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I was shocked Friday night to learn the death of our brother and uncle, Dr Lateef

Adegbite, the long serving secretary of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), a lawyer, teacher and former Attorney-General of the old Western state.

His passing away was not just a personal loss to me, it was a great loss to our country, because Adegbite passed on at a time Nigeria needed men and women of moral conviction and national and international stature to pilot it out of its present cloudy political and economic crisis.

Adegbite was one of such few men and with his demise Nigeria has lost once again a soldier in the fight to put our country back on track”.

As secretary of NSCIA, he was a powerful and peerless voice for change and reconciliation. He was a religious mentor and peace-seekers who brought both his religious fervour and intellectual training to bear in advancing the course of humanity.

His death therefore provoked some personal concerns: who will now speak for our religion of Islam in Nigeria, with as much candour that he did? Who will now offer our religiously divided country a voice of moderation?

For Adegbite as secretary of NSCIA for more than two decades pronounced on critical issues and tried to reach accommodation with other religions, especially Christianity.

He will surely be sorely missed here at a crucial time in our country when the Islamic faithful are confronted by the public image of violence and intolerance being painted on them by some misguided elements waging a war against fellow Muslims and their compatriots.

We take comfort and solace in the fact that he never sowed such seeds of disharmony in the larger Nigerian society, all his life.

Instead, he chose to defend our faith with as much vigour as he defended other faiths.

I vividly remember his timely intervention when in 2002, some cities in Muslim North

erupted in violence over the planned Miss World Beauty Pageant in Nigeria and a Nigerian newspaper story tended to ridicule Prophet Muhammed. After a top political figure issued a fatwa as it were on the writer of the article, saying killing the writer may be lawful, Alhaji Adegbite weighed in on the matter. He denounced the politician’s statement, on grounds that the newspaper had issued an apology and that the writer of the article was not Muslim.

Even though he was to engage our Nobel laureate in a public spat on who to blame on this religious violence, there was no doubt where the sentiments of Adegbite lay: it was that Muslims should have a right to practice their religion as dictated by the injunctions of the Quran and Hadith.

As secretary general of the NSCIA since 1988, Adegbite, along with the succeeding

Sultans tried to make the organisation very active and truly the supremo in Islamic affairs in our country.

Beyond his involvement in religious matters, Adegbite also distinguished himself in

other roles that he performed for our country, starting from his days as a law teacher at the University of Lagos, his commissionership spells in the defunct Western Region Nigeria, his membership of the Nigeria Olympic Committee and pro-chancellorship of the University of Maiduguri.

He gave his best in all these assignments, earning for himself the respect of his

countrymen and women.

Bowing out at the ripe age of 79, he indeed had lived an exemplary life worthy of emulation by all and my prayer is that the children and his grandchildren members of the Muslim Ummah will continue to follow the simple and religiously devoted lifestyle that he trod while here with us.

I pray that God will keep his soul in Al-Jannah and I pray that God will grant the children and family, including members of the Muslim Ummah the strength to bear his irreplaceable loss. I pray that his legacy of seeking and working for peace, that of promoting religious harmony and commitment to the ideals that uphold humanity will not be allowed to die now that he is gone. “

Lateef Adegbite will forever remain in our memories and Nigeria will never forget him as one of the religious and political titans who charted a clear course for our people.

Asiwaju Tinubu is the National Leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria

Since no formal institution offers training in parenting, Wellspring College, Omole, Ikeja decided to train parents on raising well-adjusted children who will contribute their quota to societal development.

At a seminar on “Godly Parenting in an Information-Free World” held at the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Ikeja, last Saturday, parents were guided by seasoned facilitators on how to inculcate timeless values in their children.

Declaring the programme open, CEO, Management Science Centre, owners of Wellspring College, Mr Daniel Isimoya, recalled an incident during his youth service in the 80s that underscored the importance of good training by parents.

“During my service year, I met the son of a former Head of State. He did not know how to cook for himself. He was going to put sugar in his stew. It was a friend and I who grew up in the village that helped him to cook. I wondered why his father did not teach him to cook yet he was the Head of State; but I who grew up in the village could do so,” he said.

Speaking on the topic: “Parenting the Child for His Maker”, Dr Tunde Fowe said parents must intentionally pass their values to their wards if not, the television and other people will fill the void.

“Purposeful parenting must be intentional. If you don’t plant good seeds you will reap weeds. Good intentions do not grow. It is what you sow with your character and time that grows,” he said.

He urged parents to express love for their children by investing quality time in them, like he said he and his wife did for their four children – three of them teenagers.

In his keynote address, Director, Private Education and Special Programmes, Mr Segun Idowu Lagos State Ministry of Education, said parents are key to how a child eventually turns out because they lay the foundation.

Idowu, who was drafted by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Mrs Omolara Erogbogbo to attend the event, said: “In fact parents lay the foundation upon which other agencies of socialisation build. The life of a child therefore is most times a function of what type of foundation, what type of ground the foundation is laid, what type of material is needed to construct the foundation, and the depth and strength of the foundation. If the foundation is faulty, it will take the grace of God and extra efforts of teachers in the school, the religious organisations, the media etc to build on it.”

In her speech, Principal of the College, Mrs Oluwayemisi Oloriade expressed hope that the seminar would inspire parents to play their all-important roles in the upbringing of their wards well.

“I believe this seminar will transform us as parents. It will challenge us to an attitudinal change in our approach to parenting. It will produce for our society committed parents like Eunice and Lois, the mother and grandmother of Timothy, who were praised for the godly upbringing of Timohty,” she said.

THE Edo State government has earmarked over 100 schools across the state for total transformation as part of its continued effort to improve the standard of education.

The disclosure was made by the Commissioner for Education, Ekpenisi Omorotionmwan, during the briefing of the House on the activities of his ministry.

According to the commissioner, the ministry generated N246.9 million, supervised the transformation of 120 schools, while from an approved N7.7 billion capital expenditure, N3.3 billion was accessed and of the N55 million allotted for recurrent expenditure, N38.18m was released.

Responding to questions from the House on the ministry’s source of the IGR and where that of tertiary institutions in the state go to, Omorotionmwan said the IGR of the ministry which is totally exclusive of the ones generated by tertiary institutions came from registration and renewal fees, book reviews and use of school infrastructure, stressing that the money generated by tertiary institutions are augmented with subvention to aid their operations.

He said the state accessed N4.2 billion from the UBE counterpart funding scheme in 2011, noting that the state also provided its share of N4.2billion same year which has helped the total school transformation agenda of the current administration, adding that government has also earmarked over 100 schools for further transformation.

The commissioner further said that the ministry has recruited 500 science teachers who are presently awaiting deployment.

Niger State Governor Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu at the weekend said the allegation of non-performance against him by the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) candidate, Alhaji Ibrahim Bako Shettima, was misplaced.

The governor described the CPC candidate as a bad loser.

In the Saturday edition of Leadership, Shettima was quoted as saying that Aliyu had failed the people of Niger State.

In a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Danladi Ndayebo, the governor said the CPC candidate’s outburst was not unexpected because he had “refused to take his election defeat graciously, even when such election was generally acknowledged to be free and fair”.

The statement added: “We appreciate Shettima’s frustration and antagonism towards the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administration in the state. He lost the last governorship election and has refused to accept the result of the election graciously.

The Nnamdi Azikiwe University (NAU), Awka is seeking the Senate’s help to effect the release of its take-off grant from the Federal Government.

When the Senate Committee on Education visited the institution penultimate week, the Vice-Chancellor, Prof Boniface Egboka, told them that the university, established by the Anambra State government in 1991 and taken over by the federal government in 1992 when General Ibrahim Babangida was military head of state, has not received the N500million grant alleged to have been diverted to the University of Abuja.

Also, Egboka expressed concerns to the committee, led by Senator Uche Chukwumerije that the yearly allocation from the federal government for overhead and capital development has been dwindling since 2008.

He said in 2008, the budgetary allocation to the school by the federal government was N584,048,971 while the amount released was 354,048,971, about 60.62 per cent of the total. In 2009, the N795,639, 456 budgeted was released in full – the only time it happened. However, since then, he said the allocation has continued to drop. For this year, only N192,036,842.60 of the N429,342,466 million allocated was released. Nevertheless, 2011 was the worst year for the university in terms of allocation as the institution got only N262,861,005 from the government, out of which only N193,348,071 was released.

However despite these handicaps, Egboka told the committee the university has made judicious use of its internally-generated revenue.

In 2003, the university administration with the full backing of the governing council and the parents and teachers forum, agreed on various levels of development or endowment levies to help the institution.

These levies, added to the postgraduate and diploma fees, form the sources of fund which enabled the institution put up structures and move the school to the permanent site where today, it has blossomed to a giant.

Recently, the Education Minister, Prof Ruqayyat Ahmed Rufa’i inaugurated some of the projects completed with IGR, including: a gigantic water project (Phase I), and the Dr Alex Ekwueme Centre for Multi-Disciplinary research building.

Others included Chike Okoli Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies building; Faculty of Law building; students hostels (Phase 4), faculty building for management science wing A; Department of Economics building; foundry workshop (Phase I); Geological sciences laboratory and primary school lecture hall, among others.

Responding to the VC’s plea and the level of infrastructural development in the university, the Committee pledged to make sure the take-off grant and special trust fund were released to the institution.

Chukwumerije said: “I moved around and saw what sound leadership can do; what a united people can do. And I moved around and saw what prudent management of whatever you have can do. And that prudent management starts with a very clear vision of what you want; that you want to lead the society from a certain stage of development to a higher stage of development.

“Not just the quantum of money collected or what is being done with it but the management of that money. This is the first institution that I have been to that, adopted a collective, approach to management of university affairs especially money”.

“On our part whatever we can do to help the university we will do. The issue of one, your take-off grant, if I can get from the VC any evidence of others who have suffered similar handicap but have been able to retrieve their take-off grant, that will give me a very good precedent I will use to convince the authorities about your own.”

Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi yesterday promised that his administration would resolve the two-week strike by local government workers before the end of this week.

The governor spoke at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, during a thanksgiving service for Nigeria’s 52nd Independence anniversary and the 16th anniversary of the creation of the state.

According to him, the workers’ audit, which has been delaying the payment of the minimum wage to council workers, has been concluded.

Fayemi said genuine council workers would be paid the N19,300 minimum wage as well as its arrears from April, when their colleagues in the state civil service started enjoying the new salary package.

The governor said the audit was necessary to ascertain the authentic workers and ensure that the funds that could have been expended on developmental projects are not paid to “ghost workers”.

He noted that it would be unfair if all the resources that accrued to the state are spent by a section of the state, which is not up to five per cent of the population.

Fayemi said his administration, despite the meagre resources that remain in the coffers after paying salaries, has been able to carry out various infrastructural developments.

These, he said, include massive road projects and unprecedented social security scheme for senior citizens of 65 years and above, among others.