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Tag: Nigerians

  • Why unity among Nigerians is elusive, by Alaafin

    Why unity among Nigerians is elusive, by Alaafin

    The Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi III, has lamented how hatred, distrust and prejudices have developed into monsters threatening the unity of the country and its citizenry.

    He spoke at the weekend while addressing reporters in his palace, shortly after performing the Eid-el-Kabir prayer at Agunpopo praying ground.

    Oba Adeyemi said: “Our differences also define our perception of one another. The distrust is so deep-seated that we have an incongruent group of people rather than compatriots with a shared destiny. Our diversity has become our worst nightmare.”

    The paramount ruler wondered why the citizenry often exhibit the worst form of ethnic, religious and primordial prejudice toward one another.

    The Alaafin noted that intolerance has led the nation to the brink, threatening its unity with deep scars in the national psyche.

    “After more than 50 years of independence, we are still not more than strange bedfellows forced to cohabit under the same roof. Our co-existence as a people has long been defined by our differences rather than the strength of our diversity.”

    The Alaafin, who advocated aggressive value system re-orientation, warned that there would be continuous agitation and unrest until the country’s system was able to guarantee economic justice and equality to the people.

    He also stressed that poverty in the midst of plenty was unfathomable.

    “What is more, the growing apathy about governance and increasing rate of poverty, especially at the grassroots, is due to defective concept and implementation of local government administration in the country .The political, administrative and judicial powers of traditional rulers had been undermined first by the British and then the creation of local system of government, which made the monarchs powerless on-lookers.

    “One of the greatest negative consequences of this whittling down of powers of traditional rulers is the non-involvement of traditional rulers in the concept and implementation of grass-roots governance.”

    Oba Adeyemi noted that traditional rulers can effectively mobilise their people for active participation in community development because of their place and status among their people.

  • Onigbinde: Nigerians should help Pinnick to succeed

    Onigbinde: Nigerians should help Pinnick to succeed

    Former FIFA and CAF Instructor, Adegboye Onigbinde has called for support for Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) president, Amaju Pinnick who succeeded Aminu Maigari at the federation’s Elective Congress in Warri, Delta State on Tuesday.

    “Amaju Pinnick has been elected as the new president of the NFF and there is nothing else anyone can do but to rally round him to succeed. It is Nigerian football that we are talking about here. So, we all need to help him in whatever way we can to move the game forward in the interest of Nigeria,” the respected football tactician said.

    Onigbinde also had words of advice for the Delta State indigene. “I want him to come up with a standard that will move Nigerian football forward,” he said. “At times we like deceiving ourselves in this country. Many people were talking as if the last regime of the NFF was the best ever tenure in the history of football in the country. But everybody is entitled to his/her opinion.”

    Onigbinde continued: “You know I am an apostle of development football and I have not witnessed any administration of football in the country that has touched or dwelled on that.

    “They were only concerned about competitions and results gathered from such competitions were used to measure the success of such administration. But that is not the yardstick. Development is the key to football successes anywhere in the world.”

  • ‘90,000 Nigerians suffer from Parkinson‘s disease’

    No fewer than 90,000 Nigerians are living with Parkinson’s disease, a consultant neurologist, Professor Njideka Okubadejo has said.

    According to her, 67 out of every 100,000 Nigerians above 40 years of age live with the disease which presently afflicts 6.3 million people across the world.

    Prof Okubadejo spoke at a meeting organised by the Funmi Fashina Foundation (FFF) aimed at training medical practitioners and care givers on the disease.

    She said Parkinson‘s disease, also known as Parkinson disease (PD), paralysis and palsy, is a gradually progressive and degenerative neurologic disorder, which naturally impairs the patient‘s motor skills, speech, writing, as well as some other functions.

    She said people living with the disease often have a fixed, in-expressive face, tremor at rest, slowing of voluntary movements, an unusual posture, and muscle weakness. In extreme cases, there is a loss of physical movement.

    Prof Okubadejo said the disease is also a chronic and progressive movement disorder, adding that its symptoms continue and worsen over time.

    She said: “Only five per cent of individuals with Parkinson‘s disease are under the age of 40 years but majority are over 50. When signs and symptoms develop in an individual aged between 21 and 40 years, it is known as Young-onset Parkinson‘s disease.”

    Senior Vice President and General Manager of Intel’s Data Center Group, Diane Bryant said: “The unpredictability in Parkinson’s symptoms creates unique challenges in monitoring progression of the disease.”

    He said emerging technologies cannot only create a new pattern for measurement of Parkinson’s, but as more data is made available to the medical community, it may also point to currently unidentified features of the disease that could lead to new areas of research.”

    Mental Health and Services Consultant, Dr. Femi Olugbile, who spoke on the relevance of data in Parkinson’s disease management and research, urged Nigerian clinicians’ to make the best of the new innovation in which he said lies the possibility of local remedies, noting also that Parkinson’s disease has a significant presence among the Nigerian population, especially the elderly.

    Also speaking on the innovation, a researcher and scientist, Dr. Dimeji Aliyu, stated that the innovation is a welcome development and it would help assist with early diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease.

    He said continuous research and early diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease give sufferers the chance of a longer, healthier life. One of the results of the research is the new in-built wearable device that could make data collection and analysis from Pakinson’s disease sufferers easy.

  • Nigerians below the age of 50 and “the end of the world as we know it” syndrome

    Nigerians below the age of 50 and “the end of the world as we know it” syndrome

    Out of relative obscurity, every generation must discover its mission and either fulfill or betray it.
    Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth

    Nigerians below the age of 50. Without any deliberate intention on my part, this has become a phrase that I often use in this column. In the series that preceded this week’s essay and ended last week, I went into great detail on the ramifications of that phrase for our country’s future. I gave many facts, anecdotes and figures to try to prove to “Nigerians below the age of 50” that far from being one of the most corruption-ridden nations on the planet, our country once experienced a period when corruption existed on a fairly low, manageable scale in our society. In other essays in the seven years since the column has been running, first under a slightly different name in The Guardian and now in The Nation, I have used this phrase, “Nigerians below the age of 50” with reference to other indications of the unending downward spiral in the quality of life for the great majority of Nigerians, with a corresponding decline in the moral and spiritual health of the nation, all of this in about the last four decades and half when an overwhelming majority of Nigerians alive now were either toddlers or were not yet born. In this week’s essay, I would like to now subject this phrase and the ways in which I have used it to a critical review.

    In the first place, I would like to strongly assert that in most societies of the world and virtually throughout recorded history, nearly every generation has felt that things are not what they used to be, that values are in decline and that restorative actions have to be taken to salvage the sustaining and enduring aspects of the outer and inner lives of the collectivity. This phenomenon is what I call in the title of this piece, “the end of the world as we know it” syndrome. This syndrome or idea is a perennial one in the arts, literature and culture of all the societies of the world. As an idea, it pervades the social fabric depicted in the two great novels of Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God. In the former, which is set in the 19th century, I was once startled to read an observation of Okonkwo’s maternal uncle, Uchendu, that stated that the generation of Okonkwo was a generation of “stay-at-home” provincials that no longer travelled as constantly and as widely as his generation and that of Okonkwo’s father did. Indeed, the phrase, “the end of the world” hardly ever means the literal, physical end of time, history and experience; what it really nearly always means is “the end of the world as we, members of a particular generation, know it”.

    Without knowing it, have I been using this phrase, “Nigerians below the age of 50” that is so ubiquitous in my column in the tradition of the other phrase, “the end of the world as we know it”? Perhaps, but I would argue that only very minimally so. There are some modes of behavior, some standards of comportment that were prevalent in my youth that I no longer see in the behavior and values of young people nowadays that I rather wish were still around. That’s about it. Definitely, I hope that my readers have not, consciously or unconsciously, been reading my use of the phrase, “Nigerians below 50” as a conservative tool with which to align the ways of today’s youth to the ways of my own youth.  As I have always pointed out many times in this column, I write for the most part for “Nigerians below the age of 50” with a view to communicating to them my desperate hope that if things were once much better in our country, they could be better again, or indeed be much better than anything my generation ever experienced.

    One of the most important points that I wish to put across in this review of my use of this phrase, “Nigerians below 50”, is the fact that generational differences don’t mean much to me, they don’t occupy a privileged place in my thought. For me, the differences that have been used to cause a lot of harm in our country and our world are not differences between generational cohorts. Rather the differences that have been used to prevent human progress and happiness in our country and across the world are those based on race, gender, ethnicity, religion, geopolitical region and especially, class and access to social power. In this regard, let me state clearly that it is not the fact of difference (or differences) in itself that cause lack of progress and unhappiness; rather it is the use, the manipulation of difference and/or differences that we have to contend with. Indeed, we can safely assert that generational differences as a cause of the crises that we currently face in this country is relatively very unimportant. The proof of this is the degree of cooperation across the generations within the political class in our country in colossal acts of looting, wastage and mismanagement that have become well known all over the world. At one stage not too long ago, there used to be talk of our need for a “new breed” of politicians. Well, the “new breed” came and they were in many respects as bad if not worse than the “old breed”. And indeed, one fundamental fact of human life and political reality is that within each and every generation there are good and rotten apples.

    Think of the following concrete illustration of this assertion: Chris Uba, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, Dimeji Bankole, Raji Fashola, Nasir El Rufai and Modu Sheriff all belong to the same generational cohort! Chris Uba’s blatant godfatherism is so crude, so intellectually backward and politically retrograde that it often causes great embarrassment to his own political party, the PDP; Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi is one of the few shining lights of reform in the present political order. Dimeji Bankole speaks heavily – and sometimes with affectation – with an Oxbridge accent, but he was one of the worst and most wasteful Speakers of the House of Representatives we have ever had; Raji Fashola is quite easily the most able technocratic governor we have had in the country since 1999. And finally, Modu Sheriff and Nasir El Rufai. Sheriff, like Chris Uba, knows no distinction between lawfulness and lawlessness in governance; consequently, he has moved quite easily and effortlessly from one desperate and monstrous political brinksmanship to another. By contrast, El Rufai is doing everything he possibly can to prove to himself and to the country that a politician can break away and turn a new leaf from the worst parts of himself and his political comrades.

    There is one sense in which my use of the phrase, “Nigerians below the age of 50” could legitimately be said to have distinct and perhaps even intentional generational connotations and this is the sense in which I place great value in conversations within and across generations. In concrete terms, often when I write in this column about prevalent realities, values and practices in the country when we were young, I try as much as I can not to be sentimental, not to be self-righteous on behalf of my generation. Indeed, in my mind, I think and hope that I am also addressing members of my generation who are still alive and who care about where the country is headed. The justification for this concern is that I fear very much that nostalgia and sentimentality dominate the ways in which members of my generation speak about the past amongst themselves and to members of the younger generations. “Ah, when King’s College was still King’s College”!  “At U.I. of those days we used to have our rooms cleaned and our clothes laundered for us”! “The roads and bridges that used to be built by the old Public Works Department (PWD) are so much better than the roads that contractors build now”. “In those days, you could travel across the length and breadth of the country without fear of encountering any armed robbers on your journey”. “Do you know that there was a time in this country when electricity supply was not erratic?” These are all literally true, but the mode of their evocation completely decontextualizes them from the social relations of production that made them possible in the first place, especially relations of paternalism and inequality.

    My greatest concern in my use of the phrase, “Nigerians below the age of 50” is thus that we should leave out nostalgia and sentimentality in the conversations we are having within and across the generations. It is perhaps symbolic of the argument that I am making here that History as a subject is no loner taught in many of our schools. For it is history, the passage from one period or epoch to another, that I have in mind when I use the phrase I have been reflecting upon in this essay. I am not entirely sure that we have moved from one era to another between the time of my youth and the present moment of my late or senescent adulthood. History is not the mere passage of time; it often simultaneously involves an advance and a retrogression – as in the phrase one step forward, two steps backward. At any rate, when I write to “Nigerians below the age of 50”, my hope is that what I write about will give them a bit of historical information or knowledge that will empower them. History also paradoxically sometimes involves one step backward and three steps forward. That pattern of historical change and dynamism always entails the empowerment of youthful generations with important lessons of history. Thus, I remain completely open to the possibility that out of the ranks of “Nigerians below the age of 50” there might arise the agents of this particular form of historical transcendence.

    Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • SEC urges Nigerians on zero tolerance for corruption

    TALK of a case of the hunter becoming the hunted. This wisecrack becomes apposite in describing the outcome of the FY: 2013 audited results of the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), which showed that in terms of fundamentals, the company’s bottom line leaves  much to be desired.

    AMCON announced its operating results last week, with a whopping loss of N635.88 billion. The amount, according to experts is more than the 2013 fiscal budgets of seven states in Nigeria.

    This is AMCON’s first publication under the IFRS accounting reporting format. The result revealed improvements across both top and bottom lines, despite its role as an intervention vehicle to absorb Non-Performing Loans (NPLs) from banks and recapitalise weak banks. We present the highlights of the results and our initial views.

    The Corporation’s top line grew by a significant 50.0 per cent from N182.7billion in FY:2012 to N274.9billion in FY:2013. However, bottom line improved only 10.3 per cent from negative N702.4billion in FY:2012 to negative N630.0billion in FY:2013. The improvement in top and bottom lines were both driven by 21.9 per cent increase in interest income to N181.3billion in FY:2013 from N148.7billion in FY:2012. Non-interest income also contributed to the growth in topline, increasing 15.9 per cent to N16.3billion in FY:2013 from N14.0billion in FY:2012.

    Interest expense came in at N556.8billion in FY:2013, 1.9 per cent higher than N546.3billion sustained by the inclusion of financing cost, which constitutes 65.2 per cent of the total cost. We expect AMCON’s financing cost to moderate over the years as it pays down its bond exposure to the CBN and the Banks. Nonetheless, management will need to be inventive in designing strategies that focus on driving this cost item down to quicken the recovery process. Similarly, the Corporation managed to tame its operating expense at N121.2bn in FY:2013, a 159.1 per cent decline from N205.0bn in FY:2012. This underscores the Corporation’s commitment towards ensuring that AMCON recovers the cost of its intervention over time.

    A cursory look at AMCON’s 2013 financial statement also revealed that it redeemed N4.5 trillion bonds in 2013, which was partially refinanced by the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN’s) loan of N3.8 trillion at six per cent per annum. Also, its operating expenses were N121 billion, down by 40.6 per cent from N204 billion the previous year.

    In addition, AMCON’s portfolio revealed a total of 12,383 loans made up of individuals, corporates and government entities. About 6.7 per cent of the total loans acquired were loans valued at N10 million and below.

    But another 1,992 loans within the range of N100 million and N1 billion, accounted for 16 per cent of the portfolio value, while 433 loans of between N1 billion and N10 billion on size accounted for 36 per cent of the loan portfolio. Also, 65 loans all in excess of N10 billion represented 41.5 per cent of the portfolio.

    AMCON is funded by a combination of loan recoveries, contribution from the CBN, sales of assets pledged and a sinking fund that currently constitutes a 0.5per cent levy of banks’ total   assets and a 0.33 per cent of off-balance sheet items annually. Management has advised that based on the current revenue projections and contributions, it has the capacity to pay off all liabilities at the end of the required time frame (2023).

    Curiously, the Financial Derivatives Company Limited (FDC) observed in a report that the alternative of not having AMCON would have had some grievous consequences on the economy, which are better imagined than experienced.

    “There is, however, a pressing need to ensure that its financial operation is equally viable. One will also hope for an improvement in the general state of the country’s economy and asset prices as this will aid AMCON to achieve this task in a timely manner.

    “However, the point stressed is that with or without accounting profit, AMCON has turned out a huge economic profit for the nation,” the firm stated.

    Lending credence to the foregoing, Afrinvest Securities Limited noted that AMCON could achieve cost savings by focusing on the top 2,500 loans in its portfolio, which accounts for 93 per cent of the value.

    But while warning that a cyclical economic downturn is not unlikely due to both global and domestic issues, the FDC report urged AMCON to prepare “to start detoxifying the banks.”

    “There is also the real threat of rising inflation considering the increase in money supply to be witnessed as AMCON redeems N866.73 billion worth of bonds in October, 2014,” it stated.

    Besides, the report stressed that the activities of AMCON had helped in ensuring a less destabilising effect on Nigeria’s financial and non-financial sectors in contrast to the experience of many other countries in the crisis and post-crisis era.

    Specifically, some companies in different sectors that had benefited from AMCON’s intervention include the oil and gas, general commerce, capital market, manufacturing, finance and insurance and aviation.

    Afrinvest Securities further advised the corporation to engage third parties in the recovery of the balance, saying this would provide a more efficient approach in the recovery process.

    “The establishment of AMCON has brought both benefits and handicaps for Nigerian banks. The eventual signing of the trust funds deed by AMCON and the banks in August 2013 officially institutionalised the contribution of 0.5 per cent of assets and 0.3 per cent of off-balance sheet items into the sinking fund.

    “The AMCON levy increased by approximately 76 per cent from N54.6 billion in 2012 to N96.0 billion in 2013; thus constituting a chunk of the banking industry’s operating expenses.

    “This has invariably put pressure on the net earnings of banks hence increasing the scramble for earnings. However, this has been a complementary source of funding in AMCON’s cashflows, applied towards the redemption of AMCON bonds,” the firm added.

    Afrinvest also estimated that AMCON’s levy on banks may hit N143 billion by the end of the year, further strengthening the corporation’s cashflows in the years ahead.

  • ‘Jega still has more answers to give Nigerians’

    ‘Jega still has more answers to give Nigerians’

    The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, still has more answers to give Nigerians on the proposed creation of 30,000 polling units, the Southern Nigeria Peoples Assembly (SNPA) has said.

    It noted in a statement by its Coordinating Secretary, Dr. Ayakeme Whisky, that Jega’s explanation did not hold water, as it failed to address the issue of lopsidedness in the planned allocation.

    SNPA led by former Vice- President Alex Ekwueme, Chief Edwin Clark and Bishop Emmanuel Gbonigi asked the INEC boss to explain why it was the North alone, which deserved the increase, when the purpose of creating additional polling units was to split large polling units.

    It reiterated its call for the removal of Jega, saying it could no longer trust his actions.

    The group said: “The Southern Nigeria Peoples Assembly wishes to state that Prof. Attahiru Jega’s claims are spurious, hollow and indefensible. They are at best a demonstration of continued affront to the sensibilities of the people of Southern Nigeria.

    “Jega has to convince the people of Southern Nigeria that it was only the polling units of the North that had registered voters in excess of 500 persons and the region is  deserving of 21,615 additional polling units to the detriment of the South. He knows he cannot in good conscience deprecate allegations of conspiracy and primordial parochialism.

    “Contrary to the averment of Prof. Jega that no polling unit has been created and allocated, it was reported in Nigerian Pilot of September 10,  page 16 that the Resident Electoral Commissioner of Zamfara State, a state whose registered voters have been grossly depleted by half, following the Automated Fingers Identification System (AFIS), has inaugurated a committee to distribute Jega’s additional 1,163 polling units for the state.

    “Other states in the North have also reportedly begun the implementation of the additional polling units created and allocated to them. Was Prof. Jega merely pulling the wool over our eyes, to endorse his make-believe stories and defences when he claimed that it was a ‘framework’ for approval? “We urge security agencies to put a finite halt to this insidious design by Prof. Jega to forestall further provocation and breakdown of law and order in the country.

  • Nigerians in S/A praise Eagles

    Nigerians in S/A praise Eagles

    Nigerians resident in South Africa have praised the Super Eagles for a good outing in spite of their playing a goalless draw with host, South Africa in a Nations Cup qualifier.

    Mr Azu Okparaugo, former President, Nigerian Union, Western Cape Province of South Africa, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on telephone from Cape Town on Thursday that Nigerians in South Afriuca were happy with the team.

    “Information gathered before the match showed that South Africans believed that they will beat Nigeria in the match.

    “They believed that it was their day. They also believed that the administrative problems in the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) will affect the Eagles, so that they will capitalise on it to win us.

    “But, the Eagles stood their ground and almost sealed the game, if not for the South African defender who cleared the ball,” he said.

    According to Okparaugo, Nigerians in South Africa are not disappointed and are impressed with the Eagles.

    “We knew it will not be an easy game. We have played South Africa 13 times and they have only won once.

    “Our players are having difficult time, we are aware, but we trust our players, they will always get better,’’ he said.

    He added that at the end of the match, Nigerians in Cape Town met the Eagles and they assured them that they would improve.

    Mr Vincent Nzekwe, President of Abia State Union in South Africa, told NAN that the Eagles did their best in the match.

    “It was not an easy game for Nigeria. We supported the Eagles all the way and we are happy they picked a draw.

    “The players did their best in spite of the intimidating home support. I believe the team will get better,’’ Nzekwe said.

  • APC to Nigerians: hold Jonathan responsible if Ebola spreads

    APC to Nigerians: hold Jonathan responsible if Ebola spreads

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) has urged Nigerians to hold President Goodluck Jonathan responsible, if the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) spreads further.

    The party noted that the President failed to stop on Saturday a rally in his support in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, despite the warnings from individuals and groups.

    In a statement yesterday in Lagos by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, APC said never before had a President sabotaged his administration’s policy and endangered the lives of his compatriots as Dr Jonathan had done over the EVD.

    It said the President, who declared a national emergency on Ebola and advised against large gatherings to prevent the spread of the virus, was the first to flout the advice by failing to stop the rally organised by the so-called Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN) in Port Harcourt, a few days after the virus was detected in the city.

    This, APC said, happened when contact-tracing was going on to find those who might have had contact with the doctor, who had the disease.

    It said: “On the altar of political desperation, President Jonathan put the lives of Nigerians in danger. To realise his ambition for re-election, President Jonathan has shown he is ready to sacrifice as many lives of Nigerians as possible. There goes the President’s statement that his political ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian. This President simply says what he does not mean.

    “As we said in our statement on August 28, calling on President Jonathan to halt the TAN rallies, especially the one in Port Harcourt, could anyone guarantee that none of those who have had contact with the doctor who died of the disease would attend the rally? That is why we are calling on Nigerians to hold the President responsible, if Ebola spreads more than it has in the country.”

    The party noted that after it called for a halt to the TAN rallies, others, including the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and frontline lawyer, Prof. Itse Sagay, in a clearly patriotic duty, issued similar calls.

    The party said: “In fact, the APC in Rivers described such a rally, most appropriately, as a ‘firing squad against the people’. But because he will rather be re-elected than give a damn over the safety of the same people who voted him into office; because he will rather transmogrify than transform, President Jonathan ignored all the calls and allowed the rally to hold. This is an unprecedented act of political

    desperation.”

    APC stressed that for those who might try to spin the issue by saying the President had no control over the organisers of the rally, they should be asked who the rallies will benefit, whose top officials, including the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim, have been attending the rallies and what is the source of the funding of the gatherings.

    It said: “The TAN rallies are government-sanctioned. The TAN rallies are the Jonathan administration’s cunning way of beating the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) ban on campaigns for next year’s general elections. The TAN rallies highlight the impunity of the Jonathan administration. President Jonathan is the sole beneficiary. He can stop the rallies today, if only he wants to put the nation’s interest above his personal interest.”

  • Nigerians benefit from UK scholarship programme

    Nigeria has been listed as one of the countries to benefit from scholarships under the Scholarship UK programme.

    Mrs. Olanike Fadahunsi, Business Development Manager, Knowledge Development Opportunities (KDO) Inspire, whose firm is driving initiative in Nigeria, said the programme would encourage Nigerians to get training abroad that can fast-track the country’s development.

    She said the scholarship, which provides up to 70 per cent tuition fee-waiver, was made possible by some organisations which came together to make education abroad more affordable, and to facilitate cultural exchange.

    In the United Kingdom (UK), the average cost for tuition is between £9000 and £14000 for postgraduate courses, but with the programme students can study for less than £4000 pounds (about N640,000).

    Apart from the UK, she added that students can now apply to institutions in Russia, Belarus, Cyprus, Malaysia and China.

    She said: “Scholarship UK is a programme organised by several partner universities and education consultancies around the world. Although initially intended to provide scholarships and tuitions waivers for UK universities, the programme has opened up to other countries…and the list keeps growing.

    “Governments are also getting involved and sponsoring indigenes of their states. Recently, the Enterprise Bank started offering loans which cover the portion of fees not covered by the waiver to make things even more convenient for parents and guardians.

    “The benefits cannot be quantified when our graduates return from foreign countries and begin to apply the expertise they have gained over their course of study. Parents are proud because employers seem to show favouritism to these graduates.”

    She said prospective students would take a test tagged “The Europe Connect Scholarship and Tuition Waiver Test (ECSTWT)” after registering online.  Those successful are then allowed to select the most suitable university from the options availbale.

  • Human trafficking: Nigerians premiere film in London

    Human trafficking: Nigerians premiere film in London

    A movie re-enactment of the endemic human trafficking vice, among Africans, has opened at the popular Odeon Cinema, London.

    The flick, St. Mary, provides another insight into capital flight, forced labour and commercial sexual exploitation. The film could have been positioned as a subtle campaign for Nigerians and other Africans in the Diaspora.

    Produced by Obi Osotule and directed by Matthias Obahiagbon, the 110-minute movie follows the story of Tejiri, who uncovers a massive web of conspiracy on human trafficking and crime on board    St.           Mary, an oil vessel on voyage bound for Amsterdam. The movie also narrates the story of Nonye who gets lured by a Facebook confidant and friend into a seeming breakthrough in her singing career. Her excitement banishes caution and her world is thrown into a spiralling string of turmoil and disaster. She lands in a cabal’s dragnet stripping her away from the safety of family and imposing a terrifying adventure amidst her pleas for survival.

    The movie also exposes the exploits of Don Daddy, an epitome of success whose massive business empire is built on extraction and sales of human organs. His tentacles spread out to the frontiers of establishment and he lives his fairy tale life in all the perks of comfort with a consortium of agents luring young girls with a promise of better life in Europe until he attracts the petit framed daughter of Prof. Ojukwu whose search pulls Don Daddy’s empire down.

    Featuring some of Nollywood’s top-rated actors such as Zack Orji, Ekpeyong Bassey-Inyang, Frank Dallas, Benjamin Joseph, Scott Roberts, Benita Nzeribe, Paul Obazele and Ibinabo Fiberesima, the Executive Producer of the movie Darlington Agha disclosed that the movie will premiered in the United States and Australia after the London premiere. He also disclosed plans to have the movie premiered in Kenya and Uganda before a grand premiere in Nigeria.

    ‘Human trafficking is a worldwide phenomenon, so it is not out of place to embark on a world tour with the movie so that people can learn from the narrative. So we will take it round and then hold a grand premiere in Nigeria where the movie was shot’’ Agha said.