The Pacesetter Frontier Magazine

Category: Opinion

  • All Eyes on Your Excellencies – By Onyema Okoani

    All Eyes on Your Excellencies – By Onyema Okoani

    I am sure you too must have been as pleasantly surprised as I was when the President, Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) stirred the hornet of officialdom in an interview aired on Thursday, June 10, 2021 during The Morning Show on Arise TV.

    The president stated among other things that: “We have killed the Local Government totally. We will send 300 million naira as allocation to a local government, one Governor will ask the Local Government Chairman to sign that he collected 300 million naira but he will give him 100 million naira and the chairman will keep quiet…is that how we will continue?”.

    This is the bane of local government administration in the contemporary Nigeria. Having started with this, let me try to kill two birds with one stone, projectile on the problems and solutions.

    PROBLEMS
    It is an open secret that no single State Governor ever presented a topical issue at the Governors’ Forum concerning local government autonomy with reference to allocations because the independence of local governments spell doom on their “political business.

    This negation of the constitutional laid down position of a three-tier federal structure in Nigeria has remained a major developmental quagmire. The refusal of Your Excellencies to remove their knees on the neck of local government system is a major push and pull factor increasing poverty and destroying governance at the grassroots. From 1999 to date the situation has turned from worse to terrible.

    It seems real, whenever the Governors postulate that the reasons for establishment of Joint Local Government Account is for an equitable distribution of scarce resources because some local governments cannot survive with their own allocation from FAAC. But I stand to be corrected; there is no local government in Nigeria that cannot be self-sustaining, if things are done correctly. The Joint account has never helped the grassroots, it has rather become an avenue created to easily loot public funds and that has been the prevailing norms amongst the State Governors for many years. More disheartening is the way the Local Government Chairmen are relaxed and contented with their situation.

    Added to the injury is the general public. Many seem not to know their right in a democratic setup as we are always busy applauding the third tier Comprador Executives with no clear-cut pattern to governance.

    SOLUTIONS
    I will never pretend to know all the solutions, but in accordance with the constitution, Joint Local Governments Account is wrong and illegal.

    However, lack of political will power from the Central Government has prolonged the issue of Joint Local Government Account. In the past the State Governors contributes or supports any party Presidential candidate through the joint local government funds but now that the Buhari led administration has shown the will power to stop this anomaly through his actions by signing an Executive Order for Local Government Financial Autonomy, it should go beyond that since with the benefit of information at my disposal almost 95% of the local governments funding is through FAAC allocation.

    I expect the Presidency to direct the present Minister of Finance to deduct local government allocations from the source to local government accounts without interfacing with the state government. This would easily actualize the Independent movement of the local governments.

    The federal government should as a matter of urgency present an Executive Bill to the National Assembly empowering INEC to conduct local government elections in Nigeria. These will avail many public-spirited individuals the opportunity to vie for election in the local governments, as against shenanigans of the State Electoral Commission. The basic truth is that every election conducted by State electoral commissions are mere formalities to elect candidates selected by the Governors. These anointed cum select Chairmen are bound to be under the whims and caprices of their Governors. There is this notion that some former Excellencies who are now law makers will frustrate this important constitutional amendment, but I believe that the bill will fly in the present National Assembly.

    From the sidelines, the general public and Labour Union should put pressure on the National Assembly to push for local Governments’ autonomy financial wise.

    With that in mind, we should start doing the work by asking the necessary questions. The Freedom of Information Act, 2011, empowers us to seek for information on how money allocated to our local government is been spent. It is our right.

  • Insider Perspective: Extolling the Uncommonness and Invaluability of the Goals and Virtues of Steve Oruruo Foundation

    Insider Perspective: Extolling the Uncommonness and Invaluability of the Goals and Virtues of Steve Oruruo Foundation

    By Okenwa Cyril

     

    American Martin Luther King Jr., once said ”Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness”.

    Regrettably, humanity is inclined more to inhumanity, greed and selfishness, to wit. Insatiable and horrible selfishness!

    How noble and plausible it is for one to elect to be an apostle of altruism. To this end, we draw a reflection on this Charisma known as Steve Oruruo.

    Hon. Steve Oruruo, to God’s glory is the Special Adviser to the Enugu State governor on Information. Over the years he has earned and sustained himself a reputation and popularity in public domain through captivating brilliance and versatility, exemplary, distinctive and consistent strength of character, high sense of judgement and just mind, prevailing opinions, magic wand of winning ideas, excellent and resourceful deliveries in private life and in public life, giftedness, and humanitarianism. Steve Oruruo has a history of making history. He is The Founder/CEO Steve Oruruo Foundation.

    THE STEVE ORURUO FOUNDATION

    Revered Indian founding father and statesman, Mahatma Gandhi once said *”The best way to find ourselves is to lose yourself in the service of others”* .

    The disciple known as Steve Oruruo is synonymous with charity and philanthropism. The Heavenly Charity Index bears witnesses of his discreet exploits in this regard. One remarkable character trait of Oruruo is that he is studiedly repugnant to advertizing his humanitarian deeds. He has done a lot in the distant past and in recent times that attracted the attentions of both mainstream and social media but he characteristically earmarked strict compliance with his standing instruction not to publish his charitable deeds. Not just that he strongly frowns at media hypes and frenzies, he detests making shows of charitable deeds. For him, it’s making mockery of charity and its author — God; and nothing can be more appalling.

    But here comes the bursting point in his desire to widen the scope and to increase the density of his humanitarian proclivity to the scale of an institution of charity, hence the arduous but fulfilling task of birthing *STEVE ORURUO FOUNDATION* which had been his lifelong dream. Taking it to this higher realm confers on it a corporate status, identity and outlook. Naturally, administratively the activities of the Foundation cannot be concealed; if not for any other reason, to imbibe translucence, elicit support, and encourage emulation.

    Steve Oruruo through his Foundation whose foundation is God, seeks to committedly serve God and humanity, and by so doing, contributorily and actively be playing his own part in this history-making leadership of Enugu State by diligently supporting the administration of His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Ifeanyi Lawrence Ugwuanyi, The Executive Governor of Enugu State whom his Marxist Principle keeps firmly entrenched in a populist ideology that has kept the people at the centre and soul of his governance model.

    In view of this support, Oruruo who in so many other ways is strongly committed and frontal in the support and projection of this administration’s ideals, through this excellent initiative indexes a special layer of support and identification with His Excellency in his triumphant strides in the education sector and in rural development.

    Inclining to the popular axiom that charity begins at home, this renowned public intellectual, Hon. Steve Oruruo who seeks to through his Foundation pull more souls out of the dungeon and ashes of despair, downtroddenness, quandary and disorientation, in one of his recent concerns for educational excellence revival and prioritization in his hometown Akpugo in Nkanu West Local Government Area of Enugu State approached the principal, teachers and students of Akpugo High School, where he in the time past was nurtured, to declare his spirited desire to stir and provoke academic brilliance consciousness, discipline, and sports culture in and among the students. This was borne out of his innate hardline passion for education, discipline and sports. He has never left any in doubt of his strong advocacy and clearheadedness about the renaissances of the trio as vital tools for preparing, developing and engineering the teeming school children and students for a better and prosperous future. For him, the culture shock being brandished by these leaders of tomorrow in these three areas that are critical to their development and future ought to be urgently addressed. His standpoint is that their today should be salvaged, repositioned and structured as a springboard in instilling and guaranteeing hope in an inspiring tomorrow. Correlatedly, being conscious of how connected and devouted his late father, His Royal Highness, Igwe Uwakwe Agbo Oruruo, a consummate educationist who until his recent death was the Chairman of the school’s PTA, was to the school during his lifetime, Hon. Steve Oruruo as a way of giving back to the society chose to uphold in the school one of the paramount legacies of the late sage.

    The world currently evolves fastly, and more so at a supersonic speed. And the era is tagged Digital Age. The speed and trajectory of knowledge drive in this era are steadily on the increase. But dishearteningly, the dispositions of the majority of school children and students in our clime especially in the rural communities smack of nonchalance, chronic laxity, flagrant misplacement of priority, warped educational perception, intellectual apathy, and stark insensitivity and imperviousness to the educational realities of today, and the inescapable educational and survival demands of tomorrow. It is alarmingly worrisome to helplessly watch the rate at which these chaps have with careless abandonement and crass ignominy relegated reading culture, academic hard work, eruditeness, discipline, and passion for sports to the graveyard of apocalyptic wilderness. Implicitly lost in a world of no where, these leaders of tomorrow and their futures urgently need to be salvaged.

    Consequently therefore, out of his burning desire to reverse the ugly and tragic trend, Oruruo, a strong advocate of human capital development, a genius, and an incurable optimist who rose to prominence via a roadmap of sustained hard work and envisioned choice along the noble path of intellectualism, intervenes in his capacity to impact his positive model on the students of Akpugo High School through the instrumentality of Steve Oruruo Foundation. A couple of months ago when he visited the school to make the declaration, crowning his life-changing and incisive turnaround admonition of the students, he pledged to on annual basis be dishing out prizes to best three students per class in the whole school. Such laudable initiative of healthy academic competitiveness and viability among the students surely, creates and instills in their psyches, academic brilliance consciousness and the ambition to excell in life. It is about the soul of their future. It is about developing and framing decent minds that in turn guarantee saner, safer, and more prosperous society.

    Promise made, promise kept.

    That day that would come, surely came. In fulfillment of the promise which historically took place on Thursday the 30th of September, 2021; the world of Akpugo High School was greeted with all the imaginable thrills and booms of a day that would come, a day that was looked up to, a day that has marked a new dawn for the students and their destinies, a day of the students being placed on the threshold of defined life, success and excellence; a day of history. The school witnessed an unprecedented aura of reckoning as the plane of Steve Oruruo Foundation touched down the ground of the school in grand style.

    The event which in all thankfulness to God Almighty for the grace of clement weather and all-round success, was robed and showcased in an uncommon taste and degree of uniqueness. It indeed was a preachment and enthronement of an undiluted gospel of education and intellectualism. What more can be said of the uniqueness when you had the right mix of galaxy of seasoned academics and intellectuals drawn from various disciplines and walks of life not just as resource persons and inspirers to the students but as specially dignified drivers of the occasion from the pointview of hierarchy of the hightable? To mention but a few, the day’s occasion had *Pa Richard Asiegbu*, a retired FRCN veteran and legendary broadcaster as *THE SPECIAL GUEST OF HONOUR*. Pa Asiegbu shall for ages be remembered for standing tall as an integral member of three best ever veteran sports commentators produced by Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) whom I have chosen to tag ‘The Three Wisemen’. What the late Ernest Okonkwo, Emeka Odikpo and Richard Asiegbu did in sports broadcasting remains unrivalled in the whole of Africa. Pa Asiegbu who is currently grooming talents that will soon take the centre stage of broacasting in this part of the world already has his son soaring very high in the noble profession. Also, the occasion had a graceful daughter of Akpugo, Dr. Ifeoma E. Nwafor, Lecturer, Faculty of Law, Godfrey Okoye University, Enugu as *The Guest Speaker*. It was remarkably a splendid flow of educational spring water from an alluring fountain of intellectualism for the rebirth of academic hardwork and brilliance.

    Other dignitaries, intellectuals and academics that graced the event to contribute their own quota of inspiration were Dr. Samuel Nwatu, Dean Faculty of Law, University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus who is an Akpugo indigene; Prof. S. Gozie Ogbodo, SJD, Dean Faculty of Law, Godfrey Okoye University, Enugu who is also from Akpugo; Rt. Hon. Iloabuchi Aniagu, member Enugu State House of Assembly; Rt. Hon. Chinedu Nwamba, also member Enugu State House of Assembly; Hon. Barr. Jonathan Chukwuma, SPA to the Governor; Rt. Hon. Erochukwu Ugwueze, SPA to the Governor; Hon. Colonel Onwubuya, SPA to the Governor; Chief Ikeji Asogwa, Chairman, ENSUBEB ably represented; Hon. Manfred Nzekwe, Commissioner for Youth and Sports also ably represented; Barr. Udodirim Oruruo, former Executive Director, National Orientation Agency; Mrs Amaka Oruruo, wife of The of The Founder of the Foundation; Dr. Clifford Ofor Nnaji, CEO, Fordmarx Nig. Ltd; Dr. Jude Oguejiofor Chukwu, senior university lecturer also from Akpugo; Hon. James Okereke Akadu, House Committee Chairman on Education; Mr. Chibuike Nwatu, senior lecturer, ESUT also from Akpugo. Others were, Hon. John Ogbodo (Johnnynash), Deputy Chairman, Nkanu West LGA; Chief Friday Edeh (FACO), CEO, Castle Majestic Hotels, Enugu; Hon. Ambrose Edeh, the image of the school’s football history and relevant personal sacrifice; Dr. Igatta Thomas Ogbonna, Principal, Akpugo High School; and a host of others who came from far and near. Chief Sir. Nwabueze Nnamani (Ikeoha), The Executive Chairman, Nkanu West LGA understandably couldn’t attend due to the demise of his mother.

    On a very highly regrettable note, another Very Important Personality who kept singing with the date of the event but unfortunately missed out is His Excellency Geoffrey Onyeama, The Honourable Minister of Foreign Affairs. We recall that he was part of the presidential delegation to the just concluded United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in United States. Being a member of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, he is currently observing the mandatory isolation period in compliance with the rules.

    Then came the apex moment which was the presentations of the awards and prizes to the deserving students. To the surprise of everyone, Hon. Steve Oruruo raised the bar of the presentations by drawing up other categories of awards and prizes outside the initial promise. Also additionally as an icing on the cake, those best three students of each class were each recognizably given magnificient Brilliance Award Plaques in the name of, and by the Foundation. The resonating and most significant aspect of the award presentation segment was when Dr. Clifford Ofor Nnaji, The CEO, Fordmarx Nig. Ltd on the spot awarded scholarship up to master’s degree level in any academic discipline of choice, in any university of choice, in any part of the world to a relatively little but super-erudite Master Njoku Joseph who emerged the best student in JSS 1B. It turned out emotional for the chap and the parents, who from investigations are struggling in the low rung of economic ladder.

    Furthermore, Oruruo and his Foundation donated two complete sets of ultra-quality footballing equipment of branded jersies accompanied with football boots, hoses, shinguards, and lots of FIFA graded footballs for both the male and female football teams of the school.

    Hon. Steve Oruruo who throughout the occasion was visibly radiant with joy, in his remarks recognized and welcomed one after the other, all the dignitaries, guests and invities, and indeed everybody that attended the occasion. He once again admonished the students emphasizing that education is the passport to the future. He rounded off by once again eloquently appreciating everyone for coming.

    Leveraging on this golden window of opportunities, it is expected that the lives and mentalities of these lads shall witness a holistic turnaround towards the direction of excellence after becoming graced with the invaluable mentorship, reawakening, talent-moulding, and inspirational touches of this youth-friendly Steve Oruruo. Indeed it is divinely providential to come in contact with him; just as by extention, it is a special privilege for these students through the historic outreach to be exposed to the priceless touches of the topnotch members of the academia, distinguished personalities, legends and veterans that have sacrificially offered inspirations and impacts to them in the extraordinary occasion.

    One significance that insightfully calls for recognition, reflection and appreciation is the groundswell of support that Steve Oruruo and his Foundation received in the historic event. It was incredible to behold the magnitude and cream of dignitaries and personages that squeezed out time from their respective tight schedules to grace the occasion. And also not to talk of the unprecedented large turnout despite being intended to be a closed circuit sort of event. It speaks volumes of the acceptability, consciousness, personality, and hope known as Steve Oruruo whose strongly emerging credo will hopefully soon translate into a trend, a prevailing practical trend that will monumentally throw up the desired changes in our nation, and become cast in gold as a model both for this generation and many more to come in accordance with Divine Will.

    Scientia est potentia

    What more can be said, or how best can it be summarized, Steve Oruruo’s interest and call for the practical conceptualization of the school’s motto by these wonderful and promising students? Scientia est potentia is the Latin translation for ”Knowledge Is Power” which is the school’s motto. Sir Francis Bacon, an ancient British philosopher and statesman could not be truer when he in his work, ‘Meditationes Sacrae’ (1597), published ”knowledge is itself power”. This philosophical statement is an eternal truth that is itself the only nuclear energy that shatters and pulverizes the Jericho Wall called ignorance and its attendant darkness, bondage and doom. Thankfully therefore, ”knowledge is power” being the motto of the school, Steve Oruruo as a voice of reason, reform, foresight and diligence clamours that the minds of the students of Akpugo High School at all times should be vigorously and attentively focused, and encouraged to be focused on this motto. He firmly posits that students should first of all decidedly come to the party with prepared and receptively ready minds for education as a mark of seriousness. It is the fundamental bitter truth they must tell themselves individually. That’s the only way they can complement the efforts of their parents and, or guardians, teachers, and the government in training them to become useful to themselves and the society; more so now that Enugu State is graced with an education-friendly governor in the person of His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Ifeanyi Lawrence Ugwuanyi.

    What a history; and what a way to make it? What a precedent; and what a way to set it? A legacy, an engaging and enduring legacy so priceless to behold. In trailling this blaze in Akpugo High School, with history putting it down in his symbolic name, and posterity upholding it in remembrance of his altruistic self, Steve Oluchukwu Oruruo, a strong character, and a bastion of humility and piety takes no glory or any form of personal aggrandizement. Rather he ascribes it all to God. His only gratification and satisfaction shall be to see the monumental fruitfulness of the whole sacrifice which he hopes to outlive him and this generation. And may God in whose heart he has tabernacled the whole gamut of the endeavour, crown it all with the desired successes, and in return bless him accordingly. These, we ask through Christ our Lord.

    Okenwa Cyril, The 7th Senior Prefect of the school, and renowned Criminologist, this time writes from Enugu. 

  • The Successful Flag Off of Steve Oruruo Foundation- A Domino Effect of Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi’ Investments in the Education Sector

    The Successful Flag Off of Steve Oruruo Foundation- A Domino Effect of Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi’ Investments in the Education Sector

    …Akpugo High School students rewarded for academic brilliance, another bags scholarship up to Masters degree in choice varsity

    By Nnamani Samuel Freeman, Prince Ejeh Josh and Onochie Jon-Igwesi

    A foremost USA female footballer, Mia Hamm, once said: “No one gets an iron-clad guarantee of success. Certainly, factors like opportunity, luck and timing are important. But the backbone of success is usually found in old-fashioned, basic concepts like hard work, determination, good planning and perseverance.”

     

    Going from the above, there could not have been any better opportunity and appropriate time, laced with some touches of good luck to the teeming awardees, than the one benevolently made manifest on Thursday, 30th day of September, 2021, at Akpugo High School, Akpugo, Nkanu-West Local Government Area of Enugu State, by Barrister Steve Oluchukwu Oruruo, SPA to the Governor of Enugu State on Information, through the official launch of his Foundation – STEVE ORURUO FOUNDATION, as an extension, as well as a knock-on effect of both the

    Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi’s uncommon love and sacrifices for education, the results of which are his well-documented giant achievements in Nigeria’s education sector; and his uncommon generosity, through which men; the host inclusive, have been identified and repositioned for greater impacts in not only Nigeria, but in the global leadership trajectory.

    Steve, a suave and stylistic scholar, who back then as a young student of Akpugo High School, Akpugo, rode on the backbone of the tripartite pillars of determination, hard work and diligence to achieve enviable positions in academics, sports, politics, real estate, law and business; even while still enjoying a well-deserved meteoric ascension onto the pinnacle of his already illustrious career, thought it wise to serve his Alma mater and the larger society as the ultimate experiment between nature and nurture, by not just giving back to them once, but setting up a platform for doing so at intervals, even after his life time. Little wonder the event was flooded with the crème de la crème in academics, politics, media, sports, business and other walks of life; illustrating the age-long saying that birds of a feather flock together.

    In his keynote address, the visibly elated Legal Luminary and intellectual maestro, while appreciating his boss – Governor Ugwuanyi, for according him the opportunity to serve in his government, from where he saved up the wherewithal for floating his foundation, and quoting Malcolm X’s axiomatic statement that: “Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today”, directed the attention of the attendees, especially the students, on the need for adequate preparation through dint of hard work and determination.

    Citing himself and other trailblazing old students of Akpugo origin, who, having made it to the top, though, by scraping through the hurdles of intense competition for qualitative education in the village, further enjoined the students to be focused as there is no short cut to academic excellence except through good planning and perseverance.

     

    He concluded by thanking specifically his late father – Igwe Uwakwe Oruruo in whose loving memory the foundation is dedicated, for bequeathing him with sound education, good virtues and other essential life skills without which he could not have become whom he is today.

     

    A guest speaker, Dr. (Mrs) Amaka Nwafor, a lecturer in the Department of Law, Godfrey Okoye University, Enugu, speaking to the students, especially the female ones, reiterated the need for hard work as the only indisputable route to academic excellence. She maintained that though a girl child is unarguably faced with greater deal of societal challenges resulting from gender inequality and consequent stereotyping, she has no pretexts for below par academic performance. She told them that the burdens of child bearing and domestic responsibilities should not deter a girl child, insisting that if she could make it in flying colours, going into her bar exams two days after putting to birth, that no girl child has any excuses for failure.

     

    In his keynote speech, the Chairman of the occasion, a veteran broadcaster and a commentator of high repute, Sir Richard Asiegbu, expanding further on the notes of Dr. (Mrs) Amaka Nwafor on the indispensable need for hard work, though, bemoaning the short supply of critical educational facilities such as well equipped libraries, as a cog in the wheels of academic performance of students, still encouraged them to ‘be very serious with their education’ even with the anomalies. The so much celebrated ‘golden voice on Radio’, Sir Asiegbu, thanked the host – Steve Oruruo, for the rare privilege given him to be part of the life-changing event.

    Shifting attention to the crux of the event –Rewarding the brilliance of the best performing students of Akpugo High School, Akpugo, the best students in each subject and class, from Junior Secondary 1 (JSS1) to Senior Secondary 2 (SS2) were each gifted with educational materials, home appliances and an award presentation, worth millions of Naira, in recognition of their towering efforts in the exams carefully conducted by external examiners, under the auspices of STEVE ORURUO FOUNDATION.

     

    It is said there are no extraordinary men, but just extraordinary circumstances that ordinary men are forced to deal with. This vividly captured the atmosphere when the event rose to an unimaginable crescendo, with a Lagos- based business mogul, Chief Clifford Ofor Nnaji – CEO, Fordmarx Nigeria Limited, while making an award presentation to Master Peter Njoku of JSS 1B on behalf of STEVE ORURUO FOUNDATION, announced to the amazement of the cheering crowd, a scholarship award that will see to the little boy’s education up to his Master’s degree in any university of his choice anywhere in the world. Luck was, therefore, born for little Peter when his hard work crossed the path of his opportunity.

    Also at the event, the duo of female and male football teams of Akpugo High School, Akpugo, sponsored by STEVE ORURUO FOUNDATION, were fully kitted and unveiled to the crowd.

    If STEVE ORURUO FOUNDATION was a colossal success at its official launch, one then wonders what it stands to achieve going forward.

    Other dignitaries at the event include: Dr. Samuel Nwatu, Dean Faculty of Law, University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus; Justice C.C Nweze, Hon. Justice of supreme court; Hon. Chief John Ogbodo (Johnny Nash), Deputy Chairman, Nkanu-West LGA; Hon. Ifeanyichukwu Nnamani, SSA to the Governor of Enugu State on Youth Mobilization; Barrister Ihele Ezeani, Chairman, Nigerian Bar Association, Enugu State Chapter; Hon. Cornelius Onwubuya, SPA to the Executive Governor of Enugu State; Hon. Sir Erochukwu Ugwueze, SPA to the Executive Governor of Enugu State, Hon. James Okereke Akadu, Chairman, ESHA Committee on Education; Professor Gozie Ogbodo, Dean, Faculty of Law, Godfrey Okoye University, Enugu, SPA to the Executive Governor on Agriculture, Engr. Mike Ogbuekwe, etc.

  • Nigeria @ 61: The time for reflection

     

     

    ON Friday, October 1, Nigeria will be 61 years. Whether in the life of an individual or a nation, diamond jubilee is a milestone. Adding one more year is even more consequential and ideally, the drums should be rolled out. But that will be ill-advised. Why? Because there is nothing to celebrate right now.

     

    Agreed, there are some who will argue that the fact that Nigeria still remains united even after a brutal 30-month fratricidal war is enough reason to push the boat out. But when a country is held together by force of arms and not the consent of the federating units, the sense of unity becomes delusional.

     

    Others use the incredible accomplishments of Nigerians – men and women – in the arts, sciences, sports, technology and commerce – as a totem pole to hoist the country’s greatness. But while it is true that Nigerians, individually, are excelling globally, they are pulling off those extraordinary feats in spite of, not because of the opportunities provided by the country.

     

     

    Truth is, Nigeria, 61 years after independence, has become a graveyard of creativity and innovation. Rather than promote excellence, the country rewards indolence and stifles ingenuity. Nigeria is a killjoy, which explains why most professionals – doctors, nurses, engineers, teachers, journalists, etc. – are fleeing abroad in droves.

     

    But it has not always been like this. Time was when the country was a beacon of hope for the rest of not only Africa but the Black race. Today, countries that we were at the same level with or even better off at independence have all left us behind. At 61, countries that are not as endowed in terms of human and material resources are now far ahead.

     

     

     

    Something went tragically wrong. The prudish weaponisation of the country’s fault lines by self-serving leaders is to blame. The problem didn’t start with President Muhammadu Buhari, but his lack of capacity to manage the country’s diversities has made it worse.

     

    So, even if the government is inclined to celebrating, majority of the citizens are not in the mood. Faced with existential crisis, an average Nigerian would rather think of how to survive than celebrate a country that has offered no more than tears, blood and sorrow in the last six years.

     

     

     

    Nigeria is not working. The country is more fractured today than it has ever been in the last half century with all the primordial fault lines that define our interactions as a people of diverse ethnicities and religious inclinations on full parade. We humour ourselves when we claim that Nigeria is still the giant of Africa. It used to be. Not anymore. At 61, there is nothing great about today’s Nigeria.

     

    A country where the leadership of the national integration agency, the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, is advising youths serving their fatherland to always let their people keep aside money for the payment of ransom to kidnappers in case they are abducted while travelling to places of their primary assignment is a failed state.

     

     

     

    A country that is the poverty capital of the world is not great. In October 2019, the World Poverty Clock stated that Nigeria with an estimated population of about 205 million people had overtaken India with a population of 1.366 billion people as the country with the most people living in extreme poverty – that is on less than $1.90 or less per day.

     

    In 2020, data provided by the same group showed that rather than lifting people, more Nigerians had been plunged into extreme poverty with the numbers rising to over 105 million, representing 51 per cent of the population.

     

     

     

    Nigeria’s case is pathetic because poverty is actually on the decline globally as statistics indicate that since 1990, one-quarter of the world has risen above extreme poverty with estimates for global poverty hovering around 8.6 per cent. In fact, India’s extreme poverty population of 84 million people as at 2019 is reducing. The reverse is the case here. And it can only get worse because as economists say, poverty is a cyclical trap. For people to rise above it, they need education, proper health care, access to clean water and job opportunities.

     

    Nigeria is deficient in all these. Presently, the country has the highest number of out-of-school children in the world and one of the lowest life expectancy rates due to inadequate healthcare. Nigeria at 61 plumbs the depths of misery and destitution because none of the major indicators of Human Development Index, HDI, – life expectancy, expected years of schooling, Gross National Income per capita for standard of living – is currently in the green zone.

     

    When Nigerian leaders insist, as Vice President Yemi Osinbajo did on Sunday, that though the country currently faces security, economic, religious and ethnic challenges, the collective vision of a united, peaceful and prosperous Nigeria remains undefeated 61 years after independence, they play the ostrich.

     

    There is no such collective vision as espoused by Osinbajo right now. There used to be but it has long been stymied.

     

    Building a united, prosperous and peaceful country takes more than preposterous clichés. While the Vice President’s exhortation that “our current trials cannot draw the curtains on our story … because this country is greater than the sum of its parts and the sum of its mistakes,” is good music to the ears, it is empty rhetoric. His grandiloquence may have impressed his audience – the political and religious elite – but it made no difference on the streets, where it matters most.

     

    The streets are boiling. Students can no longer go to school in some parts of the country. Many are still held in captivity in sundry evil forests across the North-West. Travelling on Nigerian roads has become suicidal. Dr. Chike Akunyili, widower of Prof. Dora Akunyili, former Minister of Information, was gruesomely murdered in Anambra on Tuesday. He went to Onitsha to present a paper and receive an award at the memorial lecture put together by some civil society organisations in honour of his late wife. He never made it back alive.

     

    The gory stories are many. And nobody pays for these atrocious crimes. Some people rationalise this anarchy by saying that many more people are killed on the streets of New York, USA and Johannesburg, South Africa than in Nigeria. Assuming, without conceding that is true, the difference is that chances are such heinous crimes will not go unpunished in those countries no matter how long it takes. In Nigeria, there is no justice for the dead.

     

    At 61, Nigeria remains a country torn apart by religious and ethnic strife, bloodcurdling insurgencies and banditry and benumbing economic challenges – a country in darkness. Sixty-one years after independence, Nigeria is on the brink. Some people are of the view that saying so is tantamount to de-marketing the country. Maybe!

     

    The flipside though is that not admitting that Nigeria faces existential crisis is to bury our heads in the sand believing that no one is seeing us. That is a dippy game to play in the circumstance.

     

    Those who howl against agents of secession without acknowledging reasons for such agitations are not sincere. Why would a man of Prof. Banji Akintoye’s standing suddenly become a Yoruba self-determination enthusiast? Why has disintegration become an option to many 51 years after such quest by Ndigbo was collectively quelled?

     

    There is no arguing the fact that incalculable harm has been inflicted on the national psyche. Nigerians should use the opportunity of the 61st anniversary of independence to introspect. Where did the rain start beating this once promising country? This should be a time for stocktaking.

     

    What are the prospects of pulling the country back from the brink? Can Nigeria rediscover itself? These are the questions that should concentrate all minds.

     

    The national response to the Buhari presidency and the demons it has unleashed on the country may be the last chance to get it right. But it won’t be by mere wishful thinking. As 2023 beckons, there must be a conscious effort to walk away from Buhari’s tunnel vision and nepotism.

     

    Conscious effort must be made by all to build a nation around a vision that promotes common good. Fairness, equity and justice must be the pivot around which any agenda to save Nigeria revolves because sustenance of the Nigerian Federation demands a union of equals.

     

     

     

     

     

    Source: www.vanguardngr.com

  • Electricity Bill 2021: Senate passes second reading on investment barriers in power sector

     

    A new Senate bill meant to eliminate the current barriers hindering private sector investment in the power value chain passed second reading on the floor of the red chamber on Tuesday.

     

    It was titled, ‘Electricity Bill 2021.’

    The sponsor, Senator Gabriel Suswan, said that when passed, the proposed legislation will attract the funds needed to address the current funding gaps confronting the industry since the privatisation of the power sector.

     

    He said that all the constraints had received various interventions by the executive and legislative arms of government over the years.

     

    “The challenges have continued to threaten the viability of successor companies, including their financial capacity to invest in network improvement to guarantee reliable power supply as envisaged in their respective performance agreement,” Suswan noted.

     

    The senator said that the Electricity Power Sector Reform Act 2005 was fraught with gaps and shortcomings that made it unsuitable to adequately regulate activities of market operators and participants in the post-privatised phase of the industry.

     

    He also stressed the need to consolidate all legislations in the power sector into one electric statute in order to align regulatory responsibilities and ensure clarity of statutory roles for ease of compliance with regulatory requirements by operators.

     

    “What is, however, required at this point is an ideal legal framework that will stimulate the deployment of relevant regulatory and policy measures.”

     

    He said such law would accelerate growth in power generation capacity, improve utilization of generated power through investment in new technologies that would enhance transmission and distribution of generated power.

     

    He said the bill when passed, would provide the framework for power diversification through the use of cleaner renewable energy sources such as coal, wind, sun and ensure sustainable energy mix.

     

    The lawmaker added that the piece of legislation when re-enacted would also eliminate current barriers to private sector funds investment across the power value chain and attract the funds needed to address the current funding gaps confronting the industry since the privatization of the power sector

     

    He said the available industry information indicates that countries that have gone through power sector reforms have realised the need for a comprehensive electricity laws that deal with post privatisation issues that were not contemplated by the reform legislation.

     

    Suswan said the bill had taken care of all issues that require policy, regulation and statutory guidance in the Nigerian power sector

     

    He said, “Part IV of the bill provides a clear guide on the unbundling of the Transmission Company of Nigeria into the Transmission Service Provider and Independent System Operator in accordance with its licence.

     

    “Part VII. VIII. IX. X are concerned with critical issues to the electricity industry like electricity transmission, electricity distribution and electricity tariffs respectively

     

    “Under parts V and XV of the Bill, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission and the Rural Electrification Agency retains their roles as regulator and coordinator of rural electrification respectively.

     

    “Part XVII of the bill provides for the two establishment Act relating to the Nigerian Electricity Management Services Agency and the Hydroelectric Power Producing Areas Development Commission respectively.

     

    He said the bill canvassed for the establishment of the Electricity Disputes Appeal Tribunal, which would compose of judicial and technical members to speedily resolve appeals arising from decisions of the Commission and other matters defined under the jurisdiction of the Tribunal. Appeals.

     

    He said the bill would diversify the power sector to accommodate cleaner renewable energy sources, as well as boost investment from private sector participation.

     

    He recalled that the Electric Power Sector Reform Act, 2005, provided the legal and institutional framework for the reform of the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry initiated and implemented by the Federal Government between 2001 – 2013.

     

    The Electricity Bill, 2021, after scaling second reading was referred by the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan,  to the Committee on Power for further work.

     

     

     

     

     

    Source: www.punchng.com

  • Ozigbo, Anambra And Tomorrow

    Ozigbo, Anambra And Tomorrow

    By Oseloka H. Obaze

    Often, while the past is fraught with bleak history, the future is poignant with imponderables. That cliché fits well into Anambra States governance narrative and leadership needs. A slew of well known names aspire to lead Anambra come 17 March 2022. The qualifying election is scheduled for 6 November 2021. Everyone in the race is running against a glaringly poor APGA governance record from 2014 to date.

    The choice of who leads Anambra state in 2021, is now well beyond debate or academic exercise. It is an existential question for the Anambra population. History should serve as a guide. For the past seven years, Anambra has been a case study on lessons learned and hugely missed opportunities. The only apt word for defining governance in Anambra since 2014, is “mistake”.

    The choice in 2014, has been affirmed as utterly mistaken. The incumbent Governor, Willie Obiano wrote his own testimonial. The governance scorecard is most unflattering. The decision to keep him in office in 2017 after the first dismal four years was consequential, negatively speaking. It was a factor of a blinkered choice foisted and fostered by traditional emotionalism. Anambra is worse off for it. While the incumbent will bear the historical burden, vicarious responsibility goes to the supporting cast from all sectors.

    Obaze and Ozigbo

    Since 2014 good governance has eluded Anambra State, despite cosmetic approaches, sloganeering and governance by billboard and media hype. The concrete results are less tangible and less evident, both in-terms of soft power dividends and hard power accruals. Even the touted security sector has suffered evident severe reverse.

    Now for Anambra, another opportunity beckons.

    Of the contesting lot, just one person will elected. If the choice is left entirely left to Anambra people, it ought not to be a hard sell or difficult choice. Anambra needs a focus, disciplined, down to earth administrator to guide her henceforth. That person, should not be concerned about politicking, but about good governance, period.

    The reality is that Anambra stands broken – in infrastructure, governance, as well as morally and fiscally. The state needs to be fixed, very badly, considering that the governance record of ruling APGA party and incumbent Governor Willie Obiano has been nothing but abysmal. This view is bereft of sentiments and partisan fervor. One must call a spade a spade. Already, erstwhile supporters of the APGA regime are jumping ship or recusing themselves, lest they become guilty by association.

    Of all those qualified candidates who hold party governorship tickets, only one person, Valentine Chineto Ozigbo, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) flag-bearer is eminently qualified on all accounts to lead Anambra going forward. The underpinning qualifier, is not just the credentials, it is a mix of experience, credentials, personality, global worldview and the ability to effectively run the state as an enterprise based on global best practices.

    For her inscrutable candidate, APC’s record at the Centre is an albatross. Such record will not sell at Nkwo Nnewi, Onitsha or Eke Awka. It won’t even sell in Chris Ngige’s hood of Allor and Nnobi. Anambra is not an APC State. It has never been and will not be going forward. A Supreme Court reprise of its affront in Imo, is not possible here.

    The ruling APGA’s poor governance record rules her out. No one rewards poor leadership. Regardless of who is her eventual candidate, APGA is toast.

    Moreover, Prof. Charles Soludo, who seeks the Anambra mandate under APGA, must now deal with the inconvenient truth; when Anambra was going down the road to perdition and prebendal abyss under Obiano in 2017, rather than speak truth to power and to the Anambra people, Soludo engaged in self-serving obfuscation, by claiming that “IF IT AIN’T BROKEN, WHY FIX IT?” So if Anambra is not broke and broken, rotten, filthy, decrepit deeply indebted and underdeveloped, what is Soludo coming to solve and why does the state need his solution?

    The other parties and their hopping, knee-jerk and forum shopping candidates are in the race only to fill up the rest of the racecourse track. Most of the parties are minor leaguers bereft of grassroots support base or fans, albeit with deep pocket maverick candidates. Try as they may, no one will entrust Anambra to another egocentric persona.

    Anambra is a hub begging for good governance.  The material, human capital, revenue  and fiscal resources required to effectively run the state exist, despite its having been recklessly dragged into a debt peonage.  What is needed, is a transformative, adaptive, purposeful and caring leader.

    From a policy and governance perspective, Valentine Chineto Ozigbo (VCO) of PDP offers the best possible platform and grand strategy for rejuvenating Anambra and setting her on the part of sustainable development.

    From the hard copy and televised defense of his Manifesto, it can be gleaned that Ozigbo is on his marks, set and ready to hit the ground running, in governing Anambra. Indeed, a glimpse into his mindset and template of the policies and programmes he plans to execute in his first 100 days is quite revelatory.

    With Valentine C. Ozigbo, Anambra and her progressive future and development will become fungible as well as inextricable. And that is why I have endorsed Ozigbo for Governor. The campaign and race for Agu Awka 2021 is that simple.

     

    ——————-

    Obaze, the PDP 2017 Governorship Candidate, wrote from Awka

  • An anxious wait as CBN launches CBDC (e-Naira) on 1st Oct

     

    With a few days to the official launch of the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), eNaira, in partnership with Bitt Inc, Nigerians are anxiously waiting to experience a new banking product touted to be a game changer on the local business landscape.

    When the Director of Information Technology, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Rukiya Mohammed, mooted the idea few months ago, it was greeted with mixed feelings. While some people believed it would be a federally administered cryptocurrency, many others, especially the illiterate population, thought it was just another bogus hoax meant to titillate them.

    According to records, 85 per cent of Central Banks globally are working dedicatedly on their digital currencies by gradually weaning themselves off rapidly-declining cash payments; and this forms the reason the CBN joined the fray so that Nigeria is not left in the lurch.

     

    According to the CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, the eNaira, among others, seeks to help it achieve the apex bank’s monetary policy and financial inclusion objectives. It is also expected to increase the exchange of currency and facilitate cross border trade at a lower cost, especially when more countries unveil their own digital currencies.

     

     

     

     

     

    Source: www.sunnewsonline.com

  • Chief Barrister Uwakwe Azikiwe’s Birthday: The Making of a Modern Legend

    CHIEF BARRISTER UWAKWE AZIKIWE’S BIRTHDAY: THE MAKING OF A MODERN LEGEND

    By Prince Ejeh Josh, Esq.

    In the immortal words of the renowned American novelist, Chuk Palahniuk, “The unreal is more powerful than the real, because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it, because it is only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles, wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on.” In the last couple of years, perhaps the past six years that I’ve come in contact with Hon. Chief Barrister Uwakwe Azikiwe, the son of Nigeria’s first President, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, I’ve always been convinced of the legendary status hanging delicately like the umbilical cord around his neck. This can be fathomed through his uncanny display of character of moral fortitude, uprightness and insistence on integrity, due process and transparency at all times.

    Barrister Uwakwe believes in living a simple but impactful life. From all indications, his humble lifestyle does appear the young elitist doesn’t see himself, or rather, could have preferred not to accept the fact that his actions have always given him away as a contemporary legend. We’ve got overflowing testimonies from members of the public on the impact of Uwakwe on their lives. Today, his inspiratory life has given youth credible confidence to aspire greatness and to look up to him.

    Few months ago, I made a post of appreciation. I had marched back from the Nigerian Law School after the strenuous two years of legal training. The journey was supposed to be a year walk. Thanks to Covid-19, it ended two years. Anxiety. Anger. Frustration. Intellectual fatigue occasioned by the Nigerian Law School’s suspense of putting students in the dark, leaving them to conjecture imaginary date of resumption and non-resumption, or voyaging a fruitless journey of deciphering the thought of the legal institution. Our clairvoyance, after all, ended up the opposite direction to the institution’s directive. In February, we were marched back to our campuses. Time-table was adjusted. In less than two months, we went into the labour room. The fear of failure became the beginning of wisdom. Sadly, more than a thousand failed. It was an ugly outing.

    Throughout that period, I was never alone. Some people were reaching out to me. It was, indeed, a sort of courage that I could do better despite the stress. It was a week exams. We checked out. The results were published. It was awful. However, some of us made it with outstanding colourful outing. We headed Abuja in preparation for the call to the bar ceremony. Finally, we “put on our wigs”. We were addressed as Barristers and Solicitors of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. We escaped from the status of untrained and unlearned to specially trained and learned virtuoso. It was a dream come true. In all this, the journey sailed because I had some people standing high as my pillars: financial, social, spiritual and moral.

    One of the persons I had specially recognized during my thanksgiving is Chief Barrister Uwakwe Azikiwe, the Special Adviser to the Governor of Enugu State on Special Duties, renowned administrator and successful entrepreneur. After the post I made, I received some messages on my personal email with people expressing excitement that our path crossed. Many said they had longed for an opportunity to meet him, and perhaps, have some progressive interactions. For them, that window will be legendary.

    I had assured those striving to meet him of Barrister Uwakwe’s simplicity, and humane approach to life. Notwithstanding his high standing in life and the Olympian height people ordinarily expected him to operate, the tactical and strategic intellectual lawyer would not allow that to define his relations with members of the public. When he first came to office, all we saw was a tall, colourful, succulent and towering figure. We saw an Aristocratic-Platocrat. He’s the replica of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, and since the named had assumed the uncommon status of a mystical being, it became a privilege seeing the fruit of the former nationalist and Nigeria unifier. Soon, Uwakwe showed us his true colours. He caught us unaware and altered our perception. Quite interesting indeed.

    It was the colour of love. The colour of philanthropy. The colour of integrity of character and scholarship, and the colour of simplicity. We saw a man gently doing ordinary tasks in extra- ordinary way, and we could not but love him. Making a legend out of him is simple, and we have no doubt about it. Uwakwe has always shown responsiveness to the cause of humanity. He speaks for the voiceless and defends the defenseless. What more could have been more legendary than that!

    Today, as the philanthropist celebrates yet another year, we’re afforded the opportunity to identify with him and say; thank you for reaching out and for standing gallantry for justice in a society of elitist conspiracy. We say, thank you for standing out and for your continued self sacrifices for the love of humanity.

    What do we wish such a legendary posture? An amazing happy birthday to the great mind. May God’s love perpetually be upon him and upon his family. Happy Birthday, Boss. Congratulations and best wishes.

  • Opinion: Frankly, FFK mirrors who we are

    Opinion: Frankly, FFK mirrors who we are

    By Ike Abonyi

    “With what we have witnessed, I would rather die than join a filthy, rat-infested, sinking ship like the Almajiri People’s Congress, APC.” -Femi Fani-Kayode

    If politicians had their way, most of what they say or do would suffer permanent delete. That way, no one would remember to hold them accountable for past actions and or utterances. Foul-mouthed Femi Fani-Kayode, nicknamed FFK, falls squarely into this category. Now aboard “a filthy, rat-infested, sinking ship,” [to use his words], FFK would wish to “unsay” all his past comments about the President and the ruling party, APC. Alas, wishes are not horses! And “yabis” [apologies to Afrobeat king Fela Anikulapo-Kuti] time is over. With what we have witnessed [his words again], it is now clear that APC, like a drowning man, clutches for the nearest straw.

    It wants to cling to power even if it has to wine or dine with the demon. In desperation, APC and President Muhammadu Buhari do not mind on board even political wayfarers with incredible baggage. It is certainly for the same reason that they have spent months lately trying to woo and entangle former President Goodluck Jonathan, the man they worked four years to undo. But he has now become an irresistible bride.

    Irresistible because he is fitting into the game plan of new political exigencies. Now, they are even hobnobbing with their most vitriolic critic, Femi Fani-Kayode, the man who is notorious for deriding and scoffing at the ruling party. The APC fold is the camp of political sojourners and settlers in search of safe havens. This fact was long confirmed by the former National Chairman Adams Oshiomhole that in APC is found a congregation of all kinds of characters, as thieves and brigands are welcome. Even integrity-challenged persons find space when they come. So are people of little electoral value. Who then can APC and Buhari shut out? Nobody.

    Do these attributes define who they are and what to expect from them? This week’s musing opens with these posers interrogating the obvious flight of integrity and honour from our polity. And this is happening right under the watch of a man who rode to power donning the garb of integrity and impeccability. After the now estranged Chairman faced the huge backlash of having to lick his vomit trying to sell Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu against his erstwhile boy Godwin Obaseki in the Edo State gubernatorial election last year, one thought a lesson was taught and learnt that politicians should be mindful of their actions and utterances.

    It appears FFK had his ears and eyes closed to all that Edo lesson. When the political ‘Holy Spirit’ knocked on his door, he found himself reversing those things he had vowed can only happen over his dead body. When that kind of spirit took hold of Comrade Oshiomhole, he never heard any other noise until he was down and out into the Siberia called oblivion. Last week, the ‘Holy Spirit’ visited gabby and prolix FFK and he was in the Aso Rock Villa right before President Buhari, smiling and bowing before the man he had used noxious adjectives to qualify.

    In our polity, integrity and honour have become scarce. That is why the shock of FFK’s porting from PDP to the ruling APC should not be taken seriously…no cause for alarm. Seeing a pig dirty and rough surprises no one. Surprise is when an eagle gets dented. Then only can one begin to worry. This is who we are. Another reason that will help people to forget the FFK porting in a hurry is former President Olusegun Obasanjo. This foremost elder statesman, who first made FFK a minister of cabinet status, had forewarned us… how he can be unsteady when meals are being served and there is a delay of his turn.

    He could be restless but once you serve him you can go to sleep, for he will do whatever you desire from him. Every testimonial Obasanjo gives about his people always comes to light. Recall what he said of Nasir el-rufai: “Nasir’s penchant for reputation savaging is almost pathological; he is brilliant and smart but his weakness is in his inability to be loyal to anybody or issue consistently.” But in a state of despair leading to extreme behaviour to cling to power at all costs, President Buhari and his party are carefree about bringing in flotsam and baggage of all sorts. The President no longer cares about the timetested “show me your friends” wise saying.

    To him, anything that may count towards improved electoral fortunes is welcome. Where conscience is key, what should be done to FFK who, so to say, is consuming his smelly vomit? Now, he is confronted with his past which, back in APC, he lives to contradict henceforth. However, President Buhari’s gracious acceptance of FFK opens up an issue that has been under discussion for a long time. President Buhari may not have been aware of all the criticisms on him. His media managers had always successfully shielded him from those hard knocks coming his way.

    They would naturally respond on his be-half even without his knowledge. Those who believe this theory feel that it’s the reason why it was easy for Buhari to allow FFK right inside his office, posing with the president for the paparazzi. Maybe now that FFK is in the APC dragnet and his previous spoken words on the President and the APC are being relayed to him that he would get to know how dangerous his new ally had been. How his new political paddy had once described the revered Deeper Life Pastor William F. Kumuyi as shameless for shaking hands and smiling with the President in the Villa, the same place he FFK also came last Thursday smiling and bowing scandalously to the man he had traduced since 2015.

    If FFK still has conscience left, it must be very loaded and heavy by now. He should be praying so that he doesn’t get deployed to attack his old friends in the PDP and other parties. If that happens, his life’s contradictions will go full circle and he would not have any image for life. Regarding his careless use of divine words like the Holy Spirit directing him or his previous vow of never to return to APC until Jesus comes a second time, that should not surprise anybody. After all, FFK’s friend who accompanied him to the Villa, Governor Bello Matawelle had joined APC after calling on Allah to punish him if he ever contemplates leaving PDP.

    So these are birds of the same feather who flock together because of unfulfilled vows. Should it, therefore, surprise anyone that Fani-Kayode’s bridge to the Villa is Minister of Communications, Dr Isa Pantami, who besides his Taliban baggage recently became a professor from a university he never worked for. Nigerians should watch out for another shocker from Fani-Kayode, which he does to show his new friends that they didn’t buy a wasted product after all. There are varying dimensions to take home in looking at FFK’s strange movements.

    Besides showing APC’s desperation to remain afloat, it also exposes the hypocrisy of the anti-corruption fight. But all said and done, Chief Fani- Kayode’s character should worry every discerning mind because he is a creation of this system. Something is fundamentally wrong with a society that likes and celebrates a bad man saying good things. The only reason why William Hazlitt said that the only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy is that the repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy. If liars have good memory, maybe they will moderate their lies. If Chief Fani-Kayode’s memory is alive and active, maybe he would have stopped to weigh his utterances and actions in the past before taking this plunge. The reason Buhari will be posing for a photo with Chief Fani-Kayode is that politics makes strange bedfellows.

    If President Buhari and APC can continue to claim modesty and be defending their romance with Chief Fani-Kayode who has demonstrated greatly that shamelessness is a wonderful part of the character, it’s because for the APC even the shameless has an attribute worth tapping. No wonder an American author and Public Relations strategist, Ryan Holiday noted that: “If you are shameless enough, you can sell anything” meaning that in shamelessness there can be a virtue. That virtue is perhaps what APC is looking for in FFK. The plausible reason what Chief Fani- Kayode did is not quaking the society with its possible ripple effects in our moral fabrics is that we are all involved in the sin of dirty politics which are undeniably shameless. Is it not therefore disgusting and a mirror of who we are that a man like this in one way or another found favour with Obasanjo, Jonathan and now Buhari. God, help us.

    Author

     Ike Abonyi

  • EDUCATING THE 21ST CENTURY GENERATION: GOVERNOR UGWUANYI’S PIONEERING AND SPECTROSCOPIC THRUST FOR NIGERIA:

    EDUCATING THE 21ST CENTURY GENERATION: GOVERNOR UGWUANYI’S PIONEERING AND SPECTROSCOPIC THRUST FOR NIGERIA:

    By Steve Oruruo.

    Radical and vocal African –American civil rights activist, MALCOLM X once said that “Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it”

    The developed world has always recognized and understood the close relationship between the standard of education of a nation and ultimately, its level of development. The same unfortunately cannot be said of most developing nations, such as Nigeria.

    A cursory glance at contemporary history unequivocally bears this out.

    On October 4, 1957, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) launched Earth’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, as part of its then incredibly ambitious space program. Sputnik 1 precipitated major global upheavals, not limited to triggering the space race and fomenting heated geopolitical tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union – the infamous Cold War. Less-known fallout of Sputnik 1 was its galvanization of the United States to enact desperate reforms in its science and engineering education in an effort to regain lost grounds. Over 50 years later, the United States has become the world’s undisputed leader in space technology, being joint owners of the international space station and successfully landing both the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers on Mars, a pinch in a slew of exploits.

    The above is one in a myriad of narratives depicting how nations have transformed their social, political, and economic milieu, rising to become global giants, on the heels of strategic tangible and non-tangible investments in the education sector. China’s unparalleled advancement in economic modernization was heavily catalyzed by its conception, prioritization and radical implementation of extensive education reforms, especially in the post-Mao era. Within this period, the government made primary education free and compulsory for Chinese citizens, criminalized the employment of youths prior to the completion of their nine years of schooling, and authorized subsidies for students from underprivileged families.

    When the devastating Korean War ended, 78 percent of Koreans were illiterate; the per capita income was low; and the World Bank considered investing in the country a risky undertaking. Years after overhauling its education system through a concert of smart, innovative government policies and the vibrancy of its partnering private sector, South Korea attained a 98 percent literacy rate by 2017, became a high-income country and a model of thriving economic development.

    In 2008, while addressing an audience of students and faculty at the Mapleton Expeditionary School of the Arts in Thornton, Colorado, Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States was quoted to have said: “In this kind of economy, countries who out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow.”

    The Covid-19 pandemic, which for nearly two years now has continued its barrage of assaults on human lives and institutions, has particularly torpedoed the global education sector, almost sinking the hitherto wobbly ships of developing nations.

    The recent Global Education Summit (GES) held in London on the 28th and 29th of July and interestingly co-hosted by the Prime minister of United Kingdom, Mr Boris Johnson and the President of Kenya, Mr Uhuru Kenyatta, was awake to this new challenge and grim future outlook, and saw several leaders urging countries to take concrete steps such as increasing domestic budgetary allocations to education and adopting modern teaching tools and methodologies to improve learning outcomes. Over $4 billion of the Global Partnership for Education’s $5 billion target in funding was raised at the summit to transform education for the world’s most vulnerable children. Mrs Julia Guiliana who functioned as the co-chair of the GPE instructively urged the five (5) African presidents in attendance to go beyond mere raising of hands in support of the summit to accentuate fundamentally entrenched but pivotal measures, wired to stimulate a renaissance in Africa’s flailing education sector. Indeed, Nigeria according to the Hon Minister of State for Education, Mr Emeka Ifejuba went to London as a partner-country, not a donor-country and may walk away with up to $120 million .

    The nexus between education and national development is apparent, except may be to most of Nigeria’s successive leadership regimes since we gained our independence from the shackles of British imperialism. With what is a mockery of an education system when juxtaposed with global standards, Nigeria is a nation not only sabotaging its economy and tearing at the fragile seams of its cohesion, but also mortgaging its apparently bleak future. Over 10 million children are out of school, many of whom have been constrained by debilitating poverty to win bread for their families while their counterparts in other parts of the world learn the fundamentals of calculus, primary science and digest classic literature.

    Schools in Nigeria from the cradle to the universities are mimicries of 15th century war-torn colonies – visually grotesque canvasses of infrastructural jumble. Teaching and learning are mostly conducted without basic amenities such as conducive classroom spaces, desks, chairs, teaching boards, electricity and running water. Even with the lightning speed of digital innovations, most educational institutions in Nigeria still ‘function’ without computers and reliable internet access, missing out on the indispensable treasures inherent in the new virtual knowledge ecosystem. These, in conspiracy with incompetent administrators, semi-literate teachers and unmotivated students, have defined an abhorrently horrendous Nigerian system of education.

    Yearly, thousands of graduates are churned out from tertiary institutions across the length and breadth of the nation, who lack knowledge of the rudiments in their fields of study, barest minimum intellectual acuity, sophistication of character, and marketable skills. Some of our institutions are not producing educated young people able to put their training into good use. It can do no more then, than turn them into dependent young individuals, forced to pound the streets in search of white collar jobs frozen in the arctic winter of an economy, with retrogressively narrowed opportunities. We have progressively replaced education with paper qualifications. Our young people understand that this is what matters and they do everything within their means, including offering sexual favours to their unscrupulous teachers to obtain paper qualifications that are entirely at variance with the content of their brains. No man should expect to travel in a devil’s express and arrive at a God’s destination.

     

    The buck stops at the table of Nigeria’s political elites, most of whom are unfortunately consumed by their unbridled lust for power and wealth, consciously blind to the progressive rot in almost every sector of the economy and the attendant anguish of their hapless subjects. Nigeria’s billions of petrodollars accrued over the years; a tiny percentage of which would have been more than enough to build a world-renowned brand of Nigerian education, have largely gone to service the selfish greed of a few oligarchs. Budgetary allocation to the education sector, which has been below par for decades, is a syndrome of years of misplaced priorities and utter negligence.

    In 2021, only 6.3% of total budget estimates was appropriated to the Federal Ministry of Education. Despite being way below the new global 20% benchmark set by President Uhuru Kenyatta’s political declaration on education financing at the 2021 GES, some of these funds may be diverted into the personal accounts of individuals who don the guise of leaders and high-ranking bureaucrats while holding Africa’s most populous country hostage. President Muhammadu Buhari’s promise at the 2021 Global Education Summit, to immediately increase Nigeria’s education funding by 50% and up to 100% by 2025, is a step in the right direction but hardly inspires optimism as the populace now appear inured to empty rhetoric, and yearn for more positive actions.

    *The desired destination of Nigeria’s education system is vivid in the minds of the discerning patriot – a self-sustaining factory incubating and nurturing the innately enormous talents of Nigeria’s kids, young men, and women into global leaders of thought, captains of industry and innovators in science and technology. The journey may be far and demanding, but a compass and a roadmap are already being set and refined by the Governor of Enugu State, Rt. Hon. Lawrence Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, one of Africa’s finest visionaries. Elected in 2015 and returned to the Lion Building by a historic majority of votes cast in 2019, education has remained at the core of Governor Ugwuanyi’s transformative leadership thrust. A comprehensive reform of the sector achieved through relentless financing and a plethora of strategic initiatives has led to the total rebirth of Enugu’s education system.*

    Declaring an infrastructural emergency in the sector, Governor Ugwuanyi moved swiftly to give state-owned primary, secondary, and tertiary institutions a befitting facelift. His regime saw to the construction and rehabilitation of thousands of classroom blocks, offices, laboratories, and public utilities in primary and secondary schools all over the state. To complement this, thousands of accessories critical to effective teaching and learning such as desks, chairs, ICT tools, boards, laboratory apparatus, fans, etc., have been massively deployed across the 17 local government areas.

     

    *The glories of the Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT), the Institute of Management and Technology (IMT) and the Enugu State College of Education (Technical) were returned by the Ugwuanyi regime, the reward of steadfast investments, leading to the recovery of lost accreditation for several courses and transition to a degree-awarding institution for the last two. State-of-the art constructions are ongoing at the new site in Ihe, Awgu for the first ever degree-awarding institution in Education in the Southeast. The progress reports at the Esut Teaching Hospital and College of Medicine Igbo-Eno have been flowing with alluring and expeditious consistency; heralding the emergence of the massive health facilities structured in conformity with the dictates of World Health Organisation (WHO. The modernized planning of other edifices within the permanent site of this famous college in readiness for a clamoured take off, remains the cynosure of all eyes.*

    The Ugwuanyi philosophy of education extends beyond the infrastructural domain to human capital development. Recognizing teachers and other civil servants as partners in governance and stewards of the state’s assets, Governor Ugwuanyi remodelled the civil service. He pays the state’s diligent labourers on or before the 24th of every month (safe for a few extremely turbulent months), and was among the first governors to implement the N30,000 minimum wage. The Ugwuanyi regime rewards drive, brilliance, hard work and innovation, exemplified by its recent offer of scholarships up to university level to two students of Government Technical College (GTC), Nsukka, who manufactured two aircraft and an MP3 radio with locally-sourced materials. Several other students and teachers have benefited from similar reward mechanisms which have continued to stir healthy competition.

    Immediate results are seen across Enugu’s education landscape, as quality teaching and learning have become the uncompromising standard in the Ugwuanyi regime. More importantly, solid foundation and blueprint have been laid for upcoming governments to continue along this path to total reformation. The Ugwuanyi regime is not resting on its oars and realizes that a lot more needs to be done before we can attain Ivy League standards. In no distant future when economic realities permit, education must be made legally compulsory for all children in the state; the reward system for teachers needs to be up-scaled to attract the best and brightest into the profession; the curriculum must be redesigned to prioritize STEM education, reflect emerging global modalities and digital tools, and modern methods must be adopted to offer more hands-on teaching and improve learning outcomes.

    In addition, lasting partnerships need to be forged with the private sector to complement the efforts of the government; and incentives must be provided to ignite and sustain the desire for knowledge in kids as they mature from infancy to adulthood. Very importantly also, we must address the daunting language barrier, conceiving breakthrough strategies to make every kid proficient in English language before advancing to the secondary level of education, like their counterparts in other English-speaking countries of the world.

    Fixing Nigeria’s decadent Education system won’t be a mere flight of fancy. It would demand a comprehensive multi-pronged long-term plan, aggressive follow-through, and unwavering commitment by all and sundry. This goal will never be attained if we continue to dwell on our differences as a multi-cultural entity, and keep stoking the flames of ethnic divisions. Nigeria needs in our shores, more leaders like Governor Ugwuanyi, who will envision and work tirelessly towards a functional education system that will attract people from the Americas and Europe seeking the best quality teaching and learning. We dream that this envisaged quality of education will be escalated in volumes, sophistry, proximities and effects.

    Socrates in one of his famous quotes said that *“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”* Governor Ugwuanyi, has without any shred of a doubt, ignited a veritable and systemic education flame. It is hoped that its ripple will continue to cascade down into the future and pave the way for others to replicate.

     

    Steve Oruruo is the Special Adviser to the Governor of Enugu State on Information

  • SECONDUS: ANDONI PDP LEADERS PAY SOLIDARITY VISIT TO RIVERS STATE PDP SECRETARIAT.

    SECONDUS: ANDONI PDP LEADERS PAY SOLIDARITY VISIT TO RIVERS STATE PDP SECRETARIAT.

    Endorse Suspension Of Uche Secondus.

    The leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in Andoni LGA paid a solidarity visit to the State Chairman of the party, Ambassador Desmond Akawor today, August 30, 2021, at State Party Secretariat to register their loyalty to the Party and declear their support to the suspension of the Former National Chairman Of the Party Prince Uche Secondus as a member of the PDP.

    Speaking on behalf of the Leaders the Speaker of Rivers State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Ikunyi Owaji Ibani, stated that the decision of the party was for the over all interest of the PDP to take over power at the National level come 2023.

    The State Chairman, thanked them for their demonstration of absolute loyal to the Party at a time like this, stressing that such display of commitment to the leadership of the Party is worthy of emulation by other LGAs in the State.

    Other Leaders present at the solidarity visit were, the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Prof. Zacchaeus Adango, Head of Service, Barr.Rufus Godwins, Chief Ibiamu Davis Ikanya, the State Organising Secretary Engr.Ofiks Kaghan, the State Ex-officio Mrs Alom Mba, the Former State Deputy Chairman of PDP hon.Charles Awortu, the LGA Party Chairman hon.Titus Jones, the Council Chairman, Barr. Erastus Awortu, the Vice Chairman Mrs Tema Christopher, the National Women Leader Of GDI Mrs Patience Ibiamu and others.

     

    Tambari Sydney Gbara

     

    #picturedByPDPNewMedia

  • Sir Chinyeaka Ohaa’s Child dedication: Chief Evarest Nnaji (Odengene) in attendance

    Sir Chinyeaka Ohaa’s Child dedication: Chief Evarest Nnaji (Odengene) in attendance

    Sir Chinyeaka Ohaa’s Child dedication: Chief Evarest Nnaji (Odengene) in attendance

    On 29th August, 2021 Sir and Lady Chinyeaka Ohaa dedicated their twins, Princess Kassie Kristine and Prince Chinyeaka Christian Ohaa(Jnr) to God Almighty at Methodist Church Cathedral of Unity, Wuse Zone 3, Abuja. Reception took place at Papillon Restaurant, Sheraton Hotel, Wuse Zone 4. As always in any event that has the name of Sir Chinyeaka Ohaa, Odalije, the cream de la cream of the society are in attendance.

    One of the standouts among the personalities that graced the occasion was Chief Evarest Nnaji (Odengene). Chief Nnaji is a renowned Pilot, Businessman and a graduate of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) where he studied Political Science.

    For many months now, the media, mainstream and social, have been agog with articles insinuating that Sir Chinyeaka Ohaa (Odalije) and Chief Evarest Nnaji (Odengene) might contest for the governorship of Enugu State in 2023.

    Sir Chinyeaka Ohaa, whom after 35 years of meritorious service to his fatherland, bowed out gallantly and in grand style recently, is an astute administrator, self-content, unassuming, humble and friendly, with extra-ordinary sense of philanthropy in community service, attributes that endear him to his people.

    He is a builder of men and women. The most powerful factors in socio-political engineering in any society are clear ideas in the minds of, and actions by, energetic men of good will, geared towards human capital development. You find Sir Chinyeaka Ohaa in this class of men. It has been said by many that he is an iconic philanthropist.

    On his own part, Chief Evarest Nnaji (Odengene) is philanthropist of note. Recently, His Excellency, Rt. Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, the governor of Enugu State flagged off the construction of 5.4 killometre Amagunze Asphalt Road, being funded by Odengene.

    The presence of Chief Evarest Nnaji as a godfather to Sir Chinyeaka’s son on this occasion in far away Abuja shows the nature and extent of the brotherhood shared by these illustrious sons of Nkanuland, not minding a potential conflict of interest in the build up to 2023 governorship contest. The other day, both were spotted, sitting side by side, in Holy Ghost Cathedral, Ogbete, exchanging banters during the flag of the 2021Catholic Bishops Conference in Enugu.

    It is the prayer of the good people of Nkanuland that the better candidate of this two illustrious sons of theirs becomes the governor of Enugu State in 2023.

    NKANU EBUKA

    FROM NWENE (ADA OKUNANO)