Thought Revolution Magazine-October 2013

The PATRIOTISM we are YET to KNOW!

My Ghana “Call For Peace” Experience

12 TRUCE. Q&A BIMBO OSUNKUNLE

Wildlife Preservation in Africa

Poverty and Ignorance in the face of the 2015 Elections

ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION: Free

Vol.4 / oct/noV 2013 Edition

FOR THE DESTINIES IN CHARGE OF CHANGE

Matured Social Intervention...Meaningful Social Intervention,

The Mainstream Media and Fruitlessness of Raw AngerBy taiwo akinlami

Contents

MeMoMONGOLIA 6Macabre Metropolitan Motorways 6Lenora Shiroka 7Angela Zhang 7Kayla Cornale, 16 7Paul Rusesabegina 8The Square 103D Printing Pencil 10Animated Bottle Labels 10Carl Lewis And Ben Johnson 11Two brothers killed by the same taxi driver, one year apart 11DR. HAWA ABDI 12DRIUNI JAKANI 12POST-PESSIMISTS 12Egypt to Try Former President Mohamed Morsy In Protest Deaths 13Nelson Mandela released from hospital 13Ghana court dismisses vote challenges, says president ‘validly elected’ 13Iran warns US to stay out of Syria 14Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe sworn in for another term 14Mali capital hit by deadly floods 14UN helicopters strike Congolese rebels 14Pope recalls envoy over abuse accusations 15Teachers protest new Mexico education reform 15Syria strike set to overshadow G20 summit 15

FeaturesMatured Social Intervention ...Meaningful Social Intervention, The Mainstream Media and Fruitlessness of Raw Anger 18The PATRIOTISM we are YET to KNOW! 23Impediments to Self Determination 27Egypt: An evolving front 29

BusinessPrescience 31

The Importance of Entrepreneurial Collaboration in Africa 32African Entrepreneurs on the Global Stage 33

GenerationsEmotionally Balanced: CHECK 1, CHECK 2 37Healthy Mom Healthy Baby.... Before and After Pregnancy 39Child Domestic Helps in Nigeria 41

GovernMent and CitizenPoverty and Ignorance in the face of the 2015 Elections 43Building a National Identity Database in Nigeria 44African Leadership: A Resolve to Africa’s development 46

view PointMy Ghana “Call For Peace” Experience 512013/2014 EPL Season: 53Toxic Relationship 55

BrieFsWildlife Preservation in Africa 59Science And God 60African Beauty 61

PeoPle, PlaCes and eventsThe Victoria Falls 65Passnownow event 67Natural Hair Month Event 6812 TRUCE. Q&A BIMBO OSUNKUNLE 69

art and styleThe New North: 73Our World in 2050 73TR Movies for the month 74Sir Victor Uwaifo 75Accessorized 76Afang Soup 79

trnation.com tR magazine 3

tR Publication

PuBlisherolakunle soriyan (Founder/Principal Transformation Strategist, OSC NG)

editor-in-ChieFtiwalade soriyan (nG)

editor- at-larGeBarrister taiwo akinlami (nG)

strateGy and Business develoPMentadebayo tosin(nG)Bukola ogunduyile(nG)

editorEdion Esohe(nG)

assistant editors and ProjeCt ownerSogaolu olusola(nG)

ContriButors Rachel Brandt(USa) omer assad(Pkt) Gareth Hunt(Uk)matt S.(Uk) Jelan a. (Philippines)Robert P.(Uk)Vanessa alves(Uk)mayowa olaniran(nG) Samuel okonkwo (nG)adeola oluwaseun(nG)tochukwu Ezeukwu(nG)adedola adekolu-John(nG)Efe Paul (nG)tochukwu Ezeukwu(nG)Folawe Banigbe(nG)mayowa olaniran (nG)adeola oluwaseun(nG)Samuel okonkwo(nG)Joyce ikhile (nG)9ja Foodie (nG)

inForMation teChnoloGy oFFiCeradesola Fakile (nG)

our Mission statement

“Every generation needs a new revolution”—Thomas Jefferson

thought Revolution™ is committed to gathering and disseminating cutting-edge information and nation building ideals, and findings from credible organisations and individuals in the pursuit of the completely non-violent economic and social renaissance of the people and institutions of nigeria, africa, and the rest of the so-called third-world as a deliberate effort to provoke the spirit of pioneering for global competitiveness. it is an issue-based and current affairs-focused publication, committed to quality contents, developed by the best hands in their areas of expertise.

thought Revolution™ heralds a renaissance long foreseen by John F. kennedy, almost three (3) decades ago when he declared of the people of the so-called third world: “the great battleground for the defense and expansion of freedom today is the whole southern half of the globe... the lands of the rising peoples. their revolution is the greatest in human history. they seek an end to injustice, tyranny and exploitation. more than an end, they seek a beginning.”

the ultimate goal of the publication is to propel the destinies in charge of change to rise in the pursuit of the economic and social renaissance of the people and institutions of nigeria, africa and the so-called third worlders for the common good; in a non-violent commitment. tR is against violent expression of conviction. it believes that violence is the armed expression of the weakness and depravity of the human spirit. the focus is not to change government but to address the attitudinal imbalances of all stakeholders (in the public and private sectors) and the people they represent.

Vol.4 october 2013©2013 by olakunle Soriyan company ltd., no. 12, aba Johnson creasent, Harmony Enclave, off adeniyi Jones avenue, ikeja, lagos, nigeria.

all rights reserved. tR™ is written and edited for a worldwide audience and is published monthly, except occasionally when two issues are combined together into one extended issue that counts as two subscription copies. to order reprint, e-prints, posters and plaques or request permission to republish tR™ content please contact us by sending an email to [email protected]

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4 tR magazine trnation.com

MeMoMONGOLIA 6Macabre Metropolitan Motorways 6Lenora Shiroka 7Angela Zhang 7Kayla Cornale, 16 7Paul Rusesabegina 8The Square 103D Printing Pencil 10Animated Bottle Labels 10Carl Lewis And Ben Johnson 11Two brothers killed by the same taxi driver, one year apart 11DR. HAWA ABDI 12DRIUNI JAKANI 12POST-PESSIMISTS 12Egypt to Try Former President Mohamed Morsy In Protest Deaths 13Nelson Mandela released from hospital 13Ghana court dismisses vote challenges, says president ‘validly elected’ 13Iran warns US to stay out of Syria 14Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe sworn in for another term 14Mali capital hit by deadly floods 14UN helicopters strike Congolese rebels 14Pope recalls envoy over abuse accusations 15Teachers protest new Mexico education reform 15Syria strike set to overshadow G20 summit


NATION IN FOCUS

MONGOLIAOver the last two decades, Mongolia has moved from the back

seat of the Asian contest to the forefront. Mongolia’s transforma-tive journey began when it changed from a socialist country to a vibrant multiparty democracy, thus engendering economic boom in the process. Mongolia’s threshold of a transformation is driven by the exploitation of its vast mineral resources; its share of mining in GDP today stands at 20 percent, twice the ratio of a decade ago. The economy grew by 17.3% in 2011, compared to 6.4% GDP growth in 2010. GDP is expected to continue on a spiral growth at a double digit rate over the next four years.

Mongolia’s economic growth has translated into some benefits for its people; Poverty has been on a downward trend over the past decade. Most recently, it decreased from 39.2% in 2010 to 29.8% in 2011. Substantial progress has also been made in regard to several Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at the national level, though significant regional disparities prevail.

To ensure sustainable and inclusive growth, Mongolia is mak-ing efforts to strengthen its institutional capacity to manage public revenues efficiently and limit the effects of Dutch Disease; allocate its resources effectively among spending, investing, and saving; reduce poverty; and offer equal opportunities to all its citizens in urban and rural areas and it aims to achieve it in a manner that protects the envi-ronment and intergenerational equity.

Mongolia has now become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, and finds itself on the threshold of prosperity. With its vast mineral resources, including copper, gold and coal, the economy is expected to maintain a fast pace in the years ahead, although vulner-abilities remain. If carefully managed, this growth could substantially reduce poverty and lead to Mongolia’s emergence as a middle-income country.

Structures are also being been erected to ensure a continuous progressive development in the country. In infrastructure over 67,000 solar home systems were sold between 2006 and 2012, reaching herders in every province in the country. As a result, more than half a million people covering between 60-70% of Mongolia’s nomadic herd-ers now have access to electricity. Also, Rural development, education are improving the livability of Ulaanbaatar (The capital and largest city of Mongolia). Other, development initiatives include; ensuring sound management within the mining sector, sustainable infrastruc-ture development in southern Mongolia, environmental protection, policy development and air pollution abatement measures are all part of the formidable structures to ensure Mongolia a viable place-ment in the Asian contest. The ADB is also committed to fostering a sustainable and inclusive growth process that benefits all Mongolians. Assistance will focus on transport, energy, and water supply infra-structure; access to education and health; and regional economic cooperation.

CONCERNS

Macabre Metropolitan MotorwaysNigerian roads have been described as many

things and often times have triggered passionate altercations at different levels, including interna-tional news platforms, Senate houses and amongst contending road users. Traffic in the metropolis accounts for a huge chunk of time expenditure of its metropolitans, for instance; those working in Lagos (the business heart of Nigeria), spend an average of about 3hours in traffic daily on a route that would normally take not more than 30mins on weekends. Vehicle maintenance also zaps a great deal off the income of vehicle own-ers as the terrible roads condition takes its toll on cars. Traffic is something the metropolis must find a solution to and quick, the vision to make a Mega city of Lagos is being threatened by the long hours of traffic that depresses people’s creativity, tranquillity and health.

The efforts of the government to manage the horrific states of the motorways are welcomed and quite overdue, metropolitans cannot wait to

have a less busy traffic city. Recently the Lagos commissioner for Works and infrastructure, Dr. Kadri Hamzat, lamented on the deplorable state of many federal and state roads in Lagos and specifi-cally named the Airport Road, Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway and Apapa-Oshodi Expressway, de-scribing them as eyesores, he also said the Lagos state government is ensuring that the main routes in Lagos are motor-able, to that effect the Lagos state governor Babatunde Fashola also commis-sioned the first ever paving stone production line to help foster the rehabilitation of the motorways. Despite the efforts to rehabilitate the motorways, the timing and duration has generated even a more perturbing traffic situation; the timing of the construction which stretches to the rainy sea-son is an aberration and as such, induces untold hardship on motorist. Also, the fact that the major means of transportation in Nigerian metropolis are via the motorways which have been limited to public buses, tricycles, private cars and private motorbikes further commensurate the difficulty

in transportation.The combination of heavy rain falls and

floods expected around the country this year complicates the traffic phenomenon. With the rainfalls, stationary water gets stuck on the motor-ways (aided by drainage deficiency in the metrop-olis) after heavy or light rainfall and this infuses a macabre for road users. The government must begin to operate proactively and stop the arbitral Boy Scout or fire Brigade approach of solving age-long problems. To begin road construction or re-habilitation in the rainy season is an indictment on the government; the roads ought to be taken care of during the dry season and the holidays to ensure that such activities don’t become another frustrating attempt to make people’s lives better.


MeMo

FEW IN YEARS, AGED IN IMPACT

Lenora Shiroka

lenora Shiroka joined the Post-Pessimists when she was 14 years old and became president two years later. One of the projects she has been involved with through the Post-Pessimist group is

Children to Children, in cooperation with Children’s Aid. It is a project in which Leonora and other members of the group go to high schools and talk to young people about alcohol abuse, drug abuse, and family problems. Leonora organized the Golden Hands project, which gathered 25 children from the war-torn zone of Dernitza to participate in reading, writing, and storytelling workshops. Together this group of five to twelve year olds produced theatre performances, artwork on paper, computer workshops and concerts. It has been highly successful and it offers these people a respite from the ravages of war that still surround them.

The following is a speech that Shiroka delivered upon accepting the Wright Dunbar Prize on behalf of the Post-Pessimists in the fall of 1999:

Lenora Shiroka is a remarkable young woman. She has grown up in a very complex and violent time for her home and yet she embodies a spirit of hope that cannot be diminished by the hatred of adults who will not listen to the wisdom of the children. Children can teach all of us many important lessons. The Post-Pessimists are leading the way towards a better future for Prishtina and the rest of the world by their example. “I don’t have yet a hero,” she says, “but I think that we all are heroes if we can work for peace and love in the world.”

Angela Zhang

Born to Chinese immigrants, 17-year-old Angela Zhang of Cupertino, California is a student of the Monta Vista High School. Angela had an idea that would possible change the world, she walked

up to her chemistry teacher Kavita Gupta and told her of the idea; she submitted a comprehensive and advance research paper she wrote in her spare time saying it’s a recipe for curing cancer. The research was simply mind blowing; Angela had cultivated the habit of reading doctorate level papers on bio-engineering and possible found a cure to one of the most devastating diseases of all times. Angela talked her way into the lab at Stanford, and started her research.

Angela’s idea was to mix cancer medicine in a polymer that would attach to nanoparticles — nanoparticles that would then attach to cancer cells and show up on an MRI, so doctors could see exactly where the tumors are. Then she thought that if you aimed an infrared light at the tumors to melt the polymer and release the medicine, thus killing the cancer cells while leaving healthy cells completely unharmed.

It’ll take years to know if it works in humans — but in mice — the tumors almost completely disappeared.

Angela recently entered her project in the national Siemens science contest. She got a check for $100,000. She is still in high school, yet her dreams keep graduating. “I’m excited to learn just everything possible,” she said. “Everything in the sciences — biology, chemistry, physics, engi-neering, and even computer science — to make new innovations possible”

Kayla Cornale, 16

motivated to help her 9 year old cousin who has an autism spectrum disorder to learn to spell and read, Kayla Cornale invented “Sounds and Syllables”, a teaching system which applies

the musical component of ‘pitch’ to the process of learning language. Through extensive research, Kayla discovered that autistic children have an apparent talent for tone and pitch recognition.

In 2005 she was awarded the Intel Foundation Achievement Award and in 2006 she received a first place award in the Behavioural Science category.

Autism is recognized as a “spectrum” of disorders, where the common denominator is a deficit in social relatedness that acts to impair a child’s ability to communicate and learn. Each year 1 in 150 children are diagnosed with autism. This year, more children will be diagnosed with autism than with AIDS, diabetes and cancer combined. Yet little is known of its origins or how to effectively treat the condition.

Sounds into Syllables, is a multi-sensory music based teaching system for children with autism. It is designed to assist them with their communication and social development difficul-ties by teaching them to spell, read, classify words, create simple sentences and identify the facial expressions for a series of universally recognized emotions.

NUMBERS AND MEANINGS

the world is greatly plagued with a lot of deadly diseases like HIV/AIDS,

Malaria, Pneumonia, amongst many others. Humans are dying in their mil-lions from these diseases every year.

Over 35 million people are currently living with HIV/AIDS

65% of young people living with HIV/AIDS are women

90% of all children and 60% of all women living with HIV are

in sub-Saharan Africa

more than 11 million children die yearly from prevent-

able health diseases such as Malaria, Diarrhoea and Pneumonia

80% of deaths caused by Malaria occur in just 14 countries

Education needs to be provided for people living in these countries on the

preventative and treatment measures for these diseases. A healthy society creates and increases the economic potential in these communities.

FACT IT

in 2007, the number of unemployed people round the world was 178 mil-

lion. It reached a peak of 212 million people in 2009 before coming down to 197 million in 2012

In 2007, 3.8 million youths were unemployed; however, according to the latest International Labour Organisation estimates, in 2013 the figures will shoot up to 74.2 million across the world.

Unemployment rates in any country remains a useful means through which the state of the economy is determined, as it has both social and economic impli-cations. Governments need to create policies that counter this sudden rise.


MeMo

PROFILE

Paul RusesabeginaBy adEola olUwaSEUn

“Kindness is not an illusion and violence is not a rule. the true resting state of human affairs is not represented by a man hacking his neighbor into pieces with a machete. that is a sick aberration. no, the true state of human affairs is life as it ought to be lived.”


MeMo

EvER hEARd OF ThE BOOK/MOvIE; hOTEL RWANdA? IT WAS released in 2004 by American Director, Terry George. It is based on real life events that took place in Rwanda dur-ing the spring of 1994. Asides being a historical account,

the book/movie doubled as an expose on the situation of the Rwandan genocide. Hotel Rwanda grossed over 30 nominations and won 13 awards around the globe in the year it was released. The major character, Paul Rusesabagina is the Rwandan who faced down the militia to protect the terrorized families who had sought shelter at the five-star Hotel des Mille Collines in Kigali where he worked. He alone had heroically saved hundreds of people from meeting a gruesome death.

Paul Rusesabagina was born on July 15, 1954 to his Hutu father and Tutsi mother in Murama, Rwanda. He had eight other siblings, in that time it was common to have mixed families de-spite conflicts between Hutu and Tutsi; but like other families, Paul and his family did not care about their supposed differences. His parents sent him to school in a town near Gitwe; a school that was run by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. By the age of eight he could read and speak French, and by thirteen he could read and speak English. Paul acquired the nature of protecting others as a child when his family gave shelter to refugees during the late 1950s and early 1960s when problems were developing between the Hutu and Tutsi.

By the end of his teenage years, Rusesabagina wanted to pur-sue his interest in the church attending seminary to become a minister. He also became interested in the daughter of the Afri-can pastor of Seventh-day Adventist Church, Reverend Sembeba. Her name was Esther, and on September 8, 1967 they married and he began attending the Faculty of Theology in the nation of Cameroon to become a minister. This dream was short-lived, for he always wanted to live in the large city of Kigali, and he was worried he would be stuck as a priest in a small village without the ability to preach in the prestigious ministry positions in Kigali. So in December 1978, he, his wife, and two children moved to Kigali.

When in Kigali, a childhood friend of the name Isaac Muli-hano told Rusesabagina to work with him at the Milles Collines where they happened to have an opening. It was then that Rus-esabagina found his true calling, using his language skills and hard work becoming a general manager, and was admitted to the hospitality program in Nairobi where he learned the differ-ences in fine food and wine. He was later sent to Switzerland and Brussels where he learned more about cuisine, book keeping, courtesy, payroll management, how to plan institutional goals and how to hire/fire workers. However, his constant work kept him and his wife Esther detached. They separated in 1981 and he was allowed to have complete custody of their three children: Diane, Lys, and Roger.

In 1987, he was invited to a wedding and found himself star-ing at the maid of honor whose name was Tatiana, who was work-ing as a nurse in Ruhengeri. She was a Tutsi but Paul did not care and wanted to help her escape the prejudices from her workplace. He obtained a favor from a frequent customer of the Milles Col-lines, who was a Minister of Health and was able to get Tatiana

a transfer to Central Hos-pital in Kigali. Tatiana and Paul married t w o y e a r s later and she adopted his c h i l d r e n . Later, they had their own child named Tresor.

In 1992 he was pro-moted to as-sistant gener-al manager of the sister hotel of Milles Collines named Diplomates Hotel; these hotels were owned by the Swiss-Belgian Sabena conglomerate. At these hotels he networked with important capital guests. Instead of staying in his office during the day, he would go and talk with officials and get to know them, making beneficial contacts.

Shortly after, the Rwandan Genocide a.k.a the genocidal mass slaughter of the Tutsis by the Hutus that started it is considered the most organized genocide of the 20th century. Over 500,000 people were killed during the course of approximately 100 days from the assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira on April 6 through mid-July. The Rwandan Patriotic Front, a rebel group composed mostly of Tutsi refugees, invaded northern Rwanda from Uganda in an attempt to defeat the Hutu-led government began the Rwandan Civil War, fought between the Hutu regime with support from Francophone Africa/France and the RPF had support from Uganda. This led to ethnic ten-sions in the country and in response; many Hutu gravitated to-ward the Hutu Power ideology, prompting of state-controlled and independent Rwandan media.

According to a Human Rights Watch estimates, the death toll have ranged from 500,000–1,000,000 people or as much as 20% of the country’s total population. It was the culmination of longstanding ethnic competition and tensions between the minority Tutsi, who had controlled power for centuries, and the majority Hutu peoples, who had come to power in the rebellion of 1959–62. This incident is what brought Paul Rusesabagina into limelight.

Despite teeming accusations that Paul Rusesabagina’s heroics were a distorted Hollywood account, there are still a number of values to be inculcated from the Rwandan crisis and Paul’s activ-ity in reducing its effect. Some of which include:

Selflessness• Patriotism• Professionalism on the job• Non-discriminatory outlook on life• Empathy for people in distress


MeMo

CREATIVITY

The Square

the Square, a latest invention by Jack Dorsey, is a small plug-in attachment to your mobile phone that allows you to receive

credit card payments. This latest invention uses a small scanner that plugs into the audio input jack on a mobile device.

It reads information on a credit card when it is swiped. The information is not stored on the device but is encrypted and sent over secure channels to banks.

It basically makes any mobile phone a cash register for accepting card payments.

As a payer, you receive a receipt via email that can be instantly accessed securely online. You can also use a text mes-sage to authorize payment in real time. Already being used in stores like Starbucks, the square is one device that Nigerian/African retailers can incorporate into their daily businesses.

Animated Bottle Labels

advertising and branding just got a notch interesting! With the new Animated Motion labels, brand designs can now come

alive. Bottles, cans, plastics and other containers can be more fun as pictures on the containers can actually move, interact and even advertise themselves.

The animated labels would definitely be a catch for children; it’s a perfect way to attract and engage their curiosity, for the grownups and beer consumers it would be a major subject of discussion at social gatherings.

It would be nice to see Nigerian and African brands adopt such innovative brand and product advert style.

3d Printing Pencil

Sometimes after drawing an amazing piece, you would just wish you could pick it up and get its

3D view… you just in luck, with the new 3D printing pencil using ABS plastic (the material used by many 3D printers), you could actually draw in the air or on surfaces. It’s a compact kit that’s quite easy to use, and requires no software or computers. You just plug it into a power socket and start drawing anything within minutes.

the 3Dprinting pencil extrudes heated plastic, which quickly cools and solidifies into a strong stable

structure. This allows you to build an infinite variety of shapes and items with ease! Most people will instantly be able to trace objects on paper, and after only a few hours of practice you will be able to make far more intricate objects.

3Dprinting pencil is a brand new way of creating objects and artistic works. It is a real treat for artists, architects, hobbyists or 3D printing fanatics.


MeMo

TALE OF TWO

Carl Lewis And Ben Johnsonwith a rivalry

not dissimilar to that of F1 driv-ers James Hunt and Niki Laude, the story of Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis is one of controversy, jeal-ousy, success and ultimately failure.

Having dominated track and field events for seven years, American athlete, Carl Lewis found a sprinting challenger at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Canadian athlete, Ben Johnson. Johnson received a bronze medal in 1984 as against Lewis’ gold, but that was only the beginning of the rivalry.

After eight consecutive losses, Johnson finally beat Lewis in 1985, and by the end of 1986 he had leap-frogged him to become the number one ranked sprinter in the world. Johnson went on to set two consecu-tive 100m world records at the 1987 World Championships and the 1988 Olympic Games, winning two Olympic bronze medals and the coveted Olympic gold at the summer games in 1988. Lewis, who had previously set world records in the 100metre sprint and the 4x100metre and 4x 200metre relays, began trying to justify his losses, blaming first a false start, then a stomach bug, and, in 1987, he cited drug use in the sport.

After Johnson’s gold medal winning summer Olympics in 1988, he tested positive for steroids, and his title was subsequently rescinded, instead handed to Lewis. Johnson later admitted to using steroids during his 1987 World Championship win, and lost that title as well. All of his world accolades went with it.

Carl Lewis then went on to tally up 10 Olympic medals, 9 of them gold, and 10 World Championship medals. He was named as Olympian of the Century by Sports Illustrated, and is arguably the most successful Olympic athlete of all time.

Johnson’s fall from grace ultimately led to Lewis’ heroism, it has been noted that Lewis didn’t begin his anti-drugs campaign until after he had been beaten by Johnson. It has been suggested that Lewis somehow orchestrated Johnson’s failed drugs test, but this has never been proven.

Eventually we must learn from the lessons from this story: no matter how successful you are; take one wrong step and it could all disappear. Carl Lewis stayed true to the game and success returned to him, Ben Johnson was not so lucky.

WORD FOR WORD“This is not encouraging, it is very retrogressive and things must change. Women must henceforth seek larger role in politics ahead of 2015 elections. Women constitute 50% of the population of the country yet cannot be identified but remembered in the political circle for only clapping and shouting; we deserve more.”

The acting PDP Women Leader, Oyibo Ahaneku-Nwaneri to the News Agency of

Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on the coming elec-tions and the role of women.

“You are better off with an ignorant person who is aware, conscious of his ignorance, who accepts that

he is ignorant, but if you are ignorant of your ignorance then it’s a big problem.”President Mugabe, speaking at the National

Heroes Acre in Harare, during the burial of one of the country’s veteran freedom

fighters

“We may not have the entire wherewithal but experience has shown that it is only when we make the first effort that the international community will come to help us. Unless we address our security challenges ourselves, the rest of the world will not do it for us.”

Ambassador Ibrahim Gambari [Head of African Union Team to the ECOWAS

Commission] at a team visit to the Nigerian Minister of State for Defence.

“I wish I wasn’t ... There’s nothing good that comes out of that. You get more visibility as a result of it.”

Bill Gates, on being the world’s richest man, in an online advertising conference in

Redmond, Washington (2006)

COINCIDENCE OR PRESCIENCE

Two brothers killed by the same taxi driver, one year apartIn 1975, while riding a moped in Bermuda, a man was accidentally

struck and killed by a taxi. One year later, this man’s brother was killed in the very same way. In fact, he was riding the very same moped. And to stretch the odds even further, he was struck by the very same taxi driven by the same driver–and even carrying the very same passenger! (Source: Phenomena: A Book of Wonders, John Michell and Robert J. M. Rickard)


MeMo

BUILDERS OF THE OLD RUINS

dR. hAWA ABdISaid to be the combination of Mother Theresa

and Rambo, Dr. Abdi saves lives in her home country, Somalia. Somalia had been at war with itself since 1983 when the government collapsed. Without protection, foreign help organizations fled. Corruption was rampant. Reporters said food from abroad fed the conflict instead of the people. Starving Somalis were abandoned to fend for themselves.

“Mama Hawa” as she is known to her people, was born into a tiny group of elite Somali

families. She became the only woman doctor in her Muslim country where women were expected to be neither seen nor heard. When the war broke out, Dr. Abdi chose to stay. Using all her family’s money, Mama Hawa managed

to build a 400 bed hospital. Her patients were mostly women and children.

But curing her patients couldn’t keep them safe from war. By the early 1990’s Mama Hawa opened up her family farm to those forced to flee the fighting. Thousands of Somali women built their own dome shaped huts out of sticks and plastic sheeting. By the turn of the century, her community housed 90,000 refugees and had expanded to include a school for 800 children, and adult classes in nutritious cooking, farming, sewing and fishing.

In 2010, Mama Hawa woke up to the war outside her window. Automatic gunfire tore through the walls as 750 fighters from the Party of Islam surrounded her home and were

ransacking her hospital. She was outnumbered. While the heavily armed rebels held the compound at bay, two things happened that Somalia had rarely seen: Muslim women refugees risked their lives to stand beside Mama Hawa, and powerful clan leaders, at war with each other for 25 years, agreed Dr. Hawa Abdi should be saved. Shamed by the protesting women, and pressured by the warlords, the fighters backed down. The publicity about the incident drew international acclaim for Mama Hawa, badly needed resources for her foundation, and some firm conclusions about women and war.

POST-PESSIMISTSit began during the war in 1995, with a

Kosovo Albanian and a Kosovo Serb who refused to hate each other despite the ethnic hatred all around them. They gathered with Albanian and Serbian friends in a small, old house in Prishtina to talk about peace. Because they “saw no reason yet to be optimists and did not want to surrender to pessimism either,” they called themselves the Post-Pessimists. In a country where Serbian and Albanian children were not allowed to go to the same schools, these meetings were nothing short of revolutionary. From the beginning they demonstrated that youths

of different ethnicities not only can co-exist but can work together to improve the lives of children and youth in an ethnically mixed environment.

The organization was a bi-ethnic associa-tion for several years, until the Serbian war against Kosovar Albanians led to mass de-portations in the spring of 1999, forcing Serb members to leave the city. In spite of the war, ignoring persecutions and the constant risk and imminent danger, the members never gave up. Instead, they issued an appeal to all the youths of Prishtina to unite and work together for renovation of the culture and

sports center in Kosovo’s capital. The appeal was broadcast by both Serbian and Albanian radio stations, which on most matters oppose each other. No other peace organization had yet dared take such a step. They gathered approximately 600 children and youth for their project, which was accomplished with great success. In 1999, the Post-Pessimists of Bosnia Herzegovina won the Wright Dunbar Prize for social activism at the Global Peace and Tolerance Awards Ceremony.

dRIUNI JAKANIdriuni Jakani is one of

the people transform-ing his rural community in southern Sudan from postwar devastation to economic growth and prosperity. In January,

southern Sudanese voted in a referendum in favor of becoming an independent nation.

In 1983, war resumed between the gov-ernment in the predominantly Muslim north of Sudan and rebels in the mainly Christian and animist south. The war, which continued until 2005, devastated the south and resulted in the deaths of 2 million civilians. Jakani joined the southern rebels after being forced to witness the rape of one of his sisters by a Sudanese government soldier to protect his family. When negotiations to end the civil

war began to show promise, he left the army and went to study in neighboring Uganda.

In 2006, a teacher in Western Equatoria introduced Jakani to five very bright orphans who were struggling to stay in school. Unde-terred by his own limited personal finances, Jakani invested what little he had in a local poultry farm to generate enough income to support the young students.

By late 2008 he decided he could have more impact in his community if he started his own group. Today Lacha Community and Economic Development (LCED) has 10 employees and has been recognized as a Community-Based Organization of Excel-lence by the local branch of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Its mission is threefold: to support peace, agriculture, and gender equality.

Jakani’s project is improving life in rural Western Equatoria. LCED has supported training in ox-plowing and bought two oxen. Today, land that took three days to plow by hand is finished in three hours. With the increased productivity, locals can now view farming as a viable business opportunity. LCED has also help in achieving remarkable milestones; for the first time, three women were chosen as chiefs of their villages.

For two years Jakani worked with local women to increase their skills and confidence. And he persuaded the local men to agree to have women present at their traditional meet-ings. “What happened when the women be-gan to participate is that when they spoke they made a lot of sense to people,” Jakani explains.


MeMo

AFRICAN NEWS

Egypt to Try Former President Mohamed Morsy In Protest deaths

Former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy, will stand trial on charges

of incitement to conduct murder and “thuggery” relating to clashes near the presidential palace in December, 2012. The country’s general prosecutor ordered Morsy to stand trial along with 14 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, No date was given for the trial.

The charges stem from when pro and anti-Morsy protesters clashed outside the presidential palace in early December; demonstrators were protesting his then-recent edict granting himself sweeping powers and a proposed constitution — drafted by an Islamist-dominated council — that they feared would give him even more power. After Morsy supporters chased protesters from the grounds, both sides threw rocks, fireworks and Molotov cocktails. At least 10 people were killed, according to the semiofficial al-Ahram newspaper.

Citing investigators, it said that Morsy and his staff are accused of ordering sup-porters to attack protesters after guards and members of the Interior Ministry report-edly refused to do it.

Morsy, who was deposed by the mili-tary amid widespread protest over his rule, has been held in detention since early July. Egypt has been in turmoil since then, with the military battling Muslim Brotherhood members and other Morsy supporters.

Last month, about 900 people — citi-zens as well as members of security forces — were killed. The deaths occurred when the military used force to clear out two

pro-Morsy sit-in sites in Cairo.Morsy was elected after longtime

Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak was top-pled. Mubarak appeared in court as his retrial resumed on charges involving the killing of hundreds of protesters during the popular 2011 uprising that led to his ouster.

Mubarak was convicted on the charges last year and sentenced to life in prison, but he appealed the ruling and was granted a retrial. A court ordered Mubarak released last month and placed under house arrest.

Nelson Mandela released from hospital

nelson Mandela has been discharged from the Pretoria hospital where he

had been receiving treatment since June, said the South African president’s office.

“Madiba’s condition remains critical and is at times unstable,” President Jacob Zuma’s office said, referring to the revered leader’s clan name. “Nevertheless, his team of doctors are convinced that he will receive the same level of intensive care at his Houghton home that he received in Pretoria.”

Mandela, 95, was hospitalized June 8 because of a lung infection. He marked his July birthday at the Pretoria hospital where he has been surrounded by relatives.

“During his stay in hospital from the 8th of June 2013, the condition of our former President vacillated between serious to critical and at times unstable,” the office said. “Despite the difficulties imposed by his various illnesses, he, as always, displays immense grace and fortitude.”

Ghana court dismisses vote challenges, says president ‘validly elected’

Ghana’s Supreme Court declared President John Dramani Mahama

“validly elected” as the court dismissed all claims of voter fraud, mismanage-ment and irregularities in the West African nation’s December 2012 presi-dential election.

After the election, Ghana’s Independent Electoral Commission declared Mahama the winner with 50.7% of the vote, narrowly avoiding a runoff with his main challenger, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

But challenges followed, with allega-tions of widespread mismanagement and voting irregularities at more than 10,000 polling stations. Akufo-Addo and two other officials of his New Patriotic Party sued and the case went to the Supreme Court.

Mahama, from the ruling National Democratic Congress party, was sworn in as president, and the court ruling means he will retain the office.

The Supreme Court dismissed all six claims alleging fraud and irregularities, with judges ruling unanimously against claims that certification forms had dupli-cate serial numbers; that votes from phony polling places were counted and that there were duplication of polling station codes, meaning that votes from a particular voting station might have been counted twice or more.

Akufo-Addo made a statement after the ruling was announced, saying he will not seek a court review of the decision, con-gratulating President Mahama and calling on Ghanaians to work out their “differ-ences, ease tensions between us and come together and build our country.”


MeMo

Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe sworn in for another term

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was sworn in for another term fol-

lowing disputed elections. After a judge made it official, crowds erupted into cheers and released balloons adorned with colors of the national flag.

The ceremony was delayed for days by opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s petition challenging the July 31 election. He withdrew the court case, paving the way for the event.

The nation’s electoral commission declared Mugabe the winner with 61% against the former prime minister’s 34%.

Mugabe told his critics to “commit sui-cide” if they cannot accept his re-election. Mugabe, 89, is Africa’s oldest leader and has led the southern African nation since it got its independence from Britain. He led the newly-independent Zimbabwe, first as prime minister in 1980, then as president seven years later.

Mali capital hit by deadly floods

at least 24 people have been killed in flash floods caused by torrential rain

in the Malian capital Bamako, a govern-ment official said.

Thousands were also made homeless as the Niger river burst its banks, destroy-ing around 100 houses in several hours of heavy rain in a city of around two million people, Alassane Bocoum, the national director of social development, said.

The worst damage was done to poorly constructed mud-brick homes on drain-age sites on the banks of the river, although residents reported concrete homes had also

been battered by the raging floodwaters.“A monitoring group has been set up to

get people to abandon homes built largely of dried mud that could collapse,” Bocoum said, adding that the serious flooding had been confined to the capital.

Flooding often leads to widespread displacements and casualties during West Africa’s June to October rainy season, as well as disease outbreaks due partly to poor sanitation.

UN helicopters strike Congolese rebels

United Nations forces and the Congolese army have attacked rebel

positions with helicopter gunships, armoured personnel carriers and a large

number of ground troops, ramping up the UN’s engagement in the latest rebel-lion to hit the country’s eastern region.

The fighting was some of the fiercest in the week since the newly created UN intervention brigade went on the offensive, and one Tanzanian peacekeeper was killed after the rebels aimed artillery fire at their position, the UN said in a statement.

Seven other troops were also wounded, UN spokesman Farhan Haq said.

“I am outraged by today’s killing of a United Nations peacekeeper from Tanzania by the M23,’’ said Martin Kobler, the special representative of the secretary-general in Congo, who heads the peacekeeping mission. ”He sacrificed his life to protect civilians in Goma.”

The fighting took place near Kibati village, about 15km from the provincial capital Goma, a city home to nearly 1 mil-lion people that was briefly captured by the M23 rebels late last year.

Haq said M23 had been using the posi-tions “to shell populated areas” and that “the objective of the operation is therefore to remove the threat against Goma”.

The UN’s top military official in Congo said that at least one, and possibly two shells fell inside Goma. Residents of the city’s Mabanga Nord neighbourhood told Reuters that a 14-year-old boy was killed and others injured in one of the blasts.

AFRICAN NEWS

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Iran warns US to stay out of Syria

allegations that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons last month

are a “pretext” by the West to attack the country, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said.

Iran is Syria’s main regional ally and has warned Western powers against interven-ing in the country’s civil war, as the United States edges towards launching strikes against the Damascus regime.

Washington and its allies “are using the chemical weapon allegation as a pretext,”

and “are saying that they want to intervene for humanitarian reasons,” Khamenei said. “The United States is wrong about Syria, and it is certain they will suffer... just like in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Khamenei told members of the Assembly of Experts, the body that supervises his work.

Separately, the chief of Iran’s elite Quds Force unit, Qassem Soleimani, said Tehran would back Syria “until the end” in the face of possible US-led military strikes.


MeMo

Some analysts believe a wider goal of US President Barack Obama’s determination to launch strikes is to blunt Tehran’s grow-ing regional influence and any consequent threat to Washington ally, Israel.

“The aim of the United States is not to protect human rights... but to destroy the front of resistance against Israel,” the Quds Force commander was quoted as saying by the media.

“We will support Syria to the end,” Soleimani added in his speech to the Assembly of Experts.

He did not elaborate on the nature of the support and Iran has constantly denied allegations by Western powers that it has sent military forces to prop up President Bashar al-Assad’s embattled regime.

Pope recalls envoy over abuse accusations

the Vatican has recalled its ambassa-dor to the Dominican Republic and

relieved him of his duties pending an investigation, after local media accused him of pedophilia, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church said.

The Dominican Attorney General announced late that a special pros-ecutor had been appointed to investigate Archbishop Josef Wesolowski, who has been nuncio, or ambassador, in the capital Santo Domingo for nearly six years.

Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi said the Holy See had started a probe of Wesolowski and that he had been recalled “in the last few weeks,” specifically over the pedophilia accusations.

“He has been relieved of his duties and the Holy See has begun an investiga-tion,” Lombardi said when asked about

allegations against Wesolowski in the local media.

Weeks after his election in March as the first non-European pontiff in 1,300 years, Pope Francis announced he wanted the church to root out sexual abuse of chil-dren by priests and ensure that abusers are punished.

Monsignor Agripino Núñez Collado, a church official in the Caribbean nation, told reporters the Vatican acted as soon as the pope had been informed of Wesolowski’s alleged “missteps.”

He said Wesolowski faces possible pun-ishment by the Vatican but may be immune from prosecution in the Dominican Republic because a nuncio has diplomatic status.

Dominican Attorney General Francisco Dominguez Brito, told reporters the inves-tigation would take into account national and international law, “given his status as a diplomat.”

Teachers protest new Mexico education reform

tens of thousands of teachers have demonstrated in Mexico City, many

pledging to disobey an education reform passed by Congress and championed by President Enrique Pena Nieto.

Mexico’s Senate overwhelmingly passed a sweeping reform of the dysfunctional public school system early, handing Nieto an important victory in his push to remake some of his country’s worst-run institu-tions. The Senate gave the nod to the final so-called secondary law of an education bill that regulates the tests that Nieto says teach-ers should take periodically to ensure they are up to standard. New teachers could lose their teaching jobs if they fail. The Lower House approved the bill on Sunday.

The Senate debated the issue and voted 102-22 in favour of a standardized system of test-based hiring and promotion that would give the government the tools to

break teachers unions’ near-total control of school staffing. That control includes the corrupt sale and inheritance of teaching jobs, and it has been widely blamed for the poor performance of Mexican schools, which have higher relative costs and worse results than any other in the 34-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Syria strike set to overshadow G20 summit

world leaders from G20 are meeting in St Petersburg, Russia, amid sharp

differences over possible US military action against Syria, in response to what the US administration calls a deadly chemical weapons attack by the Syrian government.

The summit comes hours after a US Senate panel voted to give President Barack Obama authority to use military force against Syria–the first time lawmakers in that country have voted to allow military action since the October 2002 votes author-izing the invasion of Iraq.

The US and Russia, which is a key Syrian ally, remain at odds as Obama has tried to build his case for military action. The US president has vowed to continue to try to persuade his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, of the need for punitive strikes against President Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons when the two meet in St Petersburg.

As Putin opened the summit, he spoke exclusively about the global economic crisis, which forms the primary agenda of the summit, stressing the need for co-ordinated international policy making, in order to combat the continuing volatility in economic markets.

He suggested that world leaders discuss the subject of Syria “during dinner”, so as not to take away from the summit’s primary economic agenda.


MeMo

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FeaturesMatured Social Intervention ...Meaningful Social Intervention, The Mainstream Media and Fruitlessness of Raw Anger 18The PATRIOTISM we are YET to KNOW! 23Impediments to Self Determination 27Egypt: An evolving front


By taiwo akinlami

Matured Social Intervention...Meaningful Social Intervention, The Mainstream Media and Fruitlessness of Raw Anger


Features

ThE RECENT ALLEGATION ThAT ThE NIGERIAN Senate passed a bill, legalising child marriage and the attendant public outburst has prompted this piece. Please note that this is a matter of

national importance, therefore, I have not sat on the fence. I have shared my opinion in my piece, titled, ‘Constitution Amendment, Child’s Rights, The Senate and the Rest of us,’ shared on my blog (taiwoakin-lami.wordpress.com) and Published on page 81 of the Punch Newspaper on Monday, July 22, 2013

This is the second major social outburst I have witnessed in recent times, particularly since the lib-eralization of the machinery of expression of personal opinions with the advent of the many social media platforms, known as a critical part of the New Me-dia. The first was the public outburst that greeted the removal of fuel subsidy in 2012. One thing that is common to both events is the way the leaders of the interventions and the public gave expression to their views.

I saw that the leaders of the interventions, their followers and sympathizers were not careful not to allow words of insult, hate, name-calling, labeling, curses to badly colour what could be a meaningful social intervention. Simply put, everything was em-ployed in communicating our anger but decorum. It was as if caution and respect for dignity of human persons were thrown out of our philosophy of com-munication and found a permanent resting place in the arms of comfort of whirlwind. We have acted as if the use of foul, abusive and indecorous words is the globally accepted and accredited language of mean-ingful social intervention, though, it is not.

Another side of the coin is the disposition of the mainstream print and electronic media to issues which are supposed to be of national importance. I believe that the mainstream media does not do enough to educate the people contrary to their tradi-tional and constitutional responsibility as the Fourth Estate of the Realm. I think the major reason why the mainstream media fail to play their roles is that they do not set an agenda with a sense of mission to tackle issues of national importance, with a view to educat-ing the members of the public to direct their social conscience and energy in the area of positive engage-ment, which would in turn engender social change.

I have found that the mainstream media joins the bandwagon in situations like this and embrace sensa-tionalism over educative journalism. The mainstream media, which is believed to be run by professionals should not only exercise caution in the discharge of its historic duty, it must also moderate national debates and issues and set a long-term agenda for an issue. For example today, CNN has set agenda for bringing to the fore, the evil of human trafficking around the world and it is doing everything professional to lead a meaningful global debate in this area. It would not be a bad idea if a media outfit in Nigeria sets an agenda

to expose all the sides to child marriage in Nigeria.Pathetically, many of the players in the main-

stream media have operated as the social media in the times of national crisis than professional information disseminators. The social media is known for sensa-tionalism. It establishes and maintains its relevance by giving a platform of expression to the peoples’ view on a matter. Thus for example on a social media platform like Twitter, people looks for what is trending. The social media does not have contents of its own. It waits to be fed by the users. The mainstream media should not be so. As a matter of fact it is not designed to be so. It is designed to provide contents to inform and educate the members of the public. It is very sad today that many players in the mainstream media operate like the social media. They focus on a subject, which is trending and once the matter dies down, the media goes to bed and begins to wait in the fringe for another break. This kind of roller-coaster and opportunistic journalism hold no promise for meaningful nation

i have found that the mainstream media joins the bandwagon in situations like this and embrace sensationalism over educative journalism. the mainstream media, which is believed to be run by professionals should not only exercise caution in the discharge of its historic duty, it must also moderate national debates and issues and set a long-term agenda for an issue. For example today, Cnn has set agenda for bringing to the fore, the evil of human trafficking around the world and it is doing everything professional to lead a meaningful global debate in this area.


Features

building,The mainstream media should moderate the an-

ger of the populace by providing excellent and educa-tive perspective to issues, through the instrumentality of professionalism. Where it fails in this onerous but inevitable responsibility, it promotes intellectual chaos like we recently witnessed in the matter of the senate and child marriage. I guess the point I am trying to make is that the press cannot continue to play to the gallery in public debates; it must arise and set pur-poseful agenda for national development by focusing on the real issues and its importance to us as a people and not sensationalism as its presently plagued.

The truth is that knowledge and information, which is primarily the responsibility of the media to provide moderate national debate and create posi-tive use of energy in the direction of positive national change. Lack of knowledge creates chaos. Chaos does not bring social change. Its lifespan is extremely short and cannot deliver meaning. Chaos delivers nothing but intellectual and emotional exhaustion, the fore-runner of almost irredeemable frustration.

Permit me at this point to take the place of the mainstream media and do a bit of social empower-ment advocacy addressing the disposition of raw an-ger to the issue of the senate and child marriage.


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when, i set out to do this piece, i took a decision that in illustrating my points, i will refrain from using any of the unprintable adjectives that have been used to qualify the members of the senate.

As a meticulous student of social struggles and an active participants in same, in the last 25 years, both within and outside the university system, bearing the scars of my involvement on my body and psyche, including detention in three detention camps in the hands of Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) and the dreaded State Security Service (SSS) and nar-rowly escaping a death sentence, I have come to the irresistible conclusion that we must maintain the dis-cipline in social struggle to always separate the acts of the oppressors from the person of the oppressor or how the oppressor arrived at becoming an oppressor. This does not excuse the oppressor. It only helps us to factor him or her in in our agenda for social change. Nelson Mandela wrote in Long Walk to Freedom, ‘it was during those long and lonely years that my hun-ger for freedom for my own people became hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as the oppressed. A man, who takes away another man’s freedom, is a prisoner of hatred. He is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else’s freedom, just as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.’

It is simply, being at home with our humanity as human beings, understanding that every human be-ing is sharpened by their environment. It is called, socialization. The truth of the matter is that our sena-tors are products of this society like all of us. As pos-tulated by Olakunle Soriyan, there is a little Nigeria inside each and every one of us. The issue is that this little Nigeria is not seen until it finds opportunity for expression. We have seen the little Nigeria come out at different times in the social critics of yesteryears and yesterday, who later pitched their tents with the same class of people, they once demonized. I do not make a case for compromise in social struggle. And when I talk about not making a case for compromise, I talk about compromise of the goals the social struggle set out to achieve. I do not talk about compromise in tactics and strategy, which is inevitable in any mean-ingful struggle. When we understand the foregoing, we recognize the humanity of the man, who is being castigated today and we do it with caution, know-ing that casting the first stone does not mean you are without sin.

We must never condone the acts of oppression for a second. I agree with Franz Fanon that ‘every onlooker is either a coward or a traitor.’ I agree with the more recent submission of Adebayo Williams that ‘a properly educated mind, will not accept an act of

tyranny, because to accept the act of tyranny is an act of intellectual self-dispossession.’ I believe, we must by all reasonable and dignified means hold our elected leaders accountable. But in giving expression to the prompting of our social conscience, in holding them accountable, we must do our entire best not to temper with their dignity of human person. We must be angry and yet not sin by issuing forth profanity to fellow human beings, who are husbands, fathers, wives, mothers, sons, daughters, representatives of their communities. Mandela again submits, ‘I never lost hope that this great transformation would occur. Not only because of the great heroes I have already cited, but because of the courage of the ordinary men and women of my country. I always knew that the deep down in every human heart, there is mercy and generosity. No one is born hating another person be-cause of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. Even in the grimmest times in prison, when my com-rades and I were pushed to our limits, I would see a glimmer of humanity in one of the guards, perhaps just for a second, but it was enough to reassure me and keep me going. Man’s goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished.’

When, I set out to do this piece, I took a decision that in illustrating my points, I will refrain from using any of the unprintable adjectives that have been used to qualify the members of the senate. I believe I can make my point to you as people, who have followed recent events without repeating, the language I want us to forget. The unfortunate thing is that even pub-lic figures and those who are looked up to as leaders have not shown the best of examples in their use of language.

Sadly, the kind of language, we have employed in our response to the recent issue of child marriage, I must say does not add value to the struggle. Our hos-tile language has not helped us to communicate our


Features

it is also important to note that anger against the system is not

expressed in too many words; it is as a matter of necessity, expressed in meticulous and

careful planning. in most cases it is kept only within the

knowledge of the initiated. what the public knows is also

part of the plan. i think bane of our social intervention in

nigeria is that it lacks a system of intervention, which has goal or set of goal, interdependence

of forces and balance of roles. when a social intervention has

no coordinating authorities, it becomes a mob action.

Mob action does not have the character to bring about any

meaningful change. the best it could do is to become a spring

board for the intervention of organized onlookers.

grievances better. Our language gives us away as short-distance runners, who are just angry for a while and expend all their en-ergy in a short while and crash out very sooner than they think. Our language portrays us as a people whose only strength is our verbal exertions, which has no impact in building an enduring movement for change. Anger against persons have never changed anything but anger against systems have brought great seemingly insurmountable changes to our world. Nelson Mandela wrote in Long Walk to Freedom, ‘I was asked as well as about the fears of the whites. I knew people expected me to harbour anger towards whites. But I had none. In prison, my anger toward white de-creased but my anger for the system grew. I wanted South Africa to see that I loved my enemies while I hate the system that turned us against one another.’

It is also important to note that anger against the system is not expressed in too many words; it is as a matter of necessity, expressed in meticulous and careful planning. In most cases it is kept only within the knowledge of the initiated. What the public knows is also part of the plan. I think bane of our social interven-tion in Nigeria is that it lacks a system of intervention, which has goal or set of goal, interdependence of forces and balance of roles. When a social intervention has no coordinating authorities, it becomes a mob action. Mob action does not have the character to bring about any meaningful change. The best it could do is to be-come a spring board for the intervention of organized onlookers.

Though, the facts of the senate deliberations have been widely misrepresented and many, who have joined the fray did not both-er to find the truth of the facts, I believe we have responded this way because we are human and maybe because of the sensitivity of the matters. It is also clear in my mind that we are just getting used to the culture of social media, where censorship must be personal and responsible and this require a lot of discipline and knowledge. Many of us do not also understand that the use of abusive and fowl words may constitute an infringement on the rights of the other person. This means that two wrongs will never be equal to a right. I also know that many of us are in different level of development and we may not know better. Nelson Man-dela, who Richard Stengel in his book ‘Mandela’s Way Lesson of Life’ wrote ‘we long for heroes but have too few...Nelson Mandela is perhaps the last pure hero on the planet,’ was a hothead as a young man. He embraced violence as the solution to end the op-pression of his people in South Africa. As he matured, he gained better understanding and learnt his lessons. I think we have a lot to learn from him today, hence I have quoted copiously from his autobiography, ‘Long Walk to Freedom.’

Permit me to conclude with Mandela’s understanding of true test of a freedom fighter’s devotion to freedom: ‘when I walked out of the prison, that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both. Some say that has now been achieved. But I know that is not the case. The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. The true

test of our devotion to freedom is just beginning. Long before Dr. Nelson Mandela penned done these historic and instructive words, Dr. Martin Luther King, in his speech at the ‘March on Washington’ rally, which is today popularly known as ‘I Have a Dream’ Speech served steaming hot, a balanced and stabiliz-ing diet of matured social intervention to his fellow comrades thus, ‘in the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline.


Features

The PATRIOTISM we are YET to KNOW!

OUR GREAT NATION CELEBRATEd hER 53Rd year of independence recently, and I feel re-sponsible to take a second look at the level of patriotism prevailing in our blessed nation.

Now, some have argued correctly that terrorists com-mit acts of barbarism in the name of patriotism—-no doubt, man’s aggressive instinct against enemy nations is a regrettable fact. At times, it is not out of place to call the idea of patriotism a moral weakness when we

take a second look at some of the evil the world has seen in the name of patriotism. People through the ages have carried out both horrible and wonderful acts under the banner of patriotism. Also, Science and technology have made travel and communication so easy that the world has become a global village. Race, colour, language and sex are losing importance and the concept of one world is developing. In the light of these developments, nationalism and patriotism By olakUnlE SoRiyan


Features

are losing their importance, and international-ism is taking roots. Man wants to live in peace wherever he is; whether in his birth country or anywhere. People generally feel a sense of loyalty to the environment that supports their highest aspirations, wherever that is. My country, right or wrong, may no longer be a necessarily correct view. Some have even made the bold statement that you will never have a peaceful world unless you kick out patriotism from the human race. How then are we to define it?

Our personal interpretations are usually de-rived from our peculiar experience. However, since experiences are peculiar and principles are universal; obviously, patriotism has to be de-fined by principle, above personal experiences; or we will be on the side of sentiments, bias and prejudice. By principle, patriotism is actually the love for one’s country and the willingness to defend it. Any threat to a country, either by another nation, or socio-economic and political challenges within a nation, the patriotic energy within that nation should rise. The moment there is a threat to the nation from an enemy, from without or within, the patriotic feelings of the people should ordinarily be immediately aroused. Patriotism inspires the people for the noble deeds and nurtures fellow-feeling and brotherhood among the people. Patriots rejoice in the glory of their country, regardless of how lofty or painful the experiences of the citizens are.

In Nigeria, with the growing agitation preva-lent in the country, the socio-economic and po-litical disequilibrium in the system, it appears patriotism has no place. The daily struggles, suf-ferings and negative experiences of our people seem to define the right to jettison the ideal of patriotism. Surely, it will be difficult to sell pat-riotism to those with empty stomachs. It makes sense to assume that the country should also be lovable to be loved. After 53yrs, it looks like on October 1, 1960, Nigeria got INDEPENDENCE, not FREEDOM. INDEPENDENCE for Nigeria seems like the sovereign right to self-destruct. I mean, immediately after independence, Ni-geria actually began a long and strange march towards growth and development that made de-velopment look so complex and mysterious—-a strange march that has taken more than fifty years in the wilderness of mismanagement, corruption and poverty; which has left a gen-eration dead and unfulfilled—-without having

seen the Promised Land—-a promised land of quality education, rapid infrastructural develop-ment, and mass employment for its citizens. So, in the light of these developments, nationalism and patriotism are losing their importance. To demand patriotism from the masses in a 2013 Nigeria seems like an insensitive and imprac-tical proposition. I mean, how would you feel if I tell you that a research conducted by The OLAKUNLE SORIYAN COMPANY a few years ago found that only about 5 percent of 2000 Ni-gerian citizens over 18 described themselves

as either “extremely” or “very” patriotic. Can our nation, Nigeria really survive on 5 percent, if this is true? It’s worthy of note that the 5% is mostly amongst people who share the “9ja craze” in entertainment and sports. It’s appears Nigerians have a different definition of patriot-ism that allows us to feel we are patriots when the Super Eagles are winning or when we are at a comedy show or musical concert donning “9ja 4life” T-shirts. But in politics, economics and prevalent issues that define us as a people, we are totally disconnected from the idea of patriotism.

Frankly, what we forget and miss out on is

our personal interpretations are usually derived from our peculiar experience.

however, since experiences are peculiar and principles are universal; obviously,

patriotism has to be defined by principle, above personal experiences; or we will be on the side of sentiments, bias and

prejudice. By principle, patriotism is actually the love for one’s country and

the willingness to defend it. any threat to a country, either by another nation, or socio-economic and political challenges

within a nation, the patriotic energy within that nation should rise.


Features

that we have a clear zero-sum game here, in that, if we give place to all the gaps and negatives in our en-vironment, we would be justified to ignore our pat-riotism. However, if we ignore our patriotism, it will be virtually impossible to drive transformation and renaissance; we now have a choice to make between the validation that comes from our anger and pain or the progress we can experience from accepting our patriotism. Validly, only the united effort of a collec-tive patriotic spirit can meet and surmount the chal-lenges of our unique environment. If our nation is to survive its current challenges, the definition of a “true patriot” must be clear. Please note that, I do not be-lieve patriotism to be blind obedience to one’s nation. No! I deeply share the sentiments of Carl Schurz, the German revolutionary and, later, American political scientist who said, “My country...if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.” His idea of patriot-ism is often referred to today as “loyal opposition.” It means whilst we must not deny the struggles resident in our system, and whilst we must not be quiet; the idea of patriotism we need is the one with the poten-

tial to change the social behaviour of the country out of feelings of national love and patriotic duty. This is where most Nigerians need to be but sadly, are not. Most of us are so justifiably angry that we have given up on the system. What we need is patriotism that promotes the active and sensible ¬reconstruction of a system that one believes to be -essentially good, but critically flawed.

Now, I believe that anger should be a critical in-gredient that drives the human spirit to action, not to indolence, lethargy, disinterest and mediocrity. We need this kind of anger. But the anger that renders us despondent, inactive and unprogressive is actually not different from the passiveness that breeds irresponsi-bility. We need the patriotism that stretches beyond our problems and embraces the solutions instead—-the patriotism that allows each of us to activate the large heartedness inherently deep within us as a de-liberate commitment to follow the principle that says “love not only what is yours, but love all that belongs to the human race.” This is imperative and cannot be discounted.


Features

Each of us must accept the imprints of geography that we each belong to a defined space. Trust me, des-tiny will always be location sensitive. God, through Nature, has determined our appointed places; and it is our duty, each of us, to appreciate, promote, and when necessary, defend the place nature has placed us, otherwise called our country. To pretend that this is not so, is to despise God’s wisdom in choosing where we were born. Birth is a gift of God, and place of birth is therefore a responsibility. I constantly find myself ¬annoyed when I hear people talk about “relocating to America, Canada, United Kingdom, even most re-cently, UAE (Dubai), Qatar, etc... and the most annoy-ing is small South Africa”. My response? “Go ahead. Please move to those places. It’ll be much easier for the rest of us to fix things without your constant whin-ing and complaints.” While some may consider this harsh, I invite anyone who can’t see the good in Ni-geria, despite her blemishes, to leave. We must love our country enough to stay and work to change it for the better. Just like the American Civil Rights activist, James Baldwin; I love Nigeria “more than any other country in this world, and, ¬exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to seek her progress and criticize her perpetually.” No matter how negative our coun-try is, we have no other country. We cannot let up or give up. We must have a story for those that will take our place in another 100years. We owe it to them to wrestle down every wall of prejudice, religious and ethnic intolerance, corruption, ignorance, fear and in-

discipline that fights to keep our country small, and her people weak and weary.

Some say that there is little reason to love Nigeria; and I understand the temptation for any rational per-son to accept this. Sure, our country has made mis-takes throughout history, but while the ethics behind some of these ¬decisions were admittedly murky, it is not right to blame the entire nation for a few morally ambiguous and bereft leaders. Our anger or even op-timism must not drive us out of reason; subsequently our pain must drive us to love her more and take the kind of positions that reflects the desire to change Nigeria by all means; and this, in itself, is a demon-stration of one’s love for the nation. We must critically look into the future we prefer and decide what role we will play today to create it. We don’t need critics who know all that is wrong and possess the grammar to underscore it, but lacks the commitment to act and create visible impact.I can assure everyone reading this that It will take the practical ¬investment of time and resources by patriotic Nigerians to ensure Nige-ria’s renewed prosperity.

As we continue to monitor the issues of our land, we need patriots who will ignore the obvious chal-lenges, by accepting the challenge to make efforts at building a new moral society with the great hope that the strength and bonds of our diversity will one day strengthen us all in the years to come. God bless Ni-geria. God bless her people. Amen!


Features

OCTOBER 2Nd, 2013. GAMBIA'S PRESIdENT Yahya Jammeh announces his country's with-drawal from the Commonwealth saying, "It will never be a member of any neo-colonial

institution."October 13th, 2013. African leaders, at an AU

weekend summit insist on immunity from trial at the ICC for sitting African heads of state. According to Ethiopian Prime Minister and current AU Chairman, Hailemariam Dessalegn, "The unfair treatment that we have been subjected to by the ICC is completely unacceptable." And for Kenya's Uhuru Kenyatta, a sitting president with a pending case at The Hague, “the ICC stopped being the home of justice the day it became the toy of declining imperial powers."

Rumors of AU member states quitting the ICC altogether, emerged from the summit along with the men and women (Africa's burdens and burden bear-ers), who had been holed up in Addis Abba for the

weekend, dreaming up solutions to the continent's myriad of problems.

The right to self determination, that ancient al-most entirely African quest, the one at the heart of Jammeh's withdrawal from the Commonwealth of Nations and the elephant in the room at the just con-cluded AU summit, is a noble aspiration indeed.

The adverse and enduring effects of Colonialism on the political and socio-economic stability of many African nations are undeniable. The suspicion that greets foreign aid from erstwhile imperialist powers, the dismissal of otherwise noble Bono-esque philan-thropic gestures as part of the white savior industrial complex, the wariness against neo-colonialism, all are very well within reason.

African leaders and Africans do well to probe the motives, actions and inactions of Western govern-ments and their respective non-governmental ap-pendages, in relation to the continent. They do well

Impediments to Self determination


Features

to rethink their allegiance to the Commonwealth of Nations, to question why countries decolonized by Britain in the 50s, 60s, and 70s would still want to be part of any organization that retains the Queen as head, however nominal.

The establishment of the Commonwealth cannot be divorced from the 1920 imperial conferences, with membership based on a common allegiance to the British Crown. In 1991, in what has become known as the Harare Declaration, member states of the Com-monwealth gathered in the Zimbabwean capital to reinforce their articulated core values of promoting democracy, good governance, human rights and prosperity. Two decades down the line, Zimbabwe, in bitter irony, had become the antithesis on those principles.

The Commonwealth might and indeed does have some benefits, but with members having no signifi-cant trade pacts, how truly relevant is it? Why not expunge every vestige of colonialism, the Common-wealth inclusive? So yes, maybe President Yahya Jam-meh is on to something.

Maybe the continent would fare better in the comity of nations if it planted firm feet against any appearance of neo-colonialism. Or maybe it should look deeper…

How much of the threat to Africa's self determina-tion and seemingly attendant problems is external?

President Yahya Jammeh has been in the saddle for the past 19 years, after he took power as a young army officer in a military coup in 1994, and has won each election since then. His strategy is simple: "I will develop areas that vote for me, but if you don't vote for me, don't expect anything." The Gambian strongman lives in a heavily-guarded presidential palace, where he keeps a fleet of luxury cars, including a custom-ized Hummer stretch limousine. His official convoy, a 30-strong caravan of SUVs is guarded by pick-up trucks with anti-aircraft guns and reputedly runs any-one off the road that gets in their way. The Gambian economy under Jammeh's watch, dangles somewhere between mediocrity and something less.

Jammeh is hardly different from the rest of his counterparts across the continent. In October 2013, the Mo Ibrahim Prize, announced that it would be keeping its $5m reward, awarded to an elected leader who governed well, raised living standards and then left office. Its search for excellence in governance and leadership drew a blank–the fourth time in five years. The greatest impediment to the continent's quest for self determination, since Africans sold Africans to Europeans, has always come from within.

Africa's hollow sounding clamor for respect in

a global geopolitical space that responds primarily to economic power will continue unabated until it harnesses its anger and dissatisfaction with its state of development and focus it within. The continent's greatest bane has been the ceding of its political space to rabble rousers like Jammeh, who have perfected the art of organizing to seize power, doing nothing for the common good, and deflecting attention by whipping up anti-imperialist sentiments.

A generation of African intellectuals, liberals and nation builders must rise up to take the continent back, country by country, from the mediocres it has allowed to run rings around its respective state treas-uries for decades.

jammeh is hardly different from the rest of his

counterparts across the continent. in october

2013, the Mo ibrahim Prize, announced that it would

be keeping its $5m reward, awarded to an elected

leader who governed well, raised living standards and then left office. its

search for excellence in governance and leadership

drew a blank–the fourth time in five years. the

greatest impediment to the continent's quest for

self determination, since africans sold africans to

europeans, has always come from within.


Features

ThE FIASCO UNFOLdING IN EGYPT IS dISTURB-ing and unnerving at best. The conflicts of interests and upheaval have seen countless of innocent civilians killed, members of the Mus-

lims brotherhood shot dead and gassed on sight as they protest against President Morsi’s removal. Per-sonally, it seems like President Morsi has found him-self a niche well crafted; it will become clear in time that President Morsi is the culprit here as events un-folds. On the other hand, Washington which always had its vested interests in Muslim countries is quite passive in this scenario.

Every country has its own interests in the Egyptian region as it flogs to supports Egypt’s two sided politi-cal climate. For Saudi Arabia which has always per-ceived President Morsi government as a threat to its kingdom since its inception, is fuelling the Egyptian generals with $12 billion dollars. This would be a rath-er good investment as President Morsi was anti Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has always been reputed for pav-ing roads for Islamic fundamentalists and movements to gain power and strength. However, that policy has been taken back due to its strong ties with America. The dethroning of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011 and the arrival of President Morsi on the platform of the Muslim brotherhood was a compromise by Egyptians to accept a semblance of democracy as the Muslim brotherhood wasn’t a democratically wired political group. Apparently the Egyptian population felt an imminent threat to its political climate and fu-ture and would settle for any idea of democracy even

though it came at the hand of Muslim Brotherhood. Ultimately, the Muslim Brotherhood was an uninvited saviour and therefore couldn’t deliver the dividend of democracy.

Violent protests erupted across Egypt as President Morsi became president. His next move was to dis-pose of the Egyptian judges to fend off their verdict against him. Muslims, Christians, Seculars and Liber-als all protested against President Morsi and voiced his removal with the pro Morsi and anti Morsi sup-porter’s clash with heavy casualties on both sides. President Morsi’s reaction was to order a nationwide referendum to be held to ensure that he was presi-dent desired by the masses. The referendum was held and favored President Morsi by 64%. Evidently, it was rigged and pre-planned. As a result, President Morsi removed judicial decree to keep him on the throne.

Meanwhile, efforts were underway to remove President Morsi from the presidential seat, dissatis-fied protesters gathered in Cairo at the Tahrir Square to demand his removal. The bold move was ignored by western superpowers and continental spectators but eventually, the Egyptian public was rescued by meticulously planned military coup by the Egyptian Army. It was a foreseeable eventuality that had to be done otherwise the Muslim brotherhood in the Sinai region would have risen up and caused a stir. It was a difficult move for the Egyptian army.

Apparently, vested interests from all over the world lie in Egypt and the political outburst was not difficult to predict. Sinai is a sensitive strip between Israel and Egypt and needs to be controlled to keep peace as Hamas’s stronghold is in Gaza strip. America cannot afford Islamic movements to thrive anywhere in the world and thus, it will strike forcefully when needed. The Saudi intervention was necessary to fend off the extremists from gaining strength.

Personally, keeping the extremists away from power is the sole solution to the Egypt’s political cri-sis. Now that the Egyptian generals have achieved that, they can stabilize the volatile political climate in Egypt. The Muslim brotherhood needs to be defeated completely to bring law and order in Egypt. The top priority for Israel, USA and Saudi Arabia is to get rid of the Muslim brotherhood. All three are hard at this task to maintain peace in the region.

Egypt: An evolving front

By omER aSSad (PakiStan)


Features

BusinessPrescience 31The Importance of Entrepreneurial Collaboration in Africa 32African Entrepreneurs on the Global Stage 33


By tocHUkwU EZEUkwU

IF YOU BELIEvE IN GOd TO ANY dEGREE AT ALL, YOU’d hAvE heard this statement at least once in your lifetime “God knows the end from the beginning”. By this, I do not intend to make you uncomfortable if your belief doesn’t support

the existence or the reality of a God. It just happens that we sus-tain two different beliefs and I believe that our beliefs should not define our irritation or nuisance rather it should define our difference and our difference should create a kind of relevance that society can only get from uniqueness and variety.

That said, this post has zero correlation with faith or religion. It is something that is all-the-way relevant to your work ethic, your efficiency and your effectiveness as a worker, friend, human, spouse, partner or chief executive.

Very simply, I define prescience as the art of finishing before starting. That is not supposed to make sense, right? You should start a thing and then finish, right? But very effective people will understand that to be truly effective, you must master the art of starting after you have finished.

I first learnt this principle many years ago, when I started tak-ing interest in driving. For many years I will sit by the driver or behind him on a journey and I will watch the pedals under his feet. I will note the pedals that controlled our movement. After a while I started noticing that the pedal to the right was used any-time the driver is trying to move forward; I noted as well how that

anytime the driver will halt the vehicle, he’ll use the middle pedal. I kept watching this dynamics for many years, so much so that on my own and in my spare time I would practice what I have observed. I did the same thing with the gear system until I discovered that there were two systems; the manual and the automatic system. All these I had done while I was nothing close to being eligible to drive by any standard. But I did this for many years, I tell you. I was so confident that with that knowledge, I already knew how to drive.

But what does this story come to? How does it help anything? Here’s what eventually happened. My many years of understudying the dynamics of driving eventu-ally paid off when I eventually had the opportunity to drive. The very first time I held the steering, I moved the car farther than any first-time driver I know would possibly have, and did I mention without any assis-tance? I have since driven many kilometers since then without any formal driving-schooling. I am yet to have my first accident.

So what’s the point? I finished before I started. Yes I did. Your day will be a lot more productive and meaningful if you commit to this discipline and due diligence of ‘starting’ after you have ‘finished’.

Before you go for that crucial meeting, pre-play it, feed-forward (from feed-back), and practically ‘finish’ the meeting in your mind before it starts. Throw up possible questions you may be asked, answer them, create your own questions and anticipate responses, finish the meeting and then go on and start it while keeping your mind open. This is why people will wonder why you are always very productive at meetings.

Guess what? Even seemingly spontaneous performances, like comedy is full of this principle. Effective comedians are masters of prescience; they make you feel like what’s happening is unplanned, but speak to any renowned comedian, they’ll tell you every move is planned; of course there is the place of improvisation.

When you are going to make a sales pitch, ask all the possible questions your prospect might ask and answer them yourself; sell to yourself first, create all the scenarios and solve them, it makes your job easy. Plan your spontaneity. It will seem spontaneous and effortless to your observers but you will know that it is simply prescience.

Practice this with your relationships and your work; finish it and then start. It reduces your error rate and it makes you appears smarter than you are. Bosses like to work with people who see the bigger picture. This sort of posture saves you unnecessary trials, it saves you shock and surprises, it saves you cost and it earns you good reputation. The keyword is practice.

PrescienceThe art of finishing before starting


Business / WORk STATION

The Changing Face of developmentEconomic growth in Africa has been like this for

over a decade now, but in recent years it has been tak-ing on a new face–tech entrepreneurship. Originally catalysed by the mobile phone industry, which has grown exponentially on the continent–with subscrib-ers likely to reach a billion by 2015–apps especially have been playing an increasingly vital role within African society.

The buzz this has created across the continent has led to the formation of various tech hubs. This includes possibly the most renowned of them all, iHub in Kenya, alongside many others, including–Ice (Ethiopia), Hive Colab (Uganda), Wennovation Hub (Botswana) and CC Hub (Nigeria).

Inspiring CreativityThe idea behind such technological hubs is to pro-

vide entrepreneurs with the space to create and others

to create with. Although initially, most of these hubs serve to establish small tech start ups, predominantly apps, the impact in Kenya has made a giant leap on from that.

Indeed, such has Kenya’s tech-entrepreneurship grown, that now it contributes 5% to the country’s GDP. This may not seem like a huge amount, but it signifies a leap from $16 million up to $360 million dollars in just a decade. This indicates a growth of more than 2000%.

Kenya’s I-Hub too, has now moved on from app creation and the development of small start ups and entered into hardware. This has included the devel-opment of a supercomputer and specialist modem. One of the most recent products has been the BRCK modem, designed to withstand power outs and harsh conditions. This is a great example of an African prod-uct, produced for African’s through an African col

The Importance of Entrepreneurial Collaboration in Africa

By matt S.

As much of the world has struggled through an economic recession, a number of African countries have continued to develop at unprecedented rates. Indeed, a recent research, ranking countries by growth in their GDP in 2013, sees three African countries–South Sudan, Libya and Sierra Leone -occupying the top three spots. Additionally, there are 16 other African states within the top 50.


Business

By GaREtH HUnt

PROFESSOR TIGINEh MERShA ARGUES ThAT A “standards divide” exist between the African continent and the rest of the world. This ‘di-vide’ has in-built consequences for Africa’s rov-

ing entrepreneurs on the global stage, as ISO stand-ards are the bedrock to entrepreneurial growth. To be sure, the ISO is only one part of the African entre-preneur jigsaw puzzle. However, it is one that needs to be addressed.

International standards are crucial as they ensure that a service or a product is reliable, of good quality and safe for the end-user. They are not merely ‘safety’ guides, but important business management tools that have changed the way business operates and in turn has helped business change their management, opera-tions and furthermore have helped business reduce

costs.Africa, according to Bloomberg, is a “hive of en-

trepreneurial activity” the continent has seen an “ex-plosive growth of entrepreneurial fervor.” But does the African entrepreneur on the global stage have an in-built disadvantage? The Asian tiger and the Latin American boom have been, partly based on the suc-cessful implementation of global standardisation within manufacturing, service procedure and opera-tions. However, the African example has seen several hurdles to the successful implementation of global standards.

What of the African entrepreneur? A recent sur-vey conducted by the Omidyar Network found “a cul-ture of entrepreneurship is growing in Sub-Saharan Africa, with indicators related to entrepreneurial mo-

African Entrepreneurs on the Global Stage


Business

tivators at least on part or higher than global peers. However, despite these positive signs, the business landscape in Sub-Saharan Africa provides a number of challenges that prospective entrepreneurs must transcend.” The Omidyar Group found that stand-ards, relating to business conduct and practice, af-fected the business trading prospects of start-up and legacy entrepreneurs. This means that the pursuit of standards is still a big problem in African entrepre-neurism.

The ISO standards and other UN-endorsed busi-ness and operational standards have helped compa-nies like Google, Microsoft and Samsung both inno-vate and monetize products and services in such a way as to fund innovative forward-thinking business culture and policy. Therefore, it is in African entre-preneur’s interests to work towards attaining the ISO standards. However, the cumbersome nature of reg-istration–as in the case of Ethiopia, Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire–is a hurdle. The three year negotiation pro-cess of Nigeria’s adoption of the ISO 2600 Guidance on Social Responsibility is in stark contrast to Sweden or South Korea’s 7-9 month adoption.

Why are standards important? Any entrepreneur knows that standards, especially in terms of a prod-uct or service, are crucial. Therefore, a global stand-ard can help increase a product or service’s reach on the global stage. African entrepreneurs can use ISO standards to help deliver products and services that match global standards. A great example of ISO stand-ards helping developing countries entrepreneurs can be seen in the ISO 9000 standard adoption in India and South Africa. It has been argued that the ISO 9000 quality standards systems have become a “panacea for small businesses in developing countries.” It is important that global standards can help African en-trepreneurs find the right balance between domestic and global markets. These standards, from ISO 9000 or ISO 22000, can help African entrepreneurs on the global stage by articulating quality, innovation and trustworthiness within the very confines of their ser-vices and products.

Bureaucracy is an issue, and registration for a na-

tionally awarded standard run by countries with bur-densome bureaucratic regimes can create innovation pressures. The scholarly research on the bureaucracy as a retarding factor is legion. The research has found that factors including government policy, fraud and corruption along with infrastructure issues all affect the entrepreneurial activities of Sub-Saharan African nations. However, the rising number of entrepreneurs actively succeeding means the blame cannot be solely placed on African countries alone. There is a debate surrounding the inequities of ISO standards and how unfairly they were developed. A five month adoption in Switzerland, a country the OECD claims has 99% education, health, non-poverty and security statuses, is simpler–the road network, the telecoms and trans-port logistics networks are all developed. The other side, say Cote d’Ivorie where the OECD claims the similar levels are 28, 38 and 32 per cent to the Swiss example above. This highlights the ambiguity of adop-tion rules.

The African entrepreneur can succeed. However, as the Omidyar Network, points out the lack of infra-structure does retard growth, as the OECD and Trans-parency International argue the issue of legal and po-litical bureaucracy creates environmental issues for successful business growth. The research undertaken by The Economist, the Financial Times, Bloomberg and Forbes all points towards a successful Africa–but an Africa with two very different constituents. The rapidly expanding sky-rises of Lagos is a world away from the poverty-stricken slums encircling Lagos. The African entrepreneur on the global stage needs to walk a tight rope in terms of adhering to global standards whilst helping to raise standards at home. The successes of Aliko Dangote or Manu Chandaria highlight the entrepreneurial verve but more assis-tance is required from global standards bodies, West-ern governments along with swift legislative changes by Sub-Saharan African governments to help increase the adoption processes whilst empowering the ever-growing African entrepreneurial spirit.

the scholarly research on the bureaucracy as a retarding factor is legion. the research has found that factors including government policy, fraud and corruption along with infrastructure issues all affect the entrepreneurial activities of sub-saharan african nations. however, the rising number of entrepreneurs actively succeeding means the blame cannot be solely placed on african countries alone.


Business

Tech and Community development Not only have such initiatives managed to fuel economic

growth in a previously dormant sector, but they have often had a far reaching impact on the wider society.

The most famous tech company in Kenya, Ushahidi, rose to fame back in 2008 when they developed a disaster mapping software, in order to keep track of post-election violence in the country. This software has gone on to be used in many other disaster zones worldwide.

In addition to this, there have been many initiatives to help the day-to-day life of the people. Mobile banking services have enabled the rural population, especially those involved in agricul-ture, to conduct business more efficiently. Others have helped to maximise their profits, by providing farmers with access to com-modity prices. Especially with regards to mobile phones, the pos-sibilities are really limitless for the social impact tech-enterprises.

The Key is CollaborationThe collaboration catalysed through such tech hubs has been

further developed by a number of innovative initiatives. An ex-ample is a project led by Global Youth Innovative Network in col-laboration with the Columbia University Business School. This partnership was launched in July this year, with 20 entrepreneurs in Burundi, Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria and Uganda. Taught over approximately three months, this online entrepreneurship course hopes to help participants to spot, develop and maximise the ben-efits of new ventures. It also seeks to build a network of investors

and collaborators in order to enhance this further.There have also been recent moves to harness the potential

of Africans who have studied abroad. The Said Business School has for five years now been holding the annual African Busi-ness Conference, connecting many bright young minds from the continent through the Oxford African Network. This is done in a bid to catalyse collaboration and to encourage more investment into the continent.

The collaboration between returning expats and locals is also considered to be a key component of inspiring growth in many burgeoning African economies. Indeed, with more Diaspora be-ing attracted back to Africa, the role they can play is finally being understood by governments. This has led to many initiatives, including a government-run affordable housing scheme solely for Diaspora in Ethiopia and an annual Youth Entrepreneurship Summit in Somalia.

Shift the MindsetIt is now time for African entrepreneurs to move on from the

survivalist mentality, which has seen companies and individuals more likely to compete then collaborate, and rather work together to become competitive in the international market.

Although, of course, not all African entrepreneurs are in-volved in tech industries, the success of the tech hubs throughout Africa sets a perfect template for how other sectors should work together.

This collaboration also goes one step further, with the des-perate requirement for government bodies, private companies, entrepreneurs and NGOs to work together, in order to maximise the success of business growth on the continent.

It is an exciting time for African entrepreneurs right now, but to truly reap the rewards, not only individually but continent-wide, and not only economically, but socially and politically too, collaboration truly is the key component.

in addition to this, there have been many initiatives to help the day-to-day life of the people. Mobile banking services have enabled the rural population, especially those involved in agriculture, to conduct business more efficiently. others have helped to maximise their profits, by providing farmers with access to commodity prices. especially with regards to mobile phones, the possibilities are really limitless for the social impact tech-enterprises.


Business

GenerationsEmotionally Balanced: 37CHECK 1, CHECK 2 37Healthy Mom Healthy Baby.... 39Before and After Pregnancy 39Child Domestic Helps in Nigeria 41

By tiwa SoRiyan

BEING EMOTIONALLY BALANCEd plays a very big role in determin-ing the persona you exhibit and how others perceive you. It doesn’t

just affect the way you enjoy life but how others get to enjoy your person as well. Emotional wholeness impacts on every aspect of life: your relationships, social life, work life. Many of us do not know that the root of many intra and inter personal problems stem from the inability to handle emotions appropriately. Below is a list of some common emotional states that need some work over.

MOOd SWINGSWhen you have your moods swinging

from high to low consistently, it is a sign that you are out of balance emotionally. This implies that it is easy for any conflict-ing or even pleasing circumstance to shift your dispositions. It makes you appear in-consistent. This can give you an impres-sion of being unstable and can impact negatively on how people relate with you because they are unsure of what to expect. It also affects how well you are able to keep at peace with yourself.

PERFECTIONISM IdEOLOGYIf everything has to be in a state you

desire or some specific actions must be taken before you feel okay, you are most likely dealing with perfectionism. This is an obses-sive compulsive disorder. This is different from having excellent standards (though perfectionists claim this). You are being controlled by the situation rather than you deciding what you want. This emotional state will get you on the edge and dissatisfied most of the times and make you appear difficult before others.

dENIAL ESCAPISMWhen familiar folks and new acquaintances alike

make the same uncomplimentary remarks about you; you should want to check it out. Rather than con-

clude that “they don’t understand you”. You need to be sure you ‘understand’ yourself. Many times we accept weaknesses as ‘that’s the way we are’ because we are used to them and don’t want to confront them. Defi-nitely it means we are responding to things the wrong way and this will not make us better or happier in life as we will be going opposite directions from others.

ThE PROJECTOROn another hand when we accept that things are

really not right but we keep putting the blame on oth-ers, then we have another emotional emergency at

Emotionally Balanced:ChECK 1, ChECK 2


Generations

hand. If it so happens that we can never go wrong but when things go wrong it has to be the fault of another person, then we are projecting. Some people have been accustomed to this by trying to avoid dis-cipline. One thing we need to realise is that we will do wrong but the way we go about it will determine what happens after. Failure to take responsibility for one’s actions will make you feel incompetent rather than confident. And definitely, this does no good for us emotionally.

INAdEQUACY SYNdROMEThe ‘inadequacy’ syndrome is a sign of unhappi-

ness with self. The answers we need often lie within ourselves. If you do not have a healthy state of self-acceptance at each moment, you will be wrung out mentally and emotionally. God has created us as com-plete beings; however when we are unaware of what we have we will feel inadequate. The challenge is not that something is missing but we are missing out on something we have that we don’t know about.

MANAGEMENT MENTALITYThe “management mentality” is often a sign of

unhealthy self-denial. If you never go for what you desire, even though you know there’s nothing wrong with it, then you are dealing with a low self-esteem. It may seem ‘pious’ but most times it shows we don’t think well of ourselves as deserving good things. This is not healthy. There are things we don’t have just be-cause we don’t ask for them or know how to ask. You need to ask and reach out for the good things in life because you deserve it.

SUSPICIOUS MINdSETA suspicious mind-set is symptomatic of fear and

distrust. This reveals a negative, pessimistic approach to life which expects doom rather than boom. Such a mind-set will not allow a person to look forward to pleasurable things. The nervous system will always be over stressed because it is always put in a defensive state; this can lead to psychosomatic illness as well.

MARTYR’S SYNdROMEThe martyr’s syndrome is also indicative of low

self-esteem. It is most likely you do not have personal boundaries. This will make you put more on your plate than you can handle. You may even believe you are sacrificing for others and are not being appreciated for your efforts. It is because you are handling what is not your bit. You need to realise what is needful and focus on that because there’s no prize for waste.

If you identify with any of the above or even have other emotional wholeness challenges, you need to know you are not alone. Due to the various factors that interplay in affecting our moods and life gener-ally, we may lack the know how to deal with these internal conflicts. However, the good news is that we can gain control of our lives and happiness by, learn-ing how to deal with these situations and place them in the prosper perspectives.

The first step is to desire a peaceful life with your-self and others. When you notice any behaviour or feeling or thoughts falling out of line with this ob-jective consistently, then you need to identify it and decide you want to work on it. Next is to find out what is the ideal or appropriate action or emotions and seek to replace the faulty with this. This must be a con-scious effort. However, if you are finding it difficult to confront these issues yourself, please get the help of a trained counsellor or coach. Always remember, there’s a more fulfilling life ahead of you, reach for it!

the first step is to desire a peaceful life with yourself and others. when you notice any behaviour or feeling or thoughts falling out of line with this objective consistently, then you need to identify it and decide you want to work on it. next is to find out what is the ideal or appropriate action or emotions and seek to replace the faulty with this. this must be a conscious effort. however, if you are finding it difficult to confront these issues yourself, please get the help of a trained counsellor or coach.


Generations

MOThERhOOd IS NOT A dESTINATION, IT IS a journey and that journey starts the day double lines emerge on the home test strip and for some moms who have consciously

made the decision to be pregnant; the journey must have started earlier than when they tested positive to pregnancy and the prize of this journey is a healthy baby and a healthy mommy too.

The healthier you are, the health-ier your baby will be as the baby takes from the nutrient store of her mom while she is in-utero and even after she is born. Imagine a mom whose body is not in an op-timal condition, she might have to do extra work to upgrade her health status as nature has so de-signed that the body supplies baby first then mom after. Here are ba-sic tips in helping that both momma and child are in optimal health state pre-delivery and after:

healthy Mom healthy Baby....Before and After Pregnancy

FolawE BaniGBE

MATERNITY AND PREGNANCY CARE


Generations

Stay hydratedFor every stage in pregnancy, you need to be

well hydrated. The baby needs the water to maintain a good level of amniotic fluid, and even if you are retaining fluids, the remedy is to drink more water, the more fluids you drink during pregnancy, the less your body retains. So if your feet and ankles are swol-len, drinking more water actually helps. Dehydration can cause contractions that can trigger preterm labor. Water also helps prevent some common pregnancy problems such as constipation, hemorrhoids, and bladder infections (drinking water helps dilute your urine, which reduces your risk of infection).

Increase essential fats intake and other mineralsThe brain is over 60% fat and very rich in both

omega-3 and omega-6 EFA derivatives, so the baby needs essential fatty acids (EFAs) for brain develop-ment and brain function. These are drawn from the mother’s body during pregnancy and breast feeding. So during pregnancy and breastfeeding the mother gets depleted of essential fatty acids especially the omega-3 fatty acids. She can replenish from various foods, including fish.

Feast on proteinsProtein is the building block of every cell in your

baby’s body; moms have to consciously consume high proteins such as meat and beans.

Eat smaller mealsYour body would be able to digest smaller meals in

higher frequency than a big chunk at a time, besides your tummy might not have that kind of space for a large meal hence there is no point inconveniencing yourself.

deal with emotional disturbances, fear and anxi-ety

Blood vessels of the uterus are extremely sensitive to any simulations of the Sympathetic nervous system; stress-induced hormones are said to cause early con-tractions. Do not be lured into negative thinking, stay positive, get encouraging support from your partner or from family and friends. Engage in deep breathing and relax with good soothing music, visit places you enjoy with your partner.

Consider more electrolytes and mineralsTo ease the childbirth, you need a lot of electro-

lytes and minerals found in a variety of natural foods and drinks. Magnesium, potassium, sulphur, chloride, and sodium are especially important to prevent exces-sive pain and fatigue during labour. Important miner-als can be derived from fresh meats, dairy products, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and freshly-squeezed juices.

One would want to think that after the baby is

born, mom is free, but mommy just got one little in-dependent cutie in her life and she has to keep on in ensuring that mom and child turn out doing great.

You need to accept helpSo now the journey has changed, there is a baby in

your arms. You need to accept help from people that are willing to help because the next few months will be a challenge and your two arms would definitely not be able to do so many things at the same time.

Adhere to your healthy pregnancy lifestyleYou still can’t indulge in sugars, you need to avoid

caffeine and alcohol and you still cannot smoke; those substances are too strong for a baby’s growing nervous system. You also need to keep taking your supple-ments as the baby still needs the vitamins your body would supply her.

Try home remediesBe ready to try home remedies for minor chal-

lenges that you may encounter by the days. You could try a sitz bath for hemorrhoids or improvise one, try a steamy bath for stuffy nose, try stretching for aching limbs, the list could be endless.

Study your babyYou need to study your baby to know his feeding

and sleeping routine. Beyond that, you alone can tell by the way he cries or moves what exactly the baby needs at that time. Baby might want to sleep more than he feeds; you have to wake him to feed as the need to eat outweighs sleep at this stage. Do not be overly anxious about this little one; when baby cries, find out what is wrong and attend to it without pan-icking. P&Y

Folawe Banigbe is the Publisher/Editor-in-chief of Pregnancy and You magazine. Pregnancy and you gives endless tips and insights on what is going on inside you and how to handle every challenge you might face during this magical nine months.

the healthier you are, the healthier your baby will be as the baby takes from the nutrient store of her mom while she is in-utero and even after she is born. imagine a mom whose body is not in an optimal condition, she might have to do extra work to upgrade her health status as nature has so designed that the body supplies baby first then mom after.


Generations

ACCORdING TO A 104-PAGE REPORT BY ThE INTERNA-tional Labour Organization (ILO), more than 52 mil-lion people worldwide are employed as domestic work-ers, and over 15.5 million are children, with the bulk

of them in the poorest regions on earth, mainly Africa and Asia, working as domestic workers in people’s homes, in haz-ardous and sometimes slave-like conditions. In Nigeria, there are groups and individuals who have made huge businesses out of this arbitrary act. The barbaric notion of employing kids to work as house-helps under dehumanizing circumstance is a social epidemic that needs to be addressed and trashed in our social landscape, as it attacks our collective social and human dignity.

The whole concept of domestic helps is actually misun-derstood in this part of the world where majority are live-in helps, compared to what obtains in developed countries where it is actually seen as a proper job in the form of nannies and housekeepers, who know their rights and exercise it appro-priately, and are adequately remunerated for their services. In this part of the world, domestic helps are mostly live-ins and are ill-treated as most of their employers presume they are doing them a favour, most especially child domestic helps. In most cases, the child domestic helps are from the hometowns of their employers and the idea of going to the city, where it is pre-supposed that all good things happen, makes them jump at the opportunity even when it comes in the form of working as a domestic help. They are also mostly told that they would be sent to schools by their employers but the opposite is often the reality.

Domestic helps come in to stay with their employers and the following are usually what characterizes their work-life day in day out: wake up very early and close in the late hours of the night doing chores such as cleaning, cooking, running errands, and babysitting Sunday to Sunday. The domestic helps don’t see their work as proper jobs, and a means to a more profitable end, e.g. raising enough funds for their education, learning a vocational skill, and the likes. Majority of their employers also do not see them as employees but rather more as people who are being favoured by them, thus they are treated badly as lesser people. The employment bodies in their own case, do not see domestic jobs as a form of employment, and so do not have it in their purview to improve the lives of these people. For me, the most appalling of the live-in domestic helps are the under-age domestic helps. This is especially quite disturbing when they are being hired by ‘learned’ people, who should know better about protecting the future and human dignity of our young- I’ll give

an instance: I was at a shopping complex some weeks ago when I saw a lady, say in her early 30s come into the store with a very young girl who was sickly looking, and carrying a shopping bag that was definitely too heavy for her. She looked malnour-ished and fearful. I looked at the lady she came in with, and just couldn’t help but show disgust at the lady’s mentality of hiring a child domestic help. The lady acted like it was normal to have a child-help, and to prove how normal she must have thought it was, she had tried on an outfit, and then turned to ask the girl what she thought. The girl looking fearful, and confused sort of nodded. Honestly, my heart wept. First, at how this lady could emotionally justify having a child for a domestic help. Second, at the parents of the child who were probably told they were being done a favour by allowing someone take their child to the city where she would have a ‘chance’ to a better life. Honestly, I felt very sad for the level of the woman’s ignorance that she showed off so confidently. Looking at the scenario, I knew the woman was newly married, and probably doesn’t have any kid yet, so the question arose; what house chores could this lady need help for, that this child domestic help would have been a support for. She also didn’t act with certain mannerisms that would have suggested that she was born and brought up with a golden spoon, hence the reason for more of my shock.

Today, I appeal to every reader to start to take a second look at how under-age live-in domestic helps should be perceived, as it exudes a certain moral bankruptcy to actually employ under-age live-in domestic helps especially under slave-like condi-tions. This should also be a call to action at the national level to bring about a reform by legislating against child domestic helps and also implement policies that would spur improvement of the labour as well as protect the human and social rights of domestic workers.

Child domestic helps in Nigeria

By adEBayo toSin


Generations

Poverty and Ignorance in the face of the 2015 Elections 43Building a National Identity Database in Nigeria 44African Leadership: 46A Resolve to Africa’s development

GovernMent and Citizen

By mayowa .o

IT IS ABSOLUTELY NO NEWS ThAT NIGERIA’S POLITI-cal landscape has over the years been shaped by a rare blend of highs and lows. We may suggest typical ‘highs’ to include the glamorous glimpse of

hope that heralded our hard fought reinstatement of democracy, the restoration of the sanctity of due pro-cess and the rule of law, and ofcourse at some point, debt cancellation and soaring oil prices. The many ‘lows’ that followed those early years are obvious to us all. Insecurity, increased cases of corruption, in-creased rates of unemployment and rising poverty will easily pass as four of the many lows—in no particular order—that have plagued Nigeria’s development and her optimistic national restart of 1999.

As the race of who takes reign (or who retains reign) in the 2015 general elections approaches, the question of how enlightened and empowered Nige-rians are to make and stand by right choices comes to fore. We are in the second half of 2013, a little more than two and a half years to the elections and the power games have already begun in red-hot albeit not surprising fashion.

The sad truth remains that much of Nigeria’s teeming masses will again in 2015 be faced with the arduous challenge of having to negotiate their future and wrestle their collective destinies away from the ‘hawk-like’ fists of greedy and self-serving politicians. Poor (often in mind) citizens will again sell their Vot-ers’ Cards to desperate politicians in exchange for a few thousand naira notes or less. Men of our secu-rity forces will again submit themselves to be used as slaves of money and power, swinging ceremoniously to the caprices of power, abusing and battering coun-trymen who dare to stand up to their rights—in all, conniving to rob electorates of their votes. Millions of us (most of whom are poor and unemployed) will again queue up to register to cast our votes defying the scourge of the sun or pummeling by heavy rains.

It is often said that the quality of choices we make appear to be greatly connected to the veracity of knowledge we have at our disposal per time as well as the availability of resources we have to execute such choices. If this premise holds true, it then means that the quality of leadership that a poor (and largely ig-norant) electorate like ours will elect, will at best be below par.

It should therefore bother us all that poverty rate in Nigeria is on the high. Recent World Bank and Af-

rican Development Bank (AfDb) data upholds this fact. “Nigeria’s prospect of halving poverty by 2015 seems weak. The proportion of people living below the national poverty line has worsened…” the AfDB stated this in a recent report. The report further stated that rate of unemployment has risen by over 5 percent between 2010 and 2012. Many public analysts have also described as ‘unrealistic’ our goal of achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 as well as our lofty dream of being among the top twenty economies by 2020 despite our impressive GDP growth of between 6.9 to 7.4 percent.

Except ofcourse we are a rare breed, poverty makes us all vulnerable and ignorance makes us gul-lible. It is a fact that an enlightened and empowered electorate will more likely make better decisions at the polls in 2015 than those of the past. It is therefore our responsibility as a people to take conscious and concerted efforts at ensuring that we break out of this box of poverty by engaging our minds and hands in productive and value-adding ventures without wait-ing for the government. This way, our results will be better in 2015.

Will we go to the polls again to elect into power persons who will keep our people perpetually poor, unemployed and unsafe? The quality of our elected public officers in 2015 will answer this.

Poverty and Ignorance in the face of the 2015 Elections



By JElan a.

dURING AN INTERACTIvE SESSION WITh ThE Stakeholders, Director-General/CEO of NIMC (National Identity Management Com-mission), Chris Onyemenam highlighted

some key issues that led them to the proposition of a national identity database. He stated that an average population of Nigerians parade multiple identities – 100 million have no official identities, 75% of identity

documents were fake and self-issued, less than 20% of the population have access to financial services and less than 10% have actual total bank cards. (“NIMC Pledges”, 2012). This hindered the government pro-grams such as tax system, criminal justice system, banking, and financial systems making the system less productive and efficient (Obi, 2006).

Why is this so? It has been said that anyone can

Building a National Identity database in Nigeria



assume the identity of other people. In Nigeria’s case, the lack of national identification cards enables Nigerians to walk around and outside the country with nothing to identify them making them commit or caught in a crime and simply get away with it – as simple as that. We can try to view these problems among these scenarios: because of the lack of ID or DNA analysis, authorities cannot identify bodies of dead people; criminals escape justice by relocating himself to other parts of the country and changing his identity. Failure of the past identity cards proved that though it can be a weapon to fight crime, implementations of such schemes has robbed the country of its huge economic and social benefits as argued by numerous experts. (Azeez, 2013).

In lieu to these reasons, National Identity Management Sys-tem (NIMS) has been introduced to counter the failures of old identification cards and provide a more efficient means of iden-tification for Nigerians (Ajoniewe, 2013). The system will collect information such as name, gender, address, occupation, state/local government, biometrics, and photographs and is billed to coordinate all of these personal data (of each Nigerian) in one card (Azeez, 2013).According to the NIMS handbook (2007), the local residents of Nigeria will benefit individually and collec-tively from their government, which includes the improvement of physical security, more secure business environment, improving human rights, deepening of financial services including financial inclusion and improved governance and service delivery as One-myenem noted (Agbaje, 2011).By using the system, it would be difficult for criminals to counterfeit or duplicate multiple identi-ties protecting people from crime and possible terrorism (Tijane, 2012). To further deepen its importance, Mastercard and the NIMC has made an announcement that ID cards which contains biometric data can be used as debit cards which can be used at ATM’s and stores. They feel that debit card payments (cashless

payments) can be a solution to the ethnic violence and omni-present corruption that could slow down the growth of Nigeria’s

economy. It will also allow Nigerians to participate in the global economy. They believe it is the key to the economic boom of the country and combatting poverty. Quite an excellent proposal I may say, but the general public seem to respond negatively. Al-though many people thought of this idea as a privacy advocate’s nightmare, it is no doubt that this service is what the people need. (Ungerleider, 2013).

Just like any other country, this is usually a subject for con-troversy and resistance, as the system tend to invade the privacy of the citizens especially for Nigerians. Reasons for resentment varies from religious sensibility to the voting strength of sections of the country (Obi, 2006). Many Nigerian citizens are still in the dark as to what the system is all about and are still holding on to their old ID’s from which they still enrolled for about ten years. Mostly Nigerians doubt the NIMS will even work since there were people who still have not collected their old ID’s, yet they found themselves facing the process of the new ID system (Ajobiewe, 2013). Well, just try to imagine yourself in their shoes, you might feel the same way. Many have lost confidence over any proposal of public project and their pessimistic and criticism will continue until the Commission is able to deliver what it has promised to the people. Since the system has accepted numerous criticism, NIMC cannot afford to fail. (“Who is a Nigerian?”). Whatever happens, we will be there to see it.

Mostly nigerians doubt the niMs will even work since there were people who still have not collected their old id’s, yet they found themselves facing the process of the new id system (ajobiewe, 2013). well, just try to imagine yourself in their shoes, you might feel the same way. Many have lost confidence over any proposal of public project and their pessimistic and criticism will continue until the Commission is able to deliver what it has promised to the people.



By RoBERt P.

UNdER-dEvELOPMENT OF BOTh ThE POLITICAL infrastructure and potential business oppor-tunities on the continent are becoming the foundation of an Africa that cannot see past

the short-term scenario of their continent. But is it possible to argue that a lack of financial backing is restraining the ideas for a larger reform? Certainly if you turn your attention to the armed forces many leaders command in Africa, and a lack of certain military equipment and authority over certain rebel groups across the continent, certainly keeps many leaders hands tied.

But the main problem seems to lie in the aliena-tion existing between African leaders and their own people who will know better than anyone, what needs to be changed or improved. The recent elections in Zimbabwe that saw Robert Mugabe re-elected as Pres-ident had sparked outrage before much of the election process had started due to accusations of vote fixing and intimidation of Zimbabwean people over voting

for other candidates. Sooner or later the gap between leaders and their people need to be bridged in order to reinstate a sense of confidence for the people in their leaders.

Furthermore through this there is the opportunity for leaders to communicate freely and clearly on a mutual ground with those who know what potential steps can be made; both financially and diplomatical-ly, from local to national issues, to help each country to evolve and strengthen around a system of people’s national pride that stems from a belief in a more solid and honest political structure that their leaders have created.

Despite this, many of the current leaders in Africa, as of now, appear to be in the mind set about how their respective countries will cope in the short-term and how any immediate problems are present and need to be addressed. Naturally this is extremely important. However a more long-term and innovative approach seems to be needed to take the infrastructure of each

African Leadership:A Resolve to Africa’s development



individual African nation to the next level when look-ing to a brighter future.

It seems as if they are quite happy in a lot of in-stances to sub-consciously deprive their own people of the opportunities they could and should deserve in their own nation. African leaders right now, seem

to be ruling countries still hugely underdeveloped despite the business opportunities some can provide through the discovery and use of precious natural re-sources for instance.

The African Union (AU) needs to realise the po-tential financial power house it could become if they start finding a compromise between taking advantage of the business opportunities they can offer through the trade they already make and giving those oppor-tunities back to their own people to re-instil the con-fidence they should have in their leaders.

Presently the bottom line remains that many Afri-can Leaders are looking to constantly stamp the inde-pendence of their nations over one another by being completely independent in their quests for power as individual nations. While each country has the right to their own individual plans to grow and evolve, the long-term solution for the continent points to a unity between all African nations, whereby there is a collec-tive spirit and set of future targets that all can strive towards. As a result, both the rewards of each nation and for the continent as a whole would be able to com-plement each other.

Through recognising the same goals and working as an entire continent will show to those losing confi-dence in the AU that not only would there be signs of showing the rest of the world a greater sense of unity, but as a result show the first signs of efforts going toward making Africa a more stable and prosperous part of the world.

africa must learn to be self sufficient; joint efforts should be made to tackle scarcity of food and water, which is a

prevalent problem that needs urgent solutions. issues such as proper

agriculture funding, projects for clean drinking water and water for animals

and crops should also receive urgent attention from african government,

without necessarily relying on foreign assistance to achieve the basic

developments that would better the lives of every ordinary african.



LAGOS TRANSPORTATION POLICIESGreetings your Excellency,Like many other Lagosians, I have some reservations about how our government is run but unlike many, I would put a pen

to my opinion, thanks to the benevolence of the democratic system our fore fathers handed over to us. I would like to start by reiterating the premise of a government which is hinged on a social contract, that is, the government is a derivative of the people and thus is supposed to exist to protect, preserve and advance the people in exchange for their personal freedom. The government is not there to ensure hardship, frustrate or exploit the people.

In a country such as Nigeria where there is widespread corruption, prevalent under-development among many other social problems, it is a feat for Lagos State to be at this point in her existence, one which I am happy and grateful about, thanks to you and your team. You are all immensely appreciated.

From 2007 till date, Lagos State has witnessed tangible change, rapid growth and undeniable development through radical paradigm shift and policy change. Nevertheless, there are some gaps which I intend to bring to your notice and I assure you that if implemented, the policies would not only reap manifold yield but also be widely accepted by the populace.

The recommendations are listed below:- Concerning policies, the policies formulated by your government are very insightful and for the greater good if looked at

properly.Notwithstanding, I believe they would be more effective if the government took steps to cushion the effect of sharp policy

changes often mooted by the State and also ensure that certain structures are put in place to ease the transition into the new sys-tem created by the policy. This hence implies that the fact that people are resistant to change would be considered and palliatives would be made available to reduce the pains created by the change.

Example: The new Okada prohibition policy, which I am in full support of as long as they are off the major highways due to the high risk nature of their operation and also the nuisance value. This policy would be applauded if other means of transporta-tion were made available within the state (Railways, Highways and Feeder roads). As it stands, the existing transport system is barely adequate and the okada riders who played a major role in augmenting the system have been totally removed, thereby not only causing untold hardship, but it has also made movement unbearable.

I would suggest that they be fully banned from the highways but permitted to operate within the local government areas /Local community development areas. At least until the entire feeder roads are fully tarred and motor able, then Lagos State could go “keke” all the way.

-Another vital recommendation is hinged on the operations of the LASTMA who in my own opinion have deviated from their major objective, which is traffic management. From close observation and contact with the officials, I discovered that more often than not they fail to control, co-ordinate and manage traffic in the state. Many just stand in wait to apprehend the people who violate traffic laws while traffic builds up and commotion ensues on the same roads they are stationed.

I would suggest that there be a high concentration of LASTMA officials on the roads during “rush hour” periods (in the morning and in the evening on working days).

I noticed that these times have the highest traffic flow and the lowest LASTMA presence, hence it all seems like Lagos is a world of traffic. I believe that the traffic situation in Lagos could improve if properly managed.

Also there are times when the LASTMA officials arrest when all they need to do is correct the offender. They are there to make our lives easier not be a scare/terror on road users. I would be glad if they are called to order.

-Finally, for once I disagree with your policy action: The Atlantic project off Ahmadu Bello way VI / old Bar Beach. Despite the tourism, mega-city recognition and other opportunities that would be created from the project, I believe that it is not a very viable venture not in the sense of profit/yield but in the sense of the world and its changing nature. I mean that due to the widespread environmental problems such as global warming, melting of the ice glaciers, rise in sea level, flooding and threats on coastal cities of the world among other problems, it is not imperative to reclaim the ocean and create a city as there are other pressing needs.

Looking at the ongoing work, I can see that a lot has been invested therein and I would like to stress the fact that such monies could be diverted towards fixing our road networks (particularly feeder roads/streets which are mostly in a deplorable state), rejuvenating our transportation sector, youth empowerment, remuneration of government workers especially teachers and en-suring that necessary infrastructure is in place.

It is important to note that developed countries/cities are not loved and recognized because of their beauty alone but mainly for the SYSTEMS that work. Therefore I would pause here today by gently and respectfully shifting your gaze to creating WORK-ING SYSTEMS within the state.

I would appreciate it if these lines are carefully considered and action is taken as soon as possible. I appreciate you and I’m sure all Lagosians do too but I feel you could do better. “Good is never good enough”.

Stay BlessedAdeola Oluwaseun Joseph

Letter to the Governor



Choose tr thouGht revolutioniF i wERE yoU, i will cHooSE PowER

i will Stay conScioUS to BE awaRE

i will oPEn my EyES to UndERStand REality

i will takE PaRt to makE a cHanGE

i will see things differently and take a turn for the better with these, i remain Powerful think differently, choose tR thought Revolution, a nation-Building online magazine: For destinies in charge of change. call +234-812-811-8881 for more details or to Subscribe.

The Terror WithinDoes Nigeria need foreign assistance to Fight Boko Haram ?

New Beginnings, New ResolutionsMaking New Year resolutions and seeing them through

Ecowas and theintegration farce

The Four Core Subjects

The Doctrine of Tolerance

The Future WeepsThe quest to pursue the originality and dignity of the future of Africa

BY OlAkuNle SOriYAN


ANNuAl SuBSCRipTioN: Nigeria: NGN 1,000 / Ghana: 13 / South Africa: R59 / Kenya: KES 540 / US: $7 / UK: £5 / EU: €5

VOl.2 / April 2013 eDiTiON

The Terror WithinDoes Nigeria need

foreign assistance to

Fight Boko Haram ?

New Beginnings,

New ResolutionsMaking New Year resolutions and

seeing them through

Ecowas and the

integration farceThe Four Core

SubjectsThe Doctrine of

Tolerance


BY OlAkuNle SOriYAN

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ANNuAl SuBSCRipTioN: Nigeria: NGN 1,000 / Ghana: 13 / South Africa: R59 / Kenya: KES 540 / US: $7 / UK: £5 / EU: €5

VOl.2 / April 2013 eDiTiON

view PointMy Ghana 51“Call For Peace” Experience 512013/2014 EPL Season: 53Toxic Relationship


view Point / GuEST LOuNGE

I LEFT ThE hUSTLING ANd BUZZING OF LAGOS CITY on the 27th of July 2013 to Accra, the journey was not at all friendly because I traveled by road, to have a vista view of the neigbouring countries. Be-

ing my first time, I was eager to know where we were at each time, I kept asking those who are familiar with the road a bunch load of questions. With my iPad, there wasn’t a dull moment, as I took pictures of any fascinating object, building and people that attracted me.

As we went further I began to get tired of the jour-ney and asked how many more hours we had to get

there, I dozed off a couple of times and tried to keep myself awake. In order for me not to fall sleep again, I engaged myself in a discussion with my new friends I had just met and made, some whom are based in Ghana and some going for business and pleasure.

As we got half way into the journey I was relieved, Togo to be precise. The amount of ladies on motor-bikes amazed me, it seems it is one of their major means of transportation; I couldn’t help but laugh. The fascinating beach view by the road side mellowed down my laughter, I had to grab my iPad again and start capturing.JoycE ikHilE

My Ghana“Call For Peace” Experience


GuEST LOuNGE / view Point

We got into Ghana in the evening, I bid my new friends goodbye as I alighted before them at Tema Junction, where my lovely brother and his family were waiting to receive me. Upon our arrival home, I rested for a while but being a TV aficionado, I quickly grabbed the remote control and scanned through the channels they had, the first channel I tuned to was showing a man talking on peace in Ghana, I wasn’t in the mood for that, I quickly tuned to another, and to my surprise, I saw a group of people who were call-ing for peace to reign in Ghana no matter what the verdict was.

I couldn’t help but asked, what the talk on peace was all about, I soon found that there was a battle be-tween two political parties in the country. An insight into the issue got me very interested. The rate at which people from different regions, fields, organizations were calling for peace, surprised me and immediate-ly I remembered my beloved country Nigeria, they hardly have time to come on air to preach peace when there is an election petition filed against persons or parties. The opposite was the case in Ghana, every field in one way or the other preached on peace from children to youths, market women, students, associa-tions and even TV hosts were not left out as before the commencement of their program, a line on peace must be rendered. The bus drivers and their mates (called conductor in Nigeria) were not left out. Chief Imam, the President of Christians Association, Ghana Independent Broadcast Association and many more campaigned for peace daily.

The call for peace all boils down to the petition filed by an opposing party called National Patri-otic party (NPP), challenging the December 7 2012 Presidential election result, the party Presidential candidate, Nana Akuffo Ado and his vice president, Dr Mamudu Bawumia and the party Chairman, Jake Obestsebi Lamtey, were not satisfied the result that declared the incumbent President, John Mahama, National Democratic Party as the elected president. John Mahama was elected after the death of John Atta

Mills.The hearing started

earlier in the year, the substantive matter in the election petition re-sult which was filed on December 28 2012 by the NPP requested that the court should annul some results as they claimed irregularities, malpractice, omissions and statutory violation of rights took place.

The people of Gha-na did not stop agitating for peace; they were at it all day in the news with different bodies putting on plans to ensure no fight breaks out when the verdict is made. The Supreme Court had given 29th of August as the day of its final verdict, the anticipation grew as no one knew what to expect.

The issues before the court were whether there were irregularities, malpractice, omission and statu-tory violation and if they were substantial enough to affect the result. The justices in charge of the case have analyzed the above argument to arrive at one of the four choices in their final decision; to maintain the statuo quo with John Mahama as president, declare Nana Akuffo Ado President, order a runoff between Nana Akuffo Addo and John Mahama OR order a rerun of the entire election.

After much anticipation, the judgment day finally arrived. With high hopes, the citizens had their fingers crossed for the verdict to be made and of course with my eyes glued to the TV. Despite the call for peace by various bodies and political parties, Ghanaians were still agitated, markets were closed and the numbers of buses and cars on the streets could be counted. Over 30,000 policemen and security agents were deployed to various regions of the nation; all roads leading to the Supreme Court were blocked; only accredited persons are allowed to pass; and markets were closed.

After hours of hearing, the Chief justice finally gave his verdict; the Supreme Court dismissed the verdict against the incumbent president and affirmed John Mahama as President elect. White handkerchiefs were seen in the air with NDC members waving them while the NPP were sober. The NPP Presidential can-didate who had promised to accept the verdict ac-cepted the decision and congratulated John Mahama though saying he was disappointed.

It was a landmark ruling for Ghanaians as they hoped for peace to prevail in Ghana; I on the other hand, will never forget the zeal I saw in them for a peaceful nation and I hope we as Nigerians can emu-late such.

2013/2014 EPL Season:uncertainties, Predictions and uncertainties!

FOR MORE REASONS ThAN ONE, IT PROMISES TO BE ThE MOST intriguing and pulsating season in the Barclays Premier League. The stage is set, the script can only be conjured by the ingenuity of fate, and the plot is a stuff of dreams! It is not often that the

season commences with the top three having a watershed at the top. Sir Alex Ferguson was close to being an octogenarian at United, but even at the ripe age of 71, all hats went off for the Scot. Replacing Fergie was always going to be a tough act to follow, but for some reasons that do not require a rehash here, Former Everton boss, David Moyes was thrown the gauntlet; and like a fighter he has proven to be over a decade at the Toffees, he embraced the challenge. However, Moyes will be aware that ambitions at Old Trafford always skyrocket, and the winning tradition is a brutal demand by everyone associated with the club. It’s a daunt-ing task for Moyes, but it is one he appears ready to embrace. What the Manchester United fans will be ready to accept as a successful campaign

at the end of the season remains to be seen.Last year's runner-up, Manchester City has also gotten a change

at the top. The serene and soft talking Manuel Pellegrini comes into untold Arab wealth; but with such fortunes comes the burden of ex-pectations. Mancini suffered such fate last season, and he (Pellegrini) has already been given the finance to acquire a handful of world-class talents: Alvaro Negredo—the well-proven Spanish goal poacher, Jesus Navas—a very effective winger and already a World Cup winner with Spain, Fernandinho—an experienced box to box Brazilian defensive midfielder, and Stevan Jovetic—a well-acclaimed and technically gifted supporting striker. Instant success and particularly an improvement in their European adventures will be the inevitable demand for Pel-legrini’s coaching resume. What is more? Across London is the return of the “Special cum Happy One”. Returning back to a club where he once experienced untold success is always going to be a risk of some sorts.

By SamUEl okonkwo


view Point / SPORT

However, Jose Mourinho’s rise and rise in football has been a tale of uncanny risks and the sublime belief in self. Nine managers in nine years aptly sums up life at Chelsea, but the amazing thing behind this insanity at Stamford Bridge, is that the past nine years have been a flourish. Four Premier League titles, Two FA cups, a UEFA Champions League cup and a Europa League trophy among a few others can only be interpreted as success. The plot thickens in anticipation of what the Mourinho second coming holds, as he has a large squad to tinker with.

And then, there is Arsenal and Arsene. These days the gunners have almost become a synonym for ‘barren’. But that is why Arsenal provides an intriguing spectacle this season. A man who is down needn’t fear a fall, and the gunners will be out to prove a point. But whether they have the dexterity and quality that is demanded to rightfully prove this point is the million dollar question. However with their recently acquired record purchase—German international Mesut Ozil from Real Madrid, a lot of gunner fans have expressed a bit more confidence in Arsenal’s title hopes this season… truthfully, any cup at all would do for Arsenal at this point. Will the hierarchy still just be concerned with a healthy fi-nancial status, and will premium be shifted to decorating the cabinet after almost a decade of futility? For Spurs, they have the nefarious stigma of being the ‘nearly men’. They lost the fourth spot to Arsenal last season by a whisker just

as it was the season before; though, Chelsea was their Achil-les’ heels then. It appears that their chances of repeating or surpassing last season’s run are hinged upon their new wide array of options they have in virtually every position of the field. With the world record transfer steal they bagged for their star man—Gareth Bale, they have invested wisely in some very talented players. And with over £105million spent this transfer window, they are surprisingly the EPL’s biggest spenders this season; and therefore a lot more is definitely expected from them.

For Liverpool, they have learned to tailor their aspira-tions within the confines of reality. A top four finish will seem like a Champions League medal for the Reds. The sheer brilliance and up field expert dribbles of Luis Suarez will definitely be an added boost for the Anfield club; as the Uru-guayan will not be leaving the club this summer. For the new boys, Crystal Palace, Cardiff and Hull City it is a fight to stake their claim among the elites. It will be a long and herculean battle for survival. That will be their primary objective, while a fairy tale run in the Cups, will not be a bad idea. Indeed, all is set for the fiesta to begin. As they say, the League is not a 100 meter thing, but a marathon. In the final analysis, the table barely lies. Whatever the case will be at the end, we know that the football will never disappoint us. That is why we love ‘the beautiful game’!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


SPORT / view Point

ThE BENEFITS OF ANY RELATIONShIP ShOULd always be value; and the actors in it should be able to benefit from each other. However, when individuals in relationships are being denied

the freedom of expression, movement, association and all of the positive experiences a meaningful rela-tionship is expected to deliver, the definition must be that such relationships has no value.

When relationships then becomes a possessive one, it means love, meaning and fulfillment that are supposed to characterize the very nature and essence of human exchange and existence, has erroneously been defined by some kind of individuals who unfortunately are tamed by their insecurity in a relationship, and as a result, become possessive—-controlling and jealous.

The victims in this kind of relationship may initially feel meaningfully and decently loved by their possessive partners,

Toxic Relationship

By BUkola dUyilE


view Point / MIND GAMES

only for time to reveal some anomalies in the seeming expression of love. These anomalies give choking, controlling and overbearing experiences that demand a second look and consideration that suggest that something is fun-damentally wrong.

These relationships can exist anywhere: parent – child relationships, men-tor – protégé relationships, spiritual father/mother – son/daughter relation-ships, leader – follower relationships, boyfriend – girlfriend relationships, employer – employee relationships, and even amongst friends. This kind of relationship is what is described as a toxic relationship; where the possessive person is the draining entity and the victim of such relationship is the drained. In most cases, the possessive person appears to love their partners and the so-called love is expressed through a deep walking – talking relationship or some heavy material exchange derived from such. Oftentimes, the victim continues to enjoy such feelings based on the attention and gifts of time, energy and usable resources he or she gets; say like, constant check ups and pick ups etc.

While this sometimes appears as love, as it were, it denies the victim/partner the freedom they deserve; it works to take away from the victim, all he or she can possibly be. In a nutshell, it creates a kind of bondage that limits them to express their full potential. Love gives you the freedom to help you become a better person, offer protection without appearing possessive, inspire and drive the support that spurs growth; but possessiveness shatters all.

The other fact is that when we truly love someone, it will demand that there exist some form of control, limits and boundaries in the relationship when dealing with each other, as well as other parties. Mutual respect for example cannot be defined without meaningful discipline and restrain. How-ever, when such love begins to give extreme impacts in a way that does not cre-ate necessary breathing space for the other party–that is no longer love, but a certain terrifying hybrid otherwise called “pseudo–love” – A love that appears to be love but with a hidden agenda to promote and protect a self-serving interest or satisfaction. Through distrust and acute jealousy, possessiveness fights for its agenda in a way that consistently but gradually withdraws the peace and happiness of the other party. Such connection is dangerously harm-ful, and in it lays the threatening potential for violence, suicide, psychological, emotional trauma and all sorts of abuse. You won’t search too far to find that behind the possessive person are human challenges such as Betrayal, Infidel-ity, Lack of Self esteem, Unfaithfulness, Loneliness, Childhood discrimination,

Parent abandonment, Low self image and much more.While these key factors contribute to human state of wretched behaviour,

one needs to rise above this level of pettiness, because seemingly trivial issues like this can lead to devastating life-time experiences if not properly man-aged with wisdom and counsel. More often than not, becoming possessive is a result of negative experiences from childhood or in the development process. But the victim must know himself or herself; and the first point of response is to seek counsel on time before any physical or psychological negative experience occurs. It’s not rocket science really to spot a possessive person, you will only need to observe key telling signs including: Extremely aggressive, Compulsive and domineering in his giving such that he denies you your right to express your kindness, Being strong willed, Opinionated, Being domineering, Jealousy, Likes people conforming to their wishes, Argu-mentative, Hypersensitive, and Accusative. Trust me, if it bothers you, there’s something there. Check it with counseling. Then:

- It is necessary to identify where the insecurity lies and that is the beginning of your resolve and then,

- If he or she is someone that is not too violent in his/her reaction, call him/her at a very happy moment between the two of you and discuss to trash this issue. In discussing this issue, try to keep an open mind with him/her, let him/her know you are all ears – listening to what he/she has to say, and then, you can wisely and calmly present your case to and assure him/her of your loyalty and trust. But if you feel you can’t talk to him/her based on some other variables or you may not approach it well, seek counsel from a counselor, mentor or an elder who you consider best in managing a relationship.

- If violence is present in your relationship, the best thing is to seek counsel on time on a way forward.

Whatever you do, recognize that a possessive partner is not a comfort zone but a catalyst for misery and pain. And remember, if it bothers you, report it.

the other fact is that when we truly love someone, it will demand that there exist some form of control, limits and boundaries in the relationship when dealing with each other, as well as other parties. Mutual respect for example cannot be defined without meaningful discipline and restrain. however, when such love begins to give extreme impacts in a way that does not create necessary breathing space for the other party–that is no longer love, but a certain terrifying hybrid otherwise called “pseudo–love”


MIND GAMES / view Point

the olakUnlE SoRiyan comPany offers varying degrees of training to corporate nigeria, one of which is the SPEEd PRoGRam. SPEEd delivers a detachment from the infamous ‘work-for-a-living’ posture of most africans and liberates the average worker into supplying best efforts and best judgment in taking what we call cREdiBlE indEPEndEnt actionS daily. to register for this training and for enquiries, call or send SPEEd as an SmS to 08128118883 or visit www.olakunlesoriyan.com

the sPeed ProGraM

BrieFsWildlife Preservation in Africa 59Science And God 60African Beauty

Wildlife Preservation in Africa

By RacHEl BRandt

AFRICA IS A PARTICULARLY RICh CONTINENT IN regards to the spectrum of wildlife that is spe-cific to its borders. Despite that, the number of individual animals and different species has

decreased greatly as the human population grows and poaching becomes more lucrative. Many endangered species such as the black rhinoceros, the African wild dog, and the African lion are only found in Africa and thus their survival falls onto the African populace, residents and conservationists alike.

The conservation effort in Africa needs to be mul-ti-faceted to meet the demands of plants and animals facing multiple assaults. Issues such as deforestation, poaching, and global warming are all ensuing concur-rently and relentlessly.

Poaching is the practice of illegally hunting, kill-ing, or capturing of wild animals or plant species. It is considered one of the most serious threats to the sur-vival of plant and animal species in Africa and around the world. In Africa, poaching has been one of the major causes of decreased numbers in rhinoceroses, elephants, hippos, large cat species, and African wild dogs, among others now endangered or at risk species.

Deforestation is the clearing of native plant life to make room for people to live, graze their livestock, plant crop or to use the wood harvested for lumber; it is a double-edged problem in Africa and abroad. On one side, the forested areas that disappear daily are each home to thousands of animals but beyond that, trees and plants process carbon dioxide and turn it to oxygen. Before people were cutting down trees to create grazing land for animals, spaces to grow crops

and wood to use for lumber this process naturally balances the gases in the earth’s atmosphere. Now, because humans are flattening forests at an alarm-ing rate, carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere are growing respectively. This process is often referred to as global warming. As carbon dioxide and other gases such as methane and ozone collect, they create a blanket over the earth which is then paired with the light and heat from the sun are causing problems not only in Africa but globally.

In Africa, the effects of global warming are be-coming distressingly more obvious and frequent. Ris-es in the average temperature spur droughts which kill animals, plants and perhaps most worryingly, crops used to feed both people and their livestock. The loss of those crops lead to a multitude of human starva-tion fatalities. For example, an average temperature increase of two degrees Celsius could easily decrease the available water supply in Southern Africa by up to 30 %. On a global level, the polar ice caps are melt-ing and the number of weather induced tragedies are escalating as the global warming blankets grows and thickens.

Africa has a wealth of both animal and plant life thus it is pertinent that the continent make fervent effort to conserve the forest and animals left on both an individual and governmental scale. Individuals must take it upon themselves to educate their families, friends, and neighbors on the important effect ani-mals and plants have on the ecosystems we all rely on to live. Individuals also need to report illegal poaching activities such as the hunting of protected animals, the misuse of reservation lands, and the sale of illegally obtained animal byproduct. Governments should pass laws that protect the quickly disappearing wild areas, the animals that live within them as members of an established ecosystem and the plants that provide camouflage, living space, and food to said animals. They must also stand behind the laws they create by fining and jailing those people who would ignore the immediate negative effects their actions will have on not only the wildlife of Africa, but the people as well.


BrieFs / ENvIRONMENT

By adEkolU adEkolU

Have you heard things like:1. Daily exercise elongates life2. Drink seven glasses of water a day to in-

crease length of life3. One apple a day keeps the doctor away4. Drinking 2-3 cups of healthy black coffee a

day can add 9 years to your life… and the likes?The list seems endless. But what startles me is the

dedication and commitment to ‘this kind’ of way of life, that neither governs behaviour nor in itself has any effect on what is sure to happen. Is it not fair to just accept that these so called principles do not work in isolation neither do they have answers to existence. Is it not also right to accept that these things are not the ultimate in life?

I have observed my environment to see how reli-gious people go about science, health, religion, tech-nology without questioning what they believe. We are in the information age. There is so much information, but little knowledge. The problem of our time is peo-ple who know don’t know why they know. You hear people argue blindly and hold dearly to what is not even true. They are so assertive in their ignorance that they block their minds to the truth and can barely receive any instruction that will guide them.

Let us have a look at one of the statements above. ‘Drinking 2-3 cups of healthy black coffee a day can add 9 years to your life’ I personally find this distract-ing. As true as it may be, have we considered inter-ruptions in life? Have we also accepted that we are mortals and thus do not have a final say as to what happens to us? Have we also thought about the fact that we have a creator who is the custodian of breath? We quickly forget that though we drink so much cof-fee, if we smoke so many cigarettes we can die of lung cancer? Where is the place of the coffee then? My cry is to bigots who have doggedly lived their lives by principles and displaced the place of character. Who have indulged themselves in ideologies that in itself, cannot authenticate legitimacy; and discredited the idea of faith in a supreme being who can make or kill.

Knowledge disseminators should democratize values and lay fewer premiums on principles. You will agree with me that Laws do not govern any society. If you question that, how will you explain the Connecti-cut killings, Boston killings, the British soldier mur-der, gang rape and vandalism in the acclaimed organ-ized societies? Responsibility is the name of the game. No one gets what he deserves, but what is negotiated intentionally. It’s time we wear our responsibility cap and live a kind of life that guarantees meaning. I am sure the British soldier had the privilege to consume as much healthy black coffee as he wanted. But then

his life was cut short by a disgruntled fanatic, who decided to define his realities in a way that does not define perfect behaviour. Our lives cannot be defined by the sanity or perfect behaviour of others. Can you then see the nuisance value of rules? Though potent cannot be effective independently. There has to be something different.

I once mentioned to someone jokingly that if it’s about having coffee then Methuselah should not have lived for so long, because there was no coffee in his time. Even though I am not ignorant of the fact that Methuselah’s time doesn’t have the complexities of our time. But then, the truth is we cannot forgive the peo-ple of our time and allow them to continue to ignore the essence and dogmatically focus on trivialities. God remains the ultimate factor. He alone knows our end from the beginning and can help us live meaningful lives. Science should therefore be put in perspective, acknowledging God and responsibility as key players in our daily pursuits. We should stop defining our lives by things that in themselves do not have the ca-pacity to govern or determine the outcomes of our life. God has made us free moral agents. We are species of instinct; who can question our environment and make a change. So let’s be that, and stop chasing shad-ows. This article is not in any way to lay aspersions on health tips, but its goal is to take a second look at what everyone may be taking their eyes off and see if there is more to what we have really believed all our lives. It is cheap to age, but costly to grow. To grow is to devout oneself to personal purpose and meaning. STOP AGEING, START GROWING.

Science And God


RELIGION / BrieFs

African Beauty

By VanESSa alVES

IT IS NO LONGER NEWS ThAT AFRICAN Beauty is in high demand in the interna-tional fashion industry. Our prints, fabrics, traditional cosmetics and hair styles are

being taken seriously as a source of inspira-tion; and regarded as exceptionally beautiful. We must also remember that African beauty is how we as Black women and men perceive ourselves and how we share this with the rest of the world. “Beauty is skin deep” is a phrase often repeated, but in relation to African beauty and our history how are we to converse about our modern impression of beauty avail-able for us today?

One way, is to look at the foreign hair (weave and false hair) and other hair care systems like texturisers, perms and hair straightening prod-ucts available. As a global industry it is worth billions of dollars. With the recent appearance of Cornell McBride Jr, The president and CEO of Mcbride’s Research laboratories on CNBC Af-rica, highlights how this industry is moving into

Nigeria. Being described as “first-generation consumers,”women with disposable incomes can spend it on their appearances, mainly their hair.

Investing in Africa makes economic sense. Statistics have shown that Africa is an emerging market with six out of ten fastest growing econ-omies. While this is true, we have to strategi-cally decide what kind of business we want. Our unique dark skin, distinct facial features, body shapes , hair, and all the elements that make up our identities could be overrun by foreign con-ceptions of beauty; particularly with the influx and the use of false hair.

It is true that our hair can often make the strongest statement. Look at Africa itself and how people from the North are different from the people in the South, the same can be said from East to West Africa. Nigeria itself boasts of hairstyles that denote status, occasion and even personal affiliations to family and tribes. From Irun biba, Irun Kiko and Irun didi to the


BrieFs y / DIvERSIT

modern images of afro, twists braids and curls; is just a small way of accessing Nigerian hair. We are already trendsetters! But how we maintain our identities in an ever increasing global commu-nity includes how we integrate and communicate with the rest of the world. Our hair choices reflect how we allow ourselves to be seen. It may also indicate a deeper struggle of how we want to be accepted into different, possibly more European cultures if we choose to use foreign hair exclusively or use perms. We must tread carefully as we may incur the cultural backlash of saying that natural Black hair is not good enough and this may take even longer to remove than initial use of false hair.

Take a small sample of Black women and the variety, colours and shapes can truly been astounding. Our hair allows us great freedom of expression and experimentation that Black women all over the world can identify with. We must also take note of how women of other cultures use perm to imitate our natural hair. Our in depth knowledge about Black hair is invaluable, as our own hair care systems promote and enhance our own beauty that is now spreading across the world. The western market is now

importing a whole range of African oils like Boab oil and Kombo butter. We also can find a place in this market.

There is a note of caution as well: the prolonged use of foreign hair products, perms, texturisers and too much hair straightening can cause serious damage to African hair, which is the complete opposite of the original intention of confidence boosting. The disheartening blow of losing ALL of your natural hair is some-thing that I urge women to consider when using these products. Hair needs time to regrow and breathe and needs a periods where natural products should be the only thing on your head, using protective styles like braids and twists. There are a number of products available through a number of growing retailers like, The Kinky Apothecary in Lagos and online retailers like Ahia Natural Nigerian and Olori, all offer natural hair creams, sham-poos and conditioners.

If then, a woman’s hair is her crowning glory you have to ask yourself what kind of glory you want for yourself and for your daughters.


BrieFs / DIvERSITy

PeoPle, PlaCes and

eventsPassnownow event 65The Victoria Falls 67Natural Hair Month Event 6812 TRUCE. Q&A BIMBO OSUNKUNLE 69

One of the speakers Ms Modupe Adefeso Olateju making a presentation at Passnownow event for the 2013 Social Media Week in Lagos

A cross section of participants at the 2013 Social Media Week with Pass-nownow.

A REPORT ON ThE SOCIAL MEdIA WEEK dATEd 22Nd FEB-ruary, 2013 at Pegs Hub, Lagos E-Learning Centre, Odun-lami Street, Lagos Island,Lagos, Nigeria.

Passnownow presents: Technology and the Future of Nigeria’s Education.

Passnownow event started with welcome remarks from the CEO and Founder of RISE Networks, Miss Toyosi Akerele. She made a brief introduction of Passnownow and the reasons behind the creation and initiation of the site.

The speakers were introduced in turn while the CEO of RISE Networks briefly explained to the audience the reason for the formation of Passnownow and what the audience tends to benefit for being a participant for the days’ event.

The keynote speaker of the day, Mrs Funke Opeke, MD/CEO Main One Cable was announced to be absent for the event but her representative was introduced. Mr Francis Agbo, a representative

of HP West Africa was the first speaker of the day. The second speaker, Mr Olumide Balogun from Nokia West

Africa gave a presentation of how Nokia, one of the largest manu-facturers of mobile phones, plans to produce phones that will serve as a research tool for the teachers also which will help to improve and standardize effective teaching and learning process. The third speaker for the event was the person of Ms. Modupe Adefeso Olateju, Ph.d, University of London.

Mr Bukunmi Omodiran, a representative of Microsoft West Africa was the last speaker at the event. He praised the effort of the Miss Toyosi Akerele for initiating Passnownow as a medium of teaching and engaging young people with the use of social media as a channel of delivery. He gave a brief introduction of Microsoft and also explained the efforts of the organization in re-building and re-enforcing the educational system of the country.

Miss Toyosi Akerele of Passnownow addressing participants and speakers at the 2013 Social Media Week Event held in Lagos.

Passnownow event


PeoPle, PlaCes and events / PIx IT

Felicia Leatherwood showing off her skill

Felicia Leatherwood & Ama Peters

Felicia Letherwood’s talk on natural hair

hair product-stand

Nibi Lawson and Felicia Leatherwood

PaticipantPaticipant

Paticipant

Paticipants at product-stand

Natural hair Month Event

IT WAS A FABULOUS EvENT FOR ALL #TEAMNATURALS AS OvER 200 NATURAL hAIR BEAUTIES GAThEREd AT ThE WhEATBAKER Hotel, Lagos on Saturday 12th October 2013 for a workshop hosted by The Kinky Apothecary.

At the event, special guest and celebrity hairstylist Felicia Leatherwood gave invaluable advice on hair maintenance in general and natural hair maintenance specifically.


PIx IT / PeoPle, PlaCes and events

vICTORIA FALLS, ALSO KNOWN AS MOSI-OA-TUNYA (ThE Smoke that Thunders) is the most popular and largest waterfall in southern Africa on the Zambezi River at the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe; measuring 1708 me-

tres in width and a maximum height of 108 metres. The Falls attract thousands of tourists annually, thus making it the most visited attraction site in Zimbabwe. Some of the attractions in-clude: bungee jumping of the Victoria Falls Bridge, diving into the Zambezi River gorge, white water rafting just beneath the fall in the Zambezi River or simply relaxing on a sun downer cruise

above the falls.The Victoria Falls, one of the seven natural wonders of the

world, were discovered by an old English adventurer, David Livingstone in 1855. He first sighted them from an island (now known as Livingstone-Island), not too far off and he named his amazing discovery after Queen Victoria, in her honour.

For the average holiday maker, the Victoria Falls has the perfect climate between May and August which is winter there but still has an average temperature of 24 degrees and a mini-mum of 10 degrees.

The victoria Falls

68 tR magazine tr-magazine.com

PeoPle, PlaCes and events / SITE & SIGhT

tr-magazine.com tR magazine 69

SITE & SIGhT / PeoPle, PlaCes and events

12 TRUCE. Q&A

Beads have always been an integral part of African fash-ion and are gaining recognition all over the world, how do you think we can promote African fashion in a way that brings financial value to the continent and promote our authenticity?It is important that we realize that to compete globally, we must focus on ensuring that our fashion products are compa-

rable to international standards in terms of quality, presenta-tion, appeal etc. Fashion in the western world has been very well promoted and it’s been made very appealing. We need to do the same here in Africa if we want to have the same effect.

Your accessories are exquisite and elegant; some will even argue that they are for a high caste of the society;

BIMBO OSUNKUNLE


PeoPle, PlaCes and events / 12 TRuCE

with the trend and rebirth of beads in fashion, what are they suitable for and for whom?My jewelry is designed under the label Cornucopia, and it is spe-cifically designed with the woman in mind, especially as a tribute to her strength, her beauty and her character, hence our pay off ‘adorning the woman from within...’. We also create jewelry for every occasion; we have jewelry for everyday wear and also for special occasions such as weddings, birthdays and days when a woman just wants to feel beautifully adorned.

What will you say to the fast growing entrepreneurial popu-lation in Nigeria about getting a big capital before starting a business?I started my business with about N20, 000, so it’s a myth that you need huge capital to start your business. However, the type of business does determine how much capital needed at the onset, I would advise that instead of waiting to amass huge capital, it is important to start small, think big and be consistent. Surely, growth will come.

African Beauty is on a diminishing toll and losing its el-egance and uniqueness to the Asian and Western culture; with the mad rush for foreign hair, dressing and fashion in general, what can you say is the cause of this diminishing value and how can it be stopped?I don’t think that is necessarily true. People choose to express themselves in different ways and we can’t take that away from them. Just as we have the frenzy of people chasing after western fashion and culture, we also have people that have chosen to embrace their ‘Africaness’ by wearing their hair natural and other such things; there is what I call the Ankara Revolution, so there is a lot happening in the fashion terrain. It’s also important to emphasise the need for people to be comfortable in their skin, and not try to hide who they are under the facade of fashion. There is also a great need for us to instill in our children and wards, a sense of pride in our culture by ensuring that we speak our language, and maintain others parts of our culture that’s slowly disappear-ing. At Cornucopia, what we do is to infuse the traditional jewelry design with a contemporary feel, such that our pieces are appeal-ing to a wider range of clientele and in our own little way, we are preserving our culture.

You worked in finance for a while before opting to start your own thing; what prompted that action?I always wanted to work for myself although I didn’t have a lot of clarity about what I wanted to do. Taking series of courses on handcraft including jewelry making, solved that lack of clarity as I realized I had a natural affinity for working with my hands. I took the plunge when I realized there was no way to combine my banking job with the creativity I wanted to exhibit. When i spoke to lot of my friends i also realized that many were dissatisfied with their jobs, but felt chained to it because of the income and also they didn’t know what else they could do if they left work. I felt very fortunate to know the path I wanted to take and I realized that I would remain dissatisfied if I didn’t take the opportunity. I took the risk and haven’t looked back since.

A lot of young people are encouraged to take on entre-

preneurship as a means for creating economic value for themselves and the nation at large and also as a means of sustenance amidst the unemployment challenges predomi-nant in the country; Beads making and other vocational or craft work are forms of entrepreneurship that naturally come to bare, how to you think vocational and craft work can be more economically profiting for the country and how should we go about it?I think including vocational training in our higher institutions is key, because then people can be trained properly in these skills and people that choose to take this route will be able to make a proper living out of them without feeling short changed. Many young people that choose to take this route sometimes tend to feel inferior to their colleagues in the more professional lines. I think proper training, and an awareness of the immense opportunities available in these vocations would help young people focus. Pres-ently you are more respected in an area of expertise when you have a certification from overseas, this ought not to be so, but the reality is that they have put in place a system where people can be properly trained in their chosen vocation. Nigeria must learn to do this otherwise there will always be a discrimination against vocational skills.

It is popular opinion that the educational system in Ni-geria does not particularly equip its graduates with the fundamental skills, knowledge and work capacity that can generate immediate resources after school: what do you think can improve the industrial and innovative capacity of graduates both at University and secondary school levels?There should be an integration of vocational training into our higher institutions. Some of their courses can then be made available as elective courses to be taken alongside core courses of students in the higher institutions. It is also highly important

i started my business with about n20, 000, so it’s a myth that you need huge capital to start your business. however, the type of business does determine how much capital needed at the onset, i would advise that instead of waiting to amass huge capital, it is important to start small, think big and be consistent. surely, growth will come.


12 TRuCE / PeoPle, PlaCes and events

to encourage creativity in our children from a young age, both at school and at home. My young daughter loves to draw and write stories, while my son is a very confident public speaker. These are very different gifts. I try to encourage each one and boost their confidence by telling them how good they are in these areas. At home, we must recognize every child’s unique talent, and we must nurture those gifts.

Looking back, did you know you would become who you are today, how did you keep focus, what kept you going and what can you say to young people aspiring to be some-thing great but are worried about what the future holds for them?Life is a journey, and I’m still on that journey. I have learnt to keep focus by ensuring I keep my eyes on my goal, and to ensure I keep learning and gaining new experiences. I believe it’s important that not just young people, but every one of us, learn to keep believing,

and to never give up. I am learning that God loves to be trusted, and I have chosen to believe that He has great plans for me.

It is an admirable sight to behold an African woman es-pecially Nigerian making impact in the society and living above the popular notion that women shouldn’t take the spotlight; what is your greatest challenge as a “successful woman” and what is your advice to young ladies as regard-ing the pursuit of career and family?One shouldn’t necessarily have to give way for the other, what is key is to realize what is important in one’s life and ensure that life’s frivolities and demands do not take away from that which is truly important. For me, one of the main challenges I have is still balancing my home and work life, I believe I speak for every woman when I say it’s a constant struggle, whether you are a business person or you work on paid employment. However, I have the advantage of owning my time and so I try to organize my time and ensure that I’m available for my family, although I must say I still struggle sometimes with whether I’m being the best mother I can be.

When we celebrate impactful personalities like you, we often focus on their perfections and success, without ac-knowledging the stem to their greatness; what is your greatest failure and how have you been able to deal with it?Failure is an event, not a person, so even though I have had fail-ures at different times, I do not let those experiences define me, but rather I use them as learning points. They are also encourage-ment tools I use especially when speaking with other women. I specifically remember that when I was making the decision to resign from the corporate world to start my business, one of the things that spurred me on was that if I failed at business, I could always go back to paid employment, but if I never tried I would always wonder what would have happened If I did. It’s important to try, never let the fear of failing hold you back.

What is your take on gender inequality in corporate Nigeria and how do you think gender inequality can be eradicated in corporate Nigeria?Sure, there is gender inequality and culturally, women are ex-pected to be seen and not heard. That has shaped how women also view themselves, causing us to shortchange ourselves in negotiations in the business and corporate world. I believe the first step therefore is for the woman to start to view herself as worthy of her successes, and not try to qualify those successes in order to make herself and people around her comfortable. It’s also important for women to learn to help each other, although every woman that expects to be helped must ensure that she is adequately qualified in her area of calling.

What do you do for leisure? As we all know all work and no play makes Jane a dull girl.I love to play with my children and I absolutely love to read.

sure, there is gender inequality and culturally, women are

expected to be seen and not heard. that has shaped how

women also view themselves, causing us to shortchange

ourselves in negotiations in the business and corporate

world. i believe the first step therefore is for the woman to

start to view herself as worthy of her successes, and not try to qualify those successes in

order to make herself and people around her comfortable. it’s also

important for women to learn to help each other, although

every woman that expects to be helped must ensure that she is

adequately qualified in her area of calling.


PeoPle, PlaCes and events / 12 TRuCE

Book Review Movie Review Rhythms Africa: Travel and Connect Fashion Foodmaticsart and style

The New North: 73Our World in 2050 73TR Movies for the month 74Sir Victor Uwaifo 75Accessorized 76Afang Soup 79


The New North: Our World in 2050‘ThE NEW NORTh’, AS WRITTEN BY LAURENCE C. SMITh IS A LIvELY, INFORMATIvE, vERY ACCESSIBLE

and impressive book that takes a deep look at our world today and explains how and why global warm-ing will have more impact at the top of the world than the bottom.

In his book, Smith shows us how by 2050, Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and the northern part of America may be flourishing as formidable economic powers and migration magnets, but countries closer to

the equator may be suffering from the effects of four key mega-trends: global warming, pressure on natural resources, globalisation

and an exploding but aging population.As a book that forecasts into the future, it does

not prescribe but allows the reader to contemplate the world in 2050 as a malleable object. It is neither alarmist nor overly optimistic, which is a quality not found in many books in this area. ‘The New North’ takes the reader through a thought experiment in pursuit of the question, ‘What kind of world do we want?’

It provides a solid introduction for those who are making their first foray into the forces that are likely to shape our world over the next 40 years. The book does get one thinking about what lies ahead and how we might influence it with our decisions. After all is said and done, that is what matters for the question the author leaves us with: What kind of world do we want?

it provides a solid introduction for those who are making their first foray

into the forces that are likely to shape our world over the

next 40 years


art and style / BOOk REvIEW

42 IS AN INSPIRING BIOPIC ABOUT ThE TWO years in which American baseball legend Jackie Robinson broke the sport’s colour barrier. It is an earnest, inspirational, and re-

spectfully told biography of an influential American sports icon in a snapshot of the 1946 and 1947 sea-sons, it portrayed the prevalent segregation and rac-ism in the American society at the time, with the use of racial dehumanising expression to better convey the dark times. 42 possess the solid bones, honeyed light and transporting moral uplift that defines an instant classic; it is an exceptional film about an ex-traordinary man.

42 kicks off with scenes from 1945, when Brook-lyn Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey (Har-rison Ford) puts himself at the forefront of history when he signed Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Bose-man) to the team, breaking major League Baseball’s infamous colour line. But the deal also put both Robinson and Rickey in the firing line of the public, the press and even other league players. Facing una-bashed racism from every side, Robinson was forced to demonstrate tremendous courage and restraint by not reacting in kind, knowing that any incident could destroy his and Rickey’s hopes. Instead, Number 42 (the number of his jersey) let his talent on the field do the talking- Ultimately winning over fans and his teammates, silencing his critics and paving the way

for others to follow. In 1997, Major League retired the number 42 for

al l teams, m a k i n g it the first number in sp or t to b e u n ive rs a l ly re -tired. The only excep-tion is April 15th- Jackie Robinson Day- commemorating the date of his first game as a Brooklyn Dodger. On that day alone, Players from every team proudly wear 42 to honour the man who altered the course of history.

The movie written and directed by Academy Award winner Brain Helgeland, stared Chad-wick Boseman as Robinson, Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey. Christopher Meloni, John C. McGinley, Lucas Black, and Nicole Be-harie appear in supporting roles. The film boasts particularly of good illustrative visuals and sound design, capturing every crack of the bat and thwack of the mitt emphasizing the ballistic hardness of a ball that, in Robin-son’s case, was often launched as a weapon. “42” has taken on cumulative, undeniable momentum, not just as classically rousing entertainment but as a quintessential story of American aspiration.

TR Movies for the month

Ali Blind Side Cinderella Man The hurricane Rudy


MOvIE REvIEW / art and style

Sir victor Uwaifo

BORN IN ThE ANCIENT CITY OF BENIN, EdO STATE ON ThE 1ST OF MARCh 1941, PROF. (SIR) Victor Uwaifo is a Nigerian musician as well as a sculptor and a university lecturer, amongst other things. Famous for some of his hit songs like ‘Joromi’, ‘Guitar Boy’ and ‘Mami water’ he records and sings under the name Sir Victor Uwaifo.

Uwaifo holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine and Applied arts (First Class Honours and Valedicto-rian, 1995) and a Master’s degree in the same course both from the University of Benin. He holds an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from UNIBEN and he was appointed a visiting professor to the American Heritage University, California in 2009 as well as a fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters.

As a young artiste, Sir Victor Uwaifo was a member of Bobby Benson’s Highlife band. He is fa-mous among his fans for his extraordinary ability to play the guitar with his both feet and his tongue.

Uwaifo made history in Nigeria when he won the first Golden record in Nigeria, West Africa and Africa for his song “Joromi” in 1996. Sir Victor Uwaifo, who is well travelled internationally, has to his name a total of 12 golden records to date.

For his contributions to the development of creative arts and the entire music industry in Ni-geria, he was awarded with the National Honours of Nigeria [MON] award.

Sir Victor Uwaifo


art and style / RhyThMS

Accessorizedwe believe the African woman is unique and beautiful. Therefore, we create beauti-ful and colourful African inspired pieces to complement our African people. you can reach us for your Ankara jewellery, Ankara purses, beautiful wired jewellery and love-ly wedding hand fans, fascinators, even handmade fancy umbrellas, and notebooks.


Fashion


Fashion

Accessorized,

M: 08035400904 08073218933

E: [email protected]

Twitter/IG: @iamacces-sorized

Facebook: www.facebook.com/accessorizedbylisa

P: 23A75132

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Fashion

INGREDIENT � 1/2 cup blended or pounded Afang leaves � A pack of defrosted Spinach (1.5 cups) � Beef or Goat meat (2 cup) � Shredded dried Fish (1 cup) � 1/4 cup of palm oil (halved) � Grounded dried Pepper (1 teaspoon) (Halved) � Salt to taste � Crayfish (3 tablespoons) � Maggi (2 cubes)

TOdAY, WE BRING TO YOU ANOThER WONdERFUL AFRICAN dELICACY CALLEd AFANG SOUP. IT hAS ITS ORIGIN FROM AKWA-IBOM (a state in the southern part of Nigeria). Get your cooking aprons on now as we take you on a savoury journey to the ancient state of Akwa-Ibom.

Afang Soup

DIRECTION � On low heat, Boil the beef- with salt and pepper (do not

add water) � Once the beef is tender (30-45mins), add 1 cup of water,

add fish, crayfish, grounded pepper and 1/2 of the palm oil � Increase the heat to medium, Cover the pot and allow to

simmer (about 10mins) � Add the spinach and allow it to cook for another 10 min-

utes. Add the remaining oil, Afang leaves, Maggi and some salt. Simmer for 5mins. Taste and adjust for seasoning (Salt). Simmer for another 5-7mins.

Serve with your choice of Fufu, Garri or SemolinaEnjoy!


art and style / FOODMATICS

The Terror WithinDoes Nigeria need foreign assistance to Fight Boko Haram ?

New Beginnings, New ResolutionsMaking New Year resolutions and seeing them through

Ecowas and theintegration farce

The Four Core Subjects

The Doctrine of Tolerance


BY OLAKUNLE SORIYAN


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Thought Revolution Magazine-October 2013

Education

Transcript of Thought Revolution Magazine-October 2013