The Nation Newspaper

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  • China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region: Between facts and fictions 

    China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region: Between facts and fictions 

    • By Charles Onunaiju

    As China’s comprehensive national aggregates soar and with outcome in the overall improvement in the quality of lives of her people of all ethnic nationalities, the social system justifies itself by practice and results and not by obtuse abstraction.

    Against the previous grim and cynical predictions of some western experts and pundits that the China development model would atrophy at some point, and ultimately seek economic and social reconciliation with all its political ramifications in the western model of development, that did not happen and would likely never happen. Now, ideologically fixated politicians in the western countries and their media surrogates seemed to have invented another soft belly which like Hong Kong and Taiwan, it would seek to embarrass and put pressure and even attempt to contain China: the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

    Regional ethnic autonomy is part of the core of China’s fundamental political system for addressing domestic ethnic issues in contemporary China and is premised on the socialist equality of all ethnic nationalities.

     But history has consistently demonstrated that such measures designed to exert pressure on Beijing are usually dead on arrival. Why the West persist in the old path that lead to nowhere can only be explained, in their increasingly dysfunctional and extremely polarizing domestic political process in which extremist ideologies foist the notion of zero sum game in which the rise and development of non-western power is direct threat to their well-being.

     To be seen to be pontificating liberal values abroad while the home front is in a state of lethargy and disarray is an old trick of the Western ruling establishments. The new fad of Western humanitarian concern is the China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, of a population of over 25million for which about 60% is from ethnic minorities with the Uygur ethnic group constituting appropriately 46.11%.

     The Uygur ethnic group, which are mainly Muslims are the target of western fabrications and slander against China. However, statistics show that the population of Uygur ethnic group has grown rapidly at a rate of 25.04% which is not only higher than the population growth of the entire Xinjiang region at 13.99% but of all minority ethnic groups and even considerably higher than the population of the ethnic Han majority which only grew at 2.0%. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2012 when Xi Jinping was elected the General Secretary of the Party and consequently elected to the presidency in 2013, eliminating poverty in Xingjiang as in other parts of the country was given a high priority. Substantial progress has been recorded in the region through measures ranging from industrial development, relocation, education and infrastructure development to implementing urban and rural affordable housing projects, building potable water safety and ecological conservation facilities. Between 2016 and 2020, all the administrative villages across the Xinjiang region were connected to the power grid and were all accessible by tarred concrete roads. More than 40,000 apartments were built for the relocation of nearly 170,000 people to more hospitable places where they would shake off the pangs of poverty and key into the road map of increased prosperity for all the Chinese people. In addition to this, potable water facilities were made available to a total of 1.52 million impoverished population and measures were taken to ensure that not a single child dropped out of school on account of poverty.

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    Basic medical insurances and critical illness insurances became universal not only in Xinjiang region but across all China covering the entire previous poor population, with per-capita net income of registered poor households in Xingjian increasing by 32.32% per annum.

    In 2020, despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, over three million rural poor residents of the region were lifted out of poverty. All the 3,666 villages and 35 counties previously designated as extremely impoverished were delisted from the national register of poor people.

    Xinjiang has the largest land area, longest land borderline among all provinces and equivalent administrative units in China.

     On the February 25, 2021, China declared the end of poverty among its 1.4 billion people, 10 years ahead of the UN target of 2030, with President Xi Jinping declaring that “the sunshine of poverty alleviation has shined to every corner, the destines of numerous people have hence changed, the dreams of millions were hence realized and happiness of countless individuals was hence accomplished”.

    Covering 1.66 million square kilometres, Xinjiang accounts for nearly one-sixth of China’s total land area. Its land borderline of over 5,700 kilometres accounts for nearly one-fourth of China’s total and bordering eight countries – Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.

    With the Eurasia continental bridge running through, Xinjiang is clearly identified as the core area of the Silk Road Economic Belt of “the Belt and Road” framework of international cooperation initiated by China. As a priority locality in China’s national strategy of large-scale development of the western region, it serves as an important gateway for China’s west-ward opening up as well as an important energy base and transport thoroughfare for China. The alleged abuses were designed to obliterate the fact of a region and its ethnically diverse residents, who have joined the rest of their compatriots in a fast train of inclusive development and shared prosperity.

     Delegations upon delegation, including some from majority Muslim countries have visited the region to see and confirm the fact of all-round development of the region and its people. Vocational training centres provided in the region to build capacity and help wean off, those affected by extremist radical propaganda were claimed by some western politicians and media as detention facilities.

     While the CPC and the Chinese government believe that the problem of extremist violence should be dealt with more broadly by improving living conditions and giving people the opportunity to pursue better life for themselves, extremist ring leaders and their anti-social agenda must be dealt with according to law. The West and specifically United States of America, with the Guantanamo Bay detention facility of extremist violent Jihadists is the most exemplary fact of the efforts to rein in, the excesses of violent extremists.

     The fact on the ground in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China, speaks louder than ideologically-motivated noise of western political establishment and its media outlets that is yet to reconcile itself to the fact of modern China, which proclaimed itself over seven decades ago to have stood up; and “will never again be an insulted nation.”

     The United States has more to do for its Native American population who still lives in reserve area without access to life improving basic amenities and any rudiment of self -governing mechanism for cultural expression and resource control. One only of the indigenous Native Americans was recently appointed to cabinet level position in the more than 200 years history of the US.

     The political status of Puerto Rico which is considered a U.S territory but is citizens have no voting representation in the US federal government, except for one non-voting resident commissioner in the House of Representatives, has remained a conundrum for the US ruling establishment who care so much for distant Xinjiang region of China but has refused to ameliorate the situation in its own Puerto Rico.

    • Onunaiju contributes this piece from the FCT, Abuja. 
  • How to save Warri from itself

    How to save Warri from itself

    • By Chike Okolocha

    Having grown up (partly) in Warri, I hereby proclaim my sense of entitlement to the oil city. My entitlement is as much as, and no less that than that of the scurrilous youth irritants, the adult delinquents as well as the well-meaning and confounded, discomfitured indigenes and non-indigenes resident in the city. I declare that if I cannot have my way in the muted advocacy for a Warri renaissance, at least I will have my say.

    Alas, sorry to say, this sense of entitlement is one of the reasons the oil city is drowning in negativity, disunity, insecurity, poverty, squalor, violence, mal-development and social dysplasia. Whereas Warri mushroomed into a cultural melting-pot during the oil-boom years after the Nigerian Civil War, it is most unfortunate that inter-ethnic warfare signposted the doom of the city at the turn of the millennium. Among other atrocities, the war in Warri led to the wanton destruction of Ogidigben, a riverine settlement which was forcibly rejected as the headquarters of Warri South West LGA, and many other towns and villages. Allegiances to different ethnic groups assumed a fiery trend with exclusionary territorial domains claimed by no less than three traditional rulers. While the belligerent men went about in day time committing murders and arson, they sneaked around at night sleeping with women from “enemy” ethnic groups.

    Now, you may ask, where do we place the “hybrid” (Ijaw-Itsekiri-Urhobo) offsprings of the secret intertribal night trysts? The important lesson we are to learn from the calamity of disunity and war in Warri is that these are unspontaneous contests by individuals for narrow economic and political advantage, camouflaged as cultural, ethnic exclusivism.

    But did bitter experience teach us anything? Probably not, as the advent of lawlessness after the war in Warri clearly shows. This was manifested by the notorious extortions derisively known as deve (or development levy) which fostered anything but development. By this strange contrivance, law-abiding businesspersons, companies, contractors, traders, travellers and residents were subjected to all manners of illegal taxes, levies, fines, rates, involuntary donations and fees by itinerant warlords, bandits, thugs, gangsters, area-boys, hoodlums, agberos and egbe-wedgers while the government and security agencies looked the other way. To protect staff from incessant kidnappings, oil companies in Warri began outsourcing most of their services to local people. But this was to no avail as the riverine oil locations and communities became no-go areas especially for oil company personnel. Warri soon degenerated into a countercultural and dangerous city, unsafe for both criminals and law-abiding people.

    In response to ensuing anarchy and anomy, companies divested and relocated their headquarters and offices from Warri. The eventual collapse of Delta Steel Company at Ovwian-Aladja and departure of “almighty” Shell Petroleum Development Company with all its wealth sounded the inevitable death knell of the city. Jobs disappeared along with an army of engineers and other skilled personnel who migrated to saner and safer climes. The vacuum created by company closures and outmigration was inexplicably filled by the self-same miscreants and self-seeking politicians thrown up by the Fourth Republic. The once vibrant cosmopolitan oil city of Warri became a shadow of itself, notorious for its new-fangled insecurity and infamous deve.

    Most regrettably, three decades of “creating an enabling environment” by government for the private sector in Warri culminated in scaring the private sector away from the oil city. Is it not ironical that the same government that looked the other way when the cauldron bubbled has now gone to plead with Shell to come back to the city? How can we expect the oil giant to come back to Warri when virtually nothing has changed? To all intents and purposes, bandits, warlords and hoodlums are still operational and the riverine environment is still unsafe. Uniformed agents still parade the streets, harassing people, demanding all manners of illegal payments. People are still scared of visiting Warri while those travelling through the city are always on the lookout with their vehicle doors firmly locked, expecting the worst. At times the windows of locked doors are wound up while passing through Warri even when there is no air-conditioning in the vehicle! The agony can best be imagined.

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    And, for that matter, government’s laidback policy has not changed either. From the doomed Warri Industrial and Business Park and Warri Export Free Zone which never saw the light of day, government has now launched a N78 billion contract to construct three flyover bridges in the Warri metropolis. This is good news but, curiously, the main flyover bridge constructed two administrations ago in the city only compounded traffic bottlenecks in Effurun. Will the new project eliminate the troublesome potholes in the city roads? How many sustainable jobs will the new project provide? Is government willing or able to provide security for the construction company and its men and materials? Will three flyover bridges lure Shell back to its nemesis? Truthful answers to these questions will determine if the flyover bridges will solve the internecine problems of the oil city.

    At times you get the impression that people are carried away by the fake mantra of “Warri no dey carry last.” As a matter of fact, the oil city has receded to the last position in most parameters of modernity and development and it now lags behind most cities of its calibre in the country. For example, there is no single official waste dump in Warri and solid wastes are dumped literarily anywhere and everywhere. I think Warri comes last on that score. We must express gratitude to the itinerant waste pickers who seem to have mitigated the problem by reducing the quantum of used plastic bottles and metal wastes.

    Warri also comes last in public transportation as the modal vehicle is the incapacious and incompetent tricycle (keke), which is now becoming dominant even in intercity transportation linking Agbarho and Ughelli to the south, Orerokpe to the east and Sapele to the west. Everywhere, especially the Effurun axis seems to have become a park for loading of offloading goods and passengers. To compound the transport bottlenecks, government suddenly created a BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) lane on the quintessential Warri-Sapele Road but refused to operate it as no buses were acquired for the project.

    If Warri comes last on the indices of waste management and public transportation, it looks like it comes first in the rate of deterioration into shanties. Practically every nook and cranny of the city has been turned into a commercial district. Street traders jostle with vehicular traffic, with keke compounding the mayhem for all road users. Warri also comes first in the matter of extortions by miscreants, a menace that has crept into other cities (and even rural areas) in the state. These are most dubious distinctions which cannot win any trophy for the city and I am not sure this is the sense behind the slogan of “Warri no dey carry last”. Note also that the city has the “distinction” of not implementing any recommendations in the Warri-Effurun Master Plan 1999-2019 which government commissioned at considerable public expense. I am sure Warri actually comes last on that score.

    Well, since I do not want to be condemned by fellow Warri patriots as a chronic naysayer, let me admit my awareness of Warri’s first position in the command and propagation of Pidgin English, now recognised as a distinct language with its own orthography. This language which effectively bridges the communication gap between all ethnic groups in Nigeria (and elsewhere) is spoken and understood by both the literate and illiterate and is therefore, a significant contribution to national integration. However, I hope Pidgin English will not be a hindrance to the comprehension and use of Standard English which is still the official language for our school system and examination bodies.

    It is obvious that the problems of Warri are largely self-inflicted. But like all ailments, self-inflicted injuries need significant others for healing. On this count, the city is fortunate to have the current Delta State governor who proudly and boastfully identifies himself as Warri Boy and has taken the grandstand by inaugurating his landmark projects, the three flyover bridges. He should go farther. To save Warri from itself, perhaps the most important step is to restore the rule of law and security. Deve Must Go! Also, the town planning authority should be immediately awakened from its slumber to stop the rapid and disorderly slide of the oil city into a sprawling, rough, ramshackle shantytown. Restoration of law and order may indeed be the best incentive to attract Shell back to the city. Who knows, perhaps other investors may also be encouraged to take a stand in the city.

    • Prof Okolocha writes from University of Benin.
  • How far can Mr President go?

    How far can Mr President go?

    • By Mike Kebonkwu

    Awind of change is blowing in our hemisphere; it is dramatic as it is revolutionary. A Minister of the Federal Republic has just been suspended and ordered to be probed, or otherwise investigated.  She is none other than the glamorous, flamboyant and youthful Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Betta Chimaobim Edu.  She has just held office for a couple of months and had been invited by the anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over an allegation of transfer of over N500 million to a private account against established financial regulations.  She was initially cocky and dismissive of the allegation; grandstanding that she had done due diligence and therefore not guilty of any wrong doing. 

    She succeeded the equally beautiful Sadiya Umar Farouq, Buhari’s pioneer Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development under whose watch a huge sum of over N37 billion was allegedly laundered through one James Okwete now being investigated by the EFCC.   Ms Sadiya Farouq has equally denied wrong doing, clad in a saintly apparel that she does not know the man in question.  No Nigerian official ever takes responsibility; to her if she did not deal directly with the suspect with the EFCC, then she is not guilty even when the incident occurred under her watch.  With all her learning and exposure, she does not understand that like the act of commission, omission and negligence equally constitute not just a dereliction of duty, but could be an offence that one can be held responsible as well. 

    There is yet another beautiful and equally youthful Halima Shehu the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA) one of the agencies under the ministry of humanitarian affairs who admitted to have transferred over N40 billion by ‘mistake’ to private account.  Transferring over N40 billion to a private account by mistake! Mistake indeed! What is happening in this country, are we really alright?    

    From 2019 when the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs was established though with good intentions, there was a red flag that it had all the appearances and trappings of a conduit pipe for money laundering.  It had huge budgetary allocation for poverty alleviation to vulnerable people with sweeping mandate but without credible data to work with for the target group or audience.  There was little wonder therefore that the ministry became the proverbial carcass of a whale that people come with all manners of sickles to share.  

    In Nigeria, public office is poverty alleviation for the elite and appointment to government office is therefore celebrated as opportunity to come into opulence of obscene wealth and the unquestionable cult of power.  Nigeria venerates public office holders just for the mere fact that they occupy public office; it does not matter whether the person has questionable ethical or moral burden or out rightly found to be corrupt. Appointment therefore is all about self, group or party affiliation and for the perks of office; never about service to the country.  This is the reason why when people commit fraud in government, we raise tribal flags in solidarity and rationalize about others who had been there and never brought to account. 

    It is unusual for government in power to investigate a serving minister in our clime for alleged case of corruption or any other malfeasant; this is the reason President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s directive to probe the minister and her ministry is revolutionary and should be supported by Nigerians who have been calling for accountability and probity in public office.  Is Mr President trying to prove the naysayers wrong that he can take on the behemoth called corruption in Nigeria?  Can he truly resist the cartel and take the monsters headlong on a collision course?  Political corruption of public officers has indeed made our nation a big-for-nothing country since independence; it has not changed.  Mr President is an establishment person; he understands official bureaucracy like the palm of his hands.  How far can he go?  He may choose to make a name for posterity and alter the course of our history and trajectory of governance to drive the country on the path of true change where people in official position begin to give account for their acts and omissions in public office.  To do this, he has to commit class suicide which is a very difficult thing to do. 

    History beckons; those that change the course of history are not saints; they are mostly imperfect people with flaws.  The Biblical character, Saul was notorious for persecuting the saints but turned out the greatest and most prolific apostle. Mr President is surrounded by hawks, and one wonders if he can play the eagle. We pray Mr President would not prefer to listen to those stinking public office holders who will tell him to ‘off the mic’!  Nigeria bureaucracies reek in a putrid odour of corruption; well-oiled and lubricated by equally tainted civil service and public administrators. In just months in office, two government officials have been exposed to have frittered away N44 billion and over N500 million respectively, under the same ministry. It is both mind boggling and a dress rehearsal at the same time of what some people are capable of doing should they be left for a full tenure of four years in office. 

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    People are already calling that the government should not just make a show and scapegoat of a few individuals as facade of a fight against corruption.  The dragnet should be extended to known and or suspected cases and everyone associated with the allegations. The allegation against this triumvirate, all our darling women, responding to the campaign for affirmative action to increase women inclusion in government.  This small incidents speaks to the wider net of graft at the states’ level where monies are simply diverted by governors for projects awarded but not executed, while government officials and phoney contractors ‘chop’ the money.  Most of the former governors were under investigation.  Some of these ex-governors are now serving senators and have converted the red chambers to old peoples’ home to protect themselves and frustrate any attempt to investigate them. Some notable names in the senate today have their files with the EFCC and nothing is being done about their cases probably they have joined the right party as was credited to one time chairman of the APC, the inimitable Adams Aliyu Oshiomhole.  Nigeria is drifting to the abyss due to corruption; nothing is working, infrastructure is still in decay, there is high rate of youth unemployment, insecurity is not abating, just name it. 

    Nigerians should not lose this impetus, this is the time to support the government and insist that all those fingered for money laundering and corrupt practices in office should be brought to book.  We should cease to venerate thieves and brigands in three-piece suit and agbada. If we recover twenty percent of what the politicians have stolen from our common patrimony, Nigeria does not need to go cap in hand for foreign borrowing and handout from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

    There has to be a thorough mental re-orientation of people aspiring to be leaders in every department of our lives.  It is insane for people to be seen to steal what they do not need. How can one individual steal trillions of naira because he has access to public fund; what does s/he want to do with it?  Certainly, the person should be sent to a psychiatrist or lunatic asylum. Tainted people who are being investigated for corruption should not be rewarded with ministerial appointments where they will continue as if it is a seal of approval that only corruption people that should run government bureaucracy.  Government should not to be run like a cartel of organized crime; Mr President should go the whole hog.

    •Kebonkwu Esq is an Abuja-based attorney.

  • The poor as pawns in the game of politics

    The poor as pawns in the game of politics

    • By Goodluck Uguoji

    Politics is the refined art of playing chess with the poor as the pawns. The welfare of the poor is the mission of politics. There is yet no man who is so ambitious and so desirous of ruling his country or his fellow men and women who does not offer himself as a Robin Hood in the service of the poor. 

    The poor are the reference point. Ordinarily, they should be the reason and the excuse to do or not to do. They are a constant in the calculus of social engineering and political administration. Governments succeed because of the poor, and government fail because of the poor. The poor remain the major assignment of every government. 

    Every government puts its fate in the callused hands of the poor. And so the success or failure of every government is measured by either the happiness index or the misery index of the poor. A high happiness index is the best indicator of a good or popular government. 

    While a high misery index of the poor leaves a government an island unto itself, surrounded by the murky waters of public disenchantment, a high misery index just as Nigerians experienced in the last eight years, is often part of the grand scheme in the affairs of mankind. It provides the loamy, fertile soil from which saviours who were not born are instantly made. 

    In other words, a high misery index leads to changes in the hierarchy of actors. The poor makes everything possible. Without the poor, it seems pretty likely that, life itself would degenerate into a monotony, robbed of competitions realize or nurture ambitions. The poor make the rich and then promote him to be wealthy. The poor are the excuse for one set of rulers either toppling, by force of arms, another set of rulers or replacing them through the ballot-box.

    Even laws appear to be made mostly with the sole interest of the poor in mind. To protect the poor from being trampled underfoot by the rich is the end of social justice, which means that the man who has should not be allowed to destroy another who hasn’t. Laws ignore levels of material possessions in extending and protecting the frontiers of social justice. 

    Samuel Johnson put his finger on it when he said: “A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization and it is also the true test of a government which cares”. To care is to remember that the poor are therefore, battling with the armies of want. To care is to remember that no man’s mission in life makes sense unless and until it is anchored on the desire to save and serve the poor. To care is to remember that where a man ultimately ends up-in heaven or hell-in the hereafter, depends almost entirely on his attitude to the poor. 

    Thus, the poor are not only the reference point for the mundane, but also for many people. You save or lose your soul for what you do or fail to do for the poor. Wherever, you turn, you confront the poor. Taking care of the masses, the ordinary people and the man on the street is the challenge to all governments the world over. And a political leader who cares for the masses is one with a sense of history, as history is a judgment passed when either there is no more chance for an appeal or an appeal offered from a position of powerlessness. 

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    The poor are always the grass in the field where the elephants do their fighting. Indeed, where would many millionaire or billionaire on the powerful be if they do not have the poor to cheat and to sabotage? 

    In truth, the poor are a conspiracy of the rich and the powerful. The poor perpetuate the comparative social advantages (the index for what one has made of his intelligence and opportunity and what another has not). If the poor disappear as a group, men and women would be hard put to justify their ambitions to be: to do.

    These hapless citizens are found in all the states of the federation. What distinguishes them from other Nigerians is their over-powering poverty, their state of helplessness and their irredeemable situation of an underdog. Usually, they are law-abiding; positively more patriotic and nationalistic than the next person. They discharge their civic responsibilities without any prompting. They sing hallelujah and hosanna when a new regime takes over power, thinking that salvation is here. But till kingdom come, their fate remains the same.

    Where others enjoy abundant supply of water in their homes, they walk more than 10 kilometres in search of water. Where others enjoy good roads and take such things for granted, they, regard them as luxuries. They cannot transport their farm produce to the markets.  

    Over the years, all succeeding governments in Nigeria, be it military or civilian, had pledged to improve the living conditions of the average Nigerian; so that they do not live the life of misery. But over the years, their living conditions, instead of improving, have continued to get worse. They cannot secure loan to engage in small scale businesses, because they do not have collaterals and they do not have the collateral to do so because they are poor. The government should appreciate the fate of poor Nigerians who are deprived, alienated and living like aliens in their country.     

    •Dr Uguoji writes from Akute, Ogun State.  

  • Of monstrous cathedrals and hungry congregants

    Of monstrous cathedrals and hungry congregants

    Sometime in 1989, a friend told a story of how he was in dire need of sponsorship for his university education. When all things proved difficult, he approached one of the presbyters in a church in Ibadan, Oyo State who eventually advised that his impressive General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level (GCE O-Level) results be announced to the congregation during a Sunday service with a view to wooing Good Samaritans. Though that was done, help did not come! The presbyter’s wife pleaded with his husband to rerun the announcement. ‘Who knows, help might come!’ But ‘Iya Yard’ (preacher’s wife) was shouted down. ‘We have more important things to do in the church’, he was quoted as saying. Then he turned to the help-seeker: “young man, go back to your village and start farming. By the time you do that for three to four years, you’ll have saved enough money to fund your university education.”

    Well, my friend’s experience brought to the fore a statement credited to Pastor W. F. Kumuyi, the Founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry, recently. Kumuyi reportedly urged the Church to stop devoting all its money to church building but start committing parts to feeding the poor and clothing the naked. According to him, “all the offerings are not just for the Church. There are poor people around. It makes no sense to give to a church building when the people inside are hungry.”

    It is interesting to note that good things are coming from Nazareth even as there might be priests who didn’t share Kumuyi’s lines of thought and are likely to take him up on this. Meanwhile, looking around, one sees many beautiful edifices, built with the people’s contributions, with the pastors cruising around in exotic cars and private jets. They live in opulence while the contributors suffer hunger and deprivation. These days, the common trend within the House of God can only be referred to as Building Competition: ‘if you build a 50,000-seater Auditorium, I will surprise you with a 120,000-seater Basilica, complete with infrastructural and cultural significance and hi-tech facilities’, not even minding whether or not “those who do not have anything to feed” are there, dying.

    To state the obvious, the new trend in the Church calls for concern. ‘Prophetic utterances’ a la miracles and prosperity are now gushing out like erosion while nobody cares about the Balanced Theology any longer. Apostle James said in the Holy Book that, if someone comes unto you without food and all you have to tell him or her is ‘go in peace’, what kind of peace would that be without first giving him what the body needs? Same goes for the Sheikhood system where the Sheikh lives large only for the followers to go home poor and hungry.

    In an article, ‘Of miracle workers, receivers and critics’, (published on September 8, 2002), yours sincerely commented on how the now-late Prophet T.B. Joshua went about, feeding the poor and clothing the unclothed, yet, what was of paramount interest to his colleagues in the faith was his having ‘evil spirit’ without doing something spectacular with their ‘holy spirit.’ Now that Joshua is dead, the world is free to accuse him of whatever it feels befits him but the truth is: those souls ‘Emmanuel’ fed while alive would not forget his good deeds in a hurry.

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    Take it or leave it, the Church of Christ in the hands of men is practically stinking. From Lagos to Abuja, and from Adamawa to Owerri, the present-day Church is filled with various forms of sinful and shameful acts of many shades and shapes being perpetrated by its leaders, better referred to as merchants on the altar of God. There is no distinction, be they mainline or the known privately-owned churches. The mainline churches are out of their conscience and are in business mainly for the interest of their Bishops, Archbishops and Primates. This is why one cannot find any of their children or loved ones in the country and their target among other things is to buy property abroad and dot every choice location locally with choice cars. No wonder the Holy Book says: “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begins at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?”

    The Church in Nigeria is bleeding from the wound of financial impropriety inflicted on it by its leaders. Accounts are not being well-kept and promotions and preferments are being stylishly sold under different names and guises. Emergency jobs are being created for the boys in the Departments, Areas, Zones, Dioceses and Provinces. Monies are being collected arbitrarily and parishes are being taxed just to satisfy the taste of the leaders. Is it any wonder then that we have more ‘healers’ than the healed and more ‘perfect masters’ on earth than the One who has the ultimate power to give and take away? Indeed, that’s why the North-South dichotomy has only succeeded in dividing us instead of uniting us and why the cankerworms of religious ethnicism and doctrinal fanaticism have eaten deep into our fabric. It is also the reason our society comprises liars whose tokens are frustrated and wise diviners whose knowledge are made foolish.

    As it is in the Church, so it is in the political-cum-secular world. Things and times have become so troubling that, if a politician decides to build his house on a river, our religious leaders will build a canoe to the place. If they can’t build it, they will go as far as contracting experts from Ilaje in Ondo State to help construct a road to get there. As it is, there are millions of Nigerians who will follow their religious leaders into the lagoon. Anyway, that’s a topic for another day!

    The political class who use our commonwealth to sponsor would-be pilgrims to Mecca and Jerusalem is not helping matters. Of course, that’s why so many people have kowtowed, because, when a man makes it a point of duty to slash a tenth of his hard-earned salary and decides to give it to the Church, what’s wrong with such a soul is that he is still believing in the religious institution or the commandment of God that he should do so with his money. However, the unfortunate part of it is that other corresponding acts are observed in the breach by the Church.

    During his time, former President Goodluck Jonathan established schools, complete with incentives, for the Almajiris. Jonathan knew that, without these in place, Nigeria was sitting on a keg of gunpowder and that it was only a matter of time before it’d explode. Unfortunately, March 28, 2015 came and the election Tsunami swept Jonathan back to Otuoke. What happened afterwards was nothing compared to forgotten ideas!

    Let’s make this perfectly clear, the Church carries with it the totality of the responsibility of man. In the early days, the Church was supposed to be getting its directive directly from God. If its directives were from God, then, no one could query the Church. But, is the definition of religion sacrosanct and where lies the space of God in the hearts of men or his place in the affairs of his elect? Why have religious institutions in Nigeria become mere commercial organizations, toying with the people’s emotions and destinies through selfish prayers and very weird ideas of blessings and healing? Over and above all, why have institutional silliness, deliberate blindness and fake confidence robbed us of all the benefits of those prayers that have already been answered?

    Why? For God’s sake, why?

    May the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, grant us peace in Nigeria!

  • Climate change and Africa in energy transition framework

    Climate change and Africa in energy transition framework

    • By Kola Ibrahim

    The current global approach to fighting climate change and systematically transitioning to clean energy will leave Africa in the cold. While Africa’s participation in the research and development of climate adaptation is very negligible, its role in the climate mitigation technology and development is also controlled by external forces. Despite Africa having significant natural resources necessary for mitigation technology, the continent plays no fundamental role in mitigation development.

    For instance, Africa has some of the important natural resources for renewable energy, yet most of the renewable energy investments and technologies are not in Africa, neither is Africa playing any role in important aspects of the renewable energy technology value addition.

    For starters, over 70% of Cobalt mining is from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC); 65.2% of Manganese mining is in South Africa, Gabon, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire; 21.3% of Graphite resources is in Mozambique and Madagascar; 89% of Iridium resources is in South Africa; 73.6% of Platinum is in South Africa, and 13.5% of Copper in DRC and Zambia (IRENA, 2023). This is based on current information. There is possibility that more deposits of these and other minerals may be discovered, both within and outside Africa. Moreover, new technology may expose new natural resources useful for renewable technology. An instance is the discovery of phosphate, titanium and vanadium deposit in Norway, which quantity, according to Norge Mining Company, could provide 50 years of global supply (IRENA, 2023). In fact, more than half of African countries have at least one critical mineral needed for renewable energy development (AfDB, 2023). 

    Aside the mineral resources are other natural capital, including wind power, solar potential, water bodies, rainforests, mangrove and water bodies. According to a brief by International Finance Corporation (Whittaker, 2020), Africa’s wind energy technical potential is more than 250 times its current electricity generation. IRENA (2022) also estimated Africa’s solar energy technical potential at 7,900 Gigawatt. Yet, if the 93 Gigawatt of wind power added globally in 2022 was installed in Africa, it will provide electricity for 737 million people in Africa, who lack access to electricity. This means that Africa has all the wind and solar resources to provide universal electricity access not only for the current population, but also for powering its development and industrialisation on an environmentally sustainable basis. Africa has the second largest river (Nile) and longest river (Congo), aside several rivers across Africa that provide opportunity for hydro renewable energy generation (AfDB, 2023). 

    Another example of Africa’s natural capital is the Congo basin rainforest, the second biggest rainforests in the world, spanning six central African countries (DRC, Congo Brazzaville, Gabon, Cameroon, Central African Republic and Equatorial Guinea). These forests, spanning 3.3 million square kilometres, provide natural mitigation services for the world, with annual net carbon dioxide sequestration put at 600 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, while the forests reportedly store an estimated 25 to 30 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent (Creeze et al, 2022). This is aside other rainforests (e.g. West Africa rainforests) across the continent.

    In spite of these huge natural capital that can facilitate Africa’s sustainable clean and sustainable energy sufficiency and provide leadership in climate mitigation development globally, the continent is far behind in development of renewable and clean energy technology. This is not unconnected with the lack of serious investment in research and development and funding for climate change technology (both mitigation and adaptation). This is coupled with gross underdevelopment of the continent, which means it has little fund for research and development, that often require huge financial resources. Worse still, global climate change and green technology, research and inventions have been patented and controlled by the developed capitalist countries and big multinational corporations. Consequently, the continent’s built renewable energy capacity, aside being very little, is also controlled by global finance capital outside of Africa. Currently, global renewable energy market, especially wind and solar PV and battery technology and market are dominated by China, Europe and the US. 

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    Africa has only a tiny share (2.5%) of global renewable electricity generation. Africa came third after Oceania and the Caribbean regions, which are smaller regions in terms of landmass, population, economic size and resources (IRENA and AfDB, 2023). Moreover, majority of Africa’s renewable electricity generation comes from hydro-power generation. Out of the 54GW of renewable energy generation capacity, hydropower contribute at least 38GW (63%) in 2021, with 60 percent of this installed hydropower being more than 20 years old (IHA, 2022). Solar and wind energy contribute 10.4GW and 6.5GW respectively (IRENA and AfDB, 2023). 

    With renewable sources constituting only 20.7% of Africa’s current electricity generation (hydro, 17.4%; solar, 1.5%; wind, 1.2%, and geothermal, 0.6%), and Africa’s electricity shortfall at 160GW, it means Africa’s renewable energy generation will be overwhelmingly dominated in the coming period by external sources. Currently, China, North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and India control 91% of global solar energy manufacturing market with Africa having only 1.65%. Also, in the wind energy market, Africa only has 1.1% of the market share, while China, US and Europe control 82% of the market. The wind farms in Africa are controlled by foreign businesses. 

    Interestingly, most of the investments in Africa are from external sources. For instance, in the hydropower energy sub-sector, China accounts for 60% of all investment in Africa between 2009 and 2018. China also account for 55% of solar PV module supply, and 19% of solar product EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) in Africa (SEforAll, 2023). In terms of renewable research and development (R&D), Africa is far behind. Of the $3.14 billion spent on renewable energy R&D globally in 2022, Africa’s contribution is very negligible (IEA, 2023). Furthermore, Africa does not appear in major patents ownership in the renewable, clean energy and low-carbon energy technology, which is dominated by Japan, United States, China, Germany and Korea (IEA, 2021). 

    The implication of these facts is that Africa will be an insignificant player in the global energy transition. Beyond this, it will mean Africa’s economy, which is in dire need of power, will be more tightly controlled under the green economy than – or as much as – under the current fossil fuel (black) economy. While Africa will be severely impacted by climate change and global warming, caused by historical and current emissions from major industrialised economies, the pro-market solutions being proposed through the green economy, energy transition and climate adaptation by global multilateral institutions will further put Africa’s economy and society under the dictates of global finance capital, as Africa is currently playing an insignificant role in technology, investment and knowledge acquisition. 

    In summary, Africa, aside being terribly impacted by global warming and climate change caused historically and in the contemporary period, by major industrialised economies, will also bear the cost of adapting to impacts of climate change and global transition to clean energy, not with its own technology, but through opening up its economy to exploitation of its natural capital, human resources and wealth. Yet, the biggest challenge is that most African countries are stuck with fossil economy, either as fossil fuel producer or major consumer, whose economies and infrastructures are dependent on fossil fuel.  Therefore, African governments, and especially its people demand for serious restructuring of the global climate change governance system, if they are to come out of climate change stronger, economically and socially.

    •Ibrahim, an author and scholar-activist, is a public intellectual and climate justice researcher and campaigner.

  • Feyisetan Fayose: Garlands for the heroine at 60

    Feyisetan Fayose: Garlands for the heroine at 60

    • By Bimbo Daramola

    An unseen battle tested warrior who fought all battles and won them all on her feet and with her faith. 

    To be able to answer that question about a virtuous wife, as stated in the Bible, a virtuous woman who can find? As addressed to all men, I recommend without any shade of doubt the life of a woman that I know fairly and by her sterling and untainted reputation, Mrs Feyisitan Fayose , the wife of the effervescent former Governor of Ekiti State. 

    I believe the Scripture wanted all men in their search for a good wife to be extremely cautious and careful, and went further to highlight the characters and characteristics of who should fit that role. I believe Governor Ayo Fayose found her.

    Today I am comfortable in my skin to say a human perfect fit and match of all the characteristics as enunciated in the Bible is this woman, Mrs Feyisitan Fayose. 

    I have been in places where people had asked me or the discussions propped up about first lady of states, and sometimes about our state, and in their rating Mrs Feyisitan Fayose comes far and above everyone else. 

    During her husband’s tenure, by choice she opted to really stay in the shadows and her visibility was reduced to almost two events only, the end of year Carols service and New Year visit to hospitals and motherless babies homes. She was never one to share a seat with her husband at state functions, no state related functions or roles assigned, mandatorily allotted or snatched in demonstration or to assert the position of the Wife of Governor. 

    She was contented with remaining the real power behind her husband fighting his battles from her knees, in dry fasting and through her fiery faith. 

    Whoever does not believe this should go and review the trajectory of the life of the person, personae and personality of her husband, Ayodele Peter Fayose, the Oshokomale, even before he became governor. 

    This very reserved and intelligent woman is not one to flaunt anything from outward appearance to visibility or her position, or wealth; she has chosen to be impactful in the best way she knows i.e through her prayers, putting the wellbeing of her husband and children first every time. 

    Even the milestone of 60th, she has vehemently refused any lousy party! Rather opting for a quiet family time. 

    Without doubts , I am convinced that without this huge power plug behind a man like Ayodele Peter Fayose, it most likely would have been an impossibility to have a Governor Ayodele Fayose survive all of his adult life battles, from conquering the street to become financially independent  coming from that modest background  and rising to significance and relevance in business even before his assumption of the position of governor. Not stopping there, he went further from that relatively unknown and modest status to become the Governor of Ekiti State without a god father defeating the privileged son of a General. 

    Whoever thinks that conquering the street is easy should go and do a sit-rep and undertake a check of millions that the street had literally consumed not only their visions and dreams even their lives either through usage of drugs, abuse of alcohol and indeed never to be able to rise. Ayo Fayose survived the street because of this quiet power plug whose power is not in mechanical engines that could be measured in horsepower, or any manpower but simply Godspower!

    When the innocuous and little known ebullient man wanted to run for governor, I am told this gentle power base sought clearance from Headquarters above and secured it for him, before Fayose stepped out. I recall his first campaign poster was titled “Who is Ayo Fayose?” The wife knew who he was and is!

    He was derided as a joker!  Well it turned out that the joke was on all those who underestimated the power behind the then young man daring to tread where angels buckle. He won. 

    When he eventually did, everyone said nah Juju, nah wetin he pour inside the water tankers that he used to provide water, a man who recognised that the people indeed needed water and went ahead to provide the water they wanted backed by wisdom from on high and drawing steady strength from the knees and virtues and from the faith of this unknown quiet woman Feyisitan Fayose. The bourgeoisie kept underestimating him, sometimes bordering on derision, but this woman had sealed it for her beloved husband.  

    Then trouble started due to a bit of youthful exuberance that comes with conquests and defeating erstwhile weighty figures and systems as a young man. Eventually he ran into troubled water and was impeached in a dramatic manner, then began another long and winding tortuous journey for him, through thick and thin, the travails, the power plug did not unplug ! She stuck by him all the way.

    I am reliably told that yet again, she it was she who declared that Governor Ayodele Fayose would come back, and that no matter how tough, the comeback bid would be – it had been sealed on her knees and through her unshaken faith. She was the armour bearer so to speak, an impregnable shield not only for her husband but her children. 

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    Every excesses that may be attributed or attributable to Governor Ayodele Fayose, this power plug shielded him from deadly and fiery consequences and recompense that ordinarily would have sent anyone not graced to have someone like Mrs Feyisitan Fayose taking the bullets and diverting them in whatever manner and form they appear. 

    It is now history that Governor Peter Ayodele Fayose came back eight years, eight days later after he was removed from office on the strength of this power plug and power base. 

    Today I join the family of the former governor, Ayodele Fayose to salute and celebrate this unusually amazing woman, soft hearted, soft spoken, deeply intelligent but moderated in her outlook of life, a woman of supra, ultra-virtues of simplicity, not garrulous,  dedicated, public spirited without being showy, unwavering pillar of support and above all a woman who truly had found her essence and purpose in life. 

    May you continue to be engraved in the palm of your creator in whom you have found your ultimate essence. May the grace that has found you never leave you. Well I am sure this prayer is stale and too late, knowing you for the life of holiness that you not only preach but live; you abhor unnecessary ostentation and ostentatious living and lifestyle, so that grace is already there.

    I trust God to continue to showcase you as an exemplary woman and a jewel of inestimable value to your maverick, boisterous and enigmatic husband just as Pa Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo declared and testified of Hannah Dideolu as his “jewel of inestimable value”, I believe that is his declaration and testimony too.

    Happy Birthday our delectable former First Lady, Feyisitan Fayose.  

    •Hon. Daramola is former member, House of Representatives. 

  • Ezeife: Personal encounters

    Ezeife: Personal encounters

    • By C. Don Adinuba

    Chukwuemeka Pius Ezeife, Anambra State governor from January 1992 to November 1993 who died last month at 86, hauled himself up by the bootstraps and became an embodiment of progress. He took to apprentice trading on leaving primary school owing to paucity of funds. Yet, before anyone knew it, he had obtained a doctorate in economics from Harvard, becoming a lecturer at Makerere University in Uganda. At the end of the Nigerian Civil War in 1970, he re-joined the federal civil service, retiring as a permanent secretary. He then dived straight into business and left a footprint in no time. He also rose rapidly in politics, as became the Social Democratic Party (SDP) governor after a series of gruesome fights. His life was marked by grit, resilience, simplicity, and an unwavering commitment to the public good.

    No sooner he emerged governor than I was requested to join his Information Advisory Committee headed by Pita Ejiofor, a prolific author and management professor who had served as the Commissioner for Industry, Trade and Commerce in former Anambra State and was to become, years later, the Nnamdi Azikiwe University vice-chancellor. The recommendation came through Ezeife’s press secretary, Okey Ifionu, a suave journalist and natural public relations practitioner who is now a senior cleric in the Anglican Church in Lagos. For some reason, I was the only professional journalist on the committee which was dominated by bureaucrats.

    In one of the first meetings between Governor Ezeife and the Information Advisory Committee, I lauded him for developing the Think Home policy. Still, I observed that his disposition to public communication would impede the policy’s successful implementation. I asked him pointedly: “If investors and other stakeholders are not well informed about the merits of this policy and provided with compelling reasons why they should stake their future in our dear state through organs of public communication like the press and roadshows and conferences, how do you hope to deliver this beautiful vision?”

    Not a man to give in easily to an argument, Ezeife retorted that I was advising him to turn Anambra State into a North Korea whereas he had plans to turn it into a South Korea!  North Korea, under a family autocracy, was relentlessly sending communist propaganda material to not just its people but across the globe while South Korea was exporting ships, electronics, cars, etc., to the world. It was a lively debate between the governor and myself for the next 30 minutes. When the meeting receded, the governor’s Special Assistant on Information, Ben Obiatuegwu, a well-groomed writer and former chief executive of the state-owned newspaper who was a Reuters Fellow at Oxford University, and Press Secretary Ifionu joined members of the Information Advisory Committee to thank me for what they considered an impressive presentation of the communication strategy case.

    The governor, smiling broadly and laughing heartily throughout the back-and-forth conversation, was perhaps impressed. The relationship between us blossomed rapidly after this encounter. Following another meeting of the Information Advisory Committee, he and I had a private meeting on the then ongoing SDP primary elections. There were optics that Chuba Okadigbo, a popular academic and erstwhile President Shehu Shagari’s Special Adviser on Political Affairs, who was running for the SDP senatorial nomination, was having difficulties owing to insufficient funds. His main opponent, Mike Okechukwu Areh, with a doctorate in nuclear pharmacy, was rumoured to be campaigning with a lot of money. Many prominent Nigerians were worried. Onwuka Kalu, the chief executive of Onwuka Hi-Tek, was calling regularly to obtain reports on Okadigbo’s performance. “Ojo Maduekwe and Chuba Okadigbo,” he said to me repeatedly, “are two persons who would articulate and defend Igbo interests in the senate. I will do my best to assist Ojo in Abia State. Please, talk to Dr Ezeife in strong terms”.

    The governor listened calmly as I made a case for Okadigbo. I expected him, as he was wont, to address each point, but he rather surprisingly said solemnly: “What’s the assurance that Dr Areh’s first act in the senate won’t be to demand that Onitsha be included in the proposed Anioma State?” He paused and then threw in the killer punch: “Chuba is our candidate. Have no fears”. Right there he called the state SDP chairman, Goddy Madueke, and the secretary, Chukwunonso Ibeneme, to come over. Two days later, a relieved nation heard on the 4.00 pm Network News Service of Radio Nigeria that Okadigbo had become the SDP senatorial candidate. Much as Okadigbo and I had a close relationship, I never narrated to him this meeting with Ezeife.

    On August 26, 1993, I met Ezeife and advised that the government honour Anambra winners of the Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM), Nigeria’s highest honour for intellectual and artistic attainment as part of the effort to recalibrate our value system and promote education as the way of the future. Anambra was then competing with Ekiti over the state with the highest number of NNOM laureates. Though he had recorded his broadcast to mark the state’s second anniversary the next day, the governor recalled the tape to include the honour to the state’s brilliant indigenes in the address.

    Ezeife and I didn’t see again till about November because I had withdrawn from the committee due to the behaviour of an aide to Ezeife’s well-trusted private secretary. When he eventually saw me at a meeting he was holding with the Anambra community in Abuja at the Nicon Hilton Hotel, he discreetly asked his aide de camp, Chris Ezike, who was to retire as an Assistant Inspector General of Police, to release all his office, residential and direct telephone numbers to me. After the meeting, I went to see him in his suite, he said to me: “Identify any three posts you want in government, except the Commissioner for Education; that is for the candidate of the Catholic Church. I am now seeing the wisdom in your advocacy for effective communication”. He was worried about the public perception of his government, despite building such things as the Udoka Housing Estate in Awka and repeated explanations that he would start aggressive development in the third year of his administration that would make it unnecessary for him to campaign energetically for re-election. 

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     I was already working as the Special Assistant to Bart Nnaji, the Minister of Science of Technology, a particularly close friend, so I turned down the offer. Ezeife’s love for Anambra showed once again. “Please, bring the minister to Awka as soon as you can. He can help us with the electronics agency we are building to make Anambra the hub of Nigeria’s industrial revolution.”  As I was departing the suite, he joked: “Don’t fail, as you did in the case of Professor Oliver Mobisson, the MIT-trained computer genius whom you couldn’t persuade to leave the Enugu State University of Technology to join Nnamdi Azikwe University in Awka. Mobisson’s brilliance was already known in Boston when I was at Harvard”.

    Ezeife was over the moon to see Nnaji in Awka within days and assembled the cabinet to attend a reception for the minister where he spoke passionately about the electronics development agency, now a federal institute. Little did we know that Ezeife and Nnaji would be out of government the next week following Sani Abacha’s emergence as Nigeria’s military ruler.

    Ezeife had no money to rent a house, so he and his family moved to his private office on Awolowo Road in Ikoyi, using the small place as a residence and office.  His situation is reminiscent of the case of Ukpabi Asika who, after nine years as the East Central State administrator, squatted in John Adeleke’s residence at 80 or 81 Norman Williams Street, Southwest Ikoyi. Ezeife turned to exporting cash crops like ginger and cashew nuts to Asia, but it faced many challenges. Yet, when I strolled into his office and casually mentioned that I was going to officially announce my intention to marry a girl from the Nzeribe family in Uli with just a bottle of spirit, Ezeife ran around to provide the money for the drink, despite my gentle protest. He could find only N3,000 cash and gave me two-thirds of it. I used N1,500 from it to purchase a bottle of St Remy.

    •Adinuba was Anambra State Commissioner for Information & Public Enlightenment (2018-2022).

  • Prioritising sustainability in deployment of cybersecurity tools

    Prioritising sustainability in deployment of cybersecurity tools

    • By Ojo Emmanuel Ademola

    The trending discourse on achieving net zero and perhaps the elimination of fossil fuel in the just concluded COP 28 calls for an advocacy approach (AAA) to the understanding and deployment of nearly everything that serves as an essential input to developing an economy of a nation. 

    There are struggling implications of making sense of sustainability, especially in the major monolithic economies that characterise the global south nations of the world. Statistics are not just merely to justify that the proliferation of long-term impact of carefree extension that lacks a deep sense of sustainability is upgrading calamity to nations’ economies.

    In today’s interconnected world, the increasing reliance on digital technologies has made cybersecurity a critical concern for individuals, businesses, and governments. This is especially true in global south nations, where extending the developing economies stays as an accentuation.  

    It begins to trend in such an economy, essentially, where the adoption of cybersecurity measures is essential for fostering economic growth, protecting sensitive data, and safeguarding and securing critical infrastructures. 

    However, while the deployment of cybersecurity tools is vital, it is equally important to ensure that these efforts contribute to the long-term sustainability of the environment and society. Such an emphatic call could play a vital role in promoting a robust digital economy with highly sustainable intentions. 

    An advocacy strategy to prioritize sustainability in the deployment of cybersecurity tools in developing economies should centrally focus on promoting the adoption of environmentally friendly and socially responsible practices within the cybersecurity industry. Such a strategy provides a scaling technique to drive positive implications sustainably.  Also, the advocacy approach aims to raise awareness, drive policy changes, and encourage the integration of sustainable principles in the development, deployment, and management of cybersecurity solutions.

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    Advocacy efforts can play a significant role in influencing decision-makers, industry leaders, and stakeholders to recognize the importance of sustainability in cybersecurity deployment. By highlighting the environmental and social impact of cybersecurity tools, advocates can drive conversations and actions that lead to the prioritization of sustainable practices. This can encompass the responsible sourcing of materials, energy-efficient development processes, waste reduction, and the promotion of inclusive and ethical business practices within the cybersecurity industry.

    One of the key aspects of an advocacy approach is the education and empowerment of stakeholders. By providing training, resources, and expertise, advocacy groups can help raise awareness about sustainable cybersecurity practices and build capacity within developing economies. 

    Further, it can involve collaborating with local organizations, academic institutions, and government agencies to develop tailored programs that promote sustainable cybersecurity deployment.

    Likewise, advocacy can support the development of regulatory frameworks and standards that incentivize sustainable cybersecurity practices. The deployment is all about making information technology good for society by engaging with policymakers, industry associations, and international organizations. 

    Advocates can push for the integration of sustainability criteria into procurement processes, certification programs, and industry guidelines. This can create an environment where businesses and governments are encouraged to prioritize sustainable cybersecurity solutions, ultimately driving positive change in the industry.

    In addition to influencing policy and promoting awareness, advocacy can also facilitate partnerships and collaborations that promote sustainable cybersecurity deployment. By bringing together industry players, technology providers, and sustainability experts, advocates can foster the exchange of knowledge and best practices. These partnerships can lead to the development of innovative solutions, the sharing of resources, and the establishment of networks that support sustainable cybersecurity initiatives in developing economies.

    An advocacy approach can also focus on promoting the economic benefits of sustainable cybersecurity deployment. By highlighting the potential for cost savings, enhanced reputation, and market opportunities, advocates can make a compelling case for prioritizing sustainability. This can be especially impactful in developing economies where resource efficiency and competitiveness are critical factors for success.

    Moreover, advocacy efforts can drive the creation of awareness campaigns that engage the public and raise the profile of sustainable cybersecurity practices. By leveraging media, social platforms, and community events, advocates can communicate the importance of sustainability in cybersecurity deployment and encourage individuals to demand sustainable solutions from businesses and governments. This can create pressure for change and support the momentum for sustainable practices within the cybersecurity industry.

    In conclusion, an advocacy approach to prioritizing sustainability in the deployment of cybersecurity tools in developing economies is essential for driving positive change. By raising awareness, influencing policy, fostering collaboration, and promoting economic benefits, advocates can play a crucial role in integrating sustainable principles into the cybersecurity industry. With a concerted effort to build capacity, shape regulations, and drive public engagement, sustainable cybersecurity deployment can become a reality, contributing to the long-term well-being of both the environment and society.

  • Edo 2024: An economy governor

    Edo 2024: An economy governor

    • By Cliff Chima

    Former United States President, George H. W. Bush in a great show of decisive political leadership in an almost bloodless military campaign, ousted Panamanian dictator, Manuel Noriega from power. Then when in 1990 Saddam Hussein annexed Kuwait as a possible prelude to invading Saudi Arabia, Bush put together an international political and military coalition and drove Hussein out of Kuwait in less than a month of combat and with a minimal loss of American lives. 

    He also presided over the end of the Cold War and seeing the collapse of the Berlin Wall. All were great political victories. In the spring of 1991, he had looked unstoppable for re-election. His approval rating hit 89 percent – the highest ever recorded by Gallup. However in his bid for re-election in November of 1991, he received only 38% of the vote – less than any incumbent since President Taft in 1912. His defeat by Bill Clinton was caused in large part by a sluggish economic growth. His downfall was, in ordinary English, down to the money in the pocket of Americans. The economy had slid into a recession on his watch and as with all modern presidents, he was held accountable by a discerning electorate for the state of the economy. Bill Clinton’s adviser, James Carville famously quipped: “It’s the economy, stupid.” They ran with this. It was the economy and it still is the economy.

    In its editorial of Tuesday, May 8, 2018, The Nation newspaper stated: “In the light of the approaching general elections, we call on the opposition parties and the electorate to be vigilant and call attention to the performance of the governors. If Nigerians are truly desirous of development, the attention paid to the economy in the first term of governors seeking re-election should form the basis of the campaign in the run-up to the polls.”

    How true!

    Nigeria faced the great challenge of a national recession of 2016 that lashed millions harshly like the cold Harmattan dry wind and the economic cruelties and cantankerous economic weather has not fully lifted over the nation. The very best efforts and hands were seemingly not employed then in handling the economic challenges and it further compounded the situation. States became unable to perform their basic duties, such as paying their workers; 33 out of 36 states were unable to meet their obligations to their workers, thereby collapsing state economies with withered industrial bases and poor private sector capacities. 

    Edo State has lately being moving from a civil-service dominated state to the dream of becoming an industrial base and it is leveraging on its natural resources of crude oil, gas and other natural endowments in the state for economic renaissance. Worldwide, it has been demonstrated that government and business interests have a complementary role, the leveraging on best economic ideas from the private sector for economic progress.

    What is needed in Edo State as they choose their next governor later this year is the criteria of continually creating of a conducive environment for businesses to thrive and for burgeoning investors to harness the rich business potentials of Edo State. An administration that can smoothen the relationship between the investing private sector and the regulating public sector to allow for the free flow of investment into the public sector, to engendering development for Edo State is needed. 

    The office of governor is not necessarily for men of words, men of oratory but of thought; sound economic thoughts. Oratory won’t put food on the table now. A candidate should come with elaborated and well-thought out economic initiatives to substitute the pretence and rhetoric of professional politicians with real solutions for the present and the future. A governor must then excel in his ability to link ideas to effective action and to link initiatives to desired results.

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    Sure, men can have many ideas for governance but it will be their genius to select those ideas most relevant and productive for firm and useful economic results. Their economic initiatives must necessarily be a response to the diverse needs and to the state’s economic well-being and social order. They must show themselves to be above the typical third world professional politicians who are more impressive in oratory than in economic action and can be callous as they pursue their self-aggrandizement and comfort relentlessly while the people suffer immeasurably from pervasive wickedness.

    Edo State is naturally endowed with rich resources and its people are among the world’s brightest innovators with an unmatched entrepreneurial spirit. An economy-governor, a smart business figure cum political head, to rally millions of its people who are burning with economic vivacity and an unmatched resilience with state pro-business policies and achieve public sector excellence is needed. 

    Shrewd business ideas always bring exceptional wealth and prosperity. A third world state’s political head ought therefore to come with a job description to compulsorily lead an economic revival. He ought not to be an economic illiterate and docile. 

    Edo must elect a man to act as the points-men of their economy, to drive it forward with modern ideas and bring on exhilaration and economic success. Such a governorship role will only take someone highly knowledgeable, skilled, having lots of international contacts; a business-diplomat who also knows his way around leading economic ideas and personalities around the world to do both political and economic deals. He also can actively engage Corporate Nigeria and others in oiling the wheel of economic governance.

    Edo State does not lack for competent people.  The era of unheralded, untested governors, who are propped up by ethnicity, religion or certain political godfathers into power and just end up stagnating the state, just enjoying perks of office and incurring huge debts for no end, should seem a regressive agenda now. In this present stark economic reality, the people of Edo need not gamble their next four years by taking a leap in the dark. This is no time to fall emotionally for choice slogans and be slack in thoroughly scrutinizing the economic and governance credentials of aspiring governorship candidates. It has to be someone with the preparation capacity and the limitless bank of ideas to run a 21st century government. 

    With the state’s huge population, there are opportunities for investors in so many areas: the retail industry; consumer goods; real estate for a rising middle class; information and communication technology; agriculture; power and transportation infrastructure. And investors’ confidence in the governor is the key to economic prosperity.

    This concern for economic well-being of the state should be priority as Edo people chose their next governor in 2024.

    Former United States President, George H. W. Bush in a great show of decisive political leadership in an almost bloodless military campaign, ousted Panamanian dictator, Manuel Noriega from power. Then when in 1990 Saddam Hussein annexed Kuwait as a possible prelude to invading Saudi Arabia, Bush put together an international political and military coalition and drove Hussein out of Kuwait in less than a month of combat and with a minimal loss of American lives. 

    He also presided over the end of the Cold War and seeing the collapse of the Berlin Wall. All were great political victories. In the spring of 1991, he had looked unstoppable for re-election. His approval rating hit 89 percent – the highest ever recorded by Gallup. However in his bid for re-election in November of 1991, he received only 38% of the vote – less than any incumbent since President Taft in 1912. His defeat by Bill Clinton was caused in large part by a sluggish economic growth. His downfall was, in ordinary English, down to the money in the pocket of Americans. The economy had slid into a recession on his watch and as with all modern presidents, he was held accountable by a discerning electorate for the state of the economy. Bill Clinton’s adviser, James Carville famously quipped: “It’s the economy, stupid.” They ran with this. It was the economy and it still is the economy.

    In its editorial of Tuesday, May 8, 2018, The Nation newspaper stated: “In the light of the approaching general elections, we call on the opposition parties and the electorate to be vigilant and call attention to the performance of the governors. If Nigerians are truly desirous of development, the attention paid to the economy in the first term of governors seeking re-election should form the basis of the campaign in the run-up to the polls.”

    How true!

    Nigeria faced the great challenge of a national recession of 2016 that lashed millions harshly like the cold Harmattan dry wind and the economic cruelties and cantankerous economic weather has not fully lifted over the nation. The very best efforts and hands were seemingly not employed then in handling the economic challenges and it further compounded the situation. States became unable to perform their basic duties, such as paying their workers; 33 out of 36 states were unable to meet their obligations to their workers, thereby collapsing state economies with withered industrial bases and poor private sector capacities. 

    Edo State has lately being moving from a civil-service dominated state to the dream of becoming an industrial base and it is leveraging on its natural resources of crude oil, gas and other natural endowments in the state for economic renaissance. Worldwide, it has been demonstrated that government and business interests have a complementary role, the leveraging on best economic ideas from the private sector for economic progress.

    What is needed in Edo State as they choose their next governor later this year is the criteria of continually creating of a conducive environment for businesses to thrive and for burgeoning investors to harness the rich business potentials of Edo State. An administration that can smoothen the relationship between the investing private sector and the regulating public sector to allow for the free flow of investment into the public sector, to engendering development for Edo State is needed. 

    The office of governor is not necessarily for men of words, men of oratory but of thought; sound economic thoughts. Oratory won’t put food on the table now. A candidate should come with elaborated and well-thought out economic initiatives to substitute the pretence and rhetoric of professional politicians with real solutions for the present and the future. A governor must then excel in his ability to link ideas to effective action and to link initiatives to desired results.

    Sure, men can have many ideas for governance but it will be their genius to select those ideas most relevant and productive for firm and useful economic results. Their economic initiatives must necessarily be a response to the diverse needs and to the state’s economic well-being and social order. They must show themselves to be above the typical third world professional politicians who are more impressive in oratory than in economic action and can be callous as they pursue their self-aggrandizement and comfort relentlessly while the people suffer immeasurably from pervasive wickedness.

    Edo State is naturally endowed with rich resources and its people are among the world’s brightest innovators with an unmatched entrepreneurial spirit. An economy-governor, a smart business figure cum political head, to rally millions of its people who are burning with economic vivacity and an unmatched resilience with state pro-business policies and achieve public sector excellence is needed. 

    Shrewd business ideas always bring exceptional wealth and prosperity. A third world state’s political head ought therefore to come with a job description to compulsorily lead an economic revival. He ought not to be an economic illiterate and docile. 

    Edo must elect a man to act as the points-men of their economy, to drive it forward with modern ideas and bring on exhilaration and economic success. Such a governorship role will only take someone highly knowledgeable, skilled, having lots of international contacts; a business-diplomat who also knows his way around leading economic ideas and personalities around the world to do both political and economic deals. He also can actively engage Corporate Nigeria and others in oiling the wheel of economic governance.

    Edo State does not lack for competent people.  The era of unheralded, untested governors, who are propped up by ethnicity, religion or certain political godfathers into power and just end up stagnating the state, just enjoying perks of office and incurring huge debts for no end, should seem a regressive agenda now. In this present stark economic reality, the people of Edo need not gamble their next four years by taking a leap in the dark. This is no time to fall emotionally for choice slogans and be slack in thoroughly scrutinizing the economic and governance credentials of aspiring governorship candidates. It has to be someone with the preparation capacity and the limitless bank of ideas to run a 21st century government. 

    With the state’s huge population, there are opportunities for investors in so many areas: the retail industry; consumer goods; real estate for a rising middle class; information and communication technology; agriculture; power and transportation infrastructure. And investors’ confidence in the governor is the key to economic prosperity.

    This concern for economic well-being of the state should be priority as Edo people chose their next governor in 2024.

    • Chima Esq, a strategic communications practitioner writes via chimacliffchima@gmail.com