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Tag: Leap

  • LEAP Africa gifts fellows $160,000 grants

    LEAP Africa gifts fellows $160,000 grants

    LEAP Africa, one of Africa’s leading non-profit organisations focused on youth leadership development, in partnership with International Youth Foundation (IYF) and Sahara Foundation, has given grants of up to $160,000 to its fellows and alumni.

    This was the highpoint of the 10th Social Innovators Programme and Awards, where it celebrated young innovators and partners at a two-day hybrid event in Abuja.

    The event, which had as theme: “Maximising Africa’s potential through disruptive leadership and innovation,” attracted over 1,500 entreprenuers, funders, investors, business owners, social innovators, disruptive leaders, and change agents online and in person.

    The Board Chair, LEAP Africa, Mrs Clare Omatseye, applauded the team’s growth in collaborating with entrepreneurs from different African countries with a shared purpose to pioneer innovative approaches for social change.

    Special Adviser to President on PEBEC and Investment, Dr Jumoke Oduwole, emphasised the importance of ethical innovation and urged young African innovators to embrace disruption for societal improvement.

    “Despite challenges, the continent is teeming with opportunities, and young leaders are spearheading change.Through a plethora of innovative approaches, the Nigerian government, under the PEBEC’s systemic intervention, has successfully implemented 180 reforms since 2016 to enhance the MSME business environment, including many youth-owned businesses,” she said.

    Read Also: Zenith Bank’s Q3 profit hits N505 billion

    Speaking about the 10th edition of the Social Innovators Programme and Awards, Kehinde Ayeni, Executive Director, LEAP Africa, noted that the Social Innovators Programme (SIP) is the organisation’s flagship programme that supports creative young Africans from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Cameroon, Burundi, Uganda, and Tanzania with ideas and

    initiatives to proffer practical solutions to identified challenges in local communities.

    She said LEAP Africa has supported over 279 social innovators with skills, mentorship, funding and network to scale their social enterprises.

    The awards presented include the Outstanding Fellows Award to top ten fellows; Innocent Chukwuma Award for Youth and Gender Empowerment in South Eastern Nigeria presented to Gift Muoneke of GreenEra Technology, and Seyi Bickersteth Award for Financial

    Accountability presented to Jolis Nduwinana of Wege Company.

     Union Bank Nigeria was given the Long Standing Partner Award in recognition of their unwavering support to the Social Innovators Programme, while Sahara Foundation received the Special Partner Award for its  continuous support of the programme.

  • Ambode’s cultural leap

    Ambode’s cultural leap

    By signing into law on February 8 a legislation known as the Yoruba Language Preservation and Promotion Law, Lagos State Governor Akinwunmi Ambode demonstrated exemplary cultural consciousness and cultural conviction. The beauty of this new law is that it puts indigenous language on the front burner.

    By this move, the Ambode administration has shown that it is in tune with current international thinking on indigenous languages. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) observes: “Languages are the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing our tangible and intangible heritage. All moves to promote the dissemination of mother tongues will serve not only to encourage linguistic diversity and multilingual education but also to develop fuller awareness of linguistic and cultural traditions throughout the world and to inspire solidarity based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue.”

    The Lagos State House of Assembly had passed the bill in October 2017, after a process that involved input by stakeholders. The law is therefore a product of agreement between the legislative and executive arms of government on what should be done to preserve and promote Yoruba language, which is the main language in the state. It is believed that “in present-day Nigeria there are over 40 million Yoruba primary and secondary language speakers as well as several other millions of speakers outside Nigeria.”

    It was a notable coincidence that the law arrived when an influential populariser of Yoruba culture was preparing to depart. It is noteworthy that Prof. Akinwunmi Isola who died on February 17, aged 78, participated in the process that resulted in the language policy.

    In a paper by Isola at the Yoruba Summit organised by the Lagos State House of Assembly in June 2016, he shared his thoughts on the subject, ‘Making the Teaching of Yoruba Compulsory in Public and Private Schools in Lagos State.’ Isola, who was represented by Professor Duro Adeleke of the University of Ibadan, had argued:  “We should speak Yoruba in our institutions. Yoruba is one of the languages recommended to be taught in our schools to promote unity and it occupies a prominent position among languages in the world. If you lose your language, you will lose your culture. The language of a people has to do with their culture, dresses, hairstyle and some other things.”

    Oyo State Governor Abiola Ajimobi noted in a tribute:  “Prof. Isola was an unabashed believer in the promotion of the Yoruba language, which he once demonstrated by being the first person to deliver a university convocation lecture in Yoruba at the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State, which was very unconventional.”

    Another striking coincidence: The Yoruba Language Preservation and Promotion Law arrived in the same month that the world celebrated   International Mother Language Day 2018 on February 21. This special day has been observed “every year since February 2000 to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism.” The theme this year was “Linguistic diversity and multilingualism count for sustainable development.”

    Commissioner for Information and Strategy Kehinde Bamigbetan shed light on the law, saying Yoruba language “has become mandatory for all candidates seeking admission into our tertiary institutions.”  According to a report, “He said anyone seeking admission into the Lagos State University, Lagos State Polytechnic, Michael Otedola College of Primary Education, Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, Lagos State School of Nursing and Lagos State College of Health Technology, among others must have credit in Yoruba language.”  The law makes it compulsory for all primary and secondary schools – private or public – in the state to teach Yoruba Language as a core subject at all levels.

    Furthermore, the law stipulates that “all state-owned tertiary institutions are to incorporate the use of Yoruba Language in their General Studies (GNS) courses.”  Other highlights: The language will be an acceptable means of communication in business and government, and all laws will be translated into Yoruba language.

    There is no doubt that there will be problems to be solved as the law takes effect. It is important to focus on the advantages. UNESCO notes: “To foster sustainable development, learners must have access to education in their mother tongue and in other languages. It is through the mastery of the first language or mother tongue that the basic skills of reading, writing and numeracy are acquired. Local languages, especially minority and indigenous, transmit cultures, values and traditional knowledge, thus play an important role in promoting sustainable futures.”

    The UN specialised agency is expected to know what it is talking about. UNESCO’s position supports the Yoruba Language Law. The organisation says:  “Languages, with their complex implications for identity, communication, social integration, education and development, are of strategic importance for people and planet. Yet, due to globalisation processes, they are increasingly under threat, or disappearing altogether. When languages fade, so does the world’s rich tapestry of cultural diversity. Opportunities, traditions, memory, unique modes of thinking and expression — valuable resources for ensuring a better future — are also lost.”

    The organisation also states: “At least 43% of the estimated 6000 languages spoken in the world are endangered. Only a few hundred languages have genuinely been given a place in education systems and the public domain, and less than a hundred are used in the digital world.”

    It takes a thinking political administrator to grasp the cultural dimension of the pursuit of socio-economic development. By paying attention to the preservation and promotion of Yoruba language, Ambode has shown a holistic approach to governance.

    Cultural governance is usually overlooked by leaders, which is why Ambode’s critical cultural interventions in less than three years at the helm deserve to be properly situated.  It takes a culture-friendly mind to think culturally. Ambode’s cultural focus shows that his understanding of “needs in the society” is not narrow and simplistic.

    Now that Lagos has shown the way, despite its pronounced cultural diversity, it is expected that other states in the country’s southwest where Yoruba is the main language will emulate the language policy. It is clear that the Yoruba have a duty to preserve and promote their language.

    Indeed, every indigenous language deserves to be preserved and promoted. The question is: Where are the preservers and promoters?

  • Leap off the cliff

    Sport isn’t leisure anymore. It is serious business used by countries which appreciate its power to pull the youth away from social vices, to change people’s perception of their countries, as a recreation platform for its citizens and a veritable means for its populace to improve on their health.

    Sport originates from the people through the communities with the products of such an enterprise emerging as ambassadors for the country in international competitions. All that the government does is to provide the enabling environment for the industry to thrive. Since the ultimate target of the corporate world is the citizen, it follows therefore that sport gets the needed fillip for growth when the athletes become big stars in the world. This seamless setting also ensures that only technocrats are recruited to drive the process, such that it is free of scams and controversies that would chase away the blue chip industries which are ready to provide the financial support for growth.

    But in Nigeria, we only start to take sport seriously when it appears that if we will miss out of big competitions. Unfortunately, soccer, which is our poster sport, is under the stranglehold of government personnel, who have refused to free the sport to achieve its full potential.

    A classical example of failed opportunities for soccer to become a megabucks enterprise was after Nigeria won the gold medal at the Atlanta’ 96 Olympics. Rather than build on that feat, a certain government official refused to allow the Dream Team I play games against Brazil, Argentina and others because he didn’t want the Brazilians and the Argentines to avenge the defeats they suffered in the hands of those talented boys at the Olympics.

    If Nigeria had honoured those international friendlies, 20 years ago, we would have understood the dynamics of sport been a business and not mere leisure, which is how we perceive it here. Top firms offered to host the replays against Brazil and Argentina. The cash and business platforms that the two matches would have attracted, 20 years, ago would have made the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) an international brand, which is solvent.

    That is the prize we have paid with that senseless decision, even though it is only during football matches that creed and ethnicity are thrown overboard by Nigerians. Even the criminals abandon their evil trade to cheer our national teams to victory. It doesn’t matter if Nigerians have to stay up late to watch such matches. Soccer is the opium of the people here.

    Since the draws of the Russia 2018 World Cup to determine the five African nations to represent the continent at the event, many a pundit have  condemned the Super Eagles as the weakest of the four teams who would slug it out for Group B’s sole qualification ticket.

    Optimists like this writer have watched in awe as absurd reasons are advanced for why the Eagles should forget about the Mundial in 2018. Even our group opponents have joined the ranting against the Eagles. Our players and indeed chieftains of the NFF are the voices in the seeming wilderness of our 2018 World Cup prospects urging those sitting on the fence to believe in them. But that is where this writer draws his conviction of Nigeria’s flag being flown at the Mundial in 2018.

    Good students of history will tell you that Eagles are at their best whenever they are written off. The problem is that when we eventually win trophies, the coaches take all the glory, with many of those who won the trophy having to virtually lick the coaches’ boots to secure their shirt. The coaches can do no wrong. Their word is law. And it is where the slide in the team’s fortunes begins. It is the reason we are always rebuilding the Eagles, with every failed expedition. Today, not many Nigerians can beat their chests to say the Eagles will be in Russia. The silver lining is that no names of Nigerians coaches are being bandied as those who can do the job instead of a foreign manager. Samson Siasia, who should be the automatic choice in this lacuna, is engrossed in assembling a winning side for Nigeria at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, which begins on August 5.

    The debate won’t be fierce when NFF throws up names of foreign coaches tipped for the job. Names, such as the late Shuaibu Amodu and the late Stephen Keshi, won’t resonate because they have joined the saints in heaven. The late Keshi’s and Amodu’s names would have been dropped as potential coaches who would make us qualify. Many would have argued that they should be supported. For the departed duo, it would have been another opportunity to collect their outstanding claims, knowing that nothing would change. The late Keshi and the late Amodu have been through this path before.

    Since the draws were made in Cairo on Friday, an interesting scenario has played out. Algeria, Nigeria and now Zambia are seeking to have foreign coaches, not forgetting that Camerooon is being tutored by a foreigner. The Algerians have hired Ghana Black Stars’ former coach, Milovan Rajevac, since he already knows the terrain. Rajevac, a Serbian, could use the style of the Ghanaians to fix Nigeria. True, there is hardly any significant difference between how the Black Stars and the Super Eagles play, except for the fact that the Ghanaians have been more consistent and dedicated to their national team’s assignments. The Ghanaians play flair football, which the Nigerian side can do, if the coaches pick the right players.

    Rajevac became Ghana’s manager in August 2008, quit Ghana on 8 September 2010 and took up a position with Saudi Arabian team Al-Ahli a day later. He left the Saudi club in February 2011 to become the national team coach for Qatar. He was relieved of his duties in August 2011.

    In September 2011, Rajevac was one of the four managers linked with the Egyptian national team, and in February 2014 he was one of four managers linked with the Burkina Faso national team.

    On 15 June 2016, he was officially appointed as manager of Rudar Velenje in Slovenia. He is abreast of the developments in African football but he knows that Nigeria will be a tough challenge now that Nigerians appear to be the underdog in this group. The beauty of Group B is that all the teams are presently embattled, with the Algerians changing coaches three times in one year. It simply means they don’t have a team that can express itself without depending on their key stars. This is the story of Nigeria, except that the Algerians have a better mentality when playing for their country.

    The Algerians begin the chase for the ticket with a home game against the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon. The Lions are the most unpredictable side to confront. They are not in a crisis. They are the only country in the group that has a team already, which should stretch the Algerians till the end of 90 minutes. If the Algerians are not careful, the Indomitable Lions will leave Algiers unscathed. And that would set the pace for which of the four teams would get the sole qualification ticket.

    The Indomitable Lions are dangerous customers when the stakes are high. If they get the result against Algeria in the opening game, then the Eagles have their work cut out for them when they meet the Cameroonians in the second game.

    But can the Eagles beat Zambia’s Chipolopolo in Lusaka on October 3? It is a difficult question even though the Nigerians are more talented than the Zambians. But what the Zambians lack in personnel, they have in doggedness and the innate resolve to “shed blood,” while playing for the country. They have imbibed this spirit since the time that a whole generation of the players died in a plane crash on their way to play a game. Many haven’t forgotten how the makeshift Zambian side almost beat Nigeria in the final game of the 1994 Africa Cup of Nations. Nigeria won 2-1 with Emmanuel Amuneke being the star of that game.

    Are the Zambians still formidable? I don’t think so. They are like Nigeria without a coach, although they are courting “White witch doctor,” Phillipe Troussier. Troussier is a good coach but he would need to ask plenty of questions about how the African game is played since his last expedition as the coach of the Super Eagles in 1997/98. Like Nigeria, the Zambians would totter in the qualifiers.

    Of the four countries in group B, Nigeria is the most talented. Therefore, if we expect to get the ticket, we must depart from the past and take the cue from others. Our coaches are handicapped. It would be suicidal for us to hand this 2018 assignment to them, given the large pool of talents available to us. It true that no domestic coach has won the World Cup but the difference between us and those who won the World Cup is that over there soccer is big business and it isn’t run by government stooges.

    Besides, these World Cup winners have thriving domestic leagues. They have systems that allow for a transition of players from the age-grade sides to the senior teams. These World Cup winners have FA bosses, who don’t require a ministerial approval to appoint a coach.

    The operations of these FAs have been perfected to ensure that tasks such as paying coaches would come from existing relationships with international firms domiciled in their countries.

    Not so here, with government officials making unsubstantiated claims of fraud in the NFF, which most times are trumpeted by those who lost out in elections into the federation.  With this type of reputation, no firm would touch the NFF, a body perpetually stuck in crises.

    This is our best chance to leap off the World Cup qualification cliff – if Sport Minister Solomon Dalung can allow the NFF prosecute this task without undue interference. Basketball federation, cricket federation and rugby federation have foreign coaches who have improved on their teams’ fortunes. Football should be allowed to emulate these federations for NFF to be solvent.

  • A leap of faith

    It is eye-opening news that Fountain University, Osogbo, Osun State, described as “a privately owned Islamic faith-based university”, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) towards research in the Osun Osogbo Grove, a significant ritual ground of Yoruba indigenous religion.

    A report said: “The MoU which was signed at the grove was to enable the university to conduct researches to establish some of the medicinal benefits that can be derived from certain plants and organisms that have been preserved in the sacred grove over the years.”  It quoted the Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof. Bashir Ademola Raji, as saying that a researcher from the university, Dr Afolabi Nusra Balogun, had made certain discoveries in the Osun Osogbo water and some plants in the grove which would contribute to health care delivery when fully developed.

    It is noteworthy that last year the Osun Osogbo Grove’s 10th anniversary as a World Heritage Site made the headlines.  The grove is the site of the Osun Osogbo Festival, a star tourist attraction that draws a high number of domestic and international visitors. Recognised for natural and cultural reasons, the Osun Osogbo Grove is the second of two UNESCO-branded sites in Nigeria, coming after the Sukur Cultural Landscape in Adamawa State, which attained the distinction in 1999.

    Describing the grove, UNESCO World Heritage Centre said: “The dense forest of the Osun Sacred Grove, on the outskirts of the city of Osogbo, is one of the last remnants of primary high forest in southern Nigeria. Regarded as the abode of the goddess of fertility Osun, one of the pantheon of Yoruba gods, the landscape of the grove and its meandering river is dotted with sanctuaries and shrines, sculptures and art works in honour of Osun and other Yoruba deities. The Grove, which is now seen as a symbol of identity for all Yoruba people, is probably the last sacred grove in Yoruba culture.”

    Interestingly, last year’s celebration coincided with the 100th birth anniversary of a central figure connected with the preservation of the grove. It was the centenary of the late Austrian artist and Yoruba-culture champion, Susanne Wenger, who died in Osogbo in January 2009 at age 93.

    The “Susanne Wenger’s Sacred Colloquium 2015? held at the King’s palace in Osogbo featured a paper presented by Yusuf Abdallahi Usman, Director General of NCMM, to mark the two anniversaries. Usman’s paper was titled “Late Madam Susanne Wenger and National Commission for Museums and Monuments as Springboards to the Development of Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove and Enlistment as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.”

    Usman described Wenger as “a phenomenal woman of different interpretations.” He added: “She was a great artist, culturalist, spiritualist and naturalist, intellectual, researcher, philosopher and philanthropist who devoted her life to serving nature, culture and people. She championed the beautification, preservation, adoration, conservation and unification of nature and culture in the Osun-Osogbo Sacred Grove.”

    Preserving the pristine naturalness of the Osun grove was a passionate mission for Wenger.  She regarded the grove as “endangered life” in dire need of protection.  “At the time of my arrival and initial efforts, a contract was ready to be signed giving over to a sawmill the rights to cut down the giant trees of the groves and river-altars,” she recalled. Wenger was “against utilization other than ritual.” She said: “Every tree standing is another witness to our devoted struggle against ruthless destruction.”

    For Wenger, the “holy groves” stood for “a space of devotion to life.” She reportedly once spent a few nights in the grove “to experience nature”. But her various opponents didn’t understand her seeming fuss about what she called the “sacredness of Nature”

    “Oshogbo’s Muslim fanatics’ fire electronically amplified abuses at her more than at all other representatives of the traditional cults,” observed European photojournalist Gert Chesi, who co-authored a book with Wenger, A life with the gods in their Yoruba homeland. Chesi said: “They don’t simply rain curses on the gods, but on the chief fighter in their cause.  Those who seek profits from the groves’ valuable land form the other main group of adversaries. The groves are a battlefield of conflicting interests. She averted schemes to run a roadway through them, and to break-up sacred rocks for house-building material.  When one of her shrines was blown apart five minutes after she left it, she laconically remarked: ‘It was evidently not good enough for orisha, so let’s build a better one’.  Some money came in from somewhere and she did exactly that.  She saved her first Oshogbo shrine by sitting down between a bulldozer and Shoponno’s most ancient, reconstructed altar.”

    Wenger herself spoke about some of the challenges she faced. At one time, she said, “Orisa warned us in an actual way that the Muslims were about to lay the foundation stone for an Islamic cemetery here within four days”. Hunters shot at Wenger in the grove on several occasions, and a gun-wielding fisherman who was violating the sanctity of the river once threatened her.

    The casualties of the battle were often Wenger’s sculptures in the forest, destroyed either by the weather or by vandals.  “Muslim fanatics ganged up with the hunters and those who wanted to build houses here, and they mutilated the images by striking off their arms and sexual organs,” she lamented.

    What did Wenger want?  Well, she defined her cause by stressing what she didn’t want.  “One thing will never happen,” she vowed, “that I will submit to the transformation of the holy groves into an ‘Oshogbo Pleasure Garden’.” At one of the shrines in the grove, according to her, “we actually once discovered a secretly erected notice board to that effect.”

    This background makes it even more fascinating that Fountain University is fascinated by the grove’s resources. The university was established by the Nasrul-Lahi-li Fatih Society of Nigeria (NAFSAT) in 2008, and it is located in Oke Osun, after the Osun Osogbo sacred grove.  Ahead of the university’s convocation two years ago, its Vice Chancellor told reporters: “We are exploring the United Nations Heritage Site, the Osun grove, as a potential source of novel pharmaceutical compounds in Nigeria.” It is constructive that the faith-based university appreciates the possible hidden treasures of the place of worship of a different faith, which is reinforced by the recent MOU with the NCMM.

    It is a testimony to Wenger’s work that the forest is “a protected area”, a national monument established by Decree 77 of 1979, and a World Heritage Site. It is thought-provoking that she was initially demonised, especially by those who belonged to religions different from the one she chose. She remained an unapologetic devotee of Yoruba indigenous faith till the end. Her struggle and the still-unfolding positive results demonstrate the importance of religious freedom and religious tolerance.

  • BlackBerry Leap launched in Nigeria

    BlackBerry Leap launched in Nigeria

    Global player in mobile devices manufacturing, BlackBerry Limited, has launched its latest device, the BlackBerry Leap, in the country. It said by the launch in the country, consumers who want to get things done and companies looking for enterprise fleet renewals can now purchase the device.

    According to the firm, BlackBerry Leap features the latest BlackBerry 10.3.1 operating system (OS), a brilliant edge-to-edge five-inch HD display and more than a full day’s battery power.

    Other top features of the BlackBerry Leap include: Security to maintain privacy, where customers can feel safe in the knowledge that BlackBerry Leap was designed with the highest standards of security in mind to protect privacy. It is equipped with support for encryption, plus built-in malware protection and back-up, wipe and restore.

    Its battery, which powers through a full day, has a sustainable capacity of 25 hours of heavy use. The impressive 2800 mAh battery and optimization of power consumption of the mobile phone, also known as BlackBerry 10, gives users more than a full day of productive usage.

    It also has best-in-class BlackBerry keyboard, which enables faster typing and more accurately on a touchscreen keyboard that learns how users write. With superior error correction, multi-language support, customized adaption and flow, BlackBerry’s touchscreen keyboard helps to reduce the mistakes and missteps that can hold users back.