The Nation Newspaper

Category: Society

  • VGC Rotary gets ‘world-class’ president

    VGC Rotary gets ‘world-class’ president

    The Rotary Club of Garden City, Lagos has a new president, reports JOSEPH JIBUEZE

    To serve in selflessness”. Those words form part of the Rotary invocation. New President of the Rotary Club of Victoria Garden City, District 9110, Nigeria, Tony Eigbokhan, an architect, has vowed to abide by those words during his tenure. His investiture as the club’s 19th president took place last Saturday. Venue of the event oozed class. Yellow, sky blue and white drapes hung round the beautifully decorated hall. Tables were covered with yellow cloths, with colourful flowers placed on them. Lights blinked behind the elevated table where the VIPs sat.

    The call to order by the outgoing president, Christopher Anyakorah, was followed by a recital of the Rotary grace/invocation, the Four-Way Test; singing of the Rotary songs and fundraiser/raffle draw.

    Eigbokhan, a former Head of Property Department at Zenith Bank Plc and who resigned as Senior Manager at Keystone Bank to found Projectmate International Limited, a firm of building consultants, said was prepared for the position and would do his bit for humanity’s cause. “I’ve been mentally prepared  for the position. I’ll give my best to this club,” he said.

    On what he will do differently, he told reporters after his investiture: “I’ve asked the committee members to come up with their projects and take ownership. Mine is to ensure they are executed. I’ve attended over 10 trainings organised by the district, as well as exchanges in US, Canada and Portugal. So, I’m prepared. The project so dear to my heart is classroom renovation at Sangotedo primary school which had no roof, doors or windows and children sit on their sides to the wall facing the board.”

    He also intends to pursue projects on hospitals support/equipment, education support including provision of at least 5,000 dictionaries to pupils, youth empowerment, among others.

    A former Minister of Works, Dr Mike Onolememen, represented by Felix Imoisili, a lawyer, who chaired the event, said the government can learn from the manner Rotary clubs change their leaderships across the world without acrimony.

    “If leadership was about service to the people, and the purpose of government was the pursuance of happiness for the greater majority of the people, then bellicosity – and in fact war – should have no place in our nation’s polity. Clearly, in this regard, political leaders in Nigeria have so much to learn from Rotary Club,” he said.

    The guest speaker, former Liberty Bank Managing Director Chief Lawanson Omokhodion, who spoke on threats to the family system, said no matter how tough it is to survive, families must put God first, make sacrifices to be together, develop a spirit of forgiveness, avoid indulging children too much, teach young ones values and warn them of dangers of the internet and the need to avoid all forms of immorality.

    At the event were members of the club, its former presidents, including former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor Joseph Sanusi (who served from 2012-2013, Olugbega Obasa (2005-2006), Victor Anorue (2009-2010), among others.

  • Farewell to a loving father

    Farewell to a loving father

    The remains of a former Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) General Manager, Edward Adeyemi, an engineer, have been interred in Otan, Osun State. DELE ANOFI reports

    It was more like a celebration of life of the late Edward Adegbite Alade Adeyemi, an engineer,   considering the befitting final passage rites penultimate Friday in Otan Ayegbaju, Osun State.

    He died on July 19.

    Families, friends, associates and well wishers of the former General Manager (Shiroro Transmission region) at the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) turned out in large numbers.

    The sleepy town was agog with guests from all parts of the country who came to bid farewell to the late engineer.

    The officiating Minister at the St. Nicholas Catholic Church, Rev Father Stephen Ilesanmi, said the kindness  of the late prince of Otan-Ayegbaju drew the crowd that besieged the town that day.

    After the church service, the interment of the 61-year-old engineer, who retired in July 2014, was sorrowful.

    The widow, Mrs Cecilia Omoronike, tried without success to be strong. She  sobbed quietly.

    Her children, Adedayo, Fadekemi (Obasanya), Adefunke (Ashamu) and Adeyinka, however, took solace in the fact that their father died a fulfilled man.

  • Val’s time management- between the rock and a hard place

    Welcome to the ‘Adventures of Professor Val’. For some weeks now, we have been learning from the experience of Professor Val at an international conference where he displeased the audience by using the time allotted to him. Ironic, isn’t it? He got into trouble for doing the ‘right thing’! So, we have been trying to find out what went wrong. Last week, we examined how Val tried to load his audience with too much information. As Bolade, one of the dear readers of this column put it in his message, Val wanted to make a ‘professor’ out of the audience. We identified that he obeyed the rule which says, “A speaker must earn the right to speak to his/her audience by being knowledgeable”. He was, however, ignorant of the exception to the rule, which says, “You cannot teach people in a moment what you learnt in a lifetime”.

    Today, we shall examine another critical element of public speaking that worked against Professor Val. This element is time management. If you have been following the story, you will recall that Val was invited to deliver a one-hour presentation and he did just that. How can we then accuse him of time mismanagement?

    So far in this column, we have presented our dear Professor as the villain of the story but this time, I want us to see him as the victim. Put yourself in his shoes. What would you do if you signed a contract to speak for one hour and have been paid, yet the audience got tired after 35 minutes? Would you hastily conclude your presentation to please the audience and face possible refund, or would you bore the audience to sleep to justify the money? Professor Val was definitely between a rock and a hard place?

    As it has become our tradition in this series, we shall state the rule Professor Val obeyed, after which we shall discuss the exception to that rule. Professor Val obeyed the rule which says, “A speaker must be mindful of time and limit his/her presentation to the time allotted”. Since we have already established last week that Val had too much to say with too little time to say it, we applause him for managing to keep to the one hour. Nevertheless, he neglected the exception to the rule which says, “A speaker must finish speaking before the audience has finished listening”.

    We cannot overemphasize the fact that a speaker’s success or failure is determined by the audience. If you have the most important information to pass across and the audience isn’t interested in listening, what do you do? A speaker must always keep in mind that audience satisfaction is paramount. In the case of Val, here are a few things we should learn:

    • No organiser likes a sleep audience: Val may have merited his contract-fee by completing his one hour, but guess what will happen when next the organizer is shopping for a speaker? He would definitely be bypassed because he failed to connect with the audience. This fact makes it easy for us to see that completing our allotted time is not as important as communicating with our audience. We shouldn’t get carried away with time; we must focus on our audience.
    • Learn relative importance: relative importance generally means measuring the significance of something in relation to something else. A speaker must learn to measure the significance of his/her presentation in relation to the time given. If you are given one hour to discuss an activity you carried out for five years, then you know that you have to select only the important aspects of it. If you have just five minutes to contribute to a discourse, you must leave out history and procedures. Begin with the most important aspect, and if there is some time left, highlight the procedure.
    • If they don’t feel you, draw them out: when Professor Val realised that he wasn’t communicating with his audience, he should have used a lot of illustrations to make his point. Illustrations always simplify seemingly complex issues. Also, he should have engaged them by turning the rest of his time to a discussion session. He could have asked questions and let them respond, and also allow them to ask him questions.

    Time management is not only when we don’t exceed the time we are given; it is more importantly our ability to know the right time to stop. We still have a lot to learn from Professor Val. Please join me again next week, by the grace of God, as we explore further. I look forward to hearing from you.

  • Val’s time management- between the rock and a hard place

    Welcome to the ‘Adventures of Professor Val’. For some weeks now, we have been learning from the experience of Professor Val at an international conference where he displeased the audience by using the time allotted to him. Ironic, isn’t it? He got into trouble for doing the ‘right thing’! So, we have been trying to find out what went wrong. Last week, we examined how Val tried to load his audience with too much information. As Bolade, one of the dear readers of this column put it in his message, Val wanted to make a ‘professor’ out of the audience. We identified that he obeyed the rule which says, “A speaker must earn the right to speak to his/her audience by being knowledgeable”. He was, however, ignorant of the exception to the rule, which says, “You cannot teach people in a moment what you learnt in a lifetime”.

    Today, we shall examine another critical element of public speaking that worked against Professor Val. This element is time management. If you have been following the story, you will recall that Val was invited to deliver a one-hour presentation and he did just that. How can we then accuse him of time mismanagement?

    So far in this column, we have presented our dear Professor as the villain of the story but this time, I want us to see him as the victim. Put yourself in his shoes. What would you do if you signed a contract to speak for one hour and have been paid, yet the audience got tired after 35 minutes? Would you hastily conclude your presentation to please the audience and face possible refund, or would you bore the audience to sleep to justify the money? Professor Val was definitely between a rock and a hard place?

    As it has become our tradition in this series, we shall state the rule Professor Val obeyed, after which we shall discuss the exception to that rule. Professor Val obeyed the rule which says, “A speaker must be mindful of time and limit his/her presentation to the time allotted”. Since we have already established last week that Val had too much to say with too little time to say it, we applause him for managing to keep to the one hour. Nevertheless, he neglected the exception to the rule which says, “A speaker must finish speaking before the audience has finished listening”.

    We cannot overemphasize the fact that a speaker’s success or failure is determined by the audience. If you have the most important information to pass across and the audience isn’t interested in listening, what do you do? A speaker must always keep in mind that audience satisfaction is paramount. In the case of Val, here are a few things we should learn:

    • No organiser likes a sleep audience: Val may have merited his contract-fee by completing his one hour, but guess what will happen when next the organizer is shopping for a speaker? He would definitely be bypassed because he failed to connect with the audience. This fact makes it easy for us to see that completing our allotted time is not as important as communicating with our audience. We shouldn’t get carried away with time; we must focus on our audience.
    • Learn relative importance: relative importance generally means measuring the significance of something in relation to something else. A speaker must learn to measure the significance of his/her presentation in relation to the time given. If you are given one hour to discuss an activity you carried out for five years, then you know that you have to select only the important aspects of it. If you have just five minutes to contribute to a discourse, you must leave out history and procedures. Begin with the most important aspect, and if there is some time left, highlight the procedure.
    • If they don’t feel you, draw them out: when Professor Val realised that he wasn’t communicating with his audience, he should have used a lot of illustrations to make his point. Illustrations always simplify seemingly complex issues. Also, he should have engaged them by turning the rest of his time to a discussion session. He could have asked questions and let them respond, and also allow them to ask him questions.

    Time management is not only when we don’t exceed the time we are given; it is more importantly our ability to know the right time to stop. We still have a lot to learn from Professor Val. Please join me again next week, by the grace of God, as we explore further. I look forward to hearing from you.

  • Val’s time management- between the rock and a hard Place

    Welcome to the ‘Adventures of Professor Val’. For some weeks now, we have been learning from the experience of Professor Val at an international conference where he displeased the audience by using the time allotted to him. Ironic, isn’t it? He got into trouble for doing the ‘right thing’! So, we have been trying to find out what went wrong. Last week, we examined how Val tried to load his audience with too much information. As Bolade, one of the dear readers of this column put it in his message, Val wanted to make a ‘professor’ out of the audience. We identified that he obeyed the rule which says, “A speaker must earn the right to speak to his/her audience by being knowledgeable”. He was, however, ignorant of the exception to the rule, which says, “You cannot teach people in a moment what you learnt in a lifetime”.

    Today, we shall examine another critical element of public speaking that worked against Professor Val. This element is time management. If you have been following the story, you will recall that Val was invited to deliver a one-hour presentation and he did just that. How can we then accuse him of time mismanagement?

    So far in this column, we have presented our dear Professor as the villain of the story but this time, I want us to see him as the victim. Put yourself in his shoes. What would you do if you signed a contract to speak for one hour and have been paid, yet the audience got tired after 35 minutes? Would you hastily conclude your presentation to please the audience and face possible refund, or would you bore the audience to sleep to justify the money? Professor Val was definitely between a rock and a hard place?

    As it has become our tradition in this series, we shall state the rule Professor Val obeyed, after which we shall discuss the exception to that rule. Professor Val obeyed the rule which says, “A speaker must be mindful of time and limit his/her presentation to the time allotted”. Since we have already established last week that Val had too much to say with too little time to say it, we applause him for managing to keep to the one hour. Nevertheless, he neglected the exception to the rule which says, “A speaker must finish speaking before the audience has finished listening”.

    We cannot overemphasize the fact that a speaker’s success or failure is determined by the audience. If you have the most important information to pass across and the audience isn’t interested in listening, what do you do? A speaker must always keep in mind that audience satisfaction is paramount. In the case of Val, here are a few things we should learn:

    • No organiser likes a sleep audience: Val may have merited his contract-fee by completing his one hour, but guess what will happen when next the organizer is shopping for a speaker? He would definitely be bypassed because he failed to connect with the audience. This fact makes it easy for us to see that completing our allotted time is not as important as communicating with our audience. We shouldn’t get carried away with time; we must focus on our audience.
    • Learn relative importance: relative importance generally means measuring the significance of something in relation to something else. A speaker must learn to measure the significance of his/her presentation in relation to the time given. If you are given one hour to discuss an activity you carried out for five years, then you know that you have to select only the important aspects of it. If you have just five minutes to contribute to a discourse, you must leave out history and procedures. Begin with the most important aspect, and if there is some time left, highlight the procedure.
    • If they don’t feel you, draw them out: when Professor Val realised that he wasn’t communicating with his audience, he should have used a lot of illustrations to make his point. Illustrations always simplify seemingly complex issues. Also, he should have engaged them by turning the rest of his time to a discussion session. He could have asked questions and let them respond, and also allow them to ask him questions.

    Time management is not only when we don’t exceed the time we are given; it is more importantly our ability to know the right time to stop. We still have a lot to learn from Professor Val. Please join me again next week, by the grace of God, as we explore further. I look forward to hearing from you.

  • Glitz, glamour as Fagboyo turns 40

    Glitz, glamour as Fagboyo turns 40

    It was a day of excitement at the Regency Hall, Ikeja, Lagos, when the Regional Programme Officer of the Department for International Development (DFID), Magaret Fagboyo, rolled out the drums to celebrate her 40th birthday.

    For Mrs. Fagboyo, there was no other way to celebrate the day than to appreciate God in the presence of friends and well-wishers for His preservation and sustenance.

    The event, which was in two segments, was well-attended by family, friends, business partners, foreign colleagues and other dignitaries including the former first lady of Ekiti State, Erelu Bisi Fayemi and a female presidential aspirant in the last election, Remi Sonaiya.

    Once the guests and the celebrator arrived in their colourful attires, the event kicked off with an opening prayer and praises by the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Rock of Ages Parish Magodo Lagos.

    The hymn, ‘In Christ Alone’, was sung by the choir after which the admonition was taken by Pastor Titus Osawe , who also prayed for the celebrator and her beautiful family.

    That segment of the event ended with a special rendition of the hymn “Trust and Obey” as the well-wishers trooped out in groups to the venue of the reception, which held at Regency Hall, Otunba Jobifele Way Alausa, Ikeja.

    The mother of three, who had adorned various styles and attires was elegantly dressed to befit the occasion.

    The second part of the event started with short documentaries on the celebrator. There were testimonies by people, who she said, had impacted her life. Her husband, Mr Fagboyo, who called her “his pearl”, had a lot to say on how she brought him happiness.

    Ngozi Ugoji ( CEO NGZ-AGSAM), Pastor Titus, Prof Dipo Kolawole (former Vice Chancellor, University of Ado-Ekiti ) and Otunba Olumide Abidakun, Chairman, Abidakside as, among others also shared their heart-warming messages.

    The highpoint of the ceremony was the cutting of the birthday cake and the group photographs of the gorgeous celebrator and the ever-smiling family members and friends.

    Guests were lavishly entertained with sumptous meals,drinks and a short drama by Feranmi Films and a cultural dance by the classical dancing troupe.

  • Professor Val’s Lifetime Lecture

    Welcome to your column on public speaking. It was really exciting to read all your comments on our ‘mutual friend’, Professor Val. Thanks for the questions you sent in and the suggestions you gave the Professor to save his career. I totally agree that he needs training in effective communication. In case you missed last week’s article, Professor Val was a Russian scholar who was invited to make a lead paper presentation at an international conference. While he arrived amidst glee and excitement, not much could be said of his presentation. Not that he wasn’t knowledgeable about the subject, his message was only lost in the midst of other major flaws.

    As promised last week, we shall begin to examine Professor Val’s errors and learn how to avoid them. Recall that we observed last week that our dear Professor worked perfectly by the book. That was not a bad thing in itself, only that we must learn the exceptions to the rules. Therefore, the approach we will adopt is to state the rule Val obeyed and then identify its exception.

    Professor Val obeyed the rule that says a speaker must earn the right to speak to his/her audience by being knowledgeable. It is, of course, expected that a speaker should know more than the audience before being qualified to speak. It is also generally suggested that a speaker should gather five times more materials than required for any given speech so as to SELECT the best resources from the pool. Please take note of the emphasis on the word ‘select’. So, we can safely say that Professor Val, who was a world-acclaimed scholar with award winning formula, was a knowledgeable person.

    Where did Val go wrong? His error was that he neglected the exception to the rule of knowledge, which is, “You cannot teach people in a moment what you learnt in a lifetime”. The transmission of knowledge must be gradual, otherwise there will poor assimilation. Val, just like several speakers today, was carried away by his desire to impart knowledge that he failed to consider the time available and the capacity of his audience. His misplaced zeal led to a few errors:

    • Overloaded presentation slides: Professor Val made use of presentation slides that were projected on a screen. However, propelled by his zeal, he over-loaded each slide to the extent that the text became too small to be legible. The projection was meant to enhance the delivery of the presentation; unfortunately, it further hindered effective communication because the audience could not see it clearly. The lesson here is that it is preferable not to use any technical assistance if it would not add to the quality of a presentation. It is also very important to make the audience the priority of any presentation. As speakers, we must always ask ourselves, “What will the audience think of this? Will they see it clearly? Will they get the meaning? How far will the screen be from the audience?”. These and many other questions will help us to see things from the perspective of our audience.
    • Hasty Presentation: from the story of Professor Val, it was clear that he knew he couldn’t deliver all he had prepared in just one hour. Hence, he quickened the pace of his delivery. Again, it is important to emphasize that the priority of our presentations must be our audience. What is the use of covering a syllabus if the students have learnt nothing? Val mistook completing his presentation for communicating with the audience. He should have taken his time to explain every step of his presentation carefully. If he had communicated with his audience but did not cover all his outlined points, the audience could have requested for more information during the question time (as you will recall, they couldn’t wait to leave the hall so there was no question for the presenter), or even request for his presentation slides. As speakers, the information we have to pass across must not take priority over the people we want to pass it to. The success of a speaker is not determined by the amount of information shared but by the amount of influence made on the audience.

    Next week, by the grace of God, we shall explore another error of Professor Val and how to avoid it. I look forward to more comments from you on how Val can improve his speaking skills. I would also love to respond to your questions. Have a blessed weekend.

  • Omatseye bags Fellow of Academy of Letters

    Omatseye bags Fellow of Academy of Letters

    Nigeria’s apex body for scholars and academics, the Academy of Letters (NAL), has inducted The Nation’s Sam Omatseye as Honorary Fellow.

    Omatseye, the chairman, Editorial Board of The Nation, received the honour at an investiture held at the main auditorium of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) on Thursday, last week.

    The three-time winner of the Nigeria Media Merit Award was the only Honorary fellow chosen this year. He has practised journalism in Nigeria and the United States and has received many awards in his over two decades career.

    As far back as 1991, Omatseye became the first winner of the Gordon N. Fisher Fellowship for Journalists in the Commonwealth.

     

  • Exit of a matriarch

    Exit of a matriarch

    The remains of the wife of former Daily Times Managing Director Prince Henry Odukomaiya, Madam Rachael Aduke Odukomiya, were laid to rest at the Ikoyi Vaults and Gardens, Lagos, after a funeral service at the Yaba Baptist Church last Friday. NNEKA NWANERI reports.

    After 20 years’ battle with cancer, it was time for Mrs Rachael Aduke Odukomaiya to take her rest. She was celebrated by her children and family members for fighting a good fight. She died on July 9.

    She was 73.

    She was fondly called Aduksbaby.

    For three days, the rites of her passage were held. On Wednesday, last week, there was a recital of reminiscences at her residence off Allen Avenue, Ikeja, Lagos. The next day, a wake was held at one of the halls of the Archbishop Vining Memorial Church Cathedral, Ikeja, GRA.

    The ceremonies were rounded off with a funeral service last Friday at the Yaba Baptist Church, where many – young and old– gathered to pay their last respects and bid her a final farewell.

    A motorised hearse with a plate number made of the picture and names of the deceased brought her remains into the church.

    In a sermon, Rev Steve Ogunbade of the First Baptist Church, Idikan, Ibadan, extolled the virtues of the late Mrs Odukomaiya, who “came, lived and conquered.”

    Describing her as a rare gem and great disciplinarian, who was always well dressed, he urged all to see the gathering as a celebration and not for mourning.

    Rev Ogunbade warned all to be conscious of the brevity of life, and see death as a necessary end that will  call any time.

    After the service, a handful of the deceased’s  close relatives moved to the Ikoyi Vaults and Gardens for the interment, while others went to the Habour Point on the Dockyard, Victoria Island for the reception.

    Guests wore orange attires with silver head gears. The children and grandchildren of the deceased were uniformly dressed.

    At the ceremony were Lagos Chief Judge Justice Oluwafunmilayo Atilade; National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Alhaji Lai Mohammed; Senior Pastor Trinity House Church Ituah Ighodalo; Past MD/CEO Nigeria Airspace  Agency Nnamdi Udoh; Publisher Vanguard Newspaper Sam Amuka-Pemu; Managing Director Champion Newspaper Mrs Nwadiuto Iheakanwa and Senator Ike Nwachukwu, among others.

  • New helmsman for Rotary Club, Isolo

    New helmsman for Rotary Club, Isolo

    The Rotary Club of Isolo has installed Mrs Lolade Temitope Ogungbe as its 35th President.

    The event held last Saturday at the Events Centre, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos.

    Executive Director of Babsek Nigeria Limited Mr Abayomi Adewunmi, a past District Governor of the Rotary, was the guest  speaker on the occasion.

    He spoke on the topic: “What is Rotary?”.

    He said the cornerstone of the Rotary is membership,  urging members to be loyal to the 110-year-old club by suppoting its projects.

    Present at the event were: Senator Ganiyu Solomon; founding partner and CEO of Centrespread, Mr Kola Ayanwale; Chief Michael Olawale-Cole; Executive Manager Deep Water Administration Total Mrs  Chinyere Uche; Managing Director Continental Loss Adjusters and Director, Great Nigeria Insurance Plc, Chief Olatunji Idowu, among others.

    Mrs  Ogungbe enjoined all to get acquainted with the activities of Rotary, urging all to assist the organisation to raise funds.