 and the President of Nigeria hurriedly approved huge sums of money as extra budgetary allocations for their hazard

Is it not the height of irony that the university teacher who is quite often denied his pay would use his meager resources to construct a lecture theater and donate same to his employer?

allowances. The irony of that strike was that Medical Doctors usually take an oath to professionally serve humanity in all circumstances. But in our precarious situation in Nigeria where Medical Doctors work without Personnel Protective Equipment (PPE), it dawned on the medical doctors that strike is the only language the Nigerian government can understand. Again, many unsuspecting members of the Nigerian public think that ASUU strikes are meant to demand for higher pay or salaries.

But this is the grossest falsehood. One of the strategies Nigerian governments (past and present) have adopted, though without success, to punish and muzzle ASUU has been the stoppage of salaries. Obasanjo’s regime stopped ASUU salaries for close to eight months, that of Jonathan stopped ASUU salaries for six months and the Buhari government has done that for five months. The stoppage of salaries is usually a deliberate ploy to make ASUU hungry and miserable so that the Union will cower at the negotiating table. But ASUU is a union that has been hardened by hunger and it can always wear courage like a shield.

What is clear for now is that ASUU can endure hunger, ASUU can accept poverty and misery but by far the most outstanding characteristic of ASUU is its magnanimity and the capacity to turn the other cheek. In no other branch was ASUU’S generosity demonstrated with complete abundance than at the University of Jos. From 2009 to 2011, the ASUU University of Jos Branch requested its members to make voluntary contributions/ donations from their, paltry and sometimes withheld, salaries for the construction of a 1000 capacity Twin Lecture Theater.

The deductions went on for 15 months and the branch raised a whopping N63.2 million for the project. On Friday, July 2020, the Lecture Theater was officially commissioned by ASUU national President and handed over to the management of the University of Jos. ––Doki is a writer and Professor of Comparative Literature with University of Jos. (See concluding part of the article on www.thisdaylive.com)

Is State Police The Panacea to Insecurity?

Matthew Odu Bande canvasses constant training and capacity building of the Nigeria Police Force

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n recent time, the call for the establishment or the reintroduction of state police has continued gathering steam and momentum.

Proponents have been visibly holding conferences and writing pungently to galvanize support for the realization so that it conforms with the political structure of federalism in Nigeria.

Such meetings have taken place in the South-west, South-south, and South-east, to mention only a few.

Furthermore, the need to constantly review the security situation in Nigeria cannot be overemphasized especially as crime also develops and advances and the society develops. It has therefore become imperative for governments to be reminded of the cardinal reason for which they are formed. Cicero was apt and infallible when he said “Salus populi suprema lex”- meaning the safety of the people is the supreme law.

A recent newspaper publication quoting Dr. Bukar Usman’s book “My Literary Journey” re-echoed the call. Mr. Busuyi Onabolu had drawn his energy from the book to buttress his call for the creation of state police. You will not be wrong if you call Dr. Usman a past master in the field of security. He is to me a vaticinator, a czar, and a magna cum laude that should be taken seriously. He has provided us with mental food for thought and we have to think through his postulations and see whether the conditions precedent for the establishment of the state police have been or can be met.

Again, this call good as it seems, has been interpreted by some minority groups as a clandestine attempt to return the country to regionalism so that the majority groups will resume their dominance. Have we forgotten the ugly experience of the first republic so soon when the state policing mechanism was experimented? I am just afraid that our fragile political structure will be at the brinks of disintegration with the establishment of state police.

I have my sympathy for the Nigeria Police Force because of its constant battering and balkanization without solution as to how the Force could move forward. I think Nigerians are not fair to the Nigeria Police Force by constantly lambasting and lampooning it. It remains a surprise to me as to how the Nigeria Police Force persistently do well and come home with accolades and honours at international engagements and has regrettably performed so abysmally low at home.

Chief A.K. Horsfall is also of the opinion that the Nigeria Police Force has not been well treated. Chief Horsfall is one who should know having served as a former police officer and the Director General of the defunct National Security Organization (NSO).

Let us hear from the horse’s mouth: “So what we had set up as a police, whether the Nigeria Police Force or the security intelligence services which I fully participated in bringing about are very solid structures, but you know that if you build a house, you have to keep upgrading it. Every year or every five years or three years,

you have to paint the house and look at the areas of it that have become necessary to repair, this is what is lacking”. Rather than upgrading, repairing and repainting the house, the Nigeria Police Force has remained stagnant because of its persistent neglect.

For reasons obviously not caused by the Police Force, its head is always called for. This killing of the Nigeria Police Force by instalments, the Force will sooner than later be completely annihilated.

Furthermore, the fission of the Nigeria Police Force into the State Security Services, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, the Federal Road Safety Corps, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps to mention but a few have all been spared of all the insults while the police is seen as the scum of the earth. I think that rather than a further balkanization of the Nigeria Police Force, a continuous development should be encouraged through training and capacity building.

Again, who are those who will be in the state police? The same gang leaders, the ring leaders, the rapists, as well as the kingpins and their followers? Our royal fathers have been involved in the recruitment into the Police and other security forces whether by way of recommendation or attestation. I know we all come from various villages and we are aware of those giving the headaches.

There is no “mai angwa” or village head that does not know who the criminals are.

There is no unanimity in all the federal structures across the globe neither are there a perfect structure. All of them are at different stages of development and also work-in-progress. There are similarities no doubt, but they are not the same, including all those that have adopted the state policing mechanism. True federalism may just be an illusion as all of them are adopting measures that are workable given their individual peculiarities.

The constant fission of the Nigeria Police Force has not made policing more effective. For instance, the establishment of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency has merely reduced the cartels and their markets. There is no residue of doubt that there exist open drug markets everywhere in Nigeria including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. No doubt there also exists a nexus between drug and criminality. But wait a minute! Where are the farms located where cannabis sativa also known as Indian hemp is cultivated? Are they not in the communities where we have our respectable royal fathers and local government chairmen and councillors? Should our royal fathers wait until their roles are enshrined in the constitution before they discourage their subjects from cultivation, consumption as well as the subsequent commission of crimes? These are questions begging for answers.

Similarly, even the local government chairmen whether appointed or selected are part of the problem rather than the solution through the formation of militia groups which they use

during elections. To create state or local police for me is to licence them for more atrocities. If we take cursory look at the selections organized in the states, you will see that even a Minister or Senator cannot secure a councillorship seat in his community because he is not in the party that is in power in the state.

In the same vein, in one of the states that recently conducted local government election during this period of corona virus (COVID- 19), the party of a former senior civil servant, a former Governor, (elected and re-elected), a Senator for three assemblies – 6th,7th,8th and a serving Minister was unable to win a councillorship election. Before some people fire back that his party did not contest, the state electoral commission had disqualified his party from contesting! I see the failure of family and the destruction of communal life as being the bane of security in the country.

Furthermore, the 1976 local government unification law took powers from the traditional rulers and placed same in the hands of the Executive Chairmen of local government areas/councils.

The modus operandi for the operationalization of state police still remains very nebulous. Where will the local police draw their authority from? The local police will be answerable to whom, the chairmen or the traditional rulers?

In another development, the quality of the royal fathers (traditional rulers) is by far higher than those who ruled when the local policing mechanism was experimented. Today, you will find professors, technocrats, retired generals, and retired judges just to mention but a few as traditional rulers. My apprehension is the imminent clashes that may ensue between the chairmen and the traditional rulers. Have the functions been defined and demarcated for the highly skilled, competent and proficient traditional rulers in order to obviate the altercation that is most likely to occur between the politicians and the traditional rulers?

Surprisingly, the ivory towers like the traditional institution have been found wanting in so many ways. Universities bestow honours to all manner of people, so is the traditional institution as people of questionable characters are being conferred with chieftaincy appellations hitherto reserved for well-meaning citizens who have demonstrated the age-long virtues of integrity, hard work and honesty. I am afraid; this jiggery-pokery will consume us all if we do not go back to the drawing board so that we can curb the ugly trend of pandering to the dictates of everything is a commodity and goes to highest bidder.

––Bande, a former banker and publicist, wrote from Abuja.

(See concluding part of the article on www.thisdaylive.com)

T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R ˾ JULY 19, 2020

15

LETTERS

BETWEEN ‘POLITICAL YABIS’AND STATEMENT OF FACTS

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have read with great amusement, the misconception that political “yabis”, a euphemism for thrash talking your opponent obviously for the sole aim of de-marketing the opponents can be taken outside the context of such campaigns.

Obviously, such statements made during political rallies are not real indictments but are called political yabis and of course, nobody goes to court to enforce or deny them.

But outside political rallies, such statements could be taken seriously.

The purpose of this write up is to distinguish political yabis from statements of facts. Political yabis are mere pronouncements at political rallies as against real life stories of facts. As long as they are not proved legal pronouncements, they cannot be used meaningfully against candidates on campaigns.

In any political contests, aspirants find what to say to demarket their opponents.

This is where the theory of political yabis stands vis-a-vis where indictments stand.

Lai Mohammed This means that Oshiomhole's pronouncements against the then political opponent POI in 2016 were mere yabis that are normal at rallies.

These statements were never made outside political rallies neither were they

proved by any facts. Abami Eda, Fela Anikulapo Kuti of blessed memory was known for his acerbic use of "Yabis" to lampoon clergymen, soldiers, politicians and ordinary citizens alike. In fact, he begins one of his songs with "make

l yab them...to which his backup choristers replied "yab them.... It was all fun intended to lay the background to the essential message of the song.

I remember quite well that during the NPN/UPN era between 1979 and 1982, the NPN slogan at rallies was "NPN Super power." But in a bid to counter and thrash this slogan, the UPN came out with their own version as "NPN Soup don sour."

Even outside our shores, the US presidential race of 2016 between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump was no different as Political Yabis was the order of the day.

Donald Trump was fond of referring to Hilary Clinton as "Crooked Hilary", while Hilary called Trump and his supporters "Deplorables."

After the campaigns, l don't think anybody has continued to hang the tag of "crooked" around Hilary's neck because it was understood to be mere political Yabis.

Recently, l listened to a video clip where Ganduje was boasting that they will put Nyesom Wike in an isolation

COVID-19: Kogites' Lives Matter

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he Kogi State governor, Mr. Yahaya Bello is one of the persons who believe in the non-existence of the novel coronavirus. He had been seen several times on air falsifying the existence of the virus. The last time he spoke on COVID-19, he alleged that the pandemic is an artificial creation and that it is being used to cause panic and fear among persons. He would later vow not to join other governors in playing the COVID-19 game.

Despite Nigeria's colossal losses to the virus, one would be wondering why a man like Yahaya Bello is wrestling with the truth — finding it difficult to admit that COVID-19 is real and had killed many and is still killing. You would recall

S

ome days ago, the Minister of Women Affairs, Mrs Pauline Tallen disclosed that Nigeria reported 3,600 rape cases since the beginning of the lockdown in the country.

Besides, the majority of these cases led to loss of lives. This has resulted in outcry by the citizens.

Furthermore, they bemoaned the menace and quest for justice.

Of recent, social media has received an enormous number of unsatisfactory comments with regard to rape. Arguably, no one is celebrating the act. Citizens in some states and institutions have carried out peaceful protests against the action. However, it is only the victims of rape who can explain how gruesome the act is. May rapists not feast on our bodies. Amen.

No doubt, the menace is not a recent phenomenon in this country, and neither is it a new threat ravaging humanity at large. Historically, there were

that the late Chief-of-Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, Mallam Abba Kyari, was reportedly killed by COVID-19. Senator Bayo Osinowo, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, Adisa Logun, and many others were killed by the virus.

When the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), announced that it had discovered COVID-19 cases in Kogi State a few weeks ago, Mr. Bello said it was untrue and that the agency was just eager to declare his state a COVID-19 state which it was not. That wasn't the first time he antagonised the agency. He had once asked its visiting officials to go on 14-day quarantine before they would embark on anything in

the state. What was he trying to insinuate? They shouldn't come and infect his state with the virus he believes is artificial?

On July 16, however, TheCable unfurled the investigation it carried out on Kogi State's COVID-19 cases and deaths. The medium visited three local government areas after receiving complaints that the death rates in those areas are becoming unbecoming. The three visited local government were Okene, Adavi and Ankpa. The residents were also reported to have expressed how they have been living in panic and fear. This is a state that has not been carrying out tests on COVID-19 because its governor is yet to admit that

the virus is real.

The Chief Judge of Kogi State, Nasir Ajanah, died last month at the Abuja COVID-19 isolation centre. And Governor Bello came out as usual to falsify the claim that coronavirus caused his death. Did he run a test on the late judge? No! He's using his views of the virus to affect the lives of his subjects. There are even some Kogites who are living by his words: "There is no COVID-19 in Kogi." They wander around without using nose masks and respecting other COVID-19 guidelines. It's high time the federal government came to the rescue of Kogites. They're not aliens. They're Nigerians.

Their lives matter too.

––Aremu Lukman Umor, Lagos.

centre from which he will not emerge until the elections are over. He also went further to say that PDP accepted Obaseki into their fold because they want to be in charge of Edo state treasury. In other words, they want to gain access to the treasury with a view to pillaging it. Why do you think these statements are being made at this material time?

Obviously, for the sole aim of de-marketing opponents. After the elections are won and lost, who is going to hold all these Yabis sacrosanct? Nobody!

That brings me back to the main point of this write-up.

Videos of the 2016 Edo guber election campaigns where Oshiomole was just engaging in Political Yabis by referring to Ize-Iyamu as a thief and a cultist in order to demarket him for his own candidate then are being taken outside the context of that campaign period. When has such thrash talks constituted hard evidence to label Ize-Iyamu a thief or cultist? Is Oshiomole now a court or the police that

NDDC And Travails of The Niger Delta

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evelations have been coming in about the corrupt practices that have bedeviled the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). Though corrupt practices are not news in most agencies, what is news is the weight of corruption and those involved.

The NDDC is adjudged to be richer than most states due to the allocation due to it from oil derivative paid by the federal government and oil companies operating in the region. The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) report put it that about N4 trillion has been received by the commission since it was created

by President Olusegun Obasanjo 20 years ago. The recent altercation between the Minister

The Increasing Menace of Rape rape cases before the coming of colonial masters. Though, very finite. This was despite the kind of culture in some parts of the country. Today, the number of rape cases has risen compared to yesteryears. So sad, it is increasing every year.

Divergent opinions have flooded the media on the causes of rape. Some commentators believe that no factor can justify rape while others perceive indecent dressing as a leading factor to rape.

To me, both are right. This is based on the environment people inhabit. Whether rape has a cause(s) or not, it depends on the culture of the Nigerian society. A cursory look at this, after a series of observation, each society has different cases of rape. Study the geo-political zones in Nigeria and fact-check by yourself this assertion.

However, a lot of questions have been raised questing for observations and recommenda-

tions on the appropriate way(s) to tackle the danger of rape.

Based on this, here are my recommendations forward.

To tackle this disheartening act, let’s apply the five agents of socialisation. Starting from the family, parents need to educate and enlighten their wards on rape, its atrocities and implications. Children, both male and female, should be given adequate knowledge of sex education.

Schools being the second agent should be used to get rid of rape in the society. Sex education should be put as subject and course in the Nigeria educational system. This will give an avenue for the student to have vast knowledge and understanding of sex education.

Also, peer group is supposed to be given adequate concern.

Peer group has influenced rapists greatly in society. Friends whom a child is mingling within the society play a

vital role in the life of the child.

Surely, imitation would take place. A Yoruba adage says “show me your friend, and I know who you are.” Parents have a part to play here. Parents should know and ready to investigate who their children are associating with.

Mass media is another factor which should be given preference to. Unfortunately, mass media has become a corruptible avenue nowadays.

Incidences have occurred where a girl was raped due to the “funny” pictures she uploaded.

Nothing can be outdated to change. It is never late to reform this habit. Changes can be brought by enacting laws which will regulate media users on their posts and violators of such should face the law. Protests can also be made using social media handles to curtail this menace.

Also, religion is an important medium to curb the act of rape. Clerics should preach

pronounced Ize-Iyamu guilty?

Certainly Not!!! All were mere political Yabis. The fact is that many people just get carried away by their emotions and allow it to becloud their reasoning. It is wrong to condemn a man based strictly on statements made in the heat of campaign rallies by his erstwhile opponent in that same race all in the name of political Yabis.

In Nigeria, politicians, instead of campaigning on real issues, rely on insults or political yabis to run down their opponents. In the 2020 Edo State elections, Edo people are looking at the real issues such as the candidate who will have the interest of the people in his heart, who the people can trust and who will not betray the people that helped them to get into office. Edo people are now far above and will jettison political yabis and look closely into the manifestos and the antecedents of the candidates."

––Hajara Usman is a Political Commentator.

against rape and admonish the worshipers on the sins attached to the act.

The government needs to strengthen our judicial system so that the implementation of already made laws on rape should be well established and given a fast approach too. Perpetrators should face the wrath of law without any preference regardless of social stratification. Without the implementation of the law(s) judiciously, cases of rape will continue to rise beyond our expectations.

On a serious note, if there is a possibility of reviewing the laws of rape in our constitution, I recommend there should be comprehensive research on the cases of rape in different parts of the country to understand the concept. And, indecent dressings should be redefined according to the culture of the societies.

–––Abdulganiyu Abdulrahman Akanbi, Ilorin.

of Niger Delta, Sen. Godswill Akpabio, and the former MD of NDDC Dr. Joi Nunieh brings up a lot of questions, most especially among interest group that has always asked the question: What has NDDC done with those fat budget over the years? The public is now aware of the rot going on in the agency, thanks to the forensic audit ordered by President Muhammadu Buhari.

If there is any region that should be well developed and can be proud of basic infrastructure in Nigeria it should be states under the Niger Delta region, but the reverse is the case as the region has been subjected to maladministration and systemic corruption by no other person but the sons and daughters of the region being the major perpetrators of this untold hardship against their people.

With a lot of communities suffering decades of neglect, students on scholarship stranded home and abroad, thousands of projects awarded that could not be accounted for, and most importantly the ecosystem that has been damaged due to years of oil exploration and spillage, it is now or never that the agency must wake up to its responsibility and serve the poor people it was created to serve over the last two decades.

President Buhari has ordered a speedy investigation into the activities of the agency, which I hope will unravel some of the hidden controversy rocking the agency and most importantly bring to an end the suffering of the people of this region over the years.

On a final note, NDDC budget preparation should also be revisited. A needs assessment should be carried out in the region in order to give to people projects that will affect their lives and bring to end this daylight robbery.

––Suleiman Akande, Maitama, Abuja.

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JULY 19, 2020 ˾ T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R

EDITORIAL

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

COVID-19 AND REOPENING OF SCHOOLS Government should prop up the education sector to reflect global trends

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fter weeks of confusion and anxiety, the federal government on Friday directed that schools should put their facilities in order for reopening by July 29. This came after a meeting with officials of the West African Examination Council (WAEC) on the need to shift the date of the examination earlier scheduled for August 4, citing safety concerns over Covid-19. The federal government is now consulting with other four countries on a new date for the examination.

This is a welcome relief after the indecision reflected in the flurry of announcements about the reopening of schools generated concerns among the populace. The Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 had in June said that the schools, shut down since March to curtail the spread of Covid-19, would be opened to allow students in their final year to write the 2020 West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE). The Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba subsequently announced that the prerequisite conditions that must be met before the schools are reopened. These include the decontamination of school premises, handwashing facilities, body temperature checks, ensuring social and physical distancing in classes and all other necessary protocols to protect public health. And in a presentation to the Senate Committee on Basic and Secondary Education supported with a 52-page document, Nwajiuba said “we have suggested how we can move our education sector forward during this pandemic.”

However, that major policy decision was later jettisoned by the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu who created the impression that the federal government had issues with WAEC over the examination date. Yet the examination body gave more than three-month window to the countries

to consult and agree on the way forward. As expected, Adamu’s directive yielded protests among major stakeholders, dividing the country into the usual politics of North versus South.

The 19 commissioners of Education in the North issued a joint statement aligning themselves with the decision of the federal government that the schools should remain shut. The six southwest states and two others from the south-south (Ebonyi and Cross River), however, thought differently. They signified their readiness to allow their pupils to sit for the 2020 WASSCE.

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The United Kingdom is even more proactive.

The authorities there decided since March to cancel IGCSE O’Level and A’Level May/ June exams. They decided to base this year’s results on the schools’ internal exam results over the last two years

Letters to the Editor

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he 1999 Constitution (as amended) is on the side of the states as education is on the concurrent list. The Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools (NAPPS) and the National Association of Parent Teachers Association of Nigeria (NAPTAN) had also resolved to get the schools reopened. Besides, the House of Representatives in a resolution specifically urged President Muhammadu Buhari to direct the “partial” resumption of school classes for final year students. According to the chairman of the House Committee, Prof Julius Ihonvbere, what the current situation reveals is that “our policy makers may just be adopting a laid-back approach to the need to confront the novel coronavirus rather than taking proactive and creative steps to manage and contain it.”

What has become apparent in the countless debates and reversals is a clear lack of preparation by the government.

In some countries in Europe and Asia, schools were reopened for their graduating students with the application of innovative measures which have kept the spread of the virus low. Ghana, a neighbouring country, also reopened its schools since June with the adoption of the same measures.

Studies have also shown that children are less likely than adults to be infected with Covid-19. The United Kingdom is even more proactive. The authorities there decided since March, on realising the pandemic wasn’t going to be short term, to cancel IGCSE O’Level and A’Level May/ June exams. They decided to base this year’s results on the schools’ internal exam results over the last two years or thereabouts. The schools were advised to send the report, based on certain criteria, to the examination body for a review. The examination body will however release the final grades in August. All the stakeholders - teachers, parents, and students were kept informed of developments.

It is good that a tentative agreement has been reached on WASSCE. But if there is any lesson from the COVID-19 in Nigeria, it is that government at all levels should begin dealing with how to revamp the education sector in line with global trends.

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

Death of Flt. Officer Tolu Arotile

igeria may be lagging far behind in every index of development but this does not mean that those who have a modicum of education should not use that knowledge for simple situation-analysis, especially when the mind is put to use doing correlation analyses.

No matter how Boko Haram and its ilk want us to behave and live out our lives, we cannot deny the fact we are now part of the global enlightenment community and that is why we shut down our society in lockdown mode when the global community went into necessary lockdown. While I commiserate with the parents and siblings of the young warfighter, Flight Officer Tolulope Arotile, over her death I took the liberty

to do correlation analysis and wondered why gung-ho antiBoko Haram warfighters of the Nigerian military get killed in suspicious circumstances.

The story by the Nigerian Air Force that young Officer Tolu was knocked down by the reversing car of “an over-excited former classmate” sounded too smooth and too true to be real.

To begin, let us all not forget that Boko Haram is not your typical flash-in the-pan terror group but these killers are artfully contrived to help spread a key message of the creed, viz: “Westernisation is threatening the faith.”

The message of Boko Haram seeps into the hearts and essence of believers and so it comes as no surprise that, even far back in the Goodluck Jonathan

administration, important army generals have been implicated collaborating with Boko Haram against the overall interests of a “pagan and secularist” Nigeria.

Didn’t one of those army bigboss almost get himself shot up by miffed special forces soldiers who accused him of betraying their colleagues to Boko Haram in the midst of operations?

What is troubling me about the death of Flight Officer Tolulope Arotile is the pattern that can be made out of the deaths of other anti-terror influential warfighters.

First, recall that an artillery colonel who was so successful in command against Boko Haram was suddenly recalled from the field and transferred to an instructorship at the military post in Jaji, Kaduna State; this colonel was, surpris-

ingly, kidnapped in a most simplistic fashion and subsequently murdered.

Forget the bullshit by the police authority that some “miscreants” carried out this deed. Think deep. Boko Haram has connections everywhere.

Didn’t Goodluck Jonathan say that much? Second, those in the know will always tell you that the gallant Lt. Col. Abu Ali, a tank battalion commander, died in unexplained, very simplistic circumstance; there was the whispered rumour of a new-found lover luring him out to ambush.

A lover in the midst of the Northeast wilderness? What kind of woman lives and thrives in Boko Haram country and keep her poise and grace so as to attract the attention of a dashing lieutenant colonel of the Nigerian Army? Think deep. Third, who has forgotten the death of that young combat chopper pilot from Bayelsa State who met his death in

circumstance that raised suspicion and caused great consternation amongst the people of Bayelsa State?

Think deep. Those in the know say that that ill-fated flight was wrongly marshalled out and the yarn that that expensive and sophisticated craft was taken out by “Boko Haram fire” was, well, just a yarn.

What kind of military glorifies Boko Haram prowess and tactical abilities in a time of warfare?

Fourthly, this is all about Officer Tolu: we are being regaled by the yarn that some freak car accident caused her death inside the complex of the Nigerian Air Force Base at Kaduna. Convenient circumstance.

Think deep. Boko Haram has deep connections everywhere.

––Sunday Adole Jonah, Department of Physics, Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State.

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ ͹΁˜ 2020

BUSINESS

Editor: Kunle Aderinokun 08033204315, 08111813084 Email:kunle.aderinoku@thisdaylive.com

No More Hiding Place for Loan Defaulters Individuals and companies, who have the habit of borrowing from banks, with the intention of not paying back, may now have to change their mindsets as there will no longer be a hiding place for them within the banking industry. The agreement reached recently between the banks and Central Bank of Nigeria is that any loan defaulter’s monies in other banks should be drawn to settle their debt with any bank. Bamidele Famoofo reports

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ommencingfromAugust 1, 2020, no bank loan defaulter would have the chance to escape repayment of what they are owing their banks inasmuch they have cash in other banks other than one(s) they borrowed from. But this applies to only such customers (private and corporate) who are defaulting in paying back their loan with interest.

To default on a loan means repayment aren’t made for a certain period of time.

So, when a loan defaults, it is sent to a debt collection agency whose job is to contact the borrower and receive the unpaid funds.

The new policy is what the CBN called the Global Standing Instruction (GSI), which guidelines were published on Monday, July 13.

Meanwhile, the CBN said the GSI, which was developed in collaboration with stakeholders, should be the last resort used by a bank to settle loan defaults.

The directive would apply only to eligible loans granted from August 28, 2019.

When it becomes operational, the Bankers’ Committee of the CBN, which is the biggest beneficiary of the initiative, has agreed that loan defaults will be settled using customers’ deposits in other banks. The Bankers’ Committee had aligned with the CBN at its meeting that held almost a year ago, on August 26, 2019.

The GSI guidelines published by the apex bank read in part: “The GSI shall serve as a last resort by a creditor bank, without recourse to the borrower, to recover past-due obligations (principal and accrued interest only, excluding any penal charges) from a defaulting borrower through a direct setoff from deposits/investments held in the borrower’s qualifying bank accounts with participating financial institutions.”

A bank set-off happens when a financial institution removes money from a deposit account to cover a missed payment on a loan.

Benefits of GSI The CBN headed by Mr. Godwin Emefiele, has listed the objectives of the GSI to include facilitating an improved credit repayment culture, reducing non-performing loans (NPLs) in the banking industry and watch-listing consistent loan defaulters.

Central Bank warned banks not to use the GSI to recover penal charges that may have accrued on a credit/loan and included as part of outstanding balances/obligations of a borrower. According to the guidelines, the account types that the standing instruction can be applied to include individual and joint savings accounts, current accounts, domiciliary accounts, investment/deposit accounts (naira and foreign currency), and electronic wallets.

The Caveat The CBN however pointed out that the onus lies on the lending bank to ascertain that it has done its preliminary job of getting the credit history of customers before approving loans. Besides, banks must regularly report to the CBN on recoveries made through the GSI and releases made to other banks. Also, in the event of wrongful debit, the guideline provides that an erring bank would be made

Emefiele

to take full liability and pay a flat fine of N500, 000 per incident.

Non-Performing Loan According to a report published in 2019 by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the Nigerian banking industry recorded a non-performing loan (NPL) of N1.05trillion in 2019. It was a significant 41 percent decline compared with N1.79 trillion in 2018.

A non-performing loan in Nigeria is the sum of money borrowed in a loan contract in which the borrower has not made required repayments agreed to for at least 90 days.

A breakdown of the banking sector lending in 2019 showed that bank loans to companies in 2019 stood at N17.19 trillion, indicating a four percent increase when compared to total loan of N15.13 trillion that was disbursed to the private sector in 2018. Parts of the NBS report said: “In terms of credit to private sector, the total value of credit allocated by the bank stood at N17.19 trillion as at Q4’19.

Oil & Gas and Manufacturing sectors got

credit allocation of N3.42 trillion and N2.62 trillion respectively, to record the highest credit allocation as at the period under review.”

Efforts to Curb NPL The Central Bank of Nigeria sets limits for banks and other financial institutions on non-performing loans to reflect in their books.

For the Mortgage Refinance Corporation, it stated, “The maximum ratio of nonperforming loans to total gross loans for MRCs shall not at any point in time exceed 10 percent or such other level as may be prescribed by the CBN from time to time.”

It stated that the MFBs must make provisions for credits such as general provision of two per cent of the outstanding balance of performing facilities or as may be advised by the CBN from time to time.

For DMBs, it stated, “The NPL limit banks are required to manage their credit risk effectively. To this end, all banks are to ensure

that the level of NPLs in relation to gross loans does not exceed five per cent.”

A credit rating company, Start Credit, in its analysis of how banks performed with their loan to customers, published in July, said Access Bank emerged the best performing financial institution with an average nonperforming loan ratio of 3.13 percent during the period analysed whilst First bank of Nigeria is the worst performer on this metric.

“A continued increase in the NPL ratio could reduce the bank’s capital base and potentially cause a risk of loss to depositors in the bank.

A loan is impaired where there is impartial evidence of one or more events in accordance with IFRS that the loan may not be paid. IAS 39 requires interest income from all loans including the impaired to be accrued. In practice, when the repayment of a loan is in doubt, the continuation of interest accrual would be recording interest income that is not likely to be recovered,” Start Credit added.

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ ͹΁˜ 2020

BUSINESS/E-BUSINESS

Celebrating MainOne’s Achievements at 10 Years

The information and communication technology sector remains one of the major contributors to gross domestic product (GDP). The current realities which negatively impacted crude oil prices further exposed the capacity of the ICT sector globally. MainOne, which recently clocked 10 years of operations as a broadband company, is one of the ICT companies that raised Nigeria’s GDP growth, writes Emma Okonji

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oday, many organisations including Google and Facebook have announced that their employees will work from home in the interim.

This undoubtedly shows the significanceofbroadbandand internet connectivity which have changed the way things work.

In Nigeria, the ICT sector contributed 14.07 per cent to the GDP, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) first-quarter report of 2020 released on May 25. Commenting on this development, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ibrahim Pantami, said he was delighted about the unprecedented growth of ICT’s contribution to Nigeria’s GDP in the period under review.

The efforts of stakeholders, organisations and experts in the industry cannot be underestimated.

Investments in critical broadband infrastructure remain the bedrock of the sector’s success in recent times.As noted by a World Bank report, “every 10 per cent rise in broadband penetration in developing countries produces a commensurate increase of 1.3 per cent in the National Gross Domestic Product (GDP).”

MainOne’s First Decade A good instance of an organisation that has provenworthyandpresentedits‘indeliblemark’in assuring digital transformation in Nigeria, Ghana and West Africa, is MainOne. In the last 10 years, MainOne has invested significantly in infrastructure in West Africa to connect the urban and under-served areas in the region. Today, MainOne has successfully invested in IT infrastructure across WestAfrica, delivering services in ten countries- Nigeria, Ghana, Cote D’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Togo, Cameroun, Benin, Niger, Senegal and Chad.

MainOne has recently increased the capacity on its international submarine cable system with an upgrade from a 10G to a 100G wavelength system.

These efforts have enabled efficient connectivity for businesses, colocation and data centre services.

Despite the challenges facing businesses in the region including the epileptic power supply, currency devaluation, high cost of Right-of-Way (RoW), lack of infrastructure sharing, regulatory infractions amongst others, MainOne has been able to not only deepen broadband penetration in the region but also strengthen e-commerce and online connectivity services for corporate and institutions in general.

WestAfrica’s leading communications services and network solutions provider, MainOne built West Africa’s first privately owned, open access 7,000-kilometre undersea high capacity cable submarine, a $240 million project that was completed in record time and on a budget in 2010.

Since then, MainOne has continued to build its infrastructure to meet the needs of institutions across West Africa- terrestrial fibre networks, data centre facilities, Point of Presence, which help distribute internet services in the region.

Investments Under the leadership of Ms. Funke Opeke, the founder and CEO of MainOne, formerly known as MainOne Cable Company, the company also built West Africa’s largest Tier III Data Center, MDX-i’s Lekki Data Center, a $40 million investment with a capacity for 600 racks. In Nigeria, MainOne deployed almost 1,000km of fibre in Edo and Ogun States to expand broadband access, in partnership with Facebook. It became the licensed fiber broadband InfraCo for Lagos as approved by the NCC in 2016.

MainOne continues to invest significantly in bringing the benefits of digital transformation

enhance capacities globally and across board.”

In 2013, MainOne arranged a fiber pilot in Yaba with the support of the Lagos State Government, ccHub and Technovision. Today,Yaba is known as Yabacon Valley and MainOne’s fiber investment has assisted startups including Paga, Andela, ccHub, Hotels.ng and Flutterwave raise over USD500 million Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).

In 2016, MainOne launched Nerds Unite, an industry event that brings together global IT leaders of thought in the form of a conference and exhibition,withbreakoutsessionsandnetworking opportunitiesinLagos,Nigeria.Theeventexposes IT professionals to the latest radical technologies available for business.

Frominception,MainOnehasmaintainedstrong support for corporate social responsibility as a corporate citizen. Under the theme ‘MainOne Connects’, MainOne CSR centres on education and the natural environment.

Awards and Recognition MainOne and its subsidiary have won an average of three awards annually in the last ten yearsofoperation.Thecompanyhasreceivedover 30 awards from local and international groups, within and outside the IT industry.

The most prominent awards accorded to MainOne and its subsidiary include; the NTITAInternet Service Provider of the Year (Enterprise) Award; Datacloud Africa Award for Excellence in Data Centre (Africa);Africa Cloud Service Provider of the Year; NTITA Telecoms Wholesale Provider of the Year; BoICT Award for Best Tier III Data Centre in Nigeria, among others.

Funke Opeke

across West Africa. With the influx of private capital, coupled with a huge working population, the continent is increasingly empowered to drive growth and development.

Commenting on the feat of the organisation in West Africa, Opeke stated that “with our subsea cable, growing metropolitan infrastructure and data centre ecosystem, MainOne is uniquely positioned to catapult the region. Our worldclass submarine cable system running down the coast of West Africa, state of the art IP NGN network, growing regional and metro terrestrial fibre-optic networks, and data centre facilities enablebroadbandservicesforbusinessesneeding online connectivity solutions in West Africa.”

According to her, MainOne has grown to become the leading provider of wholesale and enterprise connectivity and data centre services across the WestAfrican region and the company partnerswithmajorglobaltechnologycompanies to deliver services to its customers.

“It continues to grow its footprint with major network interconnection facilities, extensive terrestrial fiber build-out, regional points of presence, and delivery of services into 10 countries in West Africa.

“Like many IT firms in more developed climes, we realized that connectivity, is to the digital revolution, what electricity was to the industrial revolution. Therefore, we set out to build infrastructure to enable Internet technology development in WestAfrica, to improve the quality of life and business in the West African region. Our success with connecting tech startups in Yaba is testament to the impact we have had on the Nigerian economy.”

Milestones The company has steadily recorded major milestones year after year as it remains true to

its mission of connecting the whole of Western Africa to the rest of the world.

In November 2019, MainOne landed its submarine cable in Grand-Bassam, Cote d’Ivoire as the first commercial cable system in service to deploy spectrum sharing capabilities in the region.

The same year, its Cable Landing Station and Tier III Data Center facility became operational in Cote d’Ivoire. The infrastructure was provided in Abidjan for corporate, public institutions and service providers to enjoy ubiquitous broadband connectivity.Theseprojectsareaimedatdeepening infrastructure sharing, enhance efficiency and lower the cost of delivering broadband services in the country.

Also, in 2019, MainOne’s subsea cable landed in Dakar, Senegal even as the company announced its partnerships with IT giants, Facebook and the Avanti Communications Group last year.

Speaking on the efforts of MainOne to boost connectivityinWestAfrica,theRegionalExecutive, WestAfrica, for MainOne, Kazeem Oladepo, said: “Over the years, MainOne has carefully selected its partners to enhance product offering and boost the quality of service. That is why the company has attracted international acclaim and positive attention to Nigeria. It also expanded its operation as it commenced construction work of MDXi data centreinAppoloniaCity,Ghana,inSeptember2019.

“Recently,MainOneprovidedbulkconnectivity services to a consortium of operators through the PAV-Burkina Cooperative, with the financial support from the World Bank, for the next three years in Burkina Faso. MainOne won the bid from the Burkinabe Government to offer PAV-Burkina with bulk-capacity to nodes in Ouagadougou and Bobo Dioulasso.

“ICT is constantly evolving and as a key catalyst for national and global development, there is need for constant knowledge sharing to

Nigeria’s Digital Economy Apart from its corporate operation, MainOne, through the effort of its leadership, has contributed in no small measure to the success of the ICT sector and digital economy initiative of the federal government. The appointment of Funke Opeke, CEO of MainOne, as the chairman of the National BroadbandCommittee2020-2025on16December 2019 is a good example that comes to mind.

The mandate of the committee as inaugurated by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. IsaAli Pantami, is to develop a new National Broadband Plan that will be a guiding template for further development of the telecommunications sector, following the expiration of the 2013-2018 NBP. The old plan which was targeted at achieving 30 per cent broadband penetration, achieved 37.8 per cent broadband coverage in Nigeria.

Pantami on 18 February 2020, received the report of the NBP Committee 2020-2025. The report was presented by the Chairman of the Committee, Ms. Funke Opeke and the Committee’s Co-Chairman, Dr. Bashir Gwandu, former Executive Commissioner, Technical Services at NCC. Also, in attendance was NCC’s Executive Commissioner, Technical Services, Ubale Maska, and the committee’s Secretary.

The new broadband plan, developed in partnership with the Government of the United Kingdom (UK), is aimed at increasing Nigeria’s broadband penetration to 70 per cent by 2025.

In the last decade, MainOne and its subsidiary have not only provided ubiquitous broadband infrastructure and Internet services in countries where they operate, they have also contributed to human and capital development.

The company has created jobs, enhanced SMEs and corporate performance and supported governments’ national broadband initiatives and policies.

Clearly, in the last decade of operation, MainOne has remained at the forefront of broadband growth in West Africa through its increasing investments in infrastructure across the region.

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ ͹ͺ˜ 2020

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BUSINESS /BRANDS & MARKETING

Dangote: Millionaires’ Club Made Simple In what looks like a strategic move to cushion the effect of months of lockdown, which has dampened the morale of consumers globally, promoters of Dangote brand have unveiled a special consumer promo to produce 1,000 millionaires in Nigeria within 16 weeks. Raheem Akingbolu writes

L-R: Group Chief Commercial Officer, Dangote Industries Limited, Rabiu Abdullahi Umar; Group Managing Director/CEO, Michel Puchercos; Marketing Director, Funmi Sanni; and National Sales Director, Adeyemi Fajobi, during the company’s ‘Bag of Goodies 2 National Consumer Promotion’ press launch in Lagos...recently

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or most consumers and brand owners, the year 2020, would remain memorable because of the challenges thrown at them by the enduring Pandemic, which has crippled the global economy. But despite the challenges, savvy business owners are keen about sustaining relationship with their customers. This explains why many companies and governments are now resorting to the idea of giving palliatives to members of the public.

Considering the place of consumers in brand growth and its sustainability, brand managers are thinking out of the box to race the stake and sustain brand loyalty, which can only be guaranteed thorough understanding of the consumers and deploring of reward system to satisfy their expectations.

In a renewed effort to reinforce existing relationship with their customers, the management of Dangote Cement Plc, has unveiled plans to produce nine millionaires daily in its new Spell and Win “Bag of Goodies 2” Consumer Promo.

Beyond the common objective to ride on the exercise to enhance patronage, the company has indicated that the exercise was rolled out this season to reward Nigerian consumers and improve their livelihoods.

Process and Criteria for Winning According to the company, the promotion, scheduled to run from Wednesday, July 15, to November 15, is expected to produce 1,000 millionaires within 16 weeks. Besides, consumers also stand a chance to win tricycles, motorcycle, television sets, refrigerators, Dangote Food Goodies packs, recharge cards and many other exciting gifts.

To be a part of the promotion, “all the consumer needs to do is to buy any promo bag of Dangote Cement during promo period, pick out the scratch card inserted in the bag, scratch open the inserted card to see what you have won, go to the nearest redemption centre to collect your prize. To win a million naira, the consumer is expected to collect cards to spell, D-A-N-G-O-T-E and win star prize of N1million,” the company disclosed.

The manufacturing giant also noted that the Dangote ‘Bag of Goodies 2’ Consumer Promo is a huge investment aimed at rewarding new and existing consumers, especially in this period of

COVID-19 with the much-needed palliatives.

At the unveiling of the promo in Lagos, the Group Managing Director, Dangote Cement Plc, Michel Puchercos, in his remarks, said it was part of the company’s strategies to continuously reward consumers who are the backbone in the cement business “It is to reward valued consumers for their unflinching partnership in ensuring that our range of cement products remains today the first choice for construction purposes across the country,” he added.

Puchercos stated: “The prizes we are offering in the promo are specifically tailored towards changing the living standards of consumers who are the end users of our products. These prizes have great economic value as they can be used to kick off small scale businesses especially in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic with many families losing their source of livelihood.

“Dangote Cement ‘Bag of Goodies Promo Season 2’ is to serve a dual purpose, allow consumers of our products to continue their projects while at the same time stand a chance of becoming a millionaire or proud winner of prizes such as tricycle, motorcycles etc.

“Here in Dangote Cement, we adhere strictly to best global standards in producing our range of cement which makes them the best in the market. Our products; BlocMaster, 42.5R, 42.5N and Falcon are all top-of-the-range brands developed to ensure that cement users have a choice on the type of product suitable for their projects. Much research and tests went into the development and production of these products as we are determined to offer consumers the best quality and experience either in building personal houses or in commercial construction works.”

Explaining the reason for staging the consumer promo, Dangote Cement Marketing Director, Mrs. Funmi Sanni, said consumers were important and fundamental factor of production without which the company’s ability to remain in business becomes impossible.

According to her, “to grow our business, we must constantly create value in terms of quality, product, service, competitive pricing and depositing in consumer’s emotional bank accounts in order to become their preferred choice of brand at the point of purchase.

“As a business, we recognise the importance of every member of our value chain- distributors, wholesalers and retailers, as such, we have

invested in growing their businesses through various empowerment schemes,” she said Endorsement Though, the primary reason for promotion is to ensure brand loyalty and generate profit, representatives of various regulatory bodies present at the unveiling event, admitted that the promoters of the Dangote brand have taken it a notch higher.

Speaking at the event, the Head of Lagos office of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), Mrs. Susie Onwuka, said the government agency was present to ensure that consumers interest are protected.

“As the premier consumer rights organisation in Nigeria, we are here to make sure that Dangote Cement Plc followed due process in the exercise.

Having witnessed the previous promotions initiated by the company and certified them to be decent, we are hoping that this would be another transparent and rewarding exercise that would sincerely put smiles on the faces of the consumers,” Onwuka stated.

While commending the organisers for coming up with such consumer promo despite the current challenges facing businesses, the FCCPC boss urged the company to maintain standard while the exercise lasted.

For the Chief Executive Officer of Lagos State Lotteries Board (LSLB), Mr. Bashir Abiola-Are, the soaring brand equity of the Dangote brand speaks for the business conglomerate. He expressed his gratitude to the management of the company for stepping out to identify with consumers and restore hope at this critical moment.

“The Lagos State Lotteries Board is here to validate and study the process. With the accomplishment of the Dangote brand in the market, we are not in doubt that this will again be a success story all through. At the moment, with what consumers are going through, you will all agree with me that a million naira would make tremendous difference in their lives and give them hope of a better tomorrow.”

In the same manner, the Deputy Director and Coordinator, Lagos Zonal Office of The National Lottery Regulatory Commission (NLRC), Mrs. Nkiru Onuzulu, shared the goodwill message of the commission’s Director General, Mr. Lanre Gbajabiamila, who she said had special regard for the Dangote brand.

“At NLRC, Dangote brand and its activities are not new to us. In particular, our DG, Lanre Gbajabiamila has special regard for the group.

Having said this, I will appeal to the organisers of this unique promo to stand by the promise made by upholding basic principles associated with consumer promo, especially in the area of transparency,” she added.

Sustaining Brand Loyalty In a competitive environment like the Nigerian market, consumer loyalty is pre-requisite for success but more important to customer reward and promotion is the drive of value and trust. To this end, it is important to sustain the already built brand loyalty and create new ones by deploring a strategy that revolves around consumer promo.

This is what Dangote brand has done over the years to maintain prime position in the Nigerian cement market. Last year, in an unprecedented move to empower millions of its product consumers economically, the company launched a jumbo consumer promo tagged “Dangote Cement Bag of Goodies”, which was designed to produce 21 million winners across the country.

The promo, which ran for three months saw consumers won prizes worth billions of Naira.

At the end, lucky consumers won 43 cars, 24 tricycles, 24 motorcycles, 550 refrigerators, 400 television sets, 300,000 Dangote foods goodies packs and recharge cards for all networks. Like this year edition, the 2019 promo was also a pan Nigeria activity.

According to the brand promoters, both initiatives were aimed at rewarding the brand’s esteemed consumers and to further strengthen the existing bond with the consumers while also reinforcing its brand positioning as a major player in the cement market.

The Head, Corporate Communications & Public Relations at the company, Mr. Anthony Chiejina, in a chat with THISDAY, described the 2020 edition of the promo as an expression of appreciation to consumers who have remained loyal and committed to the brand over the years.

He said: “We are in business because our teeming consumers have chosen to remain loyal and committed to our brand, the Dangote Cement brand. The promo is based on deep insight which reveals what our customers want at the moment.”

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ ͹΁˜ 2020

THE EXECUTIVE NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA

I Have All it Takes to be WTO DG Nigeria’s former Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who is the country’s candidate for the position of the Director General of the World Trade Organisation, immediately after her interview with the global trade body’s General Council on Wednesday, spoke to journalists about her plan for the organisation as well as on other issues about the WTO. Obinna Chima and Dike Onwuamaeze bring the excerpts:

C

an you make a brief comment about your candidacy?

All I want to say is that trade is important for the 21st century, it is important for sustainable growth and resilience and the WTO is at the heart of this. So, we want to rejuvenate and reform the WTO to be the organisation that it ought to be for the 21st century.

There are three candidates for Africa which appears like there is a divide in the continent.

Are you concerned about this?

I will not say there is a sense of divide. I will say that I am proud of my continent for producing three good candidates and it is up to the members to choose on merit from all the candidates. So, I don’t think it is a divide. Of course, I hope I am the candidate that is chosen and is backed because I think I have qualifications and the leadership characteristics to do the job. I am sure Africa will come behind my candidacy.

In your view, how will you describe the role of the WTO Director General?

The WTO DG has no direct decision-making authority. But the WTO DG can work to make things move along through influence and that influence can be proactive. And that is the kind of DG that I intend to be if I am selected, to use that proactively to work with members, to deliver outcomes, starting with the next ministerial, to show that the WTO is back and that the WTO is rejuvenated. So, I intend to be a proactively supportive DG. What is your position on fair trade especially as it concerns the global north and south?

The multilateral trading system and the WTO are in place to serve all members and the hallmark of the WTO is fair, open, transparent, predictable and stable trade. So, the expectation is that trade should benefit all members and where it does not, and where the south has been left behind, we should deploy the instruments that are available to make sure we enable countries and members in the south to trade more and to derive more benefit from the multilateral trading system that they have. If am selected as DG, I would be very keen to make sure that instruments like aid for trade, which involves technical assistance, capacity building and working with other organisations such as the World Bank and the regional development banks, to be able to deliver to countries, what they need to improve investment within their borders, so that they can process their goods more, create more jobs and have more to trade.

That is what I would be doing to make sure the south improves its position and benefit from the multilateral trading system.

You talked about wanting to achieve results by the ministerial, but given that the selection process could continue into November, what do you think is achievable by the next ministerial which holds by the middle of next year and there are a number of issues affecting the WTO, do you think it is best to address them one at a time or to have a big round of negotiations to try and tackle

Okonjo-Iweala

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ ͹΁˜ 2020

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We Need to Rejuvenate, Reform WTO for 21st Century all these issues?

Achieving results at the next ministerial, I will have to encourage members to come to a quicker decision so that whoever becomes DG would have more time to work towards the next ministerial.

But, even if it is by November, I do believe that some of the deliverables that one could have at the next ministerial are on their way and I am talking about negotiation on fisheries, where there are some outstanding issues. A lot has been done, but there are a couple of outstanding issues such as the ‘bad’ subsidies that encourage over fishing or over-capacity. There could be a consensus arrived at as to how to deal with this subsidy and I think it is achievable within the time of the ministerial.

I also think support to small scale fisheries could be achievable. Where there is political will, I think this is doable. With respect to all the problems, there was a lot of discussions on trust in order to improve negotiations and I think one way to do that is to have it in sequence. So, I believe there is need for some sequencing at the beginning and it could be followed by more reforms coming through.

If you are the successful candidate and you are elected, when you speak to the President of the United States of America or the president elect, what would you say to him and about plan by the US to leave the organisation?

I would say to the President that the WTO delivered for all countries, including the United States, in the past. It is because of the multilateral rules-based trading system that we have had prosperity and the lifting of millions out of poverty and it has brought about shared prosperity and we could do it again. I would say to him, where the trading system has failed, we need to fix it so that it can be more inclusive and can benefit more people.

And that truly, it’s not the time now to leave the WTO that matters. We need an institution that can promote a rules-based system. I would also say to him – remember the trade wars of the past, we don’t want that. We want peace, security and stability. That is why the WTO is needed, with its ability to arbitrate dispute among members. So, don’t leave now, let’s try to fix what needs fixing and if we didn’t have the WTO, we would have to invent it.

MSMEs account for an integral part of the global economy. Now, with COVID-19, there is no doubt that this sector has suffered a lot. If you become DG of the WTO, how will you ensure that this sector gets the required support?

I also said during my presentation that MSMEs are very important and that there are discussions ongoing about how to better integrate them into the multilateral trading system, which is very important. One crucial thing arising from COVID-19 and the impact it has had on economic growth and the predicted contraction of the world economy and economies around the world is that MSMEs have been badly affected. So, they need liquidity.

So, we need to make sure that for them to survive, they should have adequate liquidity to keep their businesses going. My worry is that there have been countries globally who have been able to make this liquidity available to their MSMEs and there are others, like many developing countries and least developed countries who have not. And, one of my roles as African Union envoy, with my other five colleagues, has been to see how we can facilitate and encourage additional resources from outside and inside to these MSMEs, so that they can regain their position and be able to stand, not only to keep jobs, but to thrive in the future and create more jobs. So, I am very keen. I think it is a very important sector and the WTO would work hard to make sure such types of enterprises are supported.

How soon do you think a decision on the next DG should be arrived at?

Let me start by saying that it is up to the members to make a decision as to when they want the next WTO DG. But I would hope that it would be a rapid decision. Why? Not from personal reasons, but from the fact that the world is at a very uncertain juncture and we don’t know the trajectory of this pandemic. We don’t know what is going to happen and therefore an institution as important as the WTO should have leadership as quickly as possible, to be able to make sure that the WTO contributes what it can to the multilateral trading system and that in turn contributes to the recovery of the world economy.

Okonjo-Iweala

What would the position mean for women in your country if you are chosen as DG? If I get chosen, I hope it is a sign, not only to women and girls in my country, but to women and girls worldwide, that women can do it. The organisation has never had a woman or an African as DG. But my insistence is that choosing a DG for WTO should be on merit. The best person to lead the institution should be chosen. Now I will say to them, if that person happens to be a woman, let it be, if she happens to be an African, be it.

What is your strategy to address trade challenges from COVID-19 as well as make sure that vaccines when available gets to all countries?

I am indeed privileged to be the Chair of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. And also to be working as an envoy to tools accelerators where there is an attempt by the international community to ensure that finding the tools to solving COVID-19 are there. And so the international community with the WTO, Gavi and other organisations that have come together to ensure that when the vaccine do become available that poorer countries will not be left standing in the queue. But there will be allocation criteria that will ensure that both the poor and rich countries get access to the vaccine at the same time. And if I become the DG, I will have a very strong collaboration with the tool accelerators like the WHO to make sure that there are no barriers, no restrictions on the availability of these vaccines. One is respecting the intellectual property rights of those who have manufactured the vaccines. The world should be able to come to the point where mechanisms are put in place to make those vaccines available. And the world trading system should be a facilitator of this and not an impediment. That will be mean combining the role of the DG of the WTO with the experience I have had from Gavi to ensure this because I think it is critical that everyone has access to life-saving vaccines.

Do you think the consensus rule at the WTO should be loosened or dropped to help overcome the current gridlock as most of the problems stem from deep disagreement among members?

I think part of the strength of the WTO is when the multilateral negotiations that involve all members around arriving at agreement by consensus because then the incentive to implement the agreement is there. So, I think on the consensus rule we need to ask ourselves how we can make it to work better.

When there is no consensus we will look behind

that and I think that there are issues on trust among members that are leading to these disagreements and divisions. This very question came up from the members during my interview. We need to rebuild trust. It is even in my vision: WTO with trust. How do you do that? It is not good enough to just talk about it. We have to have concrete confidence-building actions between members and find the winds that bring members together to rebuild that trust. If I am selected as the DG that is what I will do. So that we can begin to show that consensus decision making works. It has worked in the past. It can work again. We will restore it because that is the one thing that gets all members to do what has been agreed.

But, why is it difficult for Africa to back one candidate?

I think that that question is better answered by the African Union. But let me repeat again that I think it is an honour to have three qualified candidates from my continent. We should not necessarily see it as a bad thing. I have respect for my competitors from all continents for the job of the WTO and I believe that the WTO members should select on merit. Of course, I will love if that comes from Africa because Africa has never had a turn. I will love if it is a woman because a woman has never and of course I would love it if it were me, because I think that I am qualified to lead. I have all the attributes the WTO needs for leadership. It needs someone able to bring a bundle of qualities – political, ability to reach decision makers. International contacts I have.

My managerial ability that I have from my long years in multilateral organisation like the World Bank, the ability to forge consensus, to negotiate a reform. I have reputation established as a strong reformer both at the World Bank and also at my country. I have even written a book about it. So, I bring along a bundle of qualities from public sector, private sector to really know how the businesses see the WTO and what needs to be done. What about the MSMEs? Just to find out what it means to be a small or medium enterprise, I started one myself in Nigeria just to see what the obstacles on the way are that need to be cleared out. So, I will do well. I am solution-oriented and pragmatic.

So I bring about a bundle of skills and leadership acumen that are needed to lead the WTO and if the DG is to be selected from the African continent it should be me.

On e-commerce?

I happen to believe that e-commerce and digital economy are tremendous and the COVID-19

pandemic has shown it. People are now buying online, trading online. They are going to school online. So this is the wave of the future. But we have to pay attention to something very difficult from developing and least developed countries and this is the digital divide. They cannot participate in it unless we find a way to take care of this digital divide. They cannot be left out. Even people from our rural areas cannot be left out. I will be very keen, if I become the WTO DG, to see what bundle of resources working for multinationals institutions could we put together to help countries that do not have this infrastructure to get it so that they can work with e-commerce. That will advance negotiations. If you look at those not participating, a lot of them are from developing countries. Their thinking is what is in it for me? I do not even have the infrastructure. Why should I be negotiating on e-commerce? Why should I be agreeing to rules that I am not equipped or competent to discuss this time? So, we must bite the bullet and help them to get the infrastructure. And I think that we need to move and give them that assurance and then move the ecommerce negotiations along the line where all members can agree on the rules because this is the wave of the 21st century.

You are a financial expert, but some say you have never participated in a trade negotiation.

Do you think not being a trade expert will be a challenge for you?

I think that that is a totally wrong notion because I have paid respect to my competitors because that is my nature. I do not criticise other people.

I respect them. The competitors who are saying that I am not a trade expert are wrong. I am a development economist and you cannot do that without looking at trade, which is an essential part of development economics. So, I have been doing it. My whole career at the World Bank I was working on trade policy reform in middle and low income countries at the bank. As finance minister, the Customs service in my country reported to me. And that is all about trade facilitation. I helped my country on trade negotiation with the trade minister on the ECOWAS common external tariffs. So, I do not know how much trade you can have than that. Those who are saying that I do not have trade experience are mistaken. I think that the qualities I have are even better because I combine development economics with trade knowledge along with finance. And you need those combinations of skills to lead the WTO. I am confident that I have the skills that I needed.

This is a familiar territory to me and not an alien one. I am a trade person.

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BUSINESS INTERVIEW ABRAHAM ADONDUWA Food Sufficiency is One Surest Path to Achieving the Nigerian Dream Abraham Ogebe Adonduwa is the founder of The Abadini Group which he founded in 2017. He started several businesses in Jos, Plateau state while studying Computer Science at the University of Jos. These businesses quickly gained momentum, but were adversely affected by interreligious/ethnic crisis and were effectively dissolved, which necessitated movement to Abuja and a foray into real estate development and marketing. Undaunted and in true entrepreneurial spirit, Abraham leveraged success in the real estate sector and diversified into agriculture and has grown in the last couple of years. Today, one of his products, Abadini Rice has provided over 300,000 bags to Nigerians and still counting. The Benue-born serial entrepreneur tells Bamidele Famoofo in this interview that Nigeria would hardly realise its dream of greatness, except it achieves food sufficiency. Excerpts:

Y

Nigerian dream.

oumovedfrom5hectaresto 200 hectares of Rice Farm.

How did you achieve this feat and for how long have you been operating?

The Abadini Group is proudly Nigerian: young, vibrant and burning with ideas and a drive to cater to 200million Nigerians locally and a global market that is growing rapidly and brimming with opportunities. Two years ago, we began on a 5 hectares piece of farmland in Benue State, Nigeria and proceeded to process with locally manufactured machines and bagged in poorly made woven sacks. The result? Our sacks had a brand name that peeled off and the rice was unclean and packed with stones. But, we completely sold out in two weeks! This was all the impetus we needed to fuel our drive to succeed.

Abadini will be three years old in December. We started the first rice farm venture with nothing but passion and a burning desire to be part of a solution to Nigeria’s food sufficiency problem pushed us to grow rapidly within a short period of time and we are still growing. When the present administration led by the visionary President Buhari came on board, he saw what others didn’t see in farming. And now that many countries are diversifying from crude oil and embracing tourism and agriculture to boost their GDP, Mr. President encouraged the youth to venture into farming and thus create jobs rather than wait for government jobs and we heeded this call because we truly believed it was the future for the Nigerian economy. I am glad to say that we have never regretted the steps we took.

Have you been able to achieve your target of 130 tons production output?

We are conscious of our mission which to produce farm products that are natural, healthy and free from chemical preservatives. So as a young company we are growing, evolving and investing on machines and equipment that will make this dream becomes a reality. Also, we believe that with substantial growth capital we can decisively claim market leadership and substantially expand the market potentials for the company. Now we have a brand new complete rice milling line with 40 tons per day capacity. We also expect to increase this production capacity to 130tons per day. Our inaugural brand; Abadini Rice, is very well received in several markets with demand growing exponentially. We can now aim to inspire the world by showing that it is possible to offer excellent customer service, achieve excellence in design, production, branding and delivery while impacting the lives of employees, investors, distributors and indeed the entire Nigerian community and beyond.

Our mission is to make Nigeria’s most cherished staple food available for all at affordable prices. In order for the viability of this goal to be achieved, we have made Abadini rice available in Five (5) different sizes; 50KG, 25KG, 10KG, 5KG and 1KG; for everyone to purchase. And I am proud to say that we may not have met the target set but we have not done badly as a company. In less than three years of our existence, I can boldly say that Abadini Rice has supplied nearly 300,000 bags of rice to the households of Nigerians. We are still a bit far from the ultimate target but the roadmap to achieving it has been drawn and we are currently on the right path.

Who are the investors in Abadini Rice?

Abadini is a privately held company with a vibrant board of directors who are helping to drive the mission and vision of the organization.Again,

Has your company ever enjoyed any form of support from government, especially the CBN’s Anchor Borrowers’ Programme, in the process of expanding your business?

The CBN’s Anchor Borrowers’ Programme under the amiable, committed and unassuming Central Bank Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele is highly commendable. For the first time we witnessed a government that is committed to alleviating the suffering of Nigerian farmers through palliative measures and incentives.

Without doubt, it has boosted the agricultural sector as more people have shown interest to go into farming or many people have seen farming as a viable venture. Back to your question, we are yet to enjoy any form of support from the government yet but we are hopeful that the government will recognize our efforts and partner with us.

What informed your choice of Benue State as your operational base?

Besides the fact that I am Idoma by tribe, from Benue State, access to raw materials (rice paddy) and proximity to our rice farms informed our choice.

Would you say the federal government is truly committed to diversify Nigeria’s economy through agriculture?

I believe that the government was thirty percent committed before Covid-19 but right now there is a divine wakeup call and the commitment level has gone very high, thanks to the visionary leadership of President Buhari, who has always been a huge champion for Agriculture.

Adonduwa

I am happy to say that 99 per cent of us are less than 40 years old. We also have an experienced hand in Engr. S. Adonduwa, a member of the board and shareholder. He is a seasoned Chemical Engineer with over 35 years working experience. He serves in advisory capacity and offers guidance and assistance, bringing the wealth of his experience and vast network to bear. Also, we have investment categories which allow an ordinary Nigerian to invest. You may call it ‘Abadini Investment Inclusion’ in the sense that we have a programme called Abadini Growers’ Programme whereby an investors can sponsor a Unit with N250,000 at 25 per cent return on investment (Rol) in eight months or invest in 50 Units and above and get 27 per cent (Rol).

You may wonder why the healthy returns. It is simple. At competitive interest rates, you can invest and get your money back (including interest) within the shortest possible time. You can also choose to revolve your capital and interest for another cycle. Payback period is within 6-8 months, depending on the farm type, you can grow your investments from seeds to trees. As said earlier, with as low as N50,000 you can be an investor and watch your money work while you sleep. Investments are risky by nature, but we’ve gone an extra mile to ensure that all our projects are 100% insured and backed up by reputable and experienced insurance providers.

In what ways are you giving back to the communities around where you operate in form of CSR? We operate 200 hectares of farmlands in Benue

State and we have currently set up livestock ranches in Benue and Abuja. Our multi million naira rice factory, which is second only to the state Governor’s rice factory, is located at the heart of the industrial layout in Makurdi, where we provide jobs for over 50 indigenes and residents.

Our Ultramodern Rice Milling Factory provides a significant number of jobs for people from the community where we are located in Makurdi, Benue State. We also contribute towards the infrastructure of the Industrial Layout, which the Benue State Governor has quite frankly taken very seriously.

Why did you choose to diversify into Livestock Farming?

We recognise that the market opportunity for our products is beyond our imagination and current situation; rice, maize, housing (which encompasses our block industries and housing projects), processed and packaged meat (including but not limited to Pork, Beef, Chicken, Turkey), fish and animal rearing (Pigs, Chicken, Goats, Cows, Sheep). We believe that with substantial growth capital we can decisively claim market leadership and substantially expand the market potentials for the company. We are consolidating on our trajectory in the rice production, packaging and sales, which has seen a significant and constant rise in demand.

Having said that, we are interested in providing solutions across the entire Agriculture value chain. We have a vision and a mission to make Nigeria great. We believe that food sufficiency is one of the surest paths to achieving this ultimate

What are the challenges you hope to overcome for the productivity of your company to further increase?

Access to funds remains the most daunting challenge we face in this industry. There’s also the ubiquitous insecurity factor which I pray and hope that the government can finally put in check so that real progress can prevail in our country.

Has this Covid-19 pandemic affected your operations in any way?

Yes it has! Covid-19 has put pressure on our rice production as demand has skyrocketed in light of the fact that the usual channels for smuggling imported rice are nearly nonexistent.

The government has ramped up the clampdown on such nefarious activities and forced us to think creatively about total backward integration of our operations.

Given your experience so far in farming, would you say there is prospect for aspiring farmers in Nigeria?

My advice to anyone who has even a minute interest in farming is, go for it because the future of farming is bright.

How are you coping with the ravaging herdsmen in your business location? Have you incurred any loss due to their activities and how best can government resolve the menace?

We have been fortunate enough so far.

However, we don’t take insurance lightly and I am happy to note that Leadway Assurance has proven so far to be a very serious insurance company custom made for the myriad business risks in Nigeria.

SUNDAY JULY 19, 2020 • T H I S D AY

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WEEKLY PULL-OUT

19.07.2020

PROF. MATTHEW MEVAYERHO UMUKORO A SHINING SCHOLAR IN NIGERIA’S IVORY TOWER He’s not a model but his cream suit, shirt, and red bow-tie catch the eye. His modest countenance belies brilliance. His gait isn’t extravagant but he glistens with grace. Golden gray hairs adorn his head. He looks up slightly with a time-worn smile. The stillness in his eyes makes them sparkle in their sockets. Gentle, polite, and unassuming, he lives a remarkable life, simple and sometimes surreal. Please, meet Prof. Matthew Umukoro, a professor of Theatre Arts, as unveiled by Funke Olaode

T

hat night, he looked into the western skies, far away from his oil-rich Niger Delta region. The glistening stars dazzled and sparkled in the pitch-dark heavens. His eyes lit up. His jaw shifted. Some lyrics formed on his lips. He took a breath and the rhyme synced with the celestial bodies...”Twinkle, twinkle little stars...How I wonder what you are!” The stars smiled as they sparkled more in radiance. In awe, he stood still, silent and involved, as if transported into the very heavens he gazed at. With his dreamy eyes, he saw a future he didn’t see.

“Matthew!” the dreamy-eyed boy’s

mother called. Abeokuta offered him quietude. As the years flew by, he didn’t turn out like his biblical namesake – either as a tax collector or a preacher.

It’s not too difficult to imagine what life was for him living in that rustic town before, during, and after Nigeria’s independence.

At 70, with at least 40 years spent as an erudite scholar, the episodes of childhood aren’t that much of a distant, forgotten past for Prof. Matthew Mevayerrho Umukoro.

“My childhood experiences were those of Abeokuta of the early 1950s,” the professor of Theatre Arts recalls with a tone of nostalgia, “where I was taken shortly after my birth.”

His father was a policeman and didn’t stay in Abeokuta with him all the time.

“Even though my father was transferred to many cities in the old Western Region, my mother stayed put at Abeokuta to prevent a disruption in our schooling. Thus, I grew up speaking both Yoruba (the social language) and Urhobo (his mother tongue),” adds, the retired University of Ibadan professor.

Modest Umukoro, either by design or omission didn’t mention much about his childhood adventures and even ambitions. Sometimes, he seems to appear self-deprecatory. Yet, inside his soul is a beautiful human. He understands the frailty of mankind and the limitations that come with that.

“I wasn’t exceptionally brilliant,” he states, and emphasizing that point, he adds, “by any stretch of the imagination.”

Inhabiting two worlds, tribes and languages, nobody missed the ingenuity with which Umukoro handles the English language. As modest as he always strives to be, that’s something he couldn’t hide behind a veil of humility.

“I was an average student,” he says matter-of-factly.

“But,” he admits, “with a natural gift for English, which remained my best subject all through my secondary school days.”

With pride in his voice and eyes, Prof.

Umukoro adds, “I was also distinctly the best student in oral English in which I had an A1 in the School Certificate Exam.”

Again, Umukoro’s modesty shines through when he reveals: “However, just as I was outstanding in English at Afrograms Abeokuta, I was also proverbially poor in Mathematics.”

Every protagonist has his or her own Achilles’ heel. So does Umukoro.

After Afrograms, he attended Igbobi College. He didn’t just do brilliantly well in English.

“I came out with extremely brilliant results. For instance, at the Lower Sixth Arts, I won the first prize in each of my three subjects, Literature, History, Economics, plus General Paper (English), and an additional prize for best performance, making five prizes altogether,” Umukoro recollects.

“I wasn’t offering Bible Knowledge and Geography – the only two prizes left,” the professor adds.

“This performance,” he acknowledges, “contributed to my being appointed the Prep Prefect in my second year. The prizes at the Upper Sixth Arts were based on the results of the final examinations conducted by the University of Cambridge, which removed any insinuation of bias or sentiment.

“I repeated the feat, achieving the best results in all the subjects I offered except History which went to Ayoola, who made an ‘A’ in the subject. The nine prizes I won in my two years at Igbobi outnumbered all my prizes at Afrograms.”

That shining didn’t illuminate on his tertiary education. This much Prof Umukoro admits.

“After my first degree in English in which I obtained a disappointing Second Class Lower degree, I didn’t give any thought to postgraduate studies,” he says with a seeming sense of regret.

Be that as it may, that his “natural gift for English” might have shone through when the British Council offered him a scholarship to study at the University of Wales, Cardiff, for a master’s degree in Drama. That was the beginning of a journey he embarked upon without looking back.

Recalling his experience in Cardiff, Prof. Umukoro relates, “My supervisor turned out to be Prof. Geoffrey Axworthy, the founder of the School of Drama; the school metamorphosed into the Department of Theatre Arts, UI.” He was exceptional in the programme and such excitement was noticeable in Umukoro, even decades

ASSISTANT EDITOR OLUFUNKE OLAODE/funkola2000@gmail.com

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The Man,The Muse And His Mission after.

“The external examiner from the University of Leeds described my MA thesis as being ‘more than sufficient for an MA, in fact, deserving an M.Phil.’ So, as you can see, my academic career was a chequered experience, with its high and low points,” the professor quips.

As a young man, Umukoro had his eyes set on a goal: to be a literary artist.

“Yes,” he says.

“It has always been my dream to be a literary artist, and I saw English as the basic linguistic tool needed to achieve this.”

Even as a child, as that little boy imagined at the outset enthralled by the constellation, inhabiting the worlds of Yoruba and Urhobo, the English language was what gripped his heart the most.

“English was my first love, and my ambition from my secondary school days, was to obtain a first degree in it, which I achieved in 1973,” says Prof.

Umukoro with an air of satisfaction.

But like Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Ullyses, Umukoro was determined to “follow knowledge like a sinking star.”

He explains, “(That) fuelled my ambition to be a poet and dramatist.”

Subsequently, Umukoro formed a drama club at the Federal Government College, Kaduna, where he worked immediately after the one-year compulsory National Youth Service Corps.

“I began producing my plays regularly at the British Council Hall, Kaduna, which gave fame to the school and brought me in close contact with the director and staff of the council. That opened the way to my postgraduate studies in Drama under the sponsorship of the British Council, and this became a stepping stone to my doctoral degree in Theatre Arts, as soon as I returned to Nigeria.”

For every ambition, there’s always an intention. Umukoro’s seemed worlds apart. He knew he had a natural gift for English but he had intended to be something else.

In reaction to a reference that teaching chose him, the professor says, “Yes, it is, indeed, more appropriate to say that teaching chose me, against my initial intention to be an industrialist.”

For good reasons, he was convinced he was destined to be an industrialist.

“I had secured an appointment with a reputable motor company immediately after graduation,” he narrates, “as a personnel officer.”

However, he lost that job when he was drafted into the pioneer set of the National Youth Service Corps in 1973.

He adds, “The job wasn’t kept waiting for me.

“I had to settle for a teaching job under the Federal Ministry of Education before crossing over to the university after my postgraduate qualification, where I served for over 40 years.”

Prof. Umukoro didn’t hesitate to say: “Even though I never chose to teach, neither did I receive any formal training in teaching.”

Yet, decade after decade, he’s become a teacher of many teachers.

“I’ve done nothing else all my life, but teach. One recent newspaper article referred to me as ‘an accidental teacher,’” he relates.

In fact, the honest, modest, and prudent scholar had other options.

He attests: “I had other options.”

So, why did he spend what could be described as a ‘lifetime’ at the University of Ibadan?

“I spent my entire working life at the University of Ibadan partly because of the desire to contribute to the development of my alma mater, Nigeria’s premier university,” answers Umukoro.

He gives another reason, saying,

“And partly because I wasn’t likely to get fulfillment anywhere else in this country.”

Sometimes his beautiful dreams for the ivory tower and fatherland sounded as a jarring symphony of an angry orchestra, playing discordant tunes.

His October 2019 lecture, ‘Restoring the Ivory onto the Fading Tower through Theatre and the Humanities,’ painted a vivid picture of how Nigeria’s education system has lost it.

“The term ‘Ivory Tower’ has a glorious etymological connotation,” Umukoro says, shedding more light.

“But over the years, the glowing ivory began to wear off the tower, leaving it drab and gloomy. Only a planned and systematic return to the universal values inherent in a university can restore the glory of the past.”

He identified such values to include objectivity, academic freedom, mutual tolerance, administrative autonomy, integrity, ethical consciousness, fiscal prudence and accountability, scholarly humility, social responsibility, community leadership, and universal relevance.

Umukoro continues with his homily, noting, “A university should be founded on both local ideals and global values, strengthened by unbreakable institutional links with reputable universities in other parts of the world.

“A university that runs in ‘splendid isolation’ is like a solitary lake that ultimately runs dry. Persistent ASUU strikes, fuelled by government intransigence and duplicity, have led to the steady erosion of those universal values in the Nigerian university system. I believe that ASUU is willing to put an end to the menace of strikes if the government demonstrates a sincere commitment to promoting education, which is the indispensable bedrock of development in any society.”

Umukoro’s mind has defied age and its attendant frailty. After retirement at the University of Ibadan, he’ll no doubt still want to, like Ulysses, to “follow knowledge like a sinking star.”

The septuagenarian scholar is married with children. It should be mentioned too that his wife is a Professor of Theatre Arts at the Department of Theatre and Film Studies, University of Port Harcourt.

Both are the only professorial couple in Nigeria’s university system.

Well, as of the time Umukoro was interviewed none of the children was following in their parents’ footsteps.

Their first son, Ochuko Umukoro, is a medical doctor, who obtained his MBBS from the College of Medicine, UI. Their second son, Omonigho Umukoro, has a doctorate in Psychology, also from UI. Akporjevwe Umukoro is on a second master’s programme.

Retired but not tired, as the Delta Stateborn professor though having called it a day with UI, he’ll be remembered as a life-long teacher who impacted on people’s lives and imparted many ethical and intellectual values to innumerable students who passed through him.

A poet and lyricist, Umukoro published two volumes of poetry and a third is in the making. Many of the poems in the first volume, ‘Dross of Gold,’ were turned into music by an American composer, Dr. Wallace Cheatham, titled, ‘The Umukoro Songs.’

Umukoro composed the diamond jubilee anthem of the University of Ibadan (The Story and the Glory) in 2008. He also composed an anthem for the Faculty of Arts and published a number of plays, including a stage adaptation of Chinua Achebe’s classic, No Longer at Ease, into ‘Obi and Clara,’ with the written consent and commendation of Chinua Achebe. He’s a newspaper essayist and public commentator, with a published collection of over 40 essays titled, ‘The State of the Nation.’

The erudite scholar belongs to many professional bodies including the International Theatre Institute (ITI), the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC), the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC), the Society of Nigerian Theatre Artists (SONTA), and the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA).

As a scholar, Umukoro has over 70 publications in books and journal articles, both nationally and internationally. In 2018, he was appointed as the chief judge of the

Prof . Umuroko and his wife, Prof. (Mrs.) Julie Umuroko

“I began producing my plays regularly at the British Council Hall, Kaduna, which gave fame to the school and brought me in close contact with the director and staff of the council. That opened the way to my postgraduate studies in Drama under the sponsorship of the British Council, and this became a stepping stone to my doctoral degree in Theatre Arts, as soon as I returned to Nigeria.” prestigious literary prize of the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Ltd (NLNG), with a price tag of $100,000.

Umukoro retired recently from UI after attaining the age of 70. On his personal reflections on turning 70, Umukoro says, “The feeling was indescribable; a strange mixture of relief, nostalgia, and premonition.

“Relief,” he explains, “at having escaped premature death; nostalgia at the fleeting past; and premonition at the stillunfolding future. But, on the whole, I was thankful to God that I made that significant

milestone which every mortal looks forward to as the minimum life expectancy.”

Umukoro was one of the longest-serving academics in Nigeria. He was admitted into the premier university as an undergraduate in 1970 and left his alma mater as a professor, 50 years after.

“How time flies! I can hardly believe that half a century has flown past since I first set foot on the soil of the University of Ibadan as an undergraduate in September 1970,” he enthuses. “I thank God who endowed me with incredibly sound health, up till this moment.”

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T H I S DAY, T H E S U N DAY N E W S PA P E R ˾ ͯͷ˜ 2020

ENTERTAINMENT

Big Brother Naija: The Big Show That Defies COVID-19 Vanessa Obioha writes that the race for the coveted N85 million grand prize for the Big Brother Naija Season 5 begins today

A

gainst all odds, the organizers of the popular reality TV show, Big Brother Naija, will be opening the doors to contestants to compete in its fifth season. Not a few people envisaged that the coronavirus pandemic which has adversely impacted social life and bigtime entertainment will put a pause on this year’s show. But the organizers surprised all, announcing in May that the show would return this year following the success of the fourth season, themed ‘Pepper Dem’.

The previous season was adjudged, by some, the best of the reality TV show since it returned to dominate the airwaves in 2017.

The organizers revealed that it received the highest number of votes, over 240 million.

More so, it was the first season to crown a female contestant, Mercy Eke. With the towering feat of the previous season, the organizers embark on another season, promising its teeming audience more high-octane drama and entertainment.

Of course, there were fears concerning the health safety of the contestants and the production crew, but with each stumbling block, MultiChoice Nigeria skillfully deflects like a pugilist, putting measures to eliminate all threats.

“The timing of the show is also particularly important, given the dominance of the COVID-19 pandemic; auditions for the fifth edition will now hold online and viewers and stakeholders alike can rest assured knowing that global best practices, precautions, and preventive measures will be followed throughout the show, even as we guarantee the premium entertainment BBNaija is renowned for,” stated the Chief Executive Officer of MultiChoice Nigeria, John Ugbe.

The company received over 30,000 entries for this year’s edition, the highest number so far.

Channel Director, Wangi Mba-Uzoukwu, revealed few weeks ago that a pool of housemates has already been selected from everyone that auditioned and are currently being quarantined (individually).

“They will continue to undergo testing to ensure that they are all healthy and ‘rona free before the show launches. The Big Brother show lends itself to a certain level of quarantine, seamlessly integrating into the COVID-19 guidelines.”

It was further revealed that the Big Brother House, a lavish setting that often leaves viewers’ jaws dropped, has been disinfected and won’t be accessible to anyone until the premiere day.

Still, on ensuring that the show does not flout any rules of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the organizers announced that there will be no live audience in its eviction shows, leaving Ebuka ObiUchendu the show’s host to employ his creativity to entertain viewers for the duration of the show.

Despite the tweaks due to the pandemic, some of the show’s elements such as the Arena games and Saturday night parties will be likely retained.

Known to attract notable advertisers, Betway Nigeria was revealed as the lead sponsor for this season in June. The Country Manager of Betway Nigeria, Lere Awokoya, explained why they got on board with the show at a recent virtual conference.

“First of all, I have to reiterate that we are really excited about this because we all know how much of a monster the Big

BBNaija season four winner, Mercy Eke

Don Jazzy

Ebuka Obi-Uchendu

Brother Nigeria platform is. But one of the reasons why we thought it was a seamless fit between the Big Brother Naija and Betway Nigeria brand was based on the similarities that both platforms share. Of course, we’re both providing entertainment to similar demographics, but what’s on top of the list in terms of our similarities is the passion that we have for the games. We love to showcase these games because we understand that our consumers, whether it’s the Betway consumers or the Big Brother Naija consumers love the games and the entertainment that we provide. So it is logical that we collaborate and provide a variety of entertainment features that we know our audiences will enjoy.”

The premium online and mobile sports betting platform also unveiled artiste and music producer, Don Jazzy, and the host ObiUchendu as its ambassadors at that event.

“They will be representatives of Betway in all things entertainment and technology during this period and beyond and they will serve as partners and advocates for Betway and everything that we do so that they will help us engage with Nigerians in Africa, both on traditional media as well as on social media where we expect them to bring to the table their creativity, their voices, and passion to help promote the spirit of fair competition, which is something that we are very passionate about,” said Chris Ubosi, Chris Ubosi, the brand’s representative in Nigeria.

Reacting to his appointment, Don Jazzy expressed excitement on being part of the journey.

He stated, “Last year, I didn’t follow the show from the beginning because I was busy at the time. But this time around I will be driving the conversations from the get-go.

It’s going to be an interesting season with Betway.”

Continuing, Obi-Uchendu explained: “Everything is all familiar at this point.

Betway is a brand that is recognizable anywhere in the world and partnering with the biggest show on the continent Big Brother Naija is a good partnership. It’s going to be a very easy relationship.”

Now the curtain will be opened tonight and the contestants, usually drawn from their different backgrounds will begin the race to win the coveted N85 million because whether there is a pandemic or not, the Big Brother Naija show must go on.

ͯͷ˜ ͰͮͰͮ ˾ THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER

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High Life Nigeria @60: National Council for Arts and Culture Endorses Former Thisday Society Editor, Lanre Alfred’s Book on 60 Foremost Nigerians

Lanre Alfred

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

Adejare Rewane Adegbenro: Quiet Revolution Making Loud Impact

T

he Federal Government, through the National Council for Arts and Culture, NCAC, has endorsed a forthcoming book titled, Nigeria @60: 60 Foremost Nigerians In the Last 60 Years; being written by celebrity journalist and author, Lanre Alfred.

According to Otunba Olusegun Runsewe, Director-General, NCAC, “The book is a transgenerational effort that is in tandem with the federal government’s appreciation of the need for proper documentation in enduring forms, significant events of our chequered history and the roles of outstanding men and women who created the history.”

Runsewe further said the book is of significant historical and cultural value to this generation, especially as Nigeria counts down to her 60th anniversary.

Speaking on the essence of the book, Alfred said Nigeria is a nation guilty of not keeping data, which has, over the years, led to the distortion of Nigeria’s history. “As Nigeria turns 60 this year, it behoves us, therefore, to record and recall for posterity, historians and today’s youth who are bereft of quality role models the inspiring exploits and attainments of Nigeria’s foremost citizens of the last six decades while documenting and highlighting their outstanding resilience and perseverance in their ambitious dash for honour and progress in the face of daunting political and socio-economic odds,”Alfred said.

He said further that he finds it particularly inspiring and instructive to share the story of Nigeria’s heroes past and present with this generation which has so much to learn from their enviable professional and personal trajectories.

Alfred affirmed that the book would be out in October to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of Nigeria and will be made available to libraries and higher institutions across the country.

A former society editor at Thisday Newspapers, the widely-travelled journalist is also the publisher of the popular coffee table books; Titans...The Amazing Exploits of Nigeria’s Greatest Achievers; and Highlife - Lifestyles of Nigeria’s Rich and Famous; and biographies like Pacemaker - Triumphs of Igho Sanomi at 40; The Lion of Afia Nsit - Triumphs of Scott Tommey at 45; Julius Rone…The Jewel of the Delta; and Dapo Abiodun…The Heart of Prince.

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

Adejare Rewane Adegbenro

The men and women that sweated in the old days to birth Nigeria can’t have much to complain about. This isn’t because the country is

an ideal nation, but because it contains—among its nearly 300 million people—some folks who would give their lives and luck to see a better future.

Adejare Adegbenro, Otunba Laje of Owu Kingdom in Ogun State, is quietly changing lives on a regular basis. In the past few years, his foundation, Otunba Adejare Adegbenro Foundation (OAAF), has done more than is captured by the media.

Having executed one of his numerous humanitarian projects, he leaves it to others to report. Like Walt Whitman, “knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am silent, and go bathe and admire myself.”

Just this year, Adegbenro’s OAAF conducted a free ophthalmological session at Olowu Palace, Oke Ago Owu, Abeokuta. The gig, which Otunba Adegbenro later called on his peers to emulate, benefitted no fewer than 5,000 residents of Abeokuta.

Otunba Adejare Adegbenro has also been a palliative presence since the COVID-19 pandemic.

OAAF has taken to constructing essential infrastructure, delivering free healthcare services, feeding the underprivileged, etc. So far, the efforts of the Foundation have reached Alake, Olowu, Ifo and Ewekoro Local Government Areas of

Ogun State. This is excluding the significant moves Adegbenro is making in education, health and financial assistance to disadvantaged Nigerians—all intended to bring about the central objective of poverty eradication.

Although all these are laudable, they aren’t much of a surprise. Otunba Adegbenro is, after all, the product of two very prominent families.

His paternal grandfather is the late Chief Dauda Adegbenro, former Premier of the old Western Region. His maternal grandfather, on the other hand, is the late Pa Alfred Rewane, the pro-democracy crusader and financier of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO).

Otunba Adegbenro has built on the accomplishments and reputation of his grandfathers. Aside from OAAF, Adegbenro is currently the chairman of Balmoral International Limited, a company with deep roots in international trade and importation.

Back home, Adegbenro’s status significantly advanced when he was installed as the first Otunba Laje of Owu, Ogun State, by Oba Adegboyega Dosunmu Amororo II, the traditional ruler of Owu Kingdom.

Even then, he isn’t making too much noise. He continues to uphold the legacy of his grandfathers, the integrity of his father (Chief Niyi Adegbenro), and his own philosophy.

Meet Asuquo Christiana, CEO Christiana Gold Luxury Skin Care Said John Keats, a thing of beauty is a joy forever; its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness; but still will keep a bower quiet for us, and a sleep full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

This is the heart of beauty salon and care: to afford one is the privilege of sweet dreams and health. It is the same design that is at the heart of Christiana Gold Luxury SkinCare, the brainchild of Christiana Asuquo, the fashion and beauty industry entrepreneur.

Like other skincare brands, Asuquo’s Christiana Gold Luxury SkinCare is a venture that capitalizes on the universal appreciation of beauty—especially the charm and appeal of glowing and healthy skin.

Unlike others, Asuquo’s brand makes little difference between men and women, allowing for the sensible notion that every person, shoulder-wide or long-legged, deserves to be physically attractive. Her preferred medium is even more remarkable.

C.goldLuxury (short for Christiana Gold Luxury) is almost entirely focused on skin types and issues and uses organic products in its

operations. This is parallel to the age-old wisdom that the earth is a better nanny and nurse than anything of synthetic origin. Thus, C.goldLuxury empowers men and women to look their best with natural products squeezed and seasoned for skin hygiene.

The aim of Christiana Gold Luxury SkinCare is to bring skin confidence to men and women across Africa. Essentially, C.goldLuxury intends to have its clients confidently engage lively audiences, board members, or even a class of parents and teachers—never breaking a sweat, aware that every eye is trained to their aura of glowing skin beauty and health.

These clients are expected to come from every corner of Africa, that the unique skin of colour is not without spots or wrinkles or blemishes.

Christiana Gold Luxury SkinCare is currently stationed and operating in/from Abuja. In a short while, subsidiary offices should spring up in other cities of Nigeria and Africa, where the services of C.goldLuxury are already the discourse and debate of their loyal clientele.

Asuquo is a graduate of Philosophy from the University of Lagos. With her experience in

Asuquo Christiana

administrative management (from Country Hill Attorneys & Solicitors) and event management (from Eko Hotels and Suites), she is a brilliant, confident, and adventurous CEO. With her vision and leadership, Christiana Gold Luxury SkinCare could well become an international presence in the beauty industry, in the fashion industry, as well as the long halls of thriving entrepreneurship.

Otunba Olusegun Runsewe: The History Maker Last Sunday, the open ground of Sheraton Hotel, Abuja provided a natural setting for the first successful drive-in theatre experiment courtesy of Otunba Segun Runsewe-led National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC).

Nigeria’s cultural tourism community thus recorded its historic countdown to a postCOVID-19 new normal engagement.

The event was a revelation that Nigeria and indeed its creative sector is proactive enough to cope with the new normal being faced by the globe, no thanks to COVID-19.

The Sunday experiment shoveled with very tight security, social distancing, and must-wear mask protocols ushered in selected car owners strategically connected to a special programme frequency for sound, dedicated pavilions and over 40 visitors convenience.

The well-illuminated and decorated open theatre stand was centralized and visible from all directions and angles, with the thespians observing the approved protocols, and the Abuja hotel staff serving guests with snacks and beverages at intervals and fully following established hygiene protocols.

Beamed on Zoom, Instagram, Facebook and other social media NCAC accounts, the

performances backed by live coverage by notable Nigerian television stations added to the glamorous experiment. The print media was not left out.

In tandem with the NCAC post-COVID-19 creative efforts, the drive-in open theatre was geared towards perfecting the upcoming National Festival of Arts and Culture (NAFEST) holding in Jos in October.

With the digital interaction attracting over 18 countries, with ambassadors of Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, India, Pakistan and China, the template for Nigeria’s come back to life post-COVID was on showcase.

Added to the live theatre experiment, was a clinically-driven pre and post fumigation of the event ground and facilities, with special attention paid to the dedicated pavilion for photojournalists and television camera personnel.

Medayese NCAC Director General, Runsewe, expressed happiness at the encouraging presence of individuals and culture enthusiasts who graced the occasion, adding that Nigeria has once again made statements that life has returned in the country post-COVID-19.

“We are a big country and we shall

Olusegun Runsewe

continue to prepare and not relax. COVID-19 may have impacted on the cultural tourism businesses worldwide but in Nigeria, we are back on the beat, we are going to overcome challenges and put the right foot forward.

“A country with 36 states and the federal capital, ready to come together in a cultural show of force slated for Jos in October, cannot take anything for granted,” he explained.

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ ͯͷ˜ ͰͮͰͮ

Adebayo Adeoye bayoolunla@gmail.com; 08054680651

Billionaire Businessman, Prince Arthur Eze’s Belief

Bayode-Thomas

Oke Bayode-Thomas Makes Nigeria Proud While some Nigerian youths abroad are reportedly engaging in illicit businesses, 24-years-old Oke BayodeThomas is busy making his fatherland proud.

He has been recognised with the highest award a young person can receive for social action and humanitarian efforts - he was honoured with The Diana Award for young heroes who go above and beyond in their daily lives to create and sustain positive change to their environments and society at large. The Diana Award was established in memory of the late Princess Diana, Princess of Wales, and it is given out by the charity of the same name, with the support of her two sons, The Duke of Cambridge and The Duke of Sussex.

Bayode-Thomas is a Nigerian trained Computed Tomography Specialist Medical Radiographer. He is also a member of the European Society of Radiology. He is currently the Administrative Director and Cofounder of The Invasion Group, a nonprofit organization, which focuses on harnessing the strength of young minds for change.

He is also the co-founder of Mentors in Nigeria Initiative, a community of mentors who support young people to make empowered decisions and believe in their potential.

Society Watch gathered that BayodeThomas, who obtained his medical degree from the University of Lagos, Akoka, had experienced the profound impact of mentoring in his growing up days; hence ,his current involvement in the initiative.

His organisations have over one hundred committed volunteer mentors who provide support to young people.

Fifty of the young people who have been mentored through the programs have gone on to become mentors themselves.

This strategic thinking professional with more than three years’ experience in the non-profit space is highly skilled at relationship building with clients and across organizations and teams.

Bayode-Thomas, a multiple-award winner, also works with communitybased organizations and government health institutions to advance health education and promote awareness.

He obtained his medical degree from the University of Lagos, is a young African Leadership Initiative (YALI) fellow and a finalist in the regional finals of the Hult Prize business competition Abuja, 2018. He is a certified design thinker, having undergone trainings with the USAID and the Lufthansa group.

In one of his oft-quoted statements, popular Bishop of Caesarea, also called Saint Basil the Great, said: ‘’A good deed is never lost. He who sows courtesy, reaps friendship; he who plants kindness, gathers love; pleasure bestowed on a grateful mind was never sterile, but generally gratitude begets reward.”

In Nigeria, one of the few men who typify these witty sayings is billionaire businessman and Chairman of Atlas Petroleum, Prince Arthur Eze, whose acts of kindness beggar description.

The billionaire oil mogul and philanthropist perfectly believes in this maxim, as it’s obvious he understands the art of giving.

He gives and as he keeps giving, the returns on his ‘social investment’ are tripling in many folds. And as those quid trickle in, the billionaire is ever as happy as a clam at the high tide.

Just a couple of days ago, in order to enhance production from the Ejulebe marginal field, Prince Eze’s Atlas Petroleum International resumed the development of its OML 109 in Nigeria —the OML comprises 14 identified and mapped prospects and leads, and an unrisked resource potential in excess of 500 million barrels of oil equivalent.

Awarded to Atlas Petroleum International in 1991, the block entered into production through the development of the Ejulebe discovery in September 1998. Its low cost operating environment in shallow water and proximity to existing oil and gas infrastructure such as the Escravos Terminal make it one of the most attractive assets in the Niger Delta, with significant untapped and under-explored

Eze

hydrocarbons potential.

“The renewed development of OML109 will bring a boost to local content development in Nigeria, and support the industry’s recovery following the Covid-19 crisis. As Nigeria multiplies efforts to build domestic capacity and develop the Nigerian content, we intend to live up to expectations as one of the country’s major indigenous players,” said Prince Eze, who is also the Executive Chairman of Oranto Petroleum.

He added that “We expect the ongoing wells

interventions on OML 109 to deliver quick wins on the recovery and enhancement of production from the field, and express our thanks to the Department of Petroleum Resources for facilitating all permits.”

Atlas Petroleum International and Oranto Petroleum represent one of Africa’s largest Nigerian and privately-held exploration and production groups. The companies currently have an extensive footprint across the African continent, holding 22 oil and gas licenses in 12 jurisdictions including Nigeria, Sudan and Equatorial Guinea.

Interestingly, unknown to many, the billionaire, last week, revealed how he was made by the people of the Northern Nigeria who favoured him, despite being an Igbo, with juicy contracts and fortune-changing oil mining licence, a confession that provoked a barrage of attacks from some section of his people.

Prince Eze might be from a royal family with his elder brother as the traditional ruler of their Ukpo Village in the Dunukofia Local Government Area of Anambra State, his actions and mien are naturally regal and noble.

He is known for giving to ease other people’s heartache. He has come to represent a protective shield and an umbrella for vulnerable people.

This has also forced many to name him Oji-egoeme-oji!

In the recent past, Prince Eze has donated about $10 million towards various relief efforts in Nigeria. Yet the 72-year-oil magnate carries on as if he is not doing anything. To him, philanthropy is just a way of life and not a means to show up.

The Rags-to-Riches Story of Sijibomi Ogundele No doubt, the story of Sijibomi Ogundele, Nigeria’s youngest billionaire and luxury real estate Czar, is inspiring.His rise from obscurity to fame is a story that would make a good motivational compilation. Ogundele was not only born poor, he was born without any hope of survival. But while growing up, his determination to survive stood him out of his mates.

While many of his peers had no ideas of what the future held for them, he had already perfected ways to literally re-write his story.

Earlier in life, he had helped his petty trader mother in Africa’s most populous market, OkeArin, where he was nurtured by enterprising Igbo traders, an experience that must have ignited his passion for business. He would later be a souvenirs hawker in France.

Growing up in the slum of Agege, as a little 8-year-old, Sijibomi’s first introduction to entrepreneurship was when he started a bike business popularly called‘Okada’ business, from his little savings.

He drew his inspiration from his mother’s entrepreneurial spirit and grew his Okada business from 1 to 6 motorcycles, a testament to his strong, resolute and resilient business mind.

When Ogundele was building his company five years ago, not many gave him the chance of survival; many sneered at him while some scorned and discouraged him.

But with a dream to revolutionize the Nigerian Luxury real estate space and an ambition taller than the Burj Khalifa, one can only wonder how he has steered his company to survive the brutal economic recessions within the last six years, growing stronger, bigger and better, to the consternation of the pessimists and naysayers.

Today, at 39, he is already a force to be reckoned with in the real estate sector in Nigeria. He has been able to make a lasting statement with his innovativeness in the industry. Ogundele’s sole objective is to redefine luxury in the Nigerian real estate industry and is gradually achieving his dreams.

He has built his company, Sujimoto Group, into a Luxury Construction behemoth, focused on building extraordinary edifices in premium neighborhoods of Ikoyi and Banana Island.

With annual revenue of approximately $30 million and many other pending projects, Sujimoto group is said to be worth over $400 Million.

His looks may be modest, but his ambition belies his modesty- that was after an encounter with the King of Dubai who pushed his ambitious project – LorenzoBySujimoto, from 15 Storey building to a 30-storey building, reminding him that; “To be second is to be last! If people in their 30’s are building 5000 units annually in Asia, 75 units shouldn’t scare you.”

According to Ogundele; “I believe in Nigeria. My passion comes from my patriotism. I believe that the Nigeria that produced the MKOs, the Dantatas, and the Ojukwus, also has something great in store for me.” A stone’s throw from the Giuliano, Sujimoto is building what has been dubbed the tallest residential building in Banana Island – the LucreziaBySujimoto.

A revolutionary building, never before seen in Nigeria or Africa! The first building with Glass Reinforced Concrete (GRC) façade, Full Home Automation, private IMAX Cinema for the residents, standard crèche, Indoor Virtual Golf with over 2,500 courses worldwide to play on, swimming pool in the sky and other exciting features.

Sitting on the 12th floor is the best penthouse in

Ogundele

Africa. A project that sets an enviable standard for luxury residential apartments in Nigeria with a delivery deadline of December 2021.

Speaking on the Lucrezia, Ogundele made a startling revelation, saying , “We are building the best condominium not only in Nigeria but also in Africa. The Lucrezia Penthouse comes with a private elevator, private cinema, private golf, private gym, and a private pool!

The Lucrezia is very special to us because Sujimoto is divesting from Residential Projects with 80% of our real estate interest into Commercial Projects.”

The affordable luxury project -Leonardocomes in 2, 3, and 4 bedroom Units and it is a great investment offer. It is as currently selling for N250million, but will go for N450million once the project is launched later in the year.

Iyalaje Toyin Kolade’s Birthday Devoid of Fanfare

Kolade

Dr. (Mrs.) Toyin Kolade, by all standards, is a successful businesswoman and socialite of note. The beautiful woman has her hands in many pies, including oil and gas, furniture, real estate, maritime, hospitality and many others.

She commands deep respect from young and old, especially in the political, social and business circles.

She is also in tune with the modern trends in the fashion world. Call her a showstopper, and you will only be stating the obvious.

Last Monday, the Managing Director of Fisolak Global Resources, Fisolak Royal Furniture and Arikay Oil and Gas celebrated her birthday.

The low-key event was witnessed by a few family, friends and business associates due to the restriction on large gatherings occasioned

by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Described as brainy, confident and intelligent, many, it was gathered, eulogized her for all her good deeds and abiding principle.

It was also gathered that she was taken by surprise by her children who sang birthday songs for her and presented her with several collection of gigantic birthday cakes.

In the build-up to the ceremony, her pictures had been generously used by many bloggers, with goodwill messages.

To further show her appreciation to God, She gave out food items and cash to the less privileged to mark the occasion. When asked how she felt on the occasion, she said witnessing another year on planet earth is a rare privilege from the Creator which must be appreciated dearly.

T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R ˾ ͯͷ˜ ͰͮͰͮ

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with JOSEPH EDGAR ̡͸΁͸΁ͽͻͺͽͿ΁͹̢

That Uncommon Slap Did she just say she slapped my minister and former governor? My emperor and lord? I have watched that clip so many times hoping that it was a glitch or some form of editing error by purveyors of fake news. But be like say the woman talk am true-true o. That my lord had a ‘plan B’ and she gave him the slap of his life.

The worst kind of fight you ever want to get into is the one that bro is in right now. These people – before they attack me for discriminationare experts in this ancient roforofo fight that is everything goes. Akpabio himself is giving as good as he can, informing us that four men have gone through her. It was after this that she came back with the story of ‘plan B’ and the ‘guest houses.’

Bro, according to her, always wanted meetings in

his ‘guest houses’ and on one occasion had strayed and she gave him a dirty slap.

Well, all these fairy tales are just mere comedic distractions. The woman is not a teen but according to Akpabio an experienced hand in the art of the bedroom, so she is able to take care of herself. As for Akpabio with his uncommon talent, I am sure women to lay is not his problem. So, let us focus: where’s our money? That is the wahala, not all this pant-and-bra talk. Let’s focus.

Bro, the woman has thrown some very powerful accusations bothering on your ‘love for lucre’ – focus, forget her NYSC or her alleged threesomes. Give us the answers. I just knew this thing will end like this. The way you ran Akwa Ibom, my state, with uncommon talent moving

around like an emperor, I just knew you would bring that talent to the ministry. Abi? Is this why you refused to re-contest your senatorial seat when you saw the immense possibilities of the ministry? Why we keep recycling these types beats me. I listened very carefully to your talk on the radio with your strong Annang accent and did not hear anything concrete, nothing I can hold on to for hope but instead na her NYSC and four husbands we dey hear. Please, sir, if you do not begin to focus and answer these direct accusations just maybe you deserve much more than that the ‘slap’ that would not give you the opportunity to have a ‘plan B.’ Nsuto Nkpo... only Ibibio people will understand that one.

Magu

Oluwatoyin

Valentine

MAGU – HOPE NOT A MEDIA CIRCUS As I wrote this I had mixed feelings. I am hearing that Humpty Dumpty has just been released on bail. That is his constitutional right and I am happy.

But then again, the man ran his show without any regard as I hear of little things like processes including bail and that kind thing. Now my fear is that with all that gra-gra from suspension to detention, to the media circus, we would now not be left with a basket to fetch water. His release is doing me one kind in my body.

For the first time in my life, I had small hope in this administration’s quest for the right thing. I really do hope that this release would not end in what we used to call in Shomolu – ‘na me, na me’ situation. Where, at the end of the day, it was just a misunderstanding between brothers.

The allegations are heavy and go directly to the root of corruption in the country. If this is dealt in a na me, na me manner, then a final nail has been put in our national coffin. This Magu thing is a cesspit, reeking of the putrid odour of shame. Risking convicting him before his trial, I would say that this is the mother of all scandals since I was born in Shomolu in 1969. Looting and re-looting, money laundering, insubordination, all putting pressure on the structures and institutions of government leading to infighting amongst government contending structures.

Humpty Dumpty just went gaga, carried away with power if we are to believe all these stories and be jumping around with midgets in red jackets causing terror and fear, doing all but what they were sent to do. What kind of anti-corruption czar was this one?

Didn’t they do a background profiling check before they selected him or was he put there for a purpose? These are the kind of things that just make person tire for this country. If not cos of age, yellow women and coronavirus, I would have also gone to Canada and go and sit down there.

Abeg, Mr. Buhari whatever you are

doing – sleeping, using a toothpick, engaging in the other room or generally just sitting down there and be watching wrestling, please wake up and don’t let this one go abeg. Deal with this one decisively. Thank you.

Valentine is a gentleman with a strong pedigree in service. He remains one of the most sought-after corporate titans with a strong view of long-term developmental planning. I only met him once at my sister Chioma Okigbo’s house. He wore white sneakers and that caught my attention. I walked up to him, introduced myself, and had a five-minute talk on this and that. That meeting created an impression and you know if you are not full-bodied and light-skinned, I go just dey look you.

So Valentine that night at Chioma’s house created a huge impression which affirmed why the great Africapital promoter, the honorable Tony Elumelu does not joke with him, even retaining him on the board of his Transcorp.

I hear Val wants to be governor of Anambra State and from some of his papers and thought processes, I really believe that every right-thinking Anambrian and indeed Nigerian who really believes in the need for sanity should look very closely at this ambition. It just might be the spark needed to galvanise a positive turn of events in our country. Bro, go for it, no fear.

FLYING OFFICER TOLULOPE OLUWATOYIN SARAH AROTILE (19952020) As I struggle with the morbidity that seems to have enveloped the country, I refused to engage myself on this sad news. I simply refused to read the news, analyze, engage or discuss the matter as if it would go away.

My Command Secondary School Alumni WhatsApp group was crazy with all speculations. You know how Nigerians like to weave conspiracy theories over every little thing. The argument even brought out an air force general who normally does not engage to proffer a credible explanation on the matter.

I still refused to engage because the pain would have been numbing. When her pictures emerged on my phone, seeing her so young, so beautiful with a microphone as she explained something to our President with other pictures showing her in combat gear and beside her helicopter, I just shook my head.

The official position is that she was hit by a car driven by ‘an excited’ friend.

I think we should just respect this position. It is not on everything that we will be doing armchair analysis. The air force has lost a soldier and Nigeria a heroine. This could have been the first female chief of air staff. I hear she was the first female combat helicopter pilot.

So this is not only a human tragedy but a national calamity. I bow my head in supplication and in deep mourning.

Sleep well, my sister.

VALENTINE OZIGBO – ARE WE DOING IT? That is the question I am asking my very good friend and brother, Nonso Okpala of mercurial VFD Group and it looks like we are doing it. The beautiful ones are coming out, in an attempt to slowly but surely push integrity and visionary leadership to the fore.

OLU AKPATA – NBA PRESIDENCY IN SIGHT Some mumu people will be asking me now if I am a lawyer o. That what concerns me for this matter. Look, let me tell you that I have had lawyer girlfriends in the past and I may still marry a young lawyer in my old age if Duchess permit so you can see my very strong interest in this matter. But seriously, we have really suffered in this country as a result of the ‘funny’ state of the legal profession. I don’t want to go direct so that I no go spoil the chances of my candidate for election wey I no go vote.

Let me just say it very clearly that just like Valentine that I just mentioned, the coming in of Olu into this matter will herald a new wind that would in itself cascade into the body politic of the society.

Olu is cerebral, passionate and really understands what it means to be erudite.

Akpabio

Akpata

Strong pedigree and confident. He is my friend, he is friends to the masses and has contributed very significantly to the growth of the profession in the country. I sincerely believe that his candidacy and indeed presidency will go a long way in redirecting and refocusing the profession for the betterment of society. I have offered to give the commencement speech at his inauguration if they allow me. Bro, let’s do this. Yes, we have!

ALWAYS A SLAM DUNK FOR RUEBEN ABATI You know when you have the kind of intellect that I have, you cannot suffer fools. Come and see the way I dey argue for Fadeyi bus stop on national issues. I am so good that now they even buy me Agege bread to listen to me.

As I approach, they will be shouting – Dukeeeeeee! Dukeeeeeee! Meself I will now position and say, Oshiomhole no get sense. They will shout. They will now say, ‘Is it true say Akpabio put him hand under the woman skirt?’ I will say, ‘That is not a slapping offence.

Na breasts he want touch, that one na slap offence.’ They will scream that this Duke ‘gbono’ (that I am ‘hot’). But despite all this my brain, when I see baba, I will bow o. Dr. Abati is king.

His pure understanding of issues is better felt than told. So when the need arose to get better clarity on the role of the chief of staff in the making of a Presidency on the back of my brother Magnus Onyibe’s new book – Abba Kyari, Portrait of a Loyalist, I jumped at the chance to have Dr. Abati. He graciously agreed to speak at the first Zoom Afang Summit and he wowed the over 70 people who attended. Kai, come and see the historical tracing of the office and its holders down to Gen. Abdullahi. Mbok, from his exposition, this Abba Kyari was just a Michael Jackson o. Kai. Anyways, Hon. Chike Ogeah and Yemi Shodimu weighed in on their experiences in Delta and Ogun states where they both served.

To say it was an enriching session is an understatement. Well done, sir and thank you so much.

56

JULY 19, 2020 Ëž THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER

with RenoOmokri THEALTERNATIVE How Omoyele Sowore Blackmailed Me and Almost Ruined the Lives of My Family and I

S

ometime in 2012, it entered my heart to give back to Nigeria. I had invited some White Christian missionaries to Nigeria, in August 2012, and we visited an orphanage in Abuja, the Hope For Survival Orphanage. I was so shocked by the cramped conditions under which the children lived, that I went out and cried my heart out.

I then vowed that I would build an orphanage that would be as good as the house my children lived inAmerica.

I started building in December 2012. I never stole a dime or did a fundraiser. I paid for this project myself, save for a $1000 contribution by my friend, PastorAndy Cochran. I was in government for four years as a Presidential spokesman, and now I am perhaps the most vociferous critic of the President Buhari administration.

Yet, nobody, not even the Buhari government, can ever say I stole money. My hands are clean, and I am very fulfilled that I set a record, that you can serve in government in Nigeria without stealing.

Work was slow, but I was determined.And then on Valentine’s Day, 2015, a few weeks to the Nigerian 2015 elections, everything came to a most abrupt halt. Why? Because Sahara Reporters wrote a story alleging that I was an armed robber, who robbed a house in Warri, Delta State, and stole money for use in the coming 2015 elections, which was to hold in two weeks.

I was aghast! No one has ever accused me of stealing money in government, let alone with arms. I had not been to Warri in years. The last time I went there was in 2012 when I had a meeting with PastorAyo Oritsejafor about evangelism. I felt it had to be a mistake.

So, I wrote to Omoyele Sowore telling him he was mistaken.

I gave him the facts. I showed him logs fromAso Rock, where I worked, proving that on the date and time he alleged I was robbing a house, I was in my office. I gave the names of a woman who was once an editor, who had met with me on the day in question. He ignored my mails. No response. The 2015 Nigerian presidential election was in two weeks, and the story made my boss, President Jonathan look bad (which was the intention of the story).

Why would you write a story like that without even verifying whether it was true or not? Both Sowore and his organisation had my contact details. Sowore has phoned me before. He knew how to reach me. How can you write such a damaging story without first reaching out to the person you are writing about? It goes against the ethics of responsible journalism, which say hear both sides, and when in doubt, leave out.

I quickly engaged a lawyer and sued the man Sahara Reporters

mentioned in their story as accusing me of armed robbery.At court, the man swore to an affidavit that he never made such allegations against me to Sahara Reporters and he does not know how they arrived at their claims.

I then sent the affidavits he swore to, to Saharareporters and Omoyele Sowore and they ignored it. The traditional print media carried the story of the denial by the man cited by Sahara Reporters.

Yet, both Sowore and his organisation refused to either take the story down or apologise.

I then sued Sahara Reporters in Nigeria, but they dodged service of court papers. So, I travelled to the United States and engaged two lawyers, one in New York and one in California.

I was almost financially ruined. I had difficulty paying my mortgage because of the astronomical cost of hiring a lawyer in America (they bill by the hour). I had to stop work on the orphanage project and focused entirely on fighting to clear my name. My children were too ashamed to go to school because I live in a small Christian community in California. The people in our church had read the story, and I was the subject of malicious gossip. Eventually, I had to leave the church. I was scandalised in the community.

The lawyer in New York wrote Sowore and appealed to him to remove the story and explained to him how financially draining this case could be for both him and I. Sowore would not budge and it looked like I may have had to remortgage my house to get the funds to pay for a long legal battle.

Eventually, the lawyer in New York was able to discover that The Ford Foundation was sponsoring Saharareporters. So, he wrote to them and presented the facts to them. Then, and only then, did Sowore take the story down. He did not do this because he wanted to. He did it, only because he did not want his money threatened.

What mattered to Omoyele Sowore was not my life that he was ruining with his blackmail or my children he was scarring psychologically by falsely labelling their father as an armed robber. His singular motive was to render then President Jonathan unelectable and ensure the election of Muhammadu Buhari, via any means necessary, including lying against innocent people. The only thing that could stop him was a threat to his income.

I thank God that on February 22, 2016, the orphanage, The Helen and Bemigho Sanctuary for Orphans, was declared open in Benin City, Edo state, by Professor Pat Utomi, Senator Ben Murray-Bruce andArch Bishop John Praise Daniel, to the glory of God. My entire family was there. Foreign friends came. The orphanage is now giving hope to the previously hopeless. However, the orphanage could have been opened earlier, if I did not have to waste multiple millions of Naira trying to clear my name from the reckless lies told

THE PUBLIC SPHERE with Chido Nwakanma

against me by Omoyele Sowore, all because, to him, all is fair in elections.

If you saw my photograph from that period, I looked like a person in the last stages of HIV/AIDS wastage. I could not eat.

I could not sleep. I was traumatised. My grandparents were so affected by the blackmail against me by Sowore, that I feared it might lead to their untimely death.

My family and I would gather and cry out to God and beg Him to vindicate me. It was the most trying period of my life.

The money I wasted on this venture could have fed and educated orphans. It could have been used to do something more positive and useful to humanity than feathering the nests of already wealthy lawyers both here and in the United States.

However, mine is not an isolated case. It is a pattern or blackmail, and media terrorism engaged in by Omoyele Sowore, using his Sahara Reporters, probably the most dishonest medium on Earth.

I know several persons he has done this to, including and not limited to Pastors, people in business, and ordinary citizens, who he has targeted for destruction to suit his political motives.

I know of a pastor who Sowore targeted because the man had prophesied the death of his political godfather, Nasir El-Rufai, if he should sign his anti-preaching Bill, The Kaduna State Religious Preaching (Regulation) Bill, into law. The pastor is in court against Sahara Reporters and has promised to expose details when the case is concluded.

Today, Buhari, who Omoyele Sowore admitted on camera to bringing to power, is now doing to him what he did to others, and both Sowore and his propaganda website, Saharareporters, want to paint the picture of victims. No, they are enablers. They brought Buhari to power, and as we all know, the first persons a dictator goes after, are those who brought him to power.

Sowore is a woman scorned. He expected to be given a role in Buhari’s government, like Festus Keyamo. However, he forgot that when you sell your brother, even your buyer will not trust you.

That is why it took less than 24 hours for Nnamdi Kanu to get bail. Because he is genuinely fighting for his people. However, it took months for Sowore to get bail.And he still did not make it.

The judge herself later said she was “embarrassed� that despite reducing the bail conditions, no one came to bail Sowore. Who will want to bail a blackmailer? Who? Abrutal blackmailer has met his match in a brutal dictator. It is a match made in hell, and both of them should be left to reap what they have sown. i#F OPU EFDFJWFE (PE JT OPU NPDLFE GPS XIBUTPFWFS B NBO TPXT UIBU TIBMM IF BMTP SFBQ u (BMBUJBOT

@ChidoNigeria https://www.facebook.com/chido.nwakanma

Communication in COVID-19 Times

T

he coronavirus pandemic is shaking various tables and forcing a re-assessment of hitherto settled matters. Or those that the wisdom and paradigm of the day considered settled. During the past week, communication professionals gathered under the umbrella of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) to review the role of the discipline in these coronavirus times. If communication is so pervasive, should it also take the rap when stakeholders fail to act in desired directions?

The IABC webinar tackled “Strategic Communication in the trajectory of a pandemic�. Zoom was the platform, with over 50 participants out of the 150 that registered. The West Africa Interest Group of IABC organised the event.

Communication has played a frontline role in the management of Covid19. It has lived up to the belief of the industry that communication is central and contributory to the effective management of human organisations, be they corporates, institutions or even the family.

Staying connected with all stakeholders and showing care and affinity are critical communication practices for organisational success during and after Covid19, the experts asserted.

They said that given the physical distancing that has left workers operating in safe places away from offices and factories, organisations must stay connected to their employees, primarily, as well as other stakeholders.

The experts are Anne Ezeh, the Communications Director for GE’s Gas Power Business for Sub- Saharan Africa, Dr Omoniyi Ibietan, a certified regulation specialist and professional multistakeholder communication and relationship manager with the Nigerian Communications Commission and Ukwori Ejibe, the Strategic Communications, Change Management & Partnerships Lead for the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI). They served as panellists.

Ezeh asked communication managers to pay special attention to internal communication. “Amplify the internal voice�, she counselled, by allowing staff members to express themselves broadly, so they are comfortable. Ideas may also come from there.

One fallout of communication during Covid19, according to the

experts, is the increasing blending of business and family values.

People working from home increasingly involve their families.

Children look in as the Zoom chats are going on. Family members understand better the work that their parents do, despite the occasional inconvenience.

Ukwori Ejibe lends her expertise to the National Centre for Disease Control. She said the NCDC is increasing its communication outreach beyond traditional and social media to using influencers across culture, religion and other societal touchpoints.

She advocated the increased deployment of word of mouth by both influencers and the average citizen.

Ibietan disclosed that the Nigerian Communications Commission supports the efforts of the telecommunication companies that offered airtime, SMS and even data to subscribers to enable connection with their families and friends. He said the NCC would soon run a significant campaign to educate stakeholders on the coronavirus further and thrash any negative relationship between telecommunications and the pandemic.

The experts called on corporate bodies as well as individuals not to stand aloof but to show greater interest and involvement in tackling the pandemic. They said citizens should heed all the protocols on safety bearing in mind that Covid19 may be here for much longer than envisaged.

The upside is that many people believe more in messaging from their organisations. It elevated the importance of internal communication and employee engagement. The Nigerian experience replicates in other locations.

Key takeaways included r 1VCMJD TFDUPS #SFBLEPXO JO USVTU JO JOTUJUVUJPOT JT B HMPCBM hindrance to effective crisis communications. It takes a village to manage the response effectively. r 1SJWBUF TFDUPS *U JT JNQPSUBOU OPU UP EJTUBODF UIF FNQMPZFS voice from external reality. Employee communication needs to be human, empathise and help staff navigate the situation. r 5P SFNBJO SFMFWBOU UISPVHIPVU UIF QBOEFNJD PSHBOJTBUJPOT must need to pivot and innovate their brand voice to external themes (i.e. matters of interest and concern in the broader society).

They have to be engaged, corporate citizens. r #SBOET UIBU EP OPU QVU JO QMBDF TUSBUFHJFT UP BJE UIFJS DVTUPNFST

to survive would likely lose them post-pandemic. r 5IF EBZT PG iTQSBZ BOE QSBZu PS TDBUUFSTIPU NFTTBHJOH and communication are over. Messaging has to be tailored and targeted to specific audience profiles and organisational objectives.

The Institute for Public Relations at the University of Florida, Miami, USAis one of the foremost in researching issues in the EJTDJQMJOF *UT MBUFTU FCPPL -FBEFSTIJQ 1FSTQFDUJWFT -FBEJOH BOE Looking Ahead Through Covid19 shares the experiences of 30 comms professionals.

It reports, among others, Jennifer Mauer, Head of Global Corporate Communications at Merck, said the pandemic elevated the value of communication. “We know that in times of great uncertainty, people seek transparency, guidance, and help to make sense of what has happened,� said Mauer. “The role of communication has become even more important with the majority of employees telling us that they trust communications from their organisation more than other sources.�

Covid19 has brought to the fore the role of the comms professional as the valuable sensor of public intelligence for organisations.

An elephant stood in the room and has shown up wherever professionals discuss the matter of communicating in this pandemic. That elephant manifests as the question of effectiveness against environmental challenges such as cynicism and distrust of authority figures. Suspicion is now a global phenomenon, but it is worse in countries such as Nigeria. Nigerians doubt their government officials.

The evidence is that many Nigerians fail to heed all the communication on the protocol for the management of Covid19. They do not wear masks, wash their hands frequently with soap and water, nor observe social distancing. Many reasons exist.

The conversation happened against the backdrop of fake news, deliberate falsehoods aimed at undermining belief in the existence of the pandemic, and deployment of tropes and guerrilla theatre to spin even more damaging stories. One of such is a TikTok video trending on WhatsApp of a pretty and very buxom character. She engages a conversation where she shares with someone at the other end of the line, her disbelief in the existence of Covid19. “Exactly!� she starts with an assertion. “I was asking them.

57

THISDAY, THE SATURDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ JULY 19, 2020

with ChidiAmuta e-mail:chidi.amuta@gmail.com

ENGAGEMENTS

Gangster Chronicles

M

y favorite minister in the Buhari cabinet is easily Mr. Lai Mohammed. I think he is a good man who has to earn a living in the business of selling bad eggs to unsuspecting good people. As things stand, the events of the last few days must be making him a bit uneasy. The travails of his regime colleagues, Ibrahim Magu, formerly of the EFCC, Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour with accountability for the NSITF and Godswill Akpabio of the Niger Delta Ministry must be causing him some loss of sleep. Yet the chronicles of money related murky tales from various government departments continue to dominate the air waves and platforms, not allowing Mr. Mohammed time to figure out what spin to put around this next level of things.

As for President Buhari, I am ready to swear that he never, in his worst nightmare, ever imagined that his messianic mandate would degenerate into the ongoing chronicles of serial plunder and mass thievery that are evolving in various departments of his government. The big burden for the president and his handlers must now be that of deciding whether it is the cascade of money related bad manners among regime high priests or the actual business of governance that should preoccupy the public. Incidentally, both the media and the public feed on high drama and that is what some of the president’s high officials are currently engaged in.

In one week only, the prime pontiff of Mr. Buhari’s flagship anti corruption project has been embroiled in an avalanche of allegations of corruption. After over ten days in innocuous detention, the pitiful looking Mr. Magu has been allowed to go home while his investigation by a presidential panel continues.

No one knows exactly the facts of the cascade of rumoured allegations against him. These range from untidy book keeping about recovered billions to suspected conversion of recovered assets and re-looting of looted treasure. It is uncertain where real allegations of proven corruption end and the political shenanigans of Aso Rock pranksters and 2023 advance messengers begin.

Meanwhile what looks like a change of guards is taking shape at the beleaguered EFCC. An acting Chairman has been emplaced. Some dozen directors have reportedly been fired. Files are being combed, drawers emptied and some homes ransacked in search of evidence and clues to the flurry of allegations. Until real charges are filed in court against Mr. Magu and his cohorts, we may not know what went wrong inside the engine room of Buhari’s anti corruption machinery. There had better be sensible charges and hard evidence to justify this high drama. Otherwise the Magu chapter of the unfolding gangster chronicles may end up as a typical Nigerian political shuffle dance. Whichever way it goes, the drama around the EFCC has damaged the president’s anti corruption public relations campaign.

In the Ministry of Labour, the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF) has also been in the news for corruption related issues. Here again, accusations and counter accusations of creative accounting and financial bad manners have featured. Mr. Chris Ngige has had to answer some uncomfortable questions from legislators looking into the books of the NSITF. No one knows who tampered with the budget submissions of parts of the Labour Ministry for 2020. In the interim, the Chief Executive and some officials of the NSITF have been asked to take a break from the agency. Here again, the outlines remain murky and hazy.

What is undeniable is that a couple of billions of Naira of pubic money have changed location in a series of untidy deals that litter the books of the agency. In a land where consequences are scant even for earth shaking criminal infractions, we may never know what went wrong and who is held accountable.

By far the most dramatic, spectacular and consequential corruption related drama in our midst is the raging exchange between the Minister of the Niger Delta, Mr. Godswill Akpabio and the former Interim Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Joi Nunieh. The unverified details are as incredulous and frightening as they are unsettling.

It is a tale of monumental waste, frightening looting of public funds and brazen abuse of public trust. From the accounts so far, it seems that the basic unit of counting money in the NDDC is in billions of Naira. The categories of expenditure range from the sublime to the ridiculous. There is an alleged N1.2 bn as Covid-19 palliative handouts to staff, N8 bn spent on Covid-19 related projects, some N15 bn on removal of water hyacinths from waterways . A couple of billions went on trainings and local and overseas travel even during the Covid-19 lockdown!

Between Mr. Akpabio and Ms. Nunieh, the back and forth of accusations is coming from two opposite standpoints, both equally well meaning on the surface. Mr. Akpabio assumed office as minister vowing to stop the NDDC being treated and seen as the ATM of reckless politicians. On her part, Ms. Nunieh as interim Managing Director expressed a commitment to count all the cowries on the shore by ensuring due process and proper accountability in the management of the resources of the agency. Ordinarily, both objectives should coincide and mutually reinforce.

The present hostile face off is coming from a hidden place.

Ms. Nunieh has insisted that Mr. Akpabio tried to compel her to violate due process and standard accounting regulations in contract awards and cash extractions. She has made numerous

Akpabio other allegations concerning countless contract award directives emanating from Mr. Akpabio. As yet, Mr. Akpabio has not come forward convincingly to disprove these allegations, relapsing instead to name calling and spurious personal attacks.

In the process of this untidy exchange, the financial profile of the NDDC has come into light. The expenditure profile of the agency reads like a telephone directory of financial recklessness and serial violations of due process and extant financial regulations. Officials were just issuing contracts to their proxy companies and handing down directives for cash payments for frivolous transactions.

What has unnerved the public is the sheer quantum of resources that have been allocated to the NDDC in its twenty years of existence. Approximately 4 trillion Naira has come into the coffers of the NDDC over these two decades. Yet, the scandalous neglect that continues to be the lot of the people of the Niger Delta. Pitted against its original mandate and objectives, it is clear that the NDDC has been more of a cheap source of funds for politicians and their cohorts at the expense the ordinary people of the Niger Delta.

It is quite disturbing that in the course of the rough exchange between Mr. Akpabio and Ms. Nunieh, so many acts of outright criminality or attempts thereof have been thrown up. There has been an attempted armed kidnap of Ms. Nunieh by a rogue contingent of the police which was only stopped by the personal intervention of the Governor of Rivers State, Mr. Nyesom Wike.

There has been an allegation of attempted rape and sexual harassment by Nunieh against Mr. Akpabio as well as outright looting, serial thievery, forgery, award of contracts without due process, threat to administer an illegal oath etc. On their own, each of these areas of criminality deserve an investigation of its own.

The parade of frivolities and sleaze make contemporary Nigeria begin to look more like Restoration England(1660-1688).

Gossip and sleaze was the language of social interaction.

Scandals especially among the high and mighty were abundant.

Comedy was the standard fare of common culture and the dominant form of literature. Public officials were known for their patent unseriousness. Casual philandering and indiscriminate concupiscence among the elite and their spouses were rife. In the current Nigerian equivalent of this decrepit moral canvass, both Mr. Akpabio and his traducer are both disciples of the new deity in town, the cargo cult of ‘carry go’’!

In such a clime, it would be foolish to expect conformity to normal codes of orderly and civilized behavior from public officials. You cannot even expect public officers to conform to any strict code of accountability or respectability. Yet we are supposed to be running a modern day 21st century republic and government with rules of accountability and agreed decency re among key operatives of the state.

The upsurge in scandals and stories related to corruption in recent times is symptomatic of a systemic moral decay of the Nigerian state. Mr. Buhari did not invent corruption in Nigeria’s public sector. He is rather an inheritor of an ugly aspect of our national culture. The decisive point is however that he is one president who ran for office and came to power identifying the fight against corruption as the cardinal project of his administration. That is perhaps what has elevated the recent chronicles of infamy among his key officials into a public concern. But we need to reach deeper into the systemic culture of our society to help the president in this matter of corruption and its stranglehold on our nation.

For one thing, the bureaucratic infrastructure of processes and controls that has sustained a culture of corruption seems to be very much in tact. Given the enormity of the acts of corruption and the sheer quantum of resources that are involved, it is indeed

a strange system that does not set off an alarm when such large amounts of public funds are being stolen. Clearly, the mechanism for contract awards and public procurements remains porous.

In addition, there seems to be little or no monitoring mechanism to ascertain that projects funded with public funds are actually being implemented as a precondition for payments. There is everything wrong with a public sector accounting mechanism that has to wait for external stimulus from crime investigators to detect irregularities.

Successive governments have tended to restrict their definitions of corruption to massive cash thefts from the public till mostly by rival political brigands. In this patent misunderstanding of the sociology and psychology of corruption in our society, we tend to restrict the definition of corruption to the widespread pillage of the public treasury. We forget the elements of nepotism, favouritism, massive bribery and extortion that have become ingrained in our public and private spheres.

Most importantly, we have a system where key public agencies are headed by politicians as compensation for contributions to the last election. Such politicians go into office with the sole aim of recovering their campaign expenditures and the amassing of war chests for future political exploits. In the process, they intimidate the existing professional bureaucrats and technocrats while subverting existing rules and procedures to achieve private financial ends.

Public agencies headed by an amoral political elite have never fared well in these parts in terms of serving the public good or observing accountability and transparency. We are dealing with a political class that is now content with wearing the badge of amorality. The ascendancy of this elite is made possible by the virtual collapse of all pillars of social morality in our nation. The family is in distress just as religious institutions have become compromised extensions of a transactional ethos. The traditional sense of community has been eroded by the invasion of an urban and sub urban culture of quick wealth powered by the technologies of quick access to information. Th collapse of civics has transformed government into a no man’s land in which public wealth and resources belong to no one in particular. Corruption has become the art of stealing from no one in particular. The existence of agencies like the EFCC and ICPC no longer frightens criminal minded officialdom in a republic where everyone has a price tag.

There is no need to preach a morality of absolute abstinence from the sins of enlightened self interest in matters of public office and the money and influence that comes with it . Enlightened self interest has always been the currency of political pre eminence in nearly every society. People in high paces will always make influential phone calls to advance their interests or to help someone in need. In a society where there is hardly any social security, highly placed officials have tended to use those offices to cushion themselves against the guaranteed adversity of the day after. There lies the difference between enlightened self interest and the brazen looting that has become our normal.

Accusations bordering on sexual misconduct and deviance as we have witnessed with Akpabio versus Nunieh do not quite shock our national audience. While we should not expect public officers to parade their sexual deviance in public, such things fall into place in this age. We virtually live in an age of genitalia in which nudity is recklessly brandished and intimate anatomical displays have virtually become an art form. In this context, it does not matter much to the man on the street who strokes what buttocks or pinches what exposed breasts. Ordinary people would be more content if ‘big men’ and government officials kept their hands off the public till.

The developing chronicles of scandals and mismanagement in the NNDC raises very fundamental concerns about the future of the agency and indeed all regional intervention agencies. The NDDC was established to address the urgent and embarrassing neglect of the Niger Delta. President Obasanjo was concerned about the increasing restiveness in the region and the very justifiable loud agitations for development and humanitarian intervention in an area that remains the home base of the nation’s strategic oil and gas industries. In spite of the noble objectives that informed the founding of the NDDC, the successive managements of the agency have squandered its promise. There is no assurance that the ongoing forensic audit of the agency, already seriously compromised, and anticipated cosmetic reforms can salvage the NDDC. The road ahead for the NDDC has two options. The first is to shut down the agency, tally its assets and liabilities and divide same among the nine states that the agency was designed to serve in the agreed formula. Thereafter, the 13% derivation revenue formula should be increased to the extent of the budget of the NDDC. The second option is to reform the agency after establishing the culpability of successive managements for the looting of the agency. Thereafter, a more responsible board and management of core professionals should be put in place. To protect the financial life of the agency, the finance, audit and project monitoring departments should be outsourced to major international audit and finance companies on a revolving contract basis.

On the war against corruption, the president now needs to quietly contemplate his mission as we wait for the next scandal to erupt. Can he win this war in the twenty four months he has for active governance before retreating to Daura?

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T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R ˾ JULY 19, 2020

CICERO/TRIBUTE

Osoba at 81: A Life Guided by Prophecy Chief Olusegun Osoba, two times former governor of Ogun State and one of the founding fathers of All Progressives Congress turned 81 years on July 15. However, Osoba’s exploits in the pen profession, marriage and politics, despite five close encounters with death, attest to the power of the prophecy that led to his birth, writes Gboyega Akinsanmi

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t a session with select journalists in July 2019, two times former governor of Ogun State, Chief Olusegun Osoba pointed out one factor that kept him going on the bumpy, rough journey of life. He personally convened the session as part of activities to mark his 80th birthday and the unveiling of his memoir, Battlelines: Adventures in Journalism and Politics.

Right there, he acknowledged the role of his father, Pa Babatunde Osoba, who according to him was God’s rock upon which his foundation was built. He, also, recognised the doggedness of his mother, Remilekun Osoba, whose unflinching support made his academic pursuit a huge success at the time only few had access to formal education.

As fundamental as the roles of his parents were, Osoba then revealed that his birth was divine. Before his birth, Osoba’s parents had lost two children, who did not survive beyond infancy. Obviously burdened with the agony of losing two children, his mother had a prophetic encounter with the Founder of Christ Apostolic Church, Prophet Joseph Ayodele Babalola, who by providence happened to be Osoba’s maternal uncle.

The man prophesied Osoba’s birth, a muchneeded intervention, which the former governor said, put an end to child mortality in the life of his parents. He, then, told the session what his father shared with him about his birth and christening.

“At my christening, my parents chose the names Tanimanwo and Oluwasegun. But my father told me that the prophet advised him to stick to Oluwasegun, because he predicted my birth.

“Unlike the first two children of my mother, who died at their infancy, Prophet Babalola prophesied that I would survive all spiritual vicissitudes of life. Oluwasegun means God has Osoba...journalist and politician with panache conquered or God is victorious,” Osoba said, manager, an ardent reformer and a progressive by birth. Osoba reliving how his father explained the circumsaid: “I built new office complex and bought new equipment.” stances that preceded his birth.

At the time he returned to Daily Times, the former governor Apart from prophesying his conception, Osoba spent qualrevealed how the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN) had ity time with the prophet while growing up. He acknowledged destroyed it between 1979 and 1983. that the prophet raised him along the path of godliness and Despite the depth of decay he inherited at Daily Times, righteousness. In the memoir, Osoba wrote: “Whenever I spent Osoba brought invaluable experience he had garnered in Herald my holiday with Prophet Babalola in Efon Alaye, Ekiti State, I and Sketch to bear on the new assignment. He said he was able often went on crusades with him and on his missionary jour“to turn it around to the extent that we were paying dividends to ney.” Now cruising his path to the club of nonagenarians, the shareholders. Will a man, who did not know his left from right, power that prophesied his birth is still effectual and working be able to lead Daily Times profitably and successfully?” wonders in the life of this illustrious Egba son. At every phase of In Nigeria, Osoba was perhaps the only journalist, who his life, the power of God’s words that defined his existence had managed three major newspapers and made them profitable. distinguished him in academic pursuit, profession and politics, Beyond making these papers profitable, Osoba’s management having served in different capacities for over four decades. was committed to the payment of salaries as and when due and As designed by his revered teacher, the late Chief Adenola provided housing and car loans.

Oshuneye, Osoba had wanted to study Law. He even secured Apart from managing three successful newspapers, he was admission at the University of Lagos to study Law. But when equally involved in the establishment of The Vanguard and The Osoba’s path crossed that of a former Managing Director Guardian newspapers, two leading national dailies that still of Daily Times, the late Alhaji Babatunde Jose, this singular largely shape Nigeria’s public life. In his words, “Alex Ibru and episode completely changed the direction of his career, truncatI started The Guardian together. That was why he reserved the ing his dream and Pa Oshunkeye’s plan to see him become a position of Managing Director for me for years.” leading legal icon on the continent.

After a stint in Journalism, Osoba made his foray into the Against Pa Oshunkeye’s human design, he claimed, Jose world of partisan politics, which most professionals often detest persuaded him to take up Journalism and jettison law. What a in the Nigerian context. First, in 1988, he was elected a member of decision! But why did Jose advise him against Law? Why did the defunct Constituent Assembly. Subsequently, he joined the Osoba jump at Journalism? As the session progressed, Osoba People Solidarity Party (PSP), which metamorphosed into Social could not provide answers to these questions.

Democratic Party (SDP). Since his foray into partisan politics, his But providence has settled Osoba’s case by the power of progress was as unprecedented as that of his profession. prophecy that worked with his mother, even before his concepIn 1991, Osoba contested and won the governorship election tion. That, perhaps, explained why God brought Jose his way on the platform of the SDP, a political party the President and used him to provide professional guidance for him at the Ibrahim Babangida administration promoted in the late 1980s early stages of his work life. alongside the National Republican Convention (NRC). But the That, perhaps, also explained why the late media icon military intervention by the late Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha provided Osoba much-needed institutional support that abruptly terminated his tenure midway. placed his name in the roll call of Africa’s great journalists. He For him, it was a sordid episode that later turned nightmares enrolled him at the University of Lagos to study Journalism, a that almost brought his life to a halt. But providence never programme that the university was offering then in partnership allowed the enemies of state to axe him. Precisely, after the with the International Press Institute Training. annulment of the June 12, 1993 election, Osoba’s position brought After completing his programme, Osoba’s career progress him to the forefront of the political crisis. As a result, he claimed was unprecedented, a development that pitted his colleagues that there were at least five attempts on his life, for defending the against him at Daily Times. Amid scathing criticisms, Osoba course he believed would help his fatherland. left Daily Times for Herald, a publication of the Kwara State After Chief M.K.O Abiola was arrested, the attempt on Government. This time, he was no longer under Jose’s superviOsoba’s life started on August 24, 1994. It was around the period sion. Yet, Osoba distinguished himself. the pro-democracy actors were planning to mark Abiola’s first As former President Ibrahim Babangida remarked, Osoba birthday in detention. The agents of the late tyrant overpowered was stubborn with extreme brilliance. These qualities, possibly, his security aide attached to him as a former governor and then explained why he managed three newspapers – Herald, Sketch gained access into his residence without using any key. My and eventually Daily Times, successfully. Under his manageescape again, according to him, was divine. ment, Osoba claimed, there was no newspaper he managed But before that time, Osoba had gone into hiding after that he ever collected subventions from the government. being a witness to what happened to his fellow comrades in Against all odds, he said he made Herald profitable. the struggle for actualising the June 12 mandate. The attempt to Osoba’s record in Sketch attested to his virtue as an astute

bomb the house of Dan Suleiman and the plan to set the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi’s Chamber on fire gave clue of the danger to come. Hence, he stopped sleeping in his own residence. If not for divine protection during this period, Osoba’s life could have been cut short.

Osoba did not know other attempts on his life until Sargent Roggers, the hit man of Abacha’s junta, gave evidence in court. Roggers narrated he was trailed alongside other pro-democracy actors by those he described as the agents of the late tyrant. But for God’s divine protection he has been enjoying at birth, the agents never succeeded in their evil plot.

The second attempt took place sometime in September 1995, an account Roggers recounted before an Ikeja High Court. This time, it was a grand plan to set his Abeokuta house ablaze. Like the first attempt, the former governor said: “I managed to escape because I did not sleep early on that day. I just heard a spark and smoke engulfed the entire room.” But he escaped it, also by providence.

There was another attempt to kill him alongside the then leader of Afenifere, Senator Abraham Adesanya; Publisher of The Guardian, late Dr. Alex Ibru and former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Chief Bola Ige. Roggers gave these accounts before the court about all the attempts on Osoba’s life during the dark era of Abacha’s junta.

In another attempt, Osoba narrated how the state agents markedly trailed him on the road to Abeokuta. As they trailed, the military officers “at a checkpoint waved down his car and passed him immediately. Few minutes later, the military officers stooped his would-be assailants.

As soon as the military officers stopped them, Osoba said the action of the military officers gave him opportunity to escape.

At least, five times, he escaped attempted assassination. From all indications, Osoba’s life is an account of uncommon exploits with the devotion to serve the people of Ogun State between 1999 and 2003. As an unrepentant progressive schooled under the tutelage of first Premier of Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Osoba devoted his productive years to the task of setting Nigeria on the path of progressivism. Yet, according to him, Nigeria of his dream has not evolved. “But I am hopeful to see it emerge in my lifetime.”

More graphically, one of the national leaders of APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu captured the essence of Osoba’s voyage into politics in a tribute he paid to him during his 80th birthday. The APC leader described the former governor as an honest and open man, with unquantifiable contribution to the establishment of the APC. Tinubu explained how Osoba vigorously steered the committee that drafted the APC constitution. He also cited Osoba’s emphasis on the need “to introduce disciplinary mechanism in the APC constitution” and attested “to Osoba’s undying passion for Nigeria.” Even when he was sick, as Tinubu said, Osoba’s main concern was the struggle for Nigeria and the APC. Former Head of State, Maj.-Gen. Abdulsalam Abubakar saw Osoba through the prism of a highly detribalised Nigerian, who by dint of cultured mind, managed and maintained highly sophisticated relationship across ethnic and professional divides.

He cited robust relationship he had enjoyed with Osoba, being a bridge builder, in the last five decades, when Abdulsalam was at the initial stage of his military profession.

He said: “I enjoyed smooth relationship with Osoba. We regarded ourselves as brothers. This must be a lesson for all of us. While he is a Christian, I am a Muslim. While he is from the Southwest, I am from the North-central. While Osoba is a General in his profession, I am a General in the army. While he was the Governor of Ogun State, I was Head of State.

“Despite our differences, we have some things in common.

We both have interest of Nigeria at heart. We both want the best for Nigeria. We both want Nigeria to remain a blessing to Africa.

We both want Nigeria to move higher, worldwide. We both want Nigerians to believe in Nigeria.”

Like Abdulsalam, Babangida wrote that Osoba was “embedded with various talents for solving hard situations. He was one of the few Nigerians, who are ‘not concerned about the tribe one belongs to before writing credible information. He has a knack for unravelling the unknown. He was more like a bridge between the people and us.”

Apparently, from being a successful journalist to a state governor, different accounts have no doubt shown that Osoba, an Egba son per excellence and an ardent nationalist, who made his name in journalism, has lived true to the prophecies that heralded his birth; directed his path at different stages and no doubt will order the next phase of his life far beyond his 81st birthday.

ARTS & REVIEW A

PUBLICATION

19.07.2020

TEMITAYO OGUNBIYI AND HER PLAYFUL VISIONS FOR NAPLES Having successfully executed a playground project, commissioned by an Italian contemporary art museum, US-born Nigerian artist Temitayo Ogunbiyi looks forward to the future with hope and determination.

Okechukwu Uwaezuoke writes

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ut, of course, these words allude to the playground project, which was commissioned during the lockdown by the Italy-based contemporary art museum, Museo Madre.

And the Museo Madre, which by the way is the more popular name for the Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina, is housed in the Palazzo Donnaregina in the southern Italian city of Naples and was opened in 2005.

Talking about playgrounds, the 2011 Columbia University MA holder has been enamoured with the concept since 2018.

This was when she built her first functional playground through the appropriation of construction materials and conventional household items. Apparently, it was at the second Lagos Biennial of Contemporary Art – held between October 26 and November 23, 2019 – that her installation “You Will Find Playgrounds among Palm Trees” caught the attention of Kathryn Weir, the current artistic director of the Museo Madre, who eventually commissioned her latest playground project.

“With this project, my thought was to create a space that could accommodate socially-distanced play,” she explains. “For this reason, the play bars of this installation are organised in clusters with a few bars. This is a departure from previous works, where there were larger numbers of bars intertwined, even entangled.”

Her earlier works had been conceived to get families to mingle with other families. But this current work, which was opened for public use on Wednesday, July 8, factors in the current realities Ogunbiyi and is designed to make families play in isolation even while and installation, was egged on to “create interactive sculptures sharing the same play space with other families. that collapse the divide between fine art and play spaces” by Beyond these considerations, the artwork is conceptually an Stephanie Baptist’s press release for an exhibition, held at Medium attempt to represent a link between Lagos and Naples. “The Tings – the latter’s gallery in Brooklyn, New York – in 2017. In that playground incorporates Google Map lines that connect the two press release, Baptist had written: “A curious observer of the world cities by road,” Ogunbiyi continues. “I also created a garden, in around her, Ogunbiyi crafts forms that indirectly suggest the need the play space. The featured plants grow in Lagos and Naples. for protective spaces that nurture.”

MOE+ Architects, in Lagos, helped me to generate the first set of Thus, Ogunbiyi lunged into executing her first playground renderings.” structure in 2018 and eventually creating three functional playCuriously, not even the fact that she had to execute the project grounds to date. These, according to her, “largely respond to my remotely from her base in Lagos impeded its progress and its works on paper, which combine botanicals and hairstyles.” eventual completion. “Using available tech platforms, and The artist, whose works have featured in exhibitions held at the with the support of Museo Madre and Fonderia Nolana, it was Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, the Centre for Contemporary surprisingly easy to convey and execute my ideas remotely,” she says. “While I feel the piece could have been slightly different had Art Lagos, the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan I been in Naples, the outcome is very much in line with my vision Arts (Brooklyn, NYC), Perm Art Museum, the Dom Umenia (in Bratislava, Slovakia), a curatorial publication for the 10th Berlin for the project. And I have been pleasantly surprised to see how Biennale, Berlin Art Projects, the Fries Museum in Berlin, and most children have creatively engaged with this project.”

The 36-year-old Nigerian-American artist, who in the course of recently at the Lagos Biennial, is known for using her art to explore her career had hopscotched between drawing, painting, sculpture the relationship between the environment, line, and representa-

tion. Evident in her works is the attempt to respond to and forge dialogues between global current events, anthropological histories and botanical cultures. “Systems that capture, mediate, and direct the movement of people and matter is a recurring subject of investigation in her practice,” corroborates her biographical statement.

Back to the Naples playground project, the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards – including a Smithsonian Artist in Research Fellowship and a Ford Foundation Fellowship – enthuses about the museum’s strategic location. “I believe the location of the museum is a meeting point of three communities in Naples. The idea was that the project could provide an inviting space for families, at the museum, following an intense lockdown. With the accompanying workshop that I designed, the hope is to reintegrate people from the museum community into life outside of their homes and perhaps position the museum as an inviting place for children and families. The bases of the bars in the sculpture make reference to culinary traditions in the Campania region, of which the museum is a part.”

The project, which will remain on view up to early November, hopes to serve as a building-block towards reconfiguring play as social justice, and a form of education that can develop more tolerant, cooperative and sensitised human beings. “I believe that this project may serve as an important milestone,” Ogunbiyi says. On the challenges of working on a project intended for a local community in as a foreigner, she says: “I found that as a foreigner, embarking on this project with little knowledge of the local culture, it was easier for me to find value in what is available locally, especially because much of what I encountered was new to me. At the same time, I enjoyed integrating my memories of Lagos – histories of threaded hairstyles and plants, with these Italian references. In the end, I learned quite a bit and hope that I was able to begin a dialogue between these two cities.”

Asides the remote execution of the project, the lockdown period, which spanned the whole of April, found Ogunbiyi spending quality time with her family and neighbours. “I feel accomplished having gotten my kids to do the better part of their school work!” she recalls. “I also started what is now a lush indoor/outdoor garden at home and it brings me, my family, and my neighbours so much joy. This has been wonderful for my botanical research as well. I've also continued to work as Head of Curatorial at ART X Lagos while working in the studio to create drawings, paintings and sculpture.”

As the figures of the coronavirus pandemic cases have experienced a spike, the artist would rather look forward in hope and determination than draw any conclusion on its possible impact.

BOOKS

A Writer Lends a Helping Hand in a Time of Distress Yinka Olatunbosun

Dr Uwazuruike

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s a response to the biting effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, a writer and lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire, United Kingdom, Dr Allwell Uwazuruike is on a mission outside the letters namely philanthropy. This author of human rights book inAfrica is fast becoming a name within the Nigerian andAfrican literary circles since he foundedAfritondo, an online platform forAfrican and black minority writers. The essayist who co-foundedAfritondo with his brother, Confidence Uwazuruike in August 2019 was motivated into giving back to his community by

the need to create a literary space for young and upcoming writers inAfrica and the diaspora.

He has in a matter of months, grownAfritondo audience, which cuts acrossAfrica, Europe, andAmerica. The growth of the platform was further spurred by its launch, in October 2019, of a $1000 short story prize competition for the best short fiction by anAfrican writer. “Over 400 writers from 19 countries entered the competition which was eventually won by a SouthAfrican, Jarred Thompson,” he revealed.

In a recent virtual chat with international journalists, Allwell Uwazuruike revealed that Afritondo was awarding book contracts to

young African writers to further promote and broaden the African literary landscape.

“The initiative is necessary in order to provide the necessary resources to young writers who may not have the same opportunities as their Western counterparts,” he said. “In May 2020, I commenced monthly cash disbursements to indigent Nigerians via my Instagram and Facebook pages.

The disbursements, were to help relieve hardship amongst individuals and families most affected by the COVID-19 lockdown.

(See concluding partcontinued on www.thisdaylive.com) Cover on Page 62

EDITOR OKECHUKWU UWAEZUOKE/ okechukwu.uwaezuoke@thisdaylive.com

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THISDAY, THE SATURDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ JULY 19, 2020

FOCUS

Dapo Abiodun: A Break from the Past In politics, especially in Nigeria, abandoning the projects of one’s predecessor is a sport. It is not so for Governor Dapo Abiodun who came with a different mantra and mission, streets apart from what the people had been used to. Steadily, and without paying heed to the din of the market, he has been rejuvenating, revamping and rebuilding otherwise abandoned and deplorable infrastructures across the three senatorial districts to the amazement and appreciation of all, even the opposition. For him, taking the high road and doing what is equitable, not just to be politically correct, is the only way to ensure that the people feel the impact of his administration. Thus, he makes no distinction between whether a project was initiated by his predecessor or the opposition, so far it would benefit the people, Governor Abiodun is all for it. No wonder he has been running a people-centric government that is also cutting large swaths through what past administrations thought were thickets, writes Lanre Alfred

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hat the people of Ogun State see the executive governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, as the muchawaited Messiah to turn the fortunes of the state around within the shortest possible time underscores the malfeasances, misplacements of priorities and mismanagement of resources of the past, and amplifies the shared hope of a better and brighter future which he espouses and

evinces.

In that same past, while the people toiled and remained bedevilled with deplorable infrastructures, the accounts of their insensate leaders became fatter. This was the situation until Prince Abiodun came to power on May 29, 2019. His coming was, understandably, perceived as a breath of fresh air because he was not the typical desperate politician with no second address. True to his electoral promise of building a new Ogun State, Prince Abiodun rolled up his sleeves and has been working himself to the bone in his quest to restore the lost glory of the state.

Given his transformative strides, the media has been according him resounding mentions in their reportorial and expository responsibilities, mirroring him as the architect of contemporary Ogun State. It is noteworthy to mention that the media has not been a rubber stamp of all that is good in the state; it has equally played its role as the ‘Fourth Estate of the Realm’.

In setting agenda for the government, a section of the media has been constructively critical, which should be expected in a state like Ogun where civic education ranks high. The administration of Prince Abiodun believes that there are truly areas that require reparative and restorative attention and has set machinery in motion to ensure that infrastructural developments of the state are evenly distributed.

Before he assumed office, abandoned projects littered every nook and cranny of Ogun State trailed with bitter complaints from the indigenes. A countless number of roads not only remained uncompleted, but they were also totally abandoned by the contractors who were not adequately mobilized for the jobs. Despite the huge financial resources sunk into road reconstruction and repairs, especially the N7.5billion loan granted the state in 2012, the Prince Abiodun-led administration met Ogun roads in a sorry state.

Determined to return the state to the path of infrastructural excellence, Prince Abiodun pledged his administration’s best efforts to complete all the on-going road projects inherited from his predecessor irrespective of the financial constraints being experienced by the state like every other state of the federation.

One of his campaign promises was to provide infrastructure to all parts of the state. He specifically promised to rehabilitate and reconstruct the Ijebu-Ode-Epe road, not only to bring the needed relief to the people but also to engender the socio-economic development of the state. So far, he has kept the promise to place a premium on projects that have direct and positive impacts on the administration’s mantra of ‘Building our Future Together’ in the belief that full socio-economic benefits can only be enjoyed by the people when there is a good road network across the state.

As if the inherited infrastructural deficiency was not burdensome enough, Abiodun also requested that all the local government areas submitted at least a rural road project that was critical to their economy for immediate rehabilitation.

He has since embarked on massive road rehabilitation and construction across the three senatorial districts of Ogun State among which are Itokin-Ibefun-Ijebu Ode road, Iperu-Ilisan road, Sango-Ojodu Abiodun road, Ilaro-Owode road, and Abeokuta-Sango-Ota-Lagos road, while Osi-Ota-AwolowoNavy-Kola road and Balogun Kuku road in Ijebu Ode have been completed.

Also, the reconstruction of Opako bridge in Adigbe, Abeokuta, and many other township roads have been completed, while the governor has directed construction workers to return to the long-abandoned 32-kilometre Akute-Ajuwon-Alagbole road, which is supposed to be a joint effort by the Ogun and Lagos State governments. So far, 50 roads have been completed in the three senatorial districts, with two of them already fitted with street lights. There are also 19 on-going road projects across the state.

Noteworthy is that the Sagamu-Isiun-Abeokuta road was awarded through Direct Labour as all the materials and labour are sourced through local suppliers, thereby, creating employment opportunities for the people.

But that was not the same a couple of years ago when the same Trunk ‘A’ road was awarded by the former governor at a prohibitive cost of over N60 billion to Chinese companies, a situation that cost the indigenes employment opportunities while the contractors also abandoned the worksites, citing debts owed them for previous jobs done. Governor Abiodun has specifically directed the contractor handling the Sagamu-Abeokuta road to source materials and labour locally to enable the people to benefit from the project.

The Epe-Ijebu road, currently being constructed with a 14-lane Toll Plaza with 17 culverts and bridges, is a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) that would generate significant sustainable revenue for the state, aside from creating jobs and developing the economy of the region.

In furtherance of the Abiodun administration’s resolve to explore road construction and rehabilitation to provide employment and regenerate the state’s economy, one of the first things the governor did was to assent to the Ogun State Road Management Amendment Bill, which paved the way for the creation of the Ogun State Public Works Agency (OGPWA).

As confirmed recently by the Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Engr. Ade Akinsanya, the governor has ordered all contractors handling uncompleted projects inherited from the immediate past administration to return to work without further delay as fresh funds were released to that effect.

The governor reaffirmed this on July 2, 2020, when he posted on his Twitter page; “The viable road connecting Abeokuta to Yewa and Oyo State had caused hardship to residents, business owners, residents and road users. So, it became extremely important for our administration to return construction workers to site.” He added, “This economically significant road is just one out of the many sites where work has resumed including Kuto, Elega, Panseke-Adigbe, Adatan and Owode-Ilaro. I made a pledge to the Ogun State people to look beyond politics and focus on their welfare, and this informs our readiness to complete all the projects abandoned by the last administration and littered across the state on the mantra, Building Our Future Together.”

It would be recalled that the last administration had in September 2016 sought the approval of the House of Assembly to access N14.16billion budget support facility from the Presidency to enable it to meet its financial obligations. Yet, decayed infrastructure including projects that were hurriedly constructed and commissioned in the twilight of the administration ushered in Abiodun to the Government House.

A major example was the Judiciary Complex at Kobape Road in Abeokuta, which was purported to have been commissioned

by President Muhammadu Buhari, with the last administration saying the cost of construction had been fully paid for. But the building was not only soon after certified as flawed based on engineering procedures, but also inhabitable.

It is already on record that the Abiodun Administration inherited a whopping financial liability of N221.55 billion, excluding over N200 billion in contractors’ liabilities. The N221.55 billion financial liabilities as at May 2019 comprised domestic loan (107.6 billion); External loan (N32.2 billion); gratuity (N51.04 billion); contributory pension (N26.20 billion); and leave bonus (N4.51 billion). Details of the contractors’ liabilities are currently the subject of the Contract Review Committee which is expected to publish its findings on completion of the review soon.

Some of the loans obtained by the past administration between 2015 and 2017 are Restructured Term Loan; Salary Bailout to State and Local Governments; Infrastructural Loan (Excess Crude Account); Special Socio-Economic Development Intervention Loans; and Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme.

Instructively, the people of Ogun State had expressed fears about the capability of the Abiodun administration to pay gratuities and other entitlements to the retiring civil servants who had dedicated their productive years to the service of the state among other liabilities left by the former administration.

Governor Abiodun has, so far, spent a total of N15billion to service the loans and liabilities.

This burden, coupled with recurrent expenditure, has forced the present administration to establish a long-term financial plan for infrastructure that would drive the state’s economic revival and position it for revenue generation while implementing reforms to reduce recurrent expenditure.

The first step among the initiatives towards an efficient and

Abiodun sustainable financial management for the state was the loan restructuring and refinancing proposal approved by the House of Assembly on March 25, 2020, even as the world battled with the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic which led to the shutdown of economic activities. The lawmakers unanimously agreed that granting Governor Abiodun’s request would allow the government to meet the shortfall in the price of crude oil at the international market.

Other reforms implemented to help diversify the revenue base and block leakages while enhancing robust financial transparency and accountability included renewed Land Use and Amenities Charge; reorganization of the Ogun State Signage & Advert Agency; the ongoing transformation of the Ogun State Internal Revenue Service and implementation of digital initiatives in revenue generation and payments.

Perhaps because of his astute business background, Governor Abiodun understands that it is unwise to fund long-term infrastructure projects with short-term bank loans. He also understands that infrastructure projects boost economic activities and generate revenue for the long-term while global best practices and conventional wisdom suggest that these projects are best funded with matching long-term bond instruments and financing structures with relatively lower interest rates and improved regulatory oversight and accountability to ensure judicious utilization of the funds.

An infrastructure bond of this nature requires many stringent regulatory and debt service requirements including rigorous analyses to evaluate credit rating (done by independent credit agencies), revenue potential and the proportion of the total loan to the balance sheet of the state or its GDP; measures that help to ensure that the state pays back. On all these measures, Ogun State would still have to pass the Debt Sustainability Test, without which the regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Federal Government Development Management Office (DMO), Pension Commission (PENCOM) and the Central Bank of Nigeria would not approve the bond.

Lagos State, with an official Internally Generated Revenue of N30billion per month, is on its third Bond Programme since 1999, out of which several Bond Series or Issues have been raised by each of the past governors from Babatunde Fashola to the incumbent Babajide Sanwo-Olu who has just raised N100 billion from a similar programme established before his administration.

Virtually all the south-west states have raised bonds to fund their infrastructure deficits. A bond programme only establishes the limit of all the series or issues that can be raised, it does not mean that the entire programme will be raised at once or in a financial year as it is subject to the financial capacity of the state at any point. The World Bank facility called the Ogun State Economic Transformation project (OGSTEP) is a Programme for Result (P4R) facility which is not an outright loan disbursement but a facility based on the performance of key objectives as a pre-condition before the facility is disbursed.

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CICERO

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

IN THE ARENA

For Niger Delta, Abuja Is Not Your Problem Tales of sleaze in the Niger Delta Development Commission underscore reasons for failed interventions of the agency in the region, writes Samuel Ajayi

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he Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), was established to ameliorate the sufferings of the people of the region and produce infrastructure that would reflect the contributions of that region to the national till. But the hundreds of billions, if not trillions, the Commission had received have not reflected on the job done so far in any way.

Curiously, the on-going probe by the House of Representatives into how the Commission blew N81billion in a few months as well as the rot in a Commission that should be putting smiles on the faces of the people is unfortunately at the front burner of national discourse, thus putting Nigeria on the ugly side of the world stage.

The embarrassing tales coming of the probe instituted into the activities of the NDDC are not only discomforting but also an indication of the rot going on right under the nose of the Muhammadu Buhari-led administration despite its much vaunted fight against corruption.

At the centre of it all is the Minister of Niger Delta, and former governor of Akwa Ibom State, Senator Godswill Akpabio, and the embattled former managing director of the Commission, Mrs. Joi Nunieh. Apart from this were lurid tales from the Rivers State-born former chief executive of how Akpabio tried to sexually assault her.

The whole drama started, when the House of Representatives instituted a probe into how the Commission had spent a whooping N81 billion by the interim management committee of the Commission led by Kemebradikumo Pondei, who is the current acting managing director of the Commission.

During one of the sittings, there was a mild Akpabio drama as Pondei walked out on the Committee, whom he accused of bias and asked the chairman, Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, to recuse himself from the Committee, alleging that he and his counterpart in the Senate, Peter Nwaoboshi, had inserted over “500 non-existent” projects in the Commission’s 2019 budget.

Before Pondei, the House had invited Nunieh, who accused the embattled minister, Akpabio, of engineering his removal, because she refused to dance to the tune of the former governor, before allegedly activating Plan B, which was to “come up on her”.

She alleged that Akpabio asked her to change dollars in the Commission’s accounts, sack the head of the legal team who is a northerner, remove all directors, who would not play ball and also implicate Senator Nwaoboshi. She added that Akpabio asked her to take oath of secrecy but she refused.

Her words: “Nobody makes any payment in NDDC without Godswill Akpabio. When we first came to NDDC, on the day of the inauguration, he told me in the car that, ‘Madam MD, if you don’t do what I say, the same pen which I used to sign your letter, will be same pen I will use to remove you’.

“He said the first thing I should do when I get to Port-Harcourt was to change the dollars in NDDC account.

I was scared to do that. After that, he came to Port-Harcourt and said the first thing is should do is to make sure I change the dollars and I should remove Mr. Kaltugo from being the legal (head) and send him on compulsory retirement.”

She added that Akpabio would never sign any docu-

ment but would always want his subordinates to commit fraud. She accused the former governor of wanting her to take an oath of secrecy, which she refused.

She also disclosed that Akpabio once asked her to raise a memo and give emergency contract and stated that before she came in, over 30 contracts had been awarded to the minister.

To say the NDDC stinks is an understatement. It reeks of monumental corruption and it remains not surprisingly that, despite the about N16 trillion the Commission had been given since it was set up by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration. The region it was supposed to service and improve lives therein remains a cesspit of underdevelopment and squalor.

From all indications, it seems officials of the Commission are more interested in their own welfare and wellbeing than working to alleviate the sufferings of the people of the Niger Delta region.

For instance, the Commission said it spent N1.7billon on COVID-19 palliatives for its top officials and staff. This was despite the fact that salaries were never stopped throughout the lockdown.

In the period under probe, the Commission spent N85million on overseas trips. The sum of N1.3billion was spent on “community relations” while N122.9millin went into “condolences”.

The Commission spent N220million on “maintenance” and N900million on legal services. ON Lassa fever, the Commission spent N1.956billion and another N790million went into impress. N496million was spent on Duty Tour Al-

lowance (DTA), and N31.4billion spent on COVID-19 and N81million was spent on “consultancy”.

There was another dangerous twist into the whole saga, when Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State prevented some armed men, who claimed to be officers of the Nigeria Police Force, wanted to forcefully take the embattled former managing director of the commission, Nunieh, to Abuja.

It was reported that during the raid, the policemen were seen in a viral video breaking the woman’s rear door to gain entry forcibly. But Governor Wike prevented this and asked the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, to probe the invasion.

Nunieh, who later made her submission via teleconferencing, apologised to the House for being absent and claimed she could not allow herself to be taken away and disappear without trace “because what would have happened would have been that nobody would have known who took me away and only God knows what would have happened.”

Speaking further, she said, “This has been the modus operandi for enemies of the minister and ex-governor of Akwa Ibom State. You saw what happened yesterday, it was all about documents.”

Speaking via teleconferencing, Nunieh said the minister breached various laws in a bid to hijack the forensic audit. She said Senator Akpabio tried everything to hijack the forensic audit of the NDDC ordered by President Buhari.

She alleged that Akpabio insisted that he would supervise the forensic audit. She however claimed to have “reminded him and showed him the letter that the President had written, that there is no way we could spend the money that was in our budget.

“In his memo to the President, he requested that the money for the funding of the forensic audit be got from the Service Wide Vote. Mr President, in his wisdom, refused that request and in writing, said it should be from NDDC’s appropriation, making NDDC the producing entity.”

She accused Akpabio of misleading the Federal Executive Council to approve the procurement of auditors even when the audit was to be funded with the 2020 budget of the NDDC and added that she spent a total of N8bn during her stay as acting MD between October 2019 and February 2020.

While many Nigerians have welcomed the probe, there are also fears that nothing much would come out of it. The reason being that, from findings by THISDAY, many of the members of Committee on Niger Delta in both chambers of the National Assembly are contractors to the NDDC. Apart from this, there was also no lie in the claims made by the head of the interim management committee that the chairmen of the committees, both in the House of Representatives and the Senate, inserted over 500 non-existent projects into the NDDC budget. The implication of this is that, the monies for these phantom projects are going to be claimed by the lawmakers.

While this unwholesome practice has been on for so long, many heads of parastatals and agencies being supervised by these usually choose to play balls to avoid harassment via incessant probes and non-existent oversight functions.

The rot in the NDDC will not go away any time soon.

But let the revelations keep coming and perhaps, people of the region will know that Abuja is not their enemy but their own kits and kin, entrusted with taking care of their welfare.

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

Malami, Take Nothing for Granted!

S Malami

ince the arrest and detention of the suspended Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, there’s been a seeming but aggressive pushback to the office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, who caused the petition that dented Magu’s career to be written.

However, in almost equal measure, some of the allegations against Malami are also damning, which means there are unrestrained move to undo each other, more so with the embarrassment that has so far

attended the ongoing trial of the former EFCC boss.

This is why Malami cannot afford to take anything for granted.This phase may not slide over if that’s what he’s thinking. With corruption now redefining an administration that set out to wrestle the scourge of graft, attempts to play down any more allegations of sleaze would only further diminish its rating, locally and globally.

And now that’s clear corruption is desperately fighting back from all corners, the allegations against Malami are as grave as those against Magu. Although Magu is the one confronting his mountain, whether now or later, Malami’s time might come and should not come to him unprepared.

THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER ˾ JULY 19, 2020

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BRIEFINGNOTES NDDC: A Disturbing Cesspool of Corruption The Niger Delta Development Commission, an idea conceived to speed up the development of the oil producing region of the country, has completely derailed from her dreams and philosophy and is now riddled with allegations of corruption, writes Ernest Chinwo

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vents surrounding the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) recently, have clearly, more than ever brought to the fore, the existential rot in the commission and institutions that are supposed to oversee its activities.

Created in 2000 by the Chief Olusegun Obasanjo administration to replace the Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC), the NDDC raised the hopes of the people of the nine states covered by the interventionist agency for speedy development and freedom from the environmental hazards, arising from the activities of oil and gas companies in the area. The states covered by the commission are Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Edo, Delta, Ondo, Imo and Abia.

The expectations of the people were understandable given the mandate of the NDDC, which included the formulation of policies and guidelines for the development of the Niger Delta area; conception, planning and implementation, in accordance with set rules and regulations, of projects and programmes for sustainable development of the area in the field of transportation including roads, jetties and waterways, health, employment, industrialisation, agriculture and fisheries, housing and urban development, water supply, electricity and telecommunications.

The commission was also mandated to survey the Niger Delta in order to ascertain measures necessary to promote its physical and socio-economic development, and also prepare master plans and schemes designed to promote the physical development of the region and the estimation of the member states of the Commission.

It was also directed to tackle ecological and environmental problems that arise from the exploration of oil mineral in the region and advise the federal government and the member states on the prevention and control of oil spillages, gas flaring and environmental pollution as well as liaising with the various oil mineral and gas prospecting and producing companies Akpabio-and-Keyamo on all matters of pollution, prevention and control, among other functions.

NDDC to fund its campaigns in the South-south region.

Arising from this mandate, it is understandable why the It is also widely believed that a former Managing Director of the expectations of the people and indeed other parts of the country commission, Dr. Nsima Ekere, who contested for the governorand beyond were high. At last, the region that contributes about ship of Akwa Ibom State, amassed his resources to prosecute the 65 per cent of government’s revenue and 88 per cent of Nigeria’s election from the NDDC. foreign exchange earnings will witness rapid development to Sharp practices from even staff further painted the commission assuage for the years of neglect and pollution. in bad light. It is widely believed that contracts are awarded by But how wrong they were. How would they have known that the agency to the staff through fronts, to the extent that roads to the commission would turn out to be a cesspool of corruption, the private property (and there are many of such) of the staff are to enrich a few persons and never care for the core mandate of constructed by the commission and at costs criminal enough to bringing development to the region? raise concerns.

Observers of the Niger Delta development agenda, however, Worried by the deepening dissatisfaction of the people and calls believe that the NDDC has received and squandered trillions of by governors of the nine states covered by the NDDC, President naira since its establishment. Although figures are hard to come Muhammadu Buhari, on October 30, 2019 inaugurated a new by, BudgIT Nigeria, Nigeria’s civic tech organisation involved in Interim Management Committee, with Gbene Joi Nunieh as transparency, citizen engagement and accountability activism, the acting managing director, and ordered a forensic audit of the said as much in its June 25, 2019 twitter report. commission.

“Since inception in 2000, NDDC has received at least $40bn While the people hailed Buhari’s intervention as a move to (N15 trillion) for projects in oil-rich Niger Delta yet failed to revive the interventionist agency that was almost comatose, achieve the Niger Delta Regional Development Masterplan to lay the move opened a Pandora’s Box of allegations and counter the foundation for transforming the region into Nigeria’s Dubai,” allegations of corruption.

BudgIT said.

To lay the ground work for the forensic audit, the Nunieh-led Atour of states covered by the commission will reveal that it administration set up a Contract Verification Committee, headed is an area, where poverty still walks on four legs. Access to most by the Executive Director, Projects, Dr. Cairo Ojougboh. parts of the riverine areas is to say the least, hellish, while potable In an interview with journalists, Ojougboh said, “I make bold to water is hard to come by. The area is still ravaged by environmentell you that without President Muhammadu Buhari, the NDDC tal pollution even as marine resources are daily depleted by the would have been killed and buried. pollution of the area.

“In seven months in 2019, a total of 1,921 emergency contracts But while the people suffer, politicians and key officers of the valued at N1,070,349,631,757.70 was awarded while the unprocommission fed fat with funds accruing to the NDDC. Indeed, in cessed budget of the NDDC was N350 billion and was still before the run up to the 2019 elections, Rivers State Governor, Nyesom the National Assembly.

Wike, accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) of using the “You will recall that the Acting MD/CEO, Dr. Joi Nunieh had

last week, in line with the directive of Mr. President, inaugurated a Contract Verification Committee as a prelude to the ordered forensic audit, with my humble self as Chairman, I can tell you as I said in a recent press conference that we have made some remarkable discoveries.

“While successive leaderships of NDDC may have done their best, today, the general conclusion of most stakeholders in the region is that the NDDC has not delivered on its mandate, at best a lack-lustre performance, with very little to show for the humongous resources that have accrued to it over the past 19 years.

“Stories of pervasive corruption, flagrant abuse of due process, abandoned projects, and poor quality project delivery among others at the NDDC, have adorned our media space over the years.”

He claimed that the contract verification committee was designed to lay a foundation for the forensic audit of the activities of the Commission from inception to date, and intended to establish the true position of the emergency regime between 2016 and 2019 in the commission.

According to him, “It is now common knowledge that some of the awards were not only spurious, but criminal as records available to us show that most of the awards were not backed by budget, have no bills of engineering measurement or drawings and were just open cheque for contractors and their collaborators to fill in at the nearest banks.

“For instance in 2017, the commission awarded a total of 201 emergency contracts valued at N100,396,879,001.06; in 2018, a total 1,057 emergency contracts valued at N162,688,289,333.05; and just seven months in 2019, a total 1,921 emergency contracts valued at N1,070,249,631,757.70 were awarded.

“We are talking of a total of over N1.3trillion in less than three years. The yearly budget of NDDC is hardly above 400billion and a situation, where contracts that do not qualify for emergencies

NOTES FOR FILE

Ganduje as Burden to Edo APC

W Ganduje

hatever informed the choice of the Kano State Governor, Abdulahi Ganduje, as chairman of the APC campaign committee for the Edo governorship election in September, might have been poorly conceived and would ultimately take its toll on the outcome of the election!

There’s no debating the fact that Ganduje remains a damaged brand until the issues around his dollar bribe video are sufficiently addressed, beyond seeking any injunction to prevent people from asking questions, probing or taking him to court as the current situation is.

Here’s a man, who after four years as governor couldn’t win his re-election in the first ballot and had to resort to violence to return to office with an election mired in serious malpractices, albeit from both parties – APC and PDP. Well, it remains to be seen, the wisdom behind his choice, but it is beginning to look more like Ganduje might turn out a burden than an asset for his party in Edo, not even with the billboard, situated in a major roundabout, constantly playing his bribe video and sending a reminder to the Edo voters on why the APC cannot be trusted. It’s definitely not a pleasant sight either.

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THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER Ëž JULY 19, 2020

BRIEFINGNOTES t /%%$ " %JTUVSCJOH $FTTQPPM PG $PSSVQUJPO t

were fraudulently awarded to over one trillion naira valued in less than one year amounts to stealing from the pulpit and stealing the entire pulpit,� he stated.

Ojougboh also alleged that a serving senator has 300 NDDC contracts to his name. “Of the 300 contracts, 120 have been fully paid and he has not mobilised to site for these 120,� he stated.

He also stated that as at January (when the interview was held), “The NDDC Interim Payment Certificates that are pending are worth over N3 trillion. That is what the NDDC owes these phantom contractors.�

On February 19, Buhari changed and expanded the IMC of NDDC with Professor Kemebradikumo Daniel Pondei, Dr Cairo Ojougboh, Ag. Executive Director (Projects); Mr Ibanga Bassey Etang, Ag. Executive Director (Finance and Administration); Mrs Caroline Nagbo (Member); and Cecilia Bukola Akintomide, OON, a former Vice President with African Development Bank, (Member). If there were allegations of corruption earlier, they rose to astronomical levels with the new IMC. In April, a group of stakeholders in the Niger Delta region raised an alarm that the NDDC fraudulently awarded a N5,474,647,125.00 contract to a Port Harcourt-based company, Signora Concepts Services Limited, for the procurement of specialised medical personal protective equipment (PPEs) for health workers to fight the coronavirus in the nine member states of the commission.

But the NDDC and Signora Concepts Services Limited, in separate reactions, dismissed the claims and insisted that there was no such contract and no fraud in the interventionist agency.

The group of stakeholders, Ijaw Peoples Development Initiatives (IPDI), had in a statement signed by its National President, Ozobo Austin, alleged that the company received the sum from NDDC through the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, to procure the equipment and described the contract as fraudulent.

It also published a letter with reference number NDDC/ MD/HPU/20/4/EHSS/05, purportedly signed by the Head, Procurement Unit of NDDC, Alex Enebeli, on behalf of the Acting Managing Director, awarding the said N5.5 billion contract to Signora on April 6, 2020 to supply the said materials and carry out sensitisation campaigns in 2,775 communities in the nine states covered by the commission within 15 days from the date of the award of the contract.

In a swift reaction, the NDDC issued a statement denying the issues raised by the IPDI and insisted that there was no fraud in the commission.

The statement issued and signed by the NDDC Director, Corporate Affairs, Charles Odili, disowned the letter awarding the contract to Signora Concepts Services Limited and said there was no fraud in the commission.

The statement stated in part: “The online publications are circulating a letter purportedly issued by the Director of Procurement, awarding a contract of N5.55 billion for the procurement of

Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) and other kits to fight the spread of COVID-19 in the Niger Delta region. “We wish to unequivocally deny that contract. The document is simply fake or at best unauthorised. The letters for all contracts awarded by the Commission are signed by the Executive Director Projects on the authority of the Ag Managing Director who is the chief accounting officer of the Commission. “Neither of the officials is aware of the contract letter. It is inconceivable that a contract of such magnitude could be awarded otherwise. The Commission has launched an internal investigation into how such a letter came to be issued and on what authority? “For the purpose of transparency, we wish to confirm that the Commission has just secured presidential approval to intervene by assisting NCDC in the supply of kits and the building of isolation centres in the nine Niger Delta States. “Also, the Commission has disbursed N775m to assist the nine Niger Delta States fight the plague. We have also disbursed N270 million as palliatives to the youths, women and the physically challenged in the 27 senatorial districts of the region.�

Odili also said the commission had noticed an upsurge in attacks on it, the Interim Management Committee and the Minister of the Niger Delta Affairs since the launch of a forensic audit into the affairs of the commission. “These attacks are meant to distract the commission from the task of holding those who looted the commonwealth to account,� he said. On its part, Signora Concepts Services Limited said, it was never awarded any N5.5 billion contract by the NDDC to supply Coronavirus personal protection equipment to the nine states in the Niger Delta region.

The firm, in a statement signed by its Operation Manager, Patrick Ijeomah, accused the IPDI of peddling falsehood and asked members of the public to disregard the claims.

The new Acting Managing Director, Pondei, in a press conference in Port Harcourt on May 26, also accused the committees of the National Assembly, responsible for the oversight of the Commission, of working against the forensic audit ordered

by Buhari. He was reacting to investigations by the National Assembly into allegations of financial recklessness and corruption against the current IMC. He said the probe being embarked on by the National Assembly was distracting the Commission from focusing on the forensic audit “which all stakeholders, including governors of the nine Niger Delta States, agreed with Mr. President as the way forward for the Commission. “We suspect that the probe being trumpeted by the National Assembly is not for altruistic reason but an attempt by some members to arm-twist the Interim Management Committee.�

Pondei justified the claim, stating: “We have faced so much pressure from some members of the National Assembly not to send certain files to forensic auditors. We fear that this will compromise the integrity of the exercise and have refused to do their bidding. “We have also faced pressure from some members of the

National Assembly to pay for 132 jobs, which have no proof of execution. We have refused to pay out N6.4 billion for those jobs.

We believe that an IMC set up as a cleansing structure cannot become part of the old story of rot.�

The NDDC Chief Executive Officer observed that since the IMC came to make NDDC better and had a limited mandate till December, it had summoned the courage its predecessors did not have to tell Nigerians the truth.

He lamented that, “50 per cent of NDDC’s inability to deliver on its mandate is as a result of the stranglehold of the National Assembly on the Commission. “The National Assembly delays passage of the Commission’s budget until it is too late for it to be implemented. The 2019 was passed two months to the end of its implementation period. In fact, the hardcopy was received by the Commission on April 10, 2020, when the implementation period ends on May 31. Given the procurement rules, it is not enough time to call for tender and execution of the jobs. The statutory period for advertising tenders is six weeks. “Two, the budgets are bastardised by National Assembly in a way that renders it useless. Acase will suffice. In the 2019 budget, we had a provision of N1.32 billion to pay our counterpart funding to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) for the $129.7m Livelihood Improvement Family Enterprises Programme in the Niger Delta (LIFE-ND). The National Assembly cut the provision to N100 million. Are we going to IFAD, a UN agency, to tell them to bring their $129.7m when our National Assembly says we can only pay N100m out of N1.32 billion obligation? “Three, the National Assembly members insert items we had no plans for. These items are then forced on the Commission when it is not part of the master plan. Rather than be a major intervention agency, the Commission is busy erecting street lights and drainages, something local governments should do.�

Pondei explained that at the time the expanded IMC took over on February 20, 2020, the 2019 and 2020 budget of the NDDC had already been transmitted to the National Assembly, noting that the 2019 budget was laid before the two chambers and it was approved.

However, the problem was in harmonisation of the budget, which was to follow the approval. “For that to be done, we were told to pay for some contracts. That was relayed to us through the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on NDDC. “We waited for the meeting but it did not take place, because we had not paid. On March 17, 2020 we managed to pay some and on March 19, 2020 we paid the others. That was when approval was transmitted to us on March 20, 2020,� Pondei said.

According to him, “We understand that this had been the regular practice over the years. You have to accede to the requests of the National Assembly or you don’t have a budget.

(See the concluding article online - www.thisdaylive.com)

SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY

Science Is The Building Block of Technology Kofo Babalola

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t is interesting to see that in the world we live in there are many sectors created by humans. It gives us the opportunity to branch out and delve into what makes us tick. In the field of innovation, science is the building block of technology and technology aids development. This is essentially an example of a chain reaction that is created to innovate. This is not the only chain reaction that can create development but in this reaction, one can create a domino effect with these tools to help shape the society we live in today.

Imagine the world without science. Would things work? Absolutely not.

Science is the foundation on which the world was created. In the words of Pythagoras who was known as a Greek philosopher but today a scientist and mathematician, “Number rules the universe.�

Well, one might even think what relation do numbers have with science, isn’t numbers more to do with mathematics? Well, it is just like asking what the world is without water.

Numbers go hand in hand with maths and maths goes hand in hand with science. There is no science without numbers. How else did they prove scientific experiments? Essentially by using data comprised of numbers; I can agree not always but I can assure you that the purpose of proof in science derived from mathematics. There is no mathematics without science and no science without mathematics.

This is why many of the Greek philosophers were not only known as scientists but also mathematicians.

The beauty in the universe often lies in what we cannot see and in the unknown. Science

Onu, Minister of Science and Technology enables us to build creative minds, giving us the ability to think beyond what the naked eyes can see and seek to know more of how things came about.

This drive gave the philosophers in ancient times to pose questions that were beyond what we as humans already knew like how did the world come about? This led to the ‘Big Bang Theory’ which ultimately drove us to think and ask about what lies in the stars that we see every night. Many of the scientists of that era believed that in trying to solve problems that surrounded the invisible, we could unlock many secrets helping us to answer questions like how the world came into existence.

It takes a creative mind to develop theories which were later proven by mathematical equations. The questioning is where this all

started. It is science that helps build this in us as the subject focuses on building a foundation of questioning things. The ability to ask questions has been one that enabled breakthroughs in the lives of those we see as icons today. Mark Zuckerberg didn’t magically come up with the social media app, Facebook, that is used by millions of people around the world. He must have posed questions like how do we stay connected even when we are miles apart?

Although this might not be science-related, it takes those that have studied science-related subjects to think in this way. It is in science that we learn about ground-breaking work that has been done, some half-finished, leading the way for many of us to take on. Having studied a great range of subjects, I believe it is science that will help us craft the future as we are given the tools needed to solve the problems that the world faces today. I have seen it already happen before my eyes.

During the outbreak of the deadly COVID-19, the mechanical engineering department at UCL utilized the mechanism that they used in the Formula 1 team led by Prof. Tim Baker to provide breathing devices for those hospitalized due to COVID-19 infection. This mechanism was originally used in a car engine but could still be used in hospitals to help those having difficulty in breathing. This shows versatility in scientific solutions as the same mechanism that was used to solve a specific problem could be used to help solve a different problem in a completely different context.

There are so many tangents to solving a single problem and science enables us to build the skill of finding the different ways, giving us the ability to have a choice to take a pick from the bunch.

We are given the ability to think in not just

one way but in different ways. That is the beauty of science. Mathematics also comes under this bracket. I remember through the study of advanced mathematics; it was not only going through the method to solve the question, but it was also about finding the fastest way possible to get to that answer. This meant thinking fast to pick the most effective way to answer the question on the spot, as many methods to solve that problem rush through your mind.

This is the beauty of these subjects as although many might think that it doesn’t give you the ability to think in different ways like history and other arts-related subjects. It does but in a very different but more effective way.

I can agree there are no arguments or opinions needed to be made but there are solutions needed to be formed in response to challenges.

There is not only one way to solve these solutions but different angles that can be used to reach the same goal. Science teaches you how to unravel these different ways as it moulds your brain to think along these different paths.

I can give you an example: on a rainy day, how do we make use of the water that falls from the sky to harness energy? This was an engineering question for one of the years of Arkwright Engineering Scholarship papers. There are many different ways one can come up with to solve this question just like in history there are many arguments that could be made under a given title.

The only difference is that science helps us to create ground-breaking phenomena that shape the world we live in today and has a hand in shaping our tomorrow as it is the key to many of the problems we face. ––Babalola is an Engineering student of the University College London

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T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R ˾ JULY 19, 2020

SUNDAYINTERVIEW Joi Nunieh

Nunieh...I resisted every attempt to steal from NDDC

Akpabio Tried to Subvert All Known Provisions to Have His Way at NDDC Joi Nunieh, former Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) Interim Management Committee, has opened a can of worms in the federal government’s agency and the alleged role of the Minister of Niger Delta, Mr. Godswill Akpabio, in the current mess of the commission. In an explosive interview with Arise TV News Channel, Nunieh revealed scandalous details of his relationship with Akpabio. Since then, things have not been the same. Bayo Akinloye presents the excerpts:

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ou were accused of insubordination and not having an NYSC certificate or evidence that you participated in the one-year compulsory national service. Could you please respond to these issues?

First of all, I want to appreciate Arise News, because Arise was the only station that agreed to air my press conference after we left the premises of the National Assembly. I give you all kudos and I want to say before the world that Arise (TV) is now my best television station.

I have come today to speak. I have not spoken since I left the NDDC over five or six months ago, because I didn’t think it was necessary.

I didn’t go to Abuja since I was removed until I had to go before the senate committee. So, for me, it’s not that I was angry.

I was impelled to be at the senate, because of a statement by the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs (Godswill Akpabio), and of course, members of the (NDDC) Interim Management Committee, claiming that I spent over N22 billion.

I thought it was important that I go there to make my case and to state to all Nigerians and Mr. President that I did not spend

N22 billion. I only spent N8 billion. I’m very happy that members of the National Assembly do have copies of all the money spent by the NDDC from the Central Bank of Nigeria and from the accountant-general’s office.

So, I’m happy I have this opportunity and the right of reply.

I am not like Akpabio that will come on television but will not answer relevant questions. I came to tell Nigerians that I have a right of reply and I came to protect my heritage and the dignity of my background.

So, were his allegations regarding the NYSC certificate and four husbands true?

Five issues were raised by Akpabio. The first thing that he said was that I have been married to four husbands. Unlike Akpabio, I have already asked my lawyers to sue him; a senior advocate. I expect Akpabio to also follow suit and sue me for the comments that I made during my press conference. They were issues based on his integrity. I expected that.

In Africa, we say a good name is better than gold and silver but he’s not able to explain the allegations that I had made against him. As my (former) supervising minister, the only relationship

that we should have had should have been a relationship of work – a relationship of a supervising minister and the CEO of the NDDC. However, he showed the world that his main interest has always been my love life.

Did he want to be my fifth husband? If no, why is my love life very important to him? Secondly, why is it that six months after, he’s still interested in my love life? I have challenged Akpabio. He’ll have to tell the court so that the issue will be well documented.

He’ll provide a list of my four husbands. I know that I have not married four husbands. So, the onus is on Akpabio to prove his allegation. I’m not going to give the name of my husband so that he doesn’t use it in his testimony. The law is that he who alleges must prove.

The second issue is that Akpabio alleged that I do not have an NYSC certificate. He presented some documents, showing the world it was handwritten. I’m here to tell the world that I wrote that application. The letter that Akpabio showed you was my letter was handwritten. There’s no law that says you cannot write (by hand). Therefore, for a minister to say, ‘can you imagine it was written by hand?’

T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R ˾ JULY 19, 2020

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t ",1"#*0 53*&% 50 46#7&35 "-- ,/08/ 1307*4*0/4 50 )"7& )*4 8": "5 /%%$ t Handwritten letters are more authentic than typewritten ones. A typewritten letter, can only be authenticated by my signature. The laws of this land (Nigeria) recognise handwritten letters. I wrote that letter of application to the Nigerian Law School requesting three things from the school.

Akpabio should be asked: When I wrote that letter did the law school reply? Was I given what I requested? Yes! Is the law school NYSC? The law school is not NYSC. For him to be raising an issue with a letter to the law school is just very silly. I wrote to the law school requesting three things: one, a certified copy of my call to the Bar certificate, my enrolment certificate and the third thing I asked for was a list of individuals I went for NYSC with from the law school.

Did the law school give them to me? Were they certified? Yes, they were certified. Now, the issue is you can see Akpabio didn’t have any issues when he said, ‘Look at the date, she graduated over 30 years ago! It’s now that she’s applying.’ My grandgrandchildren can decide that they want to go to law school to get a copy of my call to the Bar certificate.

Why did I ask for my certificate? My late sister died and she was the custodian of all our family certificates. I had photocopies of all my documents. You must have the understanding to know the difference between certified true copy and ordinary copies.

I have the right even if it’s 10,000 years later to request so the argument (by Akpabio) is silly.

Where did you serve as a youth corps member?

Responding to the issue of Kwara, am I from Kwara State?

So, was there youth service in Kwara? That is the question that he should have asked. Akpabio was asked (on Arise TV): ‘Why didn’t you tell Mr. president that she (Joi) had issues with NYSC?’ What was his reply? He stated, ‘No, it would have broken his heart.’

What! How would that break the president’s heart, if he could spend his money and time as minister to write to my primary school, secondary school, the Federal Government College Warri; wrote to where I did my A levels, Zaria, to my university, Rivers State University of Science and Technology and wrote to the law school and at the end when he had ‘evidence’ to ‘kill’ Joi Nunieh, he didn’t have anything to give to Mr. President.

He suddenly became very nice to me, claiming he just didn’t want to break the president’s heart. The onus is on him to prove I used a forged NYSC certificate. I thank the two governors, who advised me not to release any of my documents so that they were not doctored.

Why were you removed from office the NDDC boss?

On the issue of being removed as the NDDC boss, I want to tell Nigerians that for the first time (it was on TV that I heard), like other Nigerians, the reason I was removed as the MD at the NDDC – I never knew the reason. You see God brought Akpabio to come to respond on that day (he fielded questions from Akpabio).

The Bible tells me that the heart of the king is like a stream of water. He turneth whichsoever way he pleases. I thank Akpabio because he came to make a case; answered all the questions of my NYSC. He was asked if there was any case of misappropriation or corruption, he said no. This is a man who wrote petitions against me to ICPC, EFCC, etc.

He claimed I was removed as the MD of NDDC because he sent seven letters and he considered my refusal to respond to them as insubordination. I nearly collapsed that night. As a minister, a former governor, and a senator, he should have known that rules apply.

The public service rules are what I would have been bound by as the MD of the NDDC and that requires that at least I should have been given a query about insubordination. I want to tell all Nigerians and even Mr. President that I did not receive a query from Mr. Akpabio to explain myself. I have a constitutional right to a fair hearing and I think I know the reason Akpabio would never have given me that query: he knew that if he had queried me, I would have responded. Why didn’t he use a more substantial case of the NYSC certificate to remove me? Why, because he couldn’t prove the case of insubordination against me.

Akpabio wrote about 30 letters to me. He sent letters to me requesting an ‘intervention towards amicable settlement judgment,’ to pay legal fees. NDDC doesn’t pay legal fees to help people.

He just doesn’t understand that NDDC’s money is not be used

I slapped him, because of his ‘plan B.’ Since he couldn’t get me to allow him to take that money, he thought that with ‘plan B,’ if he could ‘come upon me.’ He didn’t know that I am a Port Harcourt girl. Port Harcourt girls are not moved by money. I wasn’t moved by talks that he’d make me the substantive MD

to assist people. Am I supposed to respond to a letter requesting assistance for people? This letter was written by the minister’s chief of staff!

Can you imagine? How do I respond to this sort of letter requesting assistance to pay for contracts? This one was written by the director of special duties. It’s important that I respond to the issue of insubordination please, that was the reason I was removed as the MD of NDDC. A memo was written to Mr. President that I was removed because I did not respond to letters written to me.

I had advised Mr. Akpabio to stop his directors from writing letters requesting funds, alerting him to the fact that such correspondence could implicate him. Akpabio now wrote me a letter based on my advice that his chief of staff should not write letters again.

That same Akpabio has come out to tell the world that I was removed for not paying and doing all of these. He now wrote me this letter, restrictions of signatories to correspondences to and fro the ministry, he now said that I should never again take acknowledge letters from all these people again.

Amidst these and other issues plaguing the NDDC, how can things be fixed for the good of the Niger Delta people?

I think it’s very important that I answer the issue of insubordination, because that was the reason I was removed as MD of NDDC. It cannot be irrelevant. He (Akpabio) accused me, made a case, and wrote a memo to Mr. President that I was removed, because I did not respond (to a series of letters he had written to me). When I told Mr. Akpabio that ‘Sir, please let your directors not write letters to me. It can implicate you. It’s very embarrassing.

(I noticed that it was because] Mrs. Walton Jack, who was the permanent secretary, refused to write those letters that was why the director and the chief of staff wrote those letters.)

Subsequently, Akpabio now did me a letter based on my advice.

He wrote to me this letter, ‘Restriction of correspondences with the ministry,’ directing me not to acknowledge letters from all these people again. So, now he has forgotten that he wrote the letter and then he used it against me.

When Akpabio saw that he could not make me bring out the money, he now tried ‘plan B’ of insubordination. Why did he not tell Mr. President what happened, that I slapped him? Why did he not tell Nigerians that I slapped his face in his Guest House at Apo (in Abuja)? Why did he not tell Nigerians what the alleged insubordination was all about?

Why did I stop going to meet him? He told the Senate committee that I refused to come to meet him to have meetings. Why didn’t we hold our meetings at the office? I told Mr. Akpabio that I would not go to any meeting outside his office or my office. The last time before that week, before I left, he came to Port Harcourt. I did not go to the Meriden Hotel to meet him.

Why did you slap him?

I slapped him, because of his ‘plan B.’ Since he couldn’t get me to allow him to take that money, he thought that with ‘plan B,’ if he could ‘come upon me.’ He didn’t know that I am a Port Harcourt girl. Port Harcourt girls are not moved by money. I wasn’t moved by talks that he’d make me the substantive MD.

What exactly did you mean by ‘plan B’ and that ‘he could come upon’ you?

We were having a meeting. Akpabio’s meeting with me is either in Apo or at Meriden. Those are his meetings. I slapped him well.

Are you accusing Senator Akpabio of attempted rape? Or, is it sexual harassment?

Harassment sounds better; not rape.

So, you are accusing him expressly of sexual harassment?

Yes. I’m accusing him. Most Nigerian women face a lot of this pressure and that’s why you see that Akpabio is more interested in my love life. It’s because of that incident that he said I am temperamental. Two, Akpabio’s girlfriend supplies the diesel used at NDDC. I looked at that diesel situation and I said ‘why don’t we give the young Niger Delta boys, divide it into the nine states for them?’ And this is most important. NDDC in the past had paid for us to get light directly from Afam power station connected straight to the NDDC headquarters. That was disconnected at the gate of NDDC. Millions of naira were paid to get that light source to NDDC. It now stopped at the gate. To connect it from the gate, it was sabotaged not to go inside the building. So, when I came, I said, ‘All this money on diesel, how do we cut it down? I am not here to spend money. I am here to cut it down. How do I tell Mr. President that I came to do a forensic audit and I come in here to commit the same offence? I will not do it. So, we went down and looked at the system.

I asked how much it would cost instead of spending money on diesel. To cut a long story short, we got an engineer to do the repair. I have only a view of the remittance platform, I am not the one to pay. The ED, FA (executive director, finance and admin) is the one that presses for payment. Do you know that they refused to pay the money to connect that light into the office so that we can keep buying diesel?

Now that same lady (Akpabio’s alleged girlfriend) had the audacity to go to the National Assembly to insert more projects in the budget submitted by the NDDC. She went to the clerk of the committee and told him that the minister (Akpabio) authorized her to add more projects to our budget after I had submitted it.

Akpabio also wanted me to bring money for his presidential ambition. He got upset that I interacted with Mrs. Amaechi and Mrs. Sylva, because they are his political enemies.

Who’s this lady?

I don’t want to mention her name. The clerk called me and said there was a lady that wanted to insert some items in NDDC’s budget. I took her number from the clerk and called her. I told her: ‘If you don’t leave that place I will get the police to arrest you. She said, ‘But the minister sent me to put it.’ I told her that the minister should have called me. In any case, I have submitted it and I can’t go to the National Assembly to say I am putting in anything.

(See full interview online - www.thisdaylive.com)

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INTERNATIONAL Foreign Ministry and NIIA’s Recruitment of a New Director General: Beyond Politics of Malaise and Maladie

T

he Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) used to be the leading foreign policy think tank in Nigeria. It also used to be an internationally recognised foreign policy research institution. The foundations of both the national and international recognitions of the institute were laid under previous seasoned diplomats and academics. The cases of the first Director General, Dr. Lawrence Fabunmi, a diplomatic careerist; Professor Bolaji Akinwande Akinyemi, a seasoned diplomatic scholar and former Foreign Minister; Professor Gabriel O. Olusanya, an astute administrator and diplomatic historian and Professor George O. Obiozor, a diplomatist per excellence, are noteworthy.

One major rationale for their very positive impact was the honesty and objectivity of purpose, that is completely devoid of jot of tribalism, of their Governing Council members. The Council members were nationalist in orientation and very academic in supervision. Another rationale for the greatness of the institute was also the factor of the placement of the institute under the supervisory authority of the Vice President. In the beginning, the NIIAwas under the Ministry of External Affairs, but Professor Akinyemi is on record to have gallantly fought for it to be placed under the Vice Presidency and to the extent that the NIIAtook directives on policy matters while maintaining its academic and independent status.

It was fully free to think freely. True enough, the institute freely combined theory and practice of international relations, on the basis of comparative methodologies, in providing policy advice to Government. And probably more interestingly too, the factor of no capital project to warrant the covetous attention of the Governing Councils in the day-to-day management of the institute, might have also explained the objective discharge of duties of all the then Council members.

As at today, the story is different. The current Governing Council of the institute apparently cannot function well as required, because of the very decadent situation it met in place. In fact, the NIIAis currently suffering from a tripod of epidemic malaise: The malaise of the Ike-Nwachukwu-led Governing Council which has completely debased the academic character of the NIIAand replaced with ethnic-induced indiscipline; the malaise of acquiescence of societal indiscipline and corruption; and the malaise of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a major obstacle to truth and patriotism-driven development of the institute. These three categories of malaise serve as the foundation of the poverty of ideas that has come to characterise the academic lull in the NIIA of today. The lull appears to have also prompted the placement of an advert for the recruitment of a new Director General, following the end of tenure of Professor Bukar Bukarambe, under whom the malaise became more complex as a result of inattention and don’t-care attitude of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Before now, placement of an advertisement to recruit the Chief Executive of the NIIAwas a rarity. In fact, the first time attempt was made to recruit a Director General for the NIIAthrough advertorials was in 2011 when I was then the Acting Director General. The then Minister of Foreign Affairs was Henry Odein Ajumogobia, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, and the then Permanent Secretary was Dr. Martin Ihoeghian Uhomoibhi, an Oxonian diplomatic historian. They sponsored the placement of the advert for reasons that we have reserved for the future. What should be noted for now is simply that, eventually, the advert served no purpose as there was never any interview for any candidate thereafter. This partly explains why it took exactly 365 days for the confirmation of my appointment to take place under a different seasoned diplomatic careerist and Foreign Minister, Ambassador Olugbenga Ayodeji Ashiru. In this regard, why another advertorial in the recruitment of a Director General? What has happened to the ministerial and presidential prerogative?

Unending Foreign Ministry Malaise

For the second time in the life history of the NIIAsince 1961, an advert was placed in The Guardian of Friday, May 22, 2020 by Ambassador Mustapha L. Sulaiman, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is the supervisory authority of the institute. One main reason for the placement of this second advert cannot be far-fetched: the Ike Nwachukwu-led Governing

VIE INTERNATIONALE with

Bola A. Akinterinwa Telephone : 0807-688-2846

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Onyema, Minister of Foreign Affairs Council-inflicted malaise. The malaise, which was consciously inflicted by the Council and condoned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has turned into an academic epidemic, and is now producing unwanted seeds. It is against this background that the recruitment of a new Director General should be understood.

Put differently, it is argued here that no amount of efforts undertaken by the Foreign Ministry can turn the NIIAaround, especially through the placement of an advert, unless the bastardisation legacy left behind by the Ike Nwachukwu-led Governing Council is first nipped in the bud. All the criteria advertised to be met by interested candidates, are, at best, good for nothing, without first removing the endemic attitudinal viruses.

Two or three illustrations can explain the deep-seated rottenness, beginning with the advertorial.

The advert is good, it should be admitted, but the goodness is necessarily bastardised by one major criterion: factor of no age limit. This, hypothetically put, is very fraudulent. The advert gives one impression that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is sponsoring a candidate. Why is there no age criterion?

In the universities, retirement age is seventy years. In research institutions, retirement age is sixty-five, a major factor that has always put off many serious scholars and administrators to want to join the NIIA. There was the time a seasoned librarian from the University of Lagos took up appointment as Director of Library at the NIIAunder the administration of Professor Gabriel Olusanya.

He spent about a year and returned to his base, discovery the difference of five years of service he might be missing.

It is important to note that the retirement age of seventy years is only for academic scholars that have attained the professorial cadre. Non-academic staff retire at the age of sixty-five. Librarians that have academic publications are considered eligible to retire at 65. In the same vein at the NIIA, retirement age for all staff is either 35 years of service or 60 years of age, with the exception of the research or academic staff who retire at the age of 65 years.

On the basis of this distinction, promotion of staff is also made different. Non-academic staff are governed by the Public Service Rules while the promotion of the academic staff is strictly based

To prevent today’s malaise from degenerating into maladie and malfeasance tomorrow, there will be need to remove the foundation of serious culture of misconduct laid by the Senator IkeNwachukwu-led Governing Council. Unless the foundation is first removed, any new Director General appointed would have failed ab initio. Second, it is no longer useful to put the NIIA under the supervisory authority of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as the Institute has always been subjected to the personal whims and caprices of the Ministry, rather than to intellectual needs. Third, Governing Councils should not be involved in the day-to-day administration of the Institute. A situation in which a Governing Council has more interest in the funding of a capital project, hiding myopically under non-compliance with the due process to no avail, but kept quiet about allegations of serious misconduct of changing promotion examination results, removal of official queries from files, and writing malicious reports to which even Government has turned a blind eye, etc cannot be helpful in nation-building and intellectual development.

Consequently,‘today’s malaise’should be prevented from degenerating into tomorrow’s maladie’

on the rules obtained in the universities. And specifically, it is the regulations in the University of Lagos that apply at the NIIAwith one additional criterion: that NIIAacademics must have more academic points in publication than their counterparts in the university because the NIIAresearch staff do not carry any regular teaching responsibility. They are presumed to have more time for research, and therefore, more time to publish.

The point being made here is that there is no age limit to be met by interested candidates as advertised, meaning that a professor who has retired at 70 is still eligible to apply. The question here is this: why the omission of age criterion? Even if researchers have to prepare briefs for the Director General, the briefs have to be read and translated into policy recommendations. The extent to which an old man can run here and there to execute the mandate of an institute like the NIIAcannot be a child’s play.

For instance, one mandate of the institute is to promote and encourage the study of research into all aspects of international affairs within the framework of promotion of scientific study of international politics, economics and jurisprudence. In this regard, in a situation where the more people live in Nigeria, the younger one becomes in age and on records, especially as it has occurred at the NIIA, there is no disputing the hypothesis that the non-provision of age limitation in the recruitment advertorial is intentional and fraudulent. For the purposes of the uniqueness of the NIIA, being a world institute in Africa, an African institute in Nigeria, and a Nigerian institute in Lagos, the recruitment process must be completely devoid of political chicanery and influence politics. Any applicant for the position of the Director General of the NIIAmust not have attained the age of 65 years as at the time of his or her application to be eligible, even if the advert is silent on the factor of age.

Without any whiff of doubt, there is beauty in longevity of experiential knowledge and one cannot buy experience with money.

However, there is a serious limitation as to the physical fitness of old people in running up and down in the implementation of the mandate of the institute. President Muhammadu Buhari himself cannot even have the luxury of frolicking around because of his age. The immediate past Director General of the NIIAhimself cannot truly come into the open and say he has ever spent more than four hours per day in office or claim to have ever resumed duty before 12 noon unless by force majeure. This situation is one of the resultants of Ike Nwachukwu’s legacy in the institute: reckless indiscipline and ethnic chauvinism.

Today’s Malaise, Tomorrow’s Maladie

The malaise of the Ike Nwachukwu-led Governing Council can be likened to a diabetic wound, which we all know, can be quite difficult to heal. The ethnic politics of the institute itself is another dimension of the problem. Let me give some instances without much detail to illustrate. When I was appointed in 2003 as Special Assistant to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Oluyemi Adeniji, CON, I applied to the then Director General, Mrs Joy Ogwu, for either leave of absence or secondment to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, under which the NIIAwas and still is.

For more than two months, there was no response to say no or yes from Mrs Joy Ogwu. Ambassador Adeniji took the matter up with the then Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Chief Ufot Ekaette, who not only wondered why approval was not given, but also considered that the NIIAand the Foreign Ministry were both government institutions, and therefore, directed that I should resume duty in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He said that by the time I would be completing my new assignment, Mrs Ogwu would have left.

True enough, I served as Special Assistant to Ambassador Adeniji as Foreign Minister and as Minister of Interior. When I returned to the NIIA, Mrs Ogwu had left to serve as Foreign Minister, but with the strategic calculation of possibly coming back. She arranged for Professor Osita Eze to fill the gap. Professor Osita Eze ensured the continuity of her service. I wrote him to inform that I had reported for duty. He noted in his reply, signed

by Mr. Alex Ekeanyanwu, that I was no longer a staff of the NIIA. I referred the matter to the new Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Ambassador Babagana Kingibe. For almost one year, I was shuttling between Lagos and Abuja without salary.

At the end of the day, Ambassador Kingibe could not understand how I absconded and therefore, directed that I should be re-instated. In his words, ‘re-instate Dr. Bola A. Akinterinwa and report immediate compliance.’ This was how I ended up not being considered as having absconded and nobody has asked why there was no query for the Director General for not responding to my letter of request for permission to accept an offer of temporary appointment in the same public service.

One reason that will be told in the future is related to the visit of former US President to Nigeria, on the invitation of President Olusegun Obasanjo. During the reception organised in his honour, I stood in for the NIIA, being the most senior staff available and in the controversial absence of the Director General, who queried me of preventing Solomon Lar, the only one-member of the then Governing Council, from making a speech during the event. She queried me for preventing the access of her official representatives to the Presidency as if I had any protocolar knowledge of should be allowed or disallowed to enter the Presidential Villa.

(See concluding part on www.thisdaylive.com)

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With Rising Debt Exposure, Nigeria Risks Relapse to 1984 Economic Disorder ‡External debt rises to $27bn in 2019 from $3.6bn in 2007 ‡ Experts recommend debt restructuring, cutting governance cost Gboyega Akinsanmi Citing the increasing public debt stock and declining revenue, Nigeria’s leading fiscal analysts have warned that the country may relapse to the 1984 economic disorder stoked by debt crisis or slump into insolvency except pragmatic measures are taken to manage its debt exposure.

Although the analysts are not really worried about the volume of public debt, they have disapproved the country’s records of debt to GDP ratio, GDP growth rate per annum and debt servicing to revenue ratio, which they argue, can force the country into excruciating economic conditions.

In separate responses to THISDAY inquiries at the weekend, a professor of political economy at Lagos Business School, Prof.

Pat Utomi and an independent public policy advisor, Dr. Akin Oladeji-JohnBrowne expressed grave concern about the country’s upward debt trajectory.

While Utomi feared that there might be a relapse to the syndrome of 1984 when other countries ended trade relations with Nigeria due to failure to meet its debt obligation, JohnBrowne warned that the country’s rising debt profile with shrinking revenue might push the country into bankruptcy.

At a Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council webinar that focused on Nigeria on Wednesday, the Vice President, Prof.

Yemi Osinbajo disclosed that the revenue of the federal government had reduced by 40% due to the impact of COVID-19.

Also, on Thursday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reviewed Nigeria’s debt to GDP ratio upward, projecting that it might rise to 36.5% in 2020 from 29% it was in 2019, thereby describing a spike in government borrowing in the short-term as worrisome.

Penultimate Friday, the Debt Management Office (DMO) put

Debt Stock External Debt Domestic Debt Total Debt Stock

the country’s public debt stock at $79.30 billion as at March 31, an increase of 15% from the figure that was recorded for the corresponding period in 2019, which was about $69.09 billion.

DMO’s current statement of account did not include $3.4 billion, which the International Monetary Fund approved for Nigeria on April 28 in emergency financial assistance under the Rapid Financing Instrument to support the authorities’ efforts in addressing the severe economic impact of the COVID-19 shock and the sharp fall in oil prices.

Likewise, analysis of Nigeria’s debt stock trajectory by THISDAY based on the Debt Management Office’s annual reports and statements of accounts between 2003 and 2019 empirically supported these highly informed observations.

At its peak, for instance, DMO’s reports revealed that the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo opted for debt negotiation in 2004, negotiated debt forgiveness with the Paris Club, an informal group of creditor nations.

From $3.65 billion in 2007 when the Obasanjo administration ended,

reports analysed by THISDAY showed that the country’s external debt stock rose to $27.67 billion in 2019, accounting for an increase of 657% in 13 years.

Under the President Umaru Yar’Adua administration, DMO’s records that external debt stock grew from $3.65 billion in 2007 to $4.57 billion in 2010, representing a growth of 25% in the year Yar’Adua passed away.

Under the President Goodluck Jonathan administration, the reports revealed that the external debt rose from $5.66 billion in 2011 to $9.71billion in 2014, an increase of about 72% in the year before the former president lost reelection to President Muhammadu Buhari.

From $9.71 billion at the end of the 2014 financial year, according to DMO’s records, Nigeria’s external debt has progressively grown to $10.71 billion in 2015; $11.40 billion in 2016; $18.91 in 2017; $25.27 billion in 2018 and $27.67 billion in 2019.

Within the first four years of the Buhari government, analysis of DMO’s reports by THISDAY revealed that the external debt had risen by about 185% at the end of the 2019 financial year, the highest

increase ever recorded after the Obasanjo administration secured debt relief that brought Nigeria’s external debt to $3.54 billion in 2006.

Unlike external debt stock, reports revealed that domestic debt had been galloping marginally under the Buhari administration, declining from $58.01 billion at the end of the 2014 financial year to $54.71 billion in 2015 and $45.98 billion in 2016, slumping by about 20.7% at the end of the financial year.

After the country’s GDP rebounded from 1.62% negative growth in 2016 to 0.81% positive growth in 2017, according to the DMO’s annual reports, domestic debt increased to $52.16 billion, an upsurge of about 13.20% in the first year of about a 24-month economic slump.

However, marginally, the reports revealed an upward movement in the country’s domestic stock subsequently, rising by 3.98% to N54.16 billion in 2018 and by 4.09% to $56.377 billion, though declined by 8.34% to $51.63 billion at the end of the 2020 first quarter.

With these grim realities, Utomi feared that there might be relapse

#!!$ #!"%

to the syndrome of 1984 when developed countries severed trade relations with Nigeria due to the failure to meet its debt obligation while JohnBrowne warned that the country’s upward debt trajectory with shrinking revenue “is an indication of a country moving towards bankruptcy.�

Utomi, founder of Centre for Value in Leadership, however pointed out that debt “is not a sin, though argued debt “is largely a function of what a government, a corporate organisation or an individual does with it.�

In response to the regressive trends that characterise Nigeria’s current public debt stock and other economic indicators, Utomi observed that it was similar to what happened to the country in 1984.

In 1984, the political economist said Nigeria got to “a stage where it could not service her debt. And the foreign banks began to shut down the lines of credit to Nigerian banks. We started lacking essential commodities. “If you cannot pay your debt, people will stop trading with you.

That happened in Nigeria in 1984.

We worked out all kinds of means around it. In fact, this is what we called counter trade or trade by barter. We gave crude oil for milk and sugar. It was a very inefficient way to trade,� the don warned.

Amid the 1984 debt crisis, Utomi disclosed that Nigeria had to create a company called National Supply Company with the express objective of trying to provide milk, sugar and salt to Nigerians. We used to have a long queue.�

He, therefore, explained what brought the country “to this point is simple. When you have a level of debt that is not sustainable, you refuse to trim the cost of governance, legislators are milking the country to death, the executives are finishing the country, they are not investing in things that will create taxable revenues, what do you think will eventually happen.

Obviously, it will soon get to what

happened in 1984.�

JohnBrowne supported Utomi’s viewpoint with reservation that rising debt “should ordinarily not be an issue. But the problem is the usage. In Nigeria usage of debt has always been opaque in utilization for economic development.�

He, also, lamented that in Nigeria, most of the debt “cannot be properly accounted for in terms of usage. Even when accounted for, it is mostly used to support recurrent expenditure budgets. “If compared with GDP average annual growth rate of 2.6% within the same period, it is obvious that our productivity is lagging behind the growth of the debt.

This scenario is an indication of a country moving towards bankruptcy.�

He, however, said the way forward for Nigeria “is to restructure the debt profile in terms of components parts and pricing.

Government should constitute a debt restructuring committee of experts whose mandate is outside the current civil service. “The committee, whose tenure shall not exceed three years, will work cooperatively with existing civil service structure, but independent and private sector focused in the debt restructuring. The office of the committee should reside in the Presidency and be operationally funded by the executive arm of government.�

Unlike JohnBrowne that recommended debt restructuring and the constitution of debt restructuring committee, Utomi canvassed an unprecedented reduction in the cost of governance to 25% of the present cost.

In specific terms, the political economist asked the governments at all levels “to trim the cost of governance to 25% of the present cost.

We must cut off the cars, the pay of legislators, and salaries of permanent secretaries. Nigerians are deliberately allowing themselves to be in this mess.�

Breakdown of Nigeria's Public Debt Stock (2006 - 2019) in US$ Million 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 20,477.97 3,544.49 3,654.21 3,720.36 3,947.30 4,578.77 5,666.58 6,527.07 8,821.90 9,711.00 10,718.43 11,406.28 18,913.44 11,828.76 13,805.20 18,575.67 17,678.55 21,870.12 30,514.33 35,882.86 41,696.16 45,722.41 58,014.83 54,710.10 45,985.25 52,085.82 32,306.73 17,349.69 22,229.88 21,398.91 25,817.42 35,093.10 41,549.44 48,223.23 54,544.31 67,725.83 65,428.53 57,391.53 70,999.26 ***Data collated from Annual Reports and Statements of Accounts of Debt Management Office (2005 - 2019)

2018 25,274.36 54,162.35 79,436.71

2019 27,676.14 56,377.18 84,053.32

Civil Society Practitioners Dissect Problems with Buhari’s Anti-Graft War Gboyega Akinsanmi The anti-corruption war of President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday came under scrutiny as leading civil society actors said his anti graft policy was founded upon sentiments, lacked transparency and did not have a comprehensive definition of what amounts to corruption.

The actors recommended the enactment of Whistle Blowing Act; the Proceeds of Crime Bill be assented to and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and Independent Corrupt Practices Commission be merged, among others, to the country’s anti-corruption fight.

The proposals were canvassed in separate notes Nigeria’s Head of Transparency International, Mr. Auwal Rafsanjani; Director of Centre for Public Policy and Research, Dr. Sam Amadi and a former Country Representative of Transparency International, Major General Ishola Williams sent to THISDAY.

Dissecting the country’s anticorruption war, Amadi said the major problem with Buhari’s policy “is lack of clarity. He does not have a comprehensive definition of corruption. The program suffers from lack of good diagnostics. You do not solve a problem if you do not have a good diagnosis.�

According to him, Buhari’s administration failed to understand that Nigeria’s endemic corruption is a problem of institutions – norms and processes that encourage breach of rules of public governance.

He said: “The change agenda failed to change those institutions and create institutions of openness and accountability.�

Rafsanjani buttressed Amadi’s observation, identifying lack of transparency and haphazard investigation of grand corruption and confiscation of assets, which appeared to be politically motivated, as the albatross of Buhari’s anti-corruption fight.

With multi-dimensional problems that shrouded Buhari’s anti-graft war between 2015 and 2020, Rafsanjani canvassed crucial legal reforms as one of the measures to revitalise or strengthen the country’s anticorruption regimes.

Williams, also Founder of Pan African Strategic and Policy Research Group, observed that Buhari’s anti-corruption war “has suffered acute integrity deficiency syndrome and acute intellectual dependency syndrome,� which he ascribed to undue imitation of western policies and practices.

Recommending reforms to be carried out to strengthen the anti-corruption campaign, Williams advocated the merger of EFCC and ICPC with “a director general and directors recruited or headhunted within and in the diaspora.�

Besides merging the EFCC and ICPC, the retired army general pointed out that the engagement of the director general and other direc-

tors in the anti-corruption institution “must be by a separate non-executive board with a chairman as it is done in South Africa by the public.�

He further recommended that the board “cannot be disbanded but impeached by public petitions.

The board submits reports to the National Assembly not the president.

The reports must be audited by a private firm after a tender to the board with advice from the Auditor General.�

Williams warned against appointing police personnel “to serve in the anti-corruption institution or be at the helms of its affairs. The engagement of the helmsman in such an institution must not be by mere appointment subjected to the approval of the Senate, but a separate board.�

Williams urged the National Assembly “to hold a public hearing on a new Federal Anti-Corruption Commission (FACC) Bill to include cybercrimes with memos from experts

and the public.�

He justified the rationales for the establishment of the Special AntiCorruption Tribunals, recommending that a similar tribunal should be created for all matters related to elections and tasking the executive and legislature to separate the Office of Attorney General from the Ministry of Justice.

With the separation, Williams suggested that the office of the Attorney General “automatically becomes the Public Defender as it is in South Africa. In South Africa, the Public Defender can only be impeached.�

After completing the process, Williams noted that there would be one single Federal Prosecution Agency with a Prosecutor General working with the Public Defender.

He, also, recommended that the Nigeria Police should be split into three separate organisations with a new National Crime Intelligence and Criminal Investigation Agency

(NACICIA), which will collaborate with FACC. It recommended that the Code of Conduct Bureau and Public Complaints Commission be merged to become the Office of the Federal Ombudsman (OFO) with the power of a high court and that the same approach be replicated at the state level.

On the long run, Williams canvassed comprehensive constitutional amendments, which according to him, should be completed with a referendum within the period of 18 months.

He recommended that the process of constitutional amendments should begin with the report of the Nasir el-Rufai Committee on restructuring and end with a presidential cum parliamentary system as in South Africa.

He, equally, recommended that each state of the federation should enact its own state constitution and each local government its own charter.

T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R ˾ ͯͷ˜ 2020

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NEWSXTRA

Ondo 2020: PDP Chieftain Asks Court to Disqualify Deputy Governor James Sowole in Akure A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ondo State, Mr. Konstante Olopele has asked an Ondo State High Court sitting in Akure to disqualify the Deputy Governor, Mr. Agboola Ajayi from participating in the party primary election scheduled to hold on July 22 over alleged age falsification and perjury.

Based on the report of a threeman probe panel headed by a former Gombe State Governor, Alhaji Ibrahim Dankwambo, the PDP National Working Committee

(NWC) has dropped the doctored delegates’ list that stoked undue apprehension in the ranks of the state chapter.

In Suit No: AK/45M/2020 filed by AMAC Solicitors on Friday, Olopele, who sued for and behalf of other concerned members, averred that the deputy governor had breached the code of conduct for public officers.

The plaintiff, therefore, asked the court to disqualify him from holding any public office for a period of ten years for alleged breach of Section 1, 5th Schedule, Part 1 of the Code of Conduct

for Public Officers.

Olopele, also a legal practitioner, claimed that Ajayi breached Section 9 of the constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended).

He, further, claimed that Ajayi had breached the extant laws that are regulating WAEC and Nigerian Law School attendance while he was serving as elected Local Government Chairman and member of the Federal House of Representatives respectively.

The court will hear the suit on Tuesday.

On delegates list, a NWC

member revealed that the party leadership rejected the doctored list due to the recommendations of a three-man probe panel headed

by Ibrahim Dankwambo.

Up until last week, the party had been embroiled in internal crisis, over an allegation that 104 names were substituted in the delegates’ list, and replaced with proxies of the state’s deputy governor, who recently defected to the PDP from the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Though Ajayi denied involvement in the scam, the party, last week, dispatched the Dankwambo

panel to Akure, the state’s capital, to solve the riddle.

The NWC member, who spoke on the doctored delegates list in confidence, said the Dankwambo panel, after having painstakingly read through the old delegates list and the newly presented one, spotted the 104 illegal names and knocked them off.

He said: “Following this, it returned to Abuja with the original list to be used for Wednesday’s primary, and also made farreaching recommendations to the NWC.” One of the recommendations,

according to him, is that the old delegates’ list be adopted for Wednesday’s primary election.

The panel, he added, also appealed that Ajayi, the man in the eye of the storm in the list-doctoring saga, should be forgiven and assimilated fully into the party, despite that he is a newcomer.

Another party source, however, told THISDAY yesterday that the deputy governor, only submitted his secondary school certificate to the party, as his only qualification in the run-up to the PDP primary election.

Diri Dedicates Supreme Court 6,983 Benefited from Conditional Cash Transfer Scheme in Imo Victory to God, Bayelsans Emma Onugwe in Yenogoa Bayelsa State Governor, Senator Douye Diri, has said his victory at the Supreme Court is attributable to God and the prayers of Bayelsans.

The apex court had dismissed the case filed by Chief Timi Alaibe challenging Diri’s victory at the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) governorship primary election on September 3, 2019.

Diri, who got a tumultuous reception upon his arrival in Yenagoa on Thursday night, said the demonstration of love and support by Bayelsans was overwhelming and heartwarming.

In a statement by his acting

Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Dan Alabrah, Diri was joined by his deputy, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, Speaker of the House of Assembly and other legislators, top government functionaries, PDP stalwarts among others for a victory thanksgiving service at the King of Glory Chapel, Government House, Yenagoa.

He expressed gratitude to the people of the state for their support and encouragement, adding that he never expected the display of love and warm reception when he arrived in the state as late as 9pm.

His words: “I never expected this kind of reception. As late as the time I arrived, people were still at the entrance into Bayelsa

and up to the Government House gate. And the shocker I had was inside of this chapel. This victory is not mine. You are the owners of this victory.”

Diri, who acknowledged the role of God in his emergence as governor, also applauded the Supreme Court Justices for their uprightness and courage in upholding justice in dispensing their duties.

“I want to use this opportunity to appreciate the Supreme Court Justices for their display of integrity. This judgement has shown to the whole world that indeed the apex court is the last hope for the common man.”

As part of efforts to reduce poverty, the Imo State Government has ensured that 6,983 people from nine local government areas in the state received their May/June N5,000 stipends under the federal government conditional cash transfer scheme.

The Special Adviser to the Imo State Governor on Sustainable Development Goals/Humanitarian Services, Princess Christiana Udeh who announced the payments in the nine local government areas said the scheme would be extended to the remaining 18 local government areas in the state.

She commended the federal government for its determination to reduce poverty in Nigeria even as she pledged the readiness of the Imo State government to continue to provide a conducive environment for the scheme.

Udeh said that the state governor, Hope Uzodinma was eager to see the scheme extended to all the local government areas in the state for maximum impact.

While reiterating the state government’s commitment to reduce poverty in the state, Udeh advised the beneficiaries to put the stipends into good use.

7,207 were registered to receive the stipends in the shortlisted nine councils.

However, 224 failed to turn up.

Udeh said those who couldn’t receive theirs would be paid in arrears.

In all N69,830,000 was paid to the beneficiaries.

The conditional cash transfer scheme is part of the President Muhmadu Buhari’s National Social Investment Programme.

NSIP is a social welfare initiative which includes the N-Power Programme, the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme, and the Home Grown School Feeding Programme.

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T H I S D AY, T H E S U N D AY N E W S PA P E R ˾ ͯͷ˜ 2020

NEWSXTRA Explosive Device Kills Seven Children in Katsina

Police rescue 14 captives, recovers 30 cows in Katsina Kogi’s pastor shot in a foiled kidnapping attempt Francis Sardauna in Katsina and Ibrahim Oyewale, in Lokoja Tragedy yesterday struck in Yammama, a village in Malumfashi Local Government Area (LGA) of Katsina State, where an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded and killed seven children.

Besides, the State Police Command disclosed the arrest of a notorious bandit, Amadu Yusuf while it rescued 14 kidnapped victims in Kwantawama, a village in Dutsin-ma Local Government Area.

Although a pastor, Sunday Fagbejo was shot in the stomach, the Kogi State Police Command claimed that it foiled a kidnapping attempt along Lokoja -Kabba

highway, reputed for criminal activities, especially kidnapping.

In a statement by its spokesman, Mr. Gambo Isah yesterday, the Katsina Police Command confirmed the explosion, which it claimed, only killed five children.

Isah, a Superintendent of Police, said: “Today (Saturday) being 18/07/2020 at about 11:30hrs, DPO Malumfashi reported that a loud sound was heard inside the farm of one Alhaji Hussaini Mai Kwai.

“On receipt of the information, the DPO led Operation Puff Adder to the scene where there was a suspected case of bomb explosion which killed five young children of one person, by name Alhaji Adamu of Yammawa village, Malumfashi

LGA of Katsina state.

“The explosion also injured six (6) other children who were sitting under the tree inside the farm. The children were said to be there to cut grasses for animals’ feed.

“The injured children have been evacuated to Malumfashi General Hospital for treatment. Scene has been preserved while detectives from EOD and CID are presently conducting their investigations.

Investigation is ongoing.”

However, the police spokesman said preliminary investigation revealed that the children picked a military Grenade and were fiddling with it and as a result of which it exploded.

While the state authorities await

the report of police investigation, multiple sources in the village told THISDAY that the victims were in the farm of one Huseini Maikwai in search of grasses for their domestic animals when the

device detonated.

The explosive device, according to the sources, was planted in the farm by hoodlums, exploded when one of the children hit it with cutlass.

A former councillor of Yammama ward, Isiyaka Abubakar, confirmed the incident in a telephone conversation, saying all the casualties were from the same family.

NCDC: No State Reported New COVID-19 Case in 24 Hours Okon Bassey in Uyo and Hammed Shittu in Ilorin The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) last night disclosed that no state in the federation had reported a new COVID-19 case in the last 24 hours.

The centre however, announced 653 outstanding cases which pushed the total number of confirmed cases to 36,107.

The centre gave the update on its official website last night, putting death cases at 778; active cases at 20,391, discharged cases at 14,938 and samples already tested at 209,446.

It said: “On the 18th July 2020, 653 new confirmed cases and 6 deaths were recorded in Nigeria.

No new state has reported a case in the last 24 hours.

“Till date, 36107 cases have been confirmed, 14938 cases have been discharged and 778 deaths have been recorded in 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.”

The centre gave the breakdown of the 653 new cases reported from 28 states to include 115 in Lagos; 85 in Kwara; 80 in Enugu; 78 in FCT; 36 in Rivers; 35 in Ondo; 30 in Oyo; 28 in Katsina; 19 in Kaduna; 19 Abia; 18 Nasarawa; 17 Plateau;

16 in Imo while Ogun, Ebonyi, Benue, Kano, Ekiti, and Bauchi recorded nine cases each.

Besides, the centre added that Ekiti has six new cases while Gombe, Bayelsa, Adamawa and Osun also recorded four new cases each.

Meanwhile, no fewer than 50 persons were arrested yesterday at a night club in Ilorin, the Kwara capital, by the state technical committee on COVID-19.

The Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee on COVID-19 in the state, Dr Femi Oladiji, announced their arrest at the state’s quarantine centre, where the suspects were kept.

Oladiji explained that the operation was led by the state Deputy Governor and Chairman of the Technical Committee on COVID-19, Mr Kayode Alabi.

“Around 1:00 a.m., we got information that some people were clubbing at Kwara Hotel.

The deputy governor was with us. Some security officials raided the club and we arrested so many boys and girls within the age range of 20 to 30.

“Around 2:00 a.m., we brought them to the Hajj camp (Quarantine Centre). We made them comfortable overnight, and early this

Cleric Commends Tinubu for Funding Indigent Students Chibuzor Oluchi in Lagos General Overseer, Gospel Herald International Churches, Dr. Caleb Ayanwusi yesterday commended the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, for his commitment to the welfare of indigent children.

Ayanwusi, also Medical Director of Best Samaria Hospitals, said Tinubu’s commitment to the welfare of indigent children was demonstrated through the numerous special primary and secondary schools he established in all the 57 Local Council Development Areas in Lagos State.

He made the remarks during the unveiling of the Caleb Ayanwusi Foundation (CAF) at his Isheri residence yesterday, noting that the foundation “is an intervention for the indigent, the less privileged and vulnerable in

Lagos and other states with the presence of his church.

Ayanwusi told the small gathering of family members and well-wishers that he was highly challenged and motivated by the efforts of Asiwaju Tinubu who sited three of these schools in Alimosho, Nigeria’s most populated local government with over two million residents.

He noted that the APC leader built the schools in Alimosho taking full responsibility for their running; including paying for all the expenses of the students from feeding to tuitions, health, sporting, school buses and other miscellaneous expenses.

Ayanwusi said: “I got to know that Tinubu established and is funding the schools when a student from one of the schools, Meric Victory Schools, located in Idimu area, Alimosho LGA was referred to his hospital for surgery.

morning, we took their samples for COVID-19.

“The arrest, which may lead to prosecution, is to send the signal that we cannot tolerate such conduct. Violations will henceforth attract strong response from the government.”

Oladiji insisted the ban on night clubbing was still in force “to prevent further spread of the virus. The action of the clubbers violated the Kwara State Infectious Diseases Regulations 2020.”

FOR HEALTHIER ENVIRONMENT L-R: Permanent Secretary, Office of Environmental Services, Mrs. Ronke Odeneye; Lagos State Deputy Governor, Dr. Kadri Obafemi Hamzat; Permanent Secretary, Office of the Deputy Governor, Mrs. Yetunde Odejayi and the Chairman, Lagos State Health Service Commissioner, Dr. Adebayo Aderiye during the Year 2020 Tree Planting Day held at the Lagos State Isolation Centre, Gbagada General Hospital, Gbagada.

NAF Releases Preliminary Report on Arotile’s Death Today Kingsley Nwezeh in Abuja and Oluchi Chibuzor in Lagos The Nigerian Air Force yesterday disclosed that it would provide a preliminary report of investigation into the death of Flying Officer Tolulope Arotile.

However, the Joint National Action Civil Society Coalition has called on the federal government to undertake a full forensic investigation into Arotile’s unfortunate death.

In a statement yesterday, the NAF disclosed that two suspects were arrested in connection with her painful death. According to the statement, the suspects are her friend, who drove the vehicle and a companion.

Arotile, the first female combat helicopter pilot in Nigeria, died in car accident in Kaduna. The NAF had said that Arotile was killed by a friend’s car, which was reversing towards her in a bid to greet her, having not seen her for a long time.

Her demise has elicited an outpouring of grief across the country for a pilot, who was only inducted five months ago.

She was also involved in combat missions targeted at armed bandits in Niger State as well as other missions against insurgency.

But the statement said: “the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) will tomorrow (today) 19 July 2020, hold a press conference to give details on the outcome of its

preliminary investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Flying Officer Tolulope Arotile which occurred on 14 July 2020”.

Her death has also triggered conspiracy theories that she was killed in cold blood. Her family had also called for a thorough investigation into her death.

But the coalition called on the federal government to undertake a full forensic investigation into the unfortunate death of flying officer The coalition comprises Global Rights Nigeria, SBM Intelligence, International Peace and Civic Responsibility Centre, Foundation for Environmental Rights, Advocacy and Development, Socio-Economic Research and

Development Centre as well as the House of Justice.

In a statement by the Head of Global Rights Nigeria yesterday, Abiodun Baiyewu, the coalition said unravelling the circumstances would boost morale in the fight against terrorism.

The coalition said the call became necessary given the strategic importance of her position to national security, and the various versions of how her death occurred that have emerged in the public domain.

It urged the federal government, the Nigerian Armed Forces and the police “to undertake a thorough investigation, including commissioning a coroner’s inquest into her death.

Innoson Motors: Ubah Demands ‘Proper’ Apology from Utazi Tobi Soniyi As the controversy over alleged de-marketing of Innoson Vehicles continues to rage, the Senator representing Anambra South, Patrick Ifeanyi Ubah has demanded an unreserved apology from his colleague, Senator Chukwuka Utazi over his point of order on the floor of the Senate alleging that a senator had tried to de-market the indigenous vehicle manufacturing company.

Utazi, representing Enugu North Senatorial District, had already written two letters of apology to Ubah.

However, Ubah rejected the letters and demanded that an unreserved and unambiguous apology be tendered on the floor of the Senate just as he insisted that Utazi should name the Senator who had opposed the purchase of

the Innoson brand by the Senate.

In a letter to Utazi dated July 17th, Ubah stated that it was unfortunate that he (Utazi) could descend so low to allow himself to be used to play gutter politics.

Ubah said: ”I write in response to your letters dated 14th of July 2020 and 16th July 2020 wherein you tried to clarify the unfortunate and clueless comments you made during the plenary session of the 9th Senate on Tuesday, July 14, 2020 over an unverified and fake social media story.

In your letters, you maintained that the Point of Order you raised on the Senate Floor was never directed at me but was made to protect the interests of Igbo businesses.

“While I commend your acknowledgement of the importance of promoting the Igbo economy which is my core mantra and one of

my utmost priorities in the National Assembly, it is unfortunate that you failed to mention the Senator who committed such an unpardonable act by opposing the procurement of vehicles made by Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing (IVM) Company Limited (a company situated in my constituency, Anambra South) during a Senate Transport Committee Meeting which I am neither a member of, nor have I ever attended the said committee meeting.”

However, Ubah said it was most unfortunate and sad that Utazi was unable to produce any evidence to prove that the alleged incident to demarket IVM occurred.

He called on the senator to be man enough to apologize and inform Nigerians that he erred by bringing an unverified social media rumour to the floor of the Senate.

“As a distinguished Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, you should have contacted or consulted the leadership of the Senate Committee on Transport or any member of the committee which our highly respected brother and leader from Enugu; Senator (Dr) Chimaroke Nnamani is a member, to find out if such happened; rather you chose to discuss it on the floor of the Senate plenary based on hearsay. This is very appalling and disgraceful!”

He added.

Ubah said he had to respond because a sponsored writer had in the previous days prior to the Tuesday plenary session used a fictitious name to trend a fallacious story that he allegedly kicked against the purchase of Innoson vehicles in a transport Senate Committee meeting.

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JU ͹΁˜ ͺ͸ͺ͸ ˾ THISDAY, THE SUNDAY NEWSPAPER

PERSPECTIVE Paths to Nigeria’s Education Reform Bolaji Abdullahi

E

veryone knows that Nigeria’s education system is in dire need of reform. A few efforts have been promoted in recent years at both the national and state levels. But these are largely business as usual interventions that focus mainly on inputs rather than the systemic issues that have accelerated the decay and hindered improvements. Because most of the interventions tend to prefer spending money, mostly on procurements; they end up delivering perverse incentives that stifle or derail change.

Hence, we have witnessed sundry actions which, merely mimics reform by appearing to be doing something while passing off inputs and processes as achievements.

Reform in the education sector must be anchored on a vision of society and the theory of change that drives that vision at various levels. What kind of society do we want to build? What kind of competencies or skills do we need in order to achieve the society of our vision? At the moment, there seems to be too much lack of clarity or incentives among policy elite at the highest level about what needs to be done and what it takes to bring about the kind of change that is necessary for real progress to happen.

I outline below TEN key issues and ideas that are pertinent in any effort to reform the education sector in Nigeria.

The problem of education is not in education: The major factors that have led to the decline of Nigeria’s public education system are largely exogenous to the education sector itself. They are mostly governance and service delivery issues. The challenge therefore is how to build systems that can deliver the best possible learning outcomes. The architecture of education in our country belongs to a different era of governance and different demographic, social and economic circumstances. It therefore needs to be comprehensively redesigned.

Schooling is not same as learning: Schooling does not automatically translate to learning, just as jumping in a pool does not mean swimming.

Nigeria is reported to have about 13 million children out of school. While this is regarded as the highest number of out-of-school children in the world, it is only a small fraction of the number Adamu, Minister of Education of children who are in school, but are are still fit for purpose; and how many would need to not getting education. If we are able to bring those 13 be re-configured or streamlined in the light of current million children to school today, the world will clap for and emerging challenges. As example, the Universal Nigeria. But in terms of real achievement, this means Basic Education Commission was established in 1999. nothing if we are not able to guarantee that every child Twenty-One years after, it is important to review some of who has attended a school in Nigeria actually gets the underlying assumptions that informed the establishan education commensurate to presumed learning or ment of the Commission, what has been learnt over curriculum experience. two decades and what reforms need to happen in that Too many of our education institutions are not institution itself. about education at all: Education institutions do serve Local Government autonomy and basic education: At purposes that are not about education at all. This, the moment, local government’s control of basic educaperhaps, is the biggest obstacle to any reform. They exist to provide jobs, to boost local businesses, to award tion is merely nominal. However, greater autonomy to local governments could see them play more active or contracts and hand out sundry patronage, to create even dominant role in the delivery of basic education. all kinds of values and benefits for people. This is The big challenge is that we may then end up placing how they justify their existence. They go through the the most important level of education in the hands of motion of teaching and learning but in reality, educathe weakest tier of government. While the core principle tion is merely a pretext. Any attempt at reforms will therefore be strongly resisted by the patronage network, of basic education reform is more decentralisation and local control; institutional capacity at that level remains a including more often than not, parents and the local community, whose children’s education is at stake. Any major threat factor. How then do we reconcile the desire for Local Government autonomy and local control with reform initiative must therefore be able to manoeuvre around entrenched vested interests or be willing to take the need to enforce quality assurance standards and maintain vertical accountability to national and statethem on. level educational objectives?

“A Hippo is not designed to cross the desert”: A Funding is not just about more money: Nigeria undermachine designed to produce iron sheets cannot be funds education. But more money is not as important as used to produce plastic bags without undergoing a what money is being spent on; who does the spending major reconfiguration. Many of our education support and; the point in the ecosystem where the spending institutions and agencies need to be reconfigured for is done. The key principle is efficiency, and the key the purposes of current and emerging challenges. The principle in efficiency is to place resources closest to the Federal Ministry of Education has about the highest number of agencies and parastatals. How many of them point where results is expected. What are those factors

that best determine learning outcomes?

Are the most important factors attracting the most funding? Who determines how these funds are allocated? Who does the actual spending? What are the systems of accountability, across both the vertical and the horizontal lines?

University education is expensive and cannot be free: The only level of education that must be free and universal is the one that is compulsory, which is basic education. Yet, Nigeria is perhaps the only country where parents pay more for nursery/primary schools than they pay for university education. The promise of free higher education is fallacy. Money must follow students. A very important challenge here is to design systems that support indigent but talented students who need university education for career progression. The promise of free university education has created a loselose situation for everyone involved. The institutions are not sufficiently funded; the students are not getting the quality they need to function in the market-place and; the government is over-burdened, funding the management and administration of the institutions rather than education itself.

The Missing Middle: We need to create other pathways to acquiring market-relevant skills at a level below the universities or polytechnics. The absence of these alternative pathways has left everyone with no other options but the university or a polytechnic. Yet, majority of the skills that our economy demands; the kind of jobs that the so-called growthdrivers generate, do not require university or college degrees. Past approaches at developing vocational and technical education are fundamentally faulty. What we need is a coherent, industry-driven vocational and technical education system.

The role of government is to develop the framework for a National Qualifications Standards (NQS). Government does not need to set up new technical colleges.

This would only open up new lines of recurrent expenditure that is not sustainable. Developing a NQS will, among other things, help to address the poor articulation of qualifications and actual skills needed in a workplace, while also facilitating the integration into the formal system, a large number of our population who have acquired their skills informally or who have dropped out school at any stage, thereby creating incentives for life-long learning.

It is difficult, but it can be done: In the orchard of education reform, there is no low hanging fruit. It is like the mythical Chinese bamboo, which takes years of persistent watering and nurturing before it germinates. The disequilibrium that reform creates would also take some years to settle, because it requires a whole range of behaviour adjustments. But it can be done. Brazil participated in PISA (Programme for International Students Assessments) for the first time in 2000. It recorded the worst results of all countries that participated that year. However, by 2009 when it participated again, it gained 52 points; the most progress by any country within a 10-year period. The Brazil experience should motivate us.

Not a minister’s job: Education reform is politically contentious. It therefore requires a high level of political authorisation. It is also complex, and requires different tiers and levels of government, as well as numerous agencies, and organisations pulling in the same direction.

The National Assembly, the State Governments, the Local Governments, the States House of Assembly, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Economic Planning, the Ministry of Labour and Productivity; in fact, the entire country have important roles to play. Therefore, it is only the President of Nigeria that has the coercive strength and the convening power to forge the kind of consensus and collaboration that is required to initiate and sustain the reform envisaged. It has to be his vision and he has to be able to communicate this vision as clearly as possible. This is without prejudice to what State Governors are able to do, and they can do a lot. But ultimately, it has to be the President’s memo.

––Abdullahi is a former Minister of Youth and Sports

Sunday July 19, 2020

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Williams on Buhari’s Anti-corruption War “President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption war is suffering from acute integrity deficiency syndrome and acute intellectual dependency syndrome” – A former Country Representative of Transparency International, Major General Ishola Williams while giving an assessment of President Muhammadu Buhari’s war on corruption.

SIMONKOLAWOLE SIMONKOLAWOLELIVE!

simon.kolawole@thisdaylive.com, sms: 0805 500 1961

Mr President, Take Charge!

D

ear President Muhammadu Buhari, I come to you in peace. Nevertheless, I do not have a nicer way of putting this to you: your government is falling apart. I do not know how to make it sound less brutal.

That is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth — at least judging from where I stand. I have not seen a government so openly at war with itself like the one you have been heading since 2015. I will be honest and say when you were being inaugurated on May 29, 2015, I expected a lot of negative things to be said about your stewardship, but I never for one moment thought you would be accused of heading a government devilled by chaos, indiscipline and corruption.

Where do I start from? Is it the 2017 spectacle when you nominated Mallam Ibrahim Magu as the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and Mallam Lawal Daura, your appointee as the DG of the Department of State Services (DSS), wrote to the senate to counter your choice? Or the latest episode of indiscipline when police officers were deployed to the house of Mrs Joi Nunieh, former MD of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), to intimidate her on a day she was supposed to testify about the massive corruption in the agency? I never knew it would come to this and it breaks my heart to be discussing these curious anomalies with you this morning.

To be sure, Mr President, I do not discount the progress you are making in several areas of our national life. I will be the first to applaud you on the infrastructural projects across the country despite the paucity of funds. I usually tell people that if you were president when crude oil was selling for $100, Nigeria would be one huge construction site. I am definitely impressed with the progress on road construction, the second Niger Bridge, railways and, to some extent, power. I am also very happy that in agriculture, you have taken concrete steps to lift us out of dependency on certain food imports.

That you are also pursuing more key reforms is something I appreciate.

However, Your Excellency, you would also agree with me that Nigerians expected more from you in terms of security of life and property. We thought Boko Haram was our biggest headache when you came to office, but we have witnessed an explosion in farmers/herders clashes and your body language has made many conclude, even if unfairly, that you are treating the herdsmen with kid gloves. Banditry is overrunning the north-west and kidnapping appears intractable.

We can argue from today till tomorrow on the remote and immediate causes of the insecurity, but the long and short of it is that you were not elected to give excuses. All that Nigerians want is result.

Most disturbing, Mr President, is that even your unique selling point — the war against indiscipline and corruption — is becoming a subject of public ridicule. There are a million examples I can cite as proof of evidence but I will limit myself to a few today. Just a couple of weeks ago, Dr Chris Ngige, the minister of labour and productivity, said he had your approval to suspend the management of the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF).

The management wrote back to reject, as it were, your directive. Some of them even reported for work the following day. This is anarchy, Mr President. You would agree with me that this is far below our expectations of you.

The civil wars in your government are an open sore. A few weeks ago, Dr Isa Ali Pantami,

Buhari minister of communications and digital economy, and Mrs Abike Dabiri-Erewa, chairman of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), were at each other’s throat on Twitter over the forceful ejection of NIDCOM staff and property from the building of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). That a government agency will eject another government agency should be enough embarrassment; that you did not take any step to address this (well, maybe you did secretly) is even more disturbing. Things continued thereafter as if the incident was just a rude interruption.

Your Excellency, should we talk about the glaring lack of co-ordination in your government?

On June 16, 2020, Mr Sale Mamman, the minister of power, said he had approval from you to ask Ms Marilyn Amobi, the MD of the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Company (NBET), to proceed on terminal leave. Same day, Mrs Zainab Usman, minister of finance, said she also had approval from you to ask Amobi to serve out her tenure till July 24. Mamman even had an approval from you to appoint a new MD for a company that is under the supervision another ministry!

And, by the way, Usman is the chairman of the NBET board. This is nothing both unprecedented chaos, Mr President.

The power-drunk minister of power had, in December 2019, also suspended the same NBET MD (Good grief! There must be a lot of ogbono soup in this NBET) and the MD of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA). Security agencies were immediately deployed in their offices to ensure compliance. A few days later, the decisions were reversed. This was clear dissonance. When the perpetually power-drunk minister sacked Usman Gur Mohammed as the MD of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) in May, Mr Boss Mustapha, the secretary to the government of the federation (SGF), issued a statement that smelt of exasperation. What’s going on in your government, Mr President?

Your Excellency, by far the most distressing development is that the anti-grant war, which used to be your major feat, is now all over the place. Magu, the anti-graft Czar, has himself been accused of various infractions — some of them contained reports submitted to you as far back as many years ago. Why did it take you so long to act? If indeed those allegations are true, it should be a major indictment on you, Mr President, that right under your nose, all these things were happening and you did not act swiftly. Magu has vehemently denied the allegations, but the way the whole thing

has been handled is damaging to the anti-graft war and hurtful to the EFCC as an institution.

Mr President, are you monitoring the developments in the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC)? Did you hear Prof Kemebradikumo Pondei, the acting MD, tell a senate panel that he spent N1.5 billion as COVID-19 relief on the staff? Did you hear him brazenly tell the committee that “we took care of ourselves”, Mr President? Did you hear him? And he is still in office, Mr President?

That any of your appointees could make such a reckless statement on record shows how low they rate your anti-graft war. If anybody ever told me, Your Excellency, that you would head a government in which such shenanigans are not instantly punished, I would have laughed maniacally.

Senator Godswill Akpabio remains a minister in your cabinet despite his reckless denigration of a woman’s marital status on TV! Grievous allegations were levelled against him and instead of him to go straight to the point, he said the woman had four husbands — pretending to be discussing anger issues when indeed he was denigrating her person in a clear case of sexism.

I doubt he would have said such about a fellow man who had gone through divorces. That Akpabio even took the allegations lightly, turning them into a joke, is also a serious indictment on your government, Mr President. It is very clear that even among your cabinet members, there is no sense of responsibility.

No, Mr President, don’t get me wrong. I am not saying I expected you to stamp out corruption in five years. That would be magic. In my article of July 5, 2015 titled “The One Thing President Buhari Must Do” (five weeks after your government was inaugurated), my key argument was that while you cannot eliminate corruption 100 percent, you can deal with the impunity. I wrote: “If President Muhammadu Buhari would have just a one-point agenda, it should be an all-out war against impunity. In place of War against Corruption, I would propose War against Impunity... There is no corruption-free country in the world. However, what gives Nigeria the gold medal is the impunity.”

I’m afraid to say, Mr President, that the impunity has continued nonstop. The persona you brought into office in 2015 as “Mr Nononsense” is disappearing. “If Buhari catches you” no longer scares anybody, as we all can see. The fear factor is gone. Every day, we hear mind-boggling allegations of financial recklessness, corruption and impunity. We are back to “normal service”. Dear Mr President, you came to office reputed as a president who would act decisively, firmly and swiftly. Where did the rain begin to beat you, Mr President? It’s time to take back your government, rid your cabinet of dubious characters and restore your reputation. We can do with some leadership at this stage.

I will tell you two things, Mr President. If things continue like this, we can only move from bad to worse. One, more ministers and more agency heads will lose control and we will continue to try and settle the matter week in, week out. Also, Your Excellency, remember that you effectively have only two years before 2023 politicking takes over the landscape completely.

Those two critical years will likely be wasted if this drift continues, especially as political forces interested in 2023 will use the cover to try to cancel out one another. That is why you have to take control now, halt the civil wars in your government and come out of your shell to stir the Nigerian ship firmly before it is too late.

Please accept, Your Excellency, assurances of my highest consideration.

And Four Other Things…

RIP, TOLULOPE Flying Officer Tolulope Arotile, Nigeria’s first female combat helicopter pilot, died in a reported “freak car accident” on Tuesday, bringing a blossoming career to an abrupt end. She was flying high, helping her fatherland combat banditry in the north-west and doing the womenfolk proud in a field where they have to be thrice as good as men to be considered good enough.

Sadly, the 24-year-old soldier did not fall to enemy fire. She died in cheap and bizarre circumstances. It is comforting, though, that she lived her dreams. Her father, Akintunde, said when she was little, she pointed to a small aircraft and said, “Dad, one day, I am going to fly that aircraft”. What a loss.

Devastating.

KEEN ON VACCINE It was double good news on Wednesday: it emerged that two vaccine trials are showing good prospects in the race against time to contain the novel coronavirus. The trials in the UK and US indicate that the volunteers developed immunity against the virus, which has sent our world on a downward spiral. UK scientists are so confident that by September, the jab will be ready.

AstraZeneca, the pharmaceutical company, is on standby to roll out two billion doses.

With over 14 million cases and 600,000 deaths worldwide, we can definitely do with the vaccine or cure now. The world needs to go back to as normal as possible in the meantime. Hopeful.

LAWLESS VIPS The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has been complaining publicly about the disgraceful conduct of some Nigerian “big men” and their aides at the airports, where they are refusing to use hand sanitisers and are also not allowing their body temperature to be taken in line with the established protocols. They claim to be VIPs. That’s a big shame. VIP could also stand for “Very Important Patient”, in case they don’t know. With the number of highprofile Nigerians that have been felled by the coronavirus, you would expect normal human beings to respect themselves as well as other people by obeying the simple protocols for the sake of health and safety.

Disgusting.

SIT-TIGHT CLERK The Nigerian civil service rules are so clear — you retire when you clock 60 years of age or on the 35th anniversary of your appointment, except for specialists such as lecturers and judges who are allowed to stay a bit longer because of skill scarcity. But the national assembly would have none of this.

Through some unbelievable amendment, it raised its own threshold to 40 years of service without due process — allegedly to reward Mr Mohammed Sani-Omolori, the clerk, for whatever reason. Sani-Omolori has been fighting tooth and nail to sit tight till he spends 40 years, but even if he spends 50 years, he will still have to retire one day and leave the “ogbono” soup behind.

Myopic.

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