The Nation Newspaper

Tag: patriotic

  • ‘A patriotic Nigerian leader has passed on’

    THE Initiator and Chairman of the Movement for Nigeria’s Total Transformation and a renowned author, Chief Areoye Oyebola, has said with the death of Lam Adesina, Nigeria has lost a patriotic leader who exercised genuine gift of leadership throughout his life.

    He said: “Lam Adesina, my close friend of over 50 years, will be greatly missed at this hour when our country badly needs its best citizens to rescue it from the pit where it now prostrates.

    “Lam was very bold, selfless, altruistic and humane. When the struggle was fierce against the tyrannical rule of the late General Sani Abacha, Lam, who travelled with me from Ibadan to Owo, the home of the late former Governor Adekunle Ajasin for the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) meetings, demonstrated his dogged fighting spirit.

    “At one of the meetings, he nominated me as the chairman of a three-man ad-hoc committee, which was assigned to carry out espionage on the activities and manoeuvres of Abacha.

    “Nigeria will miss a great educationist, a man of deep knowledge, a thoughtful columnist and a man of uncompromising integrity who was kind to a fault.”

  • Be patriotic Nigerians, pupils told

    Pupils from select secondary schools in Lagos State interested in Medicine and Pharmacy visited the JayKay Pharmacy owned by Jimi Agbaje, former Lagos governorship aspirant, to learn about careers in the sciences last Thursday.

    They belong to the We Are the Future of Nigeria (WATFON) Club, an initiative of Mrs Yinka Ogunde, CEO of Edumark Consult, which actively engages teenagers in nation building by stimulating them to discuss and proffer solutions to Nigeria’s problems through essay writing and other activities.

    Through WATFON, the pupils also get to meet with mentors, exemplary Nigerian professionals, who counsel them on values that aid development and guide their career choices.

    However, they got much more than career guidance during the mentoring session with Mr Agbaje, a pharmacist-cum politician.

    During the session, the pupils, some of who made oral presentations of winning essays they had written on “If I were to be the President of Nigeria”, shared their views about problems facing the country including insecurity, corruption, the murder UNIPORT students, and the like with Agbaje, who counseled them about leadership and responsible followership.

    However, perhaps the most poignant lesson for them was the need to be proud and patriotic Nigerians.

    Responding to the declaration by some of the pupils that they were not proud to be Nigerians, Agbaje told them they can only feel superior in their own country and counseled them to make Nigeria the country of their dreams.

    “I am proud to be a Nigerian. Would you rather be a Somalian? So you believe you are better than them? Would you rather be an American? Those who built America worked hard. You should work hard to make Nigeria better. You can decide to throw away your Nigerian passport to become an American but I have a friend who is a Neuro Surgeon in America who wants to come back to Nigeria but there is no work for him. He trains many doctors in Neuro Surgery but no matter how good he is, the white man will prefer the white student he trained to him,” he said.

    Commenting on the murder of the four UNIPORT students penultimate week, Agbaje counseled the pupils to keep good company and pursue the right channels when grieved.

    “I don’t know about the UNIPORT students but it is about the company you keep. For some of them, it was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Beware of those that you move with. If you move with questionable characters, you stand a risk,” he said.

    Assessing the session, Mrs Ogunde said she was impressed with the level of awareness of the pupils as well as their analysis of national issues. She urged them to proffer creative solutions to challenges the country is facing.

    “You must be a problem solving generation. You must be thinkers, not just people who are reacting to the problem. This programme is focused on the SS3 class because you are the ones leaving parental control for the larger society. You must choose to be responsible,” she said.

     

     

    Schools that participated in the event were: Redeemers International Secondary School, Idiroko, Basil International College, Ilupeju, Tom-Caleb College, Ilupeju and Command Day Secondary School, Ikeja.

     

  • Adeosun: Nigeria has lost another patriotic man

    Prominent Nigerians gathered yesterday at Our Saviour’s Church for the Commendation Service held in honour of the Chairman of National Pension Commission, Chief Oluwole Alani Adeosun, who died on September 14 in India.

    The church’s vicar, Ven. Igein Isemede, said “Baba was a member of the 11’o clock service, which he attended promptly.”

    Many spoke about the late Adeosun’s patriotism and industrial spirit that propelled him to the top echelon of Nigeria’s financial sector.

    The vicar said the league of patriotic Nigerians was diminishing.

    At the Service of Songs held for the former President of Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), Oyo State Governor Abiola Ajimobi joined hundreds others to honour the deceased.

    As a former First Bank Managing Director credited with the bank’s auspicious period, it was not surprising the gathering was fairly a First Bank community, as many officials of the bank, led by the Managing Director, Bisi Onasanya, converged, at the Civic Centre, Victoria Island to honour him.

    A former First Bank official, Rev. Akpoghene Okoro of Our Saviours Church, who delivered the brief but poignant homily, reminded the congregation of their mortality.