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Tag: second chance

  • Second chance for 6,000 out-of-school girls

    No fewer than 6,000 girls who did not complete formal primary and secondary education have got a second chance to do so through an 18-month programme designed to expose them to literacy, numeracy and life skills. KOFOWOROLA BELO-OSAGIE writes on the programmes opportunities for the girls and the challenges they face.

    For 6,000 out-of-school girls in Lagos State, the journey to a better life may have begun. The launch of the Educating Nigerian Girls in New Enterprises (ENGINE) II programme at the Apelehin Primary School, Bariga, last Tuesday has opened new doors of opportunities for them to develop themselves.

    The girls, with ages between 15 and 24  are mostly those that had their formal schooling interrupted by their sponsors’ death, finance, teenage pregnancy or other problems.

    For 18 months, they would get literacy, numeracy and life skills education in learning spaces spread across Kosofe, Epe, Ojo, Alimosho and Somolu thrice weekly.

    The life skills would include training in business management, financial management, and livelihood skills.

    The programme is being funded by the DFID, under its Girls’ Education Challenge (GEC) window, and implemented by Mercy Corps, an international Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), in collaboration with Nigerian-based Action Health Incorporated (AHI), with support from the Lagos State Government which is supplying the learning centres, materials and facilitators.

    Special Adviser to the Lagos State Governor on Education Mr Obafela Bank-Olemoh, who lauded the partnership for helping the state achieve its literacy goals, said the state had also trained facilitators for the project.

    “In support of the programme, the Lagos State Government has provided 113 Learning Centres through Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board, and the Agency for Mass Education has trained 242 new Facilitators in conjunction with Mercy Corps/Action Health Incorporated to deliver training to the girls. In addition, the Agency will provide learning materials for the learners and serve as the monitoring vehicle to ensure successful implementation of the ENGINE II programme,” said Bank-Olemoh, who added that the girls would be enrolled in coding classes under the CodeLagos initiative.

    In an interview, Ms Sola Omotoso, Lagos State team lead for ENGINE II from Mercy Corps, said the literacy and numeracy components of the project were added when they discovered that the set empowered during the first phase of ENGINE I between 2013 and 2017 lacked the skills to make successes of their businesses.

    “We found out working with them on the first phase of the implementation, they did not have literacy and numeracy skills. So, you would see a girl who we empowered had to start business but she cannot even do very simple record keeping of what she is doing, so she cannot tell you at any point if she is making profit or loss; some basic communications they cannot do because they lack that skill and that was why we said on the second phase of implementation that this will be the primary objective,” she said.

    Executive Director of AHI Dr Uwemedimo Essiet said he was grateful that the partnership with the Lagos State Government had provided safe learning spaces for the girls where they could meet in groups of 25 at convenient times.

    “You can see the learning space; it is not like they come to school and put on a school uniform because they are past that stage.  It also has to do with self-esteem.  We meet you in dignity; support you in dignity; work with you in dignity,” he said.

    Mrs Oluwakemi Kalesanwo, Director, Lagos State Agency for Mass Literacy, said should the girls wish to continue beyond basic literacy, they could go on to attend Continuing Education Centres (CEC) operating in many public secondary schools across the state after hours.

    “We have CEC centers scattered all over the state and then you can do your JS1 to SS3 and then you do external exams like GCE and from there you do your JAMB and go into the University or higher institution of your choice. However if you are not academically inclined you can go into our vocational centres,” she said.

    Advising the girls to be serious with the classes, the Special Adviser said the project represented a second chance for them to make meaning of their lives.

    “I urge the 6,000 girls in this programme to take it very serious, three training per week for 18 months.  It is a long thing; a commitment and I hope they will take it serious and change their lives.  We have added coding part to this programme.  We will enroll them in coding classes for free.   What government can do is to give you the skills.  It is now up to the girls to change their lives,” he said.

    The girls are also expectant of the opportunities the programme presents.

    Temitope Akinmoladun, who said she dropped out of CMS Girls Grammar School in SS1 because her mother died, said she was ready to commit time to the programme.

    “I am willing to stay for the two years the programme will last since I know what I hope to gain from it.  If given the opportunity, I would like to further my education,” she said.

    The 21-year old hairdresser also hopes the programme would deliver on its promise to empower the girls with tools and grants afterwards.

    Temitope said: “I will be very happy if they can help me further because there are many of us out there that have no one to help us.  But if they continue with the way they are helping us, I will be very happy.  I make hair but the problem is people are not paying well.  What I would normally charge N2,000 for they can give N500 and say, ‘after all we are neighbours’.” But if I have my own shop, it won’t be like that.  I would love ENGINE to give us products like hand drivers, rollers, straightener, and things like that.”

    Though she completed her secondary education, 18-year-old Chinyere Adumekwe said she did not write the Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) because of funds. The trainee hairdresser is also hoping for tools to practise afterwards.

    “I completed SS3 but I didn’t do SSCE because there was no money.  I am learning hairdressing.  I am joining this programme so they can help me further more to get things I need to do my trade.  I would like to go to the university.  If I register for the SSCE I would read for it. I would like to be an accountant,” she said.

    It was a beneficiary of ENGINE I that cajoled Oluwaseyifunmi Akinola to join the second phase of the programme.

    The 19-year-old, who said she dropped out in SS2, is training to be a tailor and expects to learn from the programme.

    “I stopped school because of financial problems.  My friend invited me to join this programme.  She was part of ENGINE I last year.  She used to tell me to follow her to the classes but I wondered what she benefited from it.  She said it was not about money but about learning skill.  Now that I have joined, I hope to learn a lot,” she said.

    “I am an apprentice too in tailoring.  I hope to move further.  I want to study Public Administration in school.

    Mrs Kafayat Owokoniran, a community facilitator for the project, said she had seen the positive impact on girls who benefited in the first phase.

    “In 2014 some of the girls we had did not know how to do anything at all.  But this programme has fixed them where they learn hair dressing, bead making, make up.  Now that they give them money to buy their equipment, some of them are doing well now.  It has changed the lives of the girls and it will still change them for the better,” she said.

    Mrs Owokoniran, an Economics teacher in her day job, advised parents to encourage their girls to complete the programme.  She said some complained when their wards did not equally benefit from the financial seed funding in the first phase.

    “My advice to parents is to encourage the girls to come to class.  They should not look at what they would get at the end of the day but the experience the girls would gain.  Some of the parents would say at the end of the day the participants got nothing but truth is that they learnt a lot.

    “I have makeup artists among them that I call to do my make up when I want to go out. They are doing well and even their parents are very happy and thanking me for involving them. I used to go to their homes to encourage them to keep coming,” she said.

    At the end of ENGINE II, Mrs Owokoniran advised the coordinators of the project to ensure the grants go round all the participants.

    “I will advise that they do more of what they did in the first circle.  They should give equal rights.  In the first circle they gave some of the girls equipment, while some did not get.  Some got N95,000 while some got N15,000.  Parents came and were complaining that their children did not get anything,” she said.

     

  • PDP’s second chance

    PDP’s second chance

    BEFORE the Supreme Court gave judgement in favour of the Ahmed Makarfi faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Tuesday morning, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) thought it still had the luxury of nearly a year to get its act together, mend broken fences within the party, and quit itself like a real political organisation. The next general elections will be conducted early 2019. By the end of 2018, the election will have virtually been won and lost. Any party between the APC and PDP that hopes to pull its weight in the next general elections has approximately until August next year to make a stand and fight for its place in the sun, regardless of the looming shadow of a third party or a dark horse.

    It was inconceivable that the Supreme Court judgement could have gone any other way. Readers of this column will remember that every analysis on the quarrel within the PDP done on this page indicated that the Senator Makarfi faction was likely to clinch the victory. Except in the early months of being drafted as a political pugilist to counter the rampage of the Muhammadu Buhari-led APC, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, a former governor of Borno State, led the PDP since February 2016 with a boisterous but offensive style. Barely six months into his pro tem leadership, the self-made man and billionaire senator had alienated everyone that mattered in the party. He did not worship at any political shrine, and saw no reason to bow down before any political god. Self-willed, stout-hearted, iconoclastic, and defiant but full of schemes and stratagems, the intransigent senator believed that he was capable of vanquishing his new enemies within the party. But his brinkmanship failed.

    After months of legal fireworks, the PDP is finally free to soar. Sen. Makarfi says the judicial victory amounted to no victor, no vanquished. He exaggerates. His faction has just achieved a spectacular victory, and has begun to constitute the worst nightmare to a fractious and disputatious APC. Sen. Sheriff never had a sizable number of followers even when the Appeal Court presented him with the upper hand. The few people who followed him will now melt into the Makarfi PDP, for after all, Sen. Makarfi himself is just a national caretaker Committee chairman. It is unlikely that the proud and independent Sen. Sheriff will eat humble pie and submit himself to the leadership of his rival. He will do no such thing. He is spurned in Borno State where the affable Governor Kashim Shettima nurses a trenchant loathing for him. In addition, he never really had a following in the PDP to which he defected in an inelegant fashion after his dalliance with the neophyte APC came to grief. And whether he likes it or not, and whether Sen. Makarfi decides to show magnanimity or not, many truculent and influential leaders in the newly invigorated PDP will demand not only a pound of Sen. Sheriff’s flesh but perhaps two enervating pounds of blood.

    The PDP is lucky that the struggle within the party before the apex court vote was essentially one of style rather than substance, personality clash rather than ideological clash. It will thus be far easier than many think for the party to come together to prepare for the battles ahead. Some analysts have suggested that the PDP does not have an ideology, let alone clash over the many variants of that inexistent ideology. It is not true. The PDP is in fact generally conservative, and proud to pronounce itself so where the APC has been contrastingly and generally progressive but unsure what that means. The opposition party may not have had the opportunity to refine its ideology, but it appears more likely to engage in that enterprise now considering that its new leaders are more intellectual on the average than the set that led the party after ex-president Olsuegun Obasanjo hijacked it. It is expected that the PDP will now really define its ideology and concomitantly begin the process of refining it.

    If Sen. Sheriff had won the prolonged legal wars within the PDP, the party would have been rent in two, with a disproportionate part escaping into Nigeria’s widening political void, perhaps to remerge in an alliance with some other stragglers from the APC or any other cuckolded and bitter party. Many members from the Makarfi faction would have quietly returned to the Sen. Sheriff fold, but they would not be sizable enough nor of ample girth to help the unlikely and undeserving victor form a formidable opposition party. As it is, the Makarfi majority faction won, and that victory will portend great things for the party and augury of pain or even dismemberment for the APC. Had Sen. Sheriff won, the APC could safely continue to luxuriate in its internal rebellion, assured that the opposition was unlikely to present a united, not to say, formidable front against the ruling party.

    Alas, now, with the Makarfi faction’s victory, the APC will be forced to finally fight its own internal wars to end the brutal and sanguinary stalemate making life miserable for everyone. The APC is an amalgam of strange bedfellows that reacts to external stimuli differently. With President Buhari a hors de combat, and Acting President Yemi Osinbajo seemingly apolitical, the more ambitious and wily but ideologically vacant Senate President Bukola Saraki may make a bid for the soul of the party. For nearly two years, the hijacked Buhari presidency had elbowed the party away from the centre of power unfortunately into the waiting arms of the Saraki crowd. Having schemed their men into positions in Ondo during the governorship race, and having adopted the newly elected senator in Osun State consequent upon the unsteady, presumptuous and unsavoury politics of Gov Rauf Aregbelsola, and having wooed many other states and political leaders, the Saraki group is clearly on the ascendancy. The APC is indeed imperilled. Stopping Sen. Saraki will be a herculean task, especially given the inurement of many Southwest politicians to the danger he presents to their political future.

    The urgent task of rebuilding the PDP has just started. It will gather steam after the party has successfully conducted its elective convention. Everything indicates that the task will be crucial but easy, and the convention fairly successful. The Sheriff crowd will be checkmated even if they stir themselves to menace the newfound spirit of the party. After the convention, the party can then begin to rebuild its decimated ranks, and sharpen its ideological platform and focus with 2019 in view. But it is too early for them to speak of reclaiming power in two years. It is true the differences in the APC appear irreconcilable, and the combatants in that unruly party truly and inflexibly dug in. It is true, too, that the Buhari faction of the APC knows next to nothing about complex partisan politics, not to talk of the dynamics and mechanics of winning elections. It is also true that the Saraki group is obsessively ambitious. And it is true that the original and battle-hardened Action Congress faction will not give any quarter, sapped of all vitality and depleted in number as it may seem. But despite these reverses in the APC, the PDP will be unrealistic to wish away the power and enduring influence of the ruling party.

    What is more, the PDP has stubbornly refused to make atonement, let alone restitution, for the incalculable damage its elected and appointed officials inflicted on the country, particularly during the Goodluck Jonathan presidency. Not only has the PDP failed to show remorse, it continues to live in denial by refusing to purge its ranks of party leaders who masterminded the pillaging of the country’s economy and destruction of its ethos in five short, dizzying years. The best chance the PDP has of reclaiming high office is to wish the APC should either split down the middle or be incapacitated from reconciling its proud and quarrelsome members. But often wishes are not horses. There is a chance, no matter how small and narrow, that the APC might reconcile its warring members, reset the party and imbue it with fresh unction and ideas. Should that happen, the PDP will face the arduous task of convincing the electorate that its five inglorious years in power, during which perhaps the worst stealing ever perpetrated in Nigeria took place, ought to be discountenanced in the race for office. It is hard to see Nigerians forgetting the last five years, not to talk of forgiving what took place.

    With power restored to the Makarfi faction, both the PDP and APC will now embark on a dangerous, frenetic race: the former largely to re-strategise and regain power, and the latter to reconcile its members and retain its hold on power. How each party governs its temper and give leadership to its undisciplined ranks will determine who gains the upper hand. With the implacable but surefooted Sen. Makarfi in the driver’s seat at the moment, the PDP’s prospects appear exhilarating. Unfortunately, the APC does not have a resolute leader. Instead, it has many centres of power which continue to harry worried members and perplex the cynical public. Considering also that too many issues are crying for attention and swift and inclusive resolution in the ruling party, opportunistic raids from outside enemies may further fracture and weaken the APC until it becomes destitute of soul or principles.

    The PDP has now got a second undeserved chance to redeem itself, repair its poor image, forge internal consensus, and retool and rearm itself for the struggles ahead. With the exception of Sen. Makarfi, PDP’s array of unexceptional leaders neither inspires nor exudes the confidence and philosophies a supposedly great party must possess and project. Even if they win anything at all, as their victory in Osun West senatorial district shows, it is more likely because APC leaders themselves are unable to display the imagination and the ideas, and the discipline and judgement their moralisations and propaganda often clumsily suggest. At the moment, the PDP seems more likely to get its act together quicker than the APC. The former has apparently turned the corner, albeit a dangerous corner; while the latter appears primed to get its members to fight to the death, a death it has seemed fatefully and inescapably besotted with since infancy.

  • Tiani comes with Second Chance

    Tiani comes with Second Chance

    It was a very friendly atmosphere as friends and lovers of good music gathered to support budding Nigerian artiste Tunde Animashaun, popularly known as Tiani, as he launched his debut album, Second Chance last Saturday, at the Bank Night Club, Lekki, Lagos.

    Speaking at the launch, Tiani said; “it’s been a long time coming in the music game. I was signed to a record label years back before things went bad in 2009. Since then, I have performed alongside Sunny Nneji, Alariwo and I feel it’s time I put my own works out there for my fans to feel what I have and also to correct people’s belief that good music don’t sell anymore because I can’t afford to do meaningless songs.”

    The 11-track album features acts like Jamman, Apata and Tmoney with production credits from popular producer Samklef, Phyque and Joseph Fab.

    Tiani is a versatile artiste with strong lyrical prowess which he proved in his debut album from the first track to the last, making all listeners present at the launch ask for non-stop replay of the album all through the night of the launch.

  • God has given me a second chance to live

    God has given me a second chance to live

    •Ace comedian Julius Agwu relives trauma of brain surgery

    After a successful brain surgery he underwent in the United States of America, ace comedian Julius Agwu, among other issues, shared his traumatic experience in this online interview with Yomi odunuga. Excerpts. 

    Congratulations on your successful surgery. How are you doing now?

    Thank you my brother, I am doing well. It has not been easy but in all things, God said we should praise Him and I will continue to praise Him for giving me a second chance to live. At the moment, I don’t know when I would be returning to Nigeria because of my medical checkups but God willing ,I shall return very soon. I wish to use this opportunity to thank my fans,my family and all those that stood by me and still standing by me at this period of my life; May God meet them all at the points of their needs.

    Are there other things you are doing in US apart from attending to your health?

    I am in the US for checkups as well as to continue doing what I love doing. I just had my annual show here in the US, Laff for Christ, and it was very successful and I thank God for it. I have also taken out time to engage in my other passion which is charity. I have been getting involved in charity work and trying to give back to the society.

     What exactly is the focus of your charity projects?

    The Julius Agwu Foundation here in Atlanta was able to give out items (food) to the needy. Due to this and other charity works, I was also recently given an honorary citizenship of the City of River Dale in Atlanta Georgia by the Mayor of River Dale because of my charity and philanthropy. I have been doing this charity work for years even in Nigeria and I have not been recognised or even appreciated for one day, but the Americans have honoured me. This only strengthens the saying that a prophet is without honour in his home country.

     But your charity projects have come under serious attacks on the social media in Nigeria.What is your take on this?

    I have been doing so much in terms of charity for many years in Nigeria. I spend millions of Naira yearly to help the needy. I have so many indigent people including students that I am training in schools and universities under my scholarship scheme. There are some that are on permanent salaries. I have also helped so many of my colleagues with even serious illnesses.

    But just like my nature, it’s not part of me to come to the pages of newspapers or electronic media to be announcing that like some other people do. Just as the bible says, let not your right hand know what your left is doing. I’ll rather keep such to myself rather than blowing my own trumpet. So many people would have died if they went through the surgery I had, but here I am talking to you. Do you know why God spared my life? It could be for the little that I have been doing for people in need. Their prayers probably have reached God on my behalf; I thank God for everything.

    When are we expecting you back in Nigeria ?

    That I don’t know yet, but God willing, I shall be back very soon. I wish to use this opportunity to thank all my fans, my entire family and all those that stood by me and still standing by me, may God meet them all at the points of their needs.

    How did your career start?

    After my elementary education, I proceeded to Government Secondary School Borokiri, Port-Harcourt and later ended up at Akpor Grammar School in Ozoba, where I was the social prefect and President of Dramatic, Debating and Cultural Society.

    I later earned a diploma in Theatre Arts from the University of Port-Harcourt with specialisation in acting and followed suit with a degree programme (BA) at the University of Port-Harcourt.

    I was the best student in the graduating class of the year in 1997, a feat no other person has equaled to date in that department.

    At graduation, I founded a genre of music in Nigeria known as ‘musicomedy’ being the first comedian to release a comedy album in the country and it earned me different awards or nominations.

    My first major appearance as a comedian was at the first edition of Opa Williams’ A Nite of A Thousand Laughs held at the University of Lagos in 1996.

    That truly announced my entrance into the comedy world and I participated in subsequent editions.

    I have also acted in several movies such as Rattle Snake directed by late Amaka Igwe; End of the River, Lagos Boy, Jaja of Opobo as well as uncountable stage performances.

    In the area of music, I have three albums to my credit.

    I also have two regular shows, Crack Ya Ribs and Laff 4 Christ sake not only in Nigeria but also in London, Atlanta and New York yearly.

     Can you recall some of your most embarrassing moments?

    As an act, I have had many embarrassing moments both on stage and off stage. There are so many that I don’t know which to mention. But as a showbiz personality, I take it in my stride.

  • Second Chance star loses battle to cancer

    Second Chance star loses battle to cancer

    Family, friends and fans around the world are mourning the death of Mexican TV star Lorena Rojas. The beloved telenovela actress died Monday at her home in Miami after a battle with cancer. Rojas, 44, was surrounded by her boyfriend, family and friends, her talent management agency Latin WE said. She had appeared on international soap operas including El Cuerpo del Deseo popularly known as Second Chance, Pecados Ajenos, Alcanzar Una Estrella and her most recent project, the series Demente Criminal. Rojas had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008.

  • Second term or second chance

    Does President Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) deserve a second term in office? Should the people give him a second chance?  These questions certainly have different meanings. Whether Jonathan’s governmental performance in his first four-year term, which may well be his only one, is worthy of a pass mark and an extension leaves room for debate. On the other hand, whether he should be given a second chance suggests that he has been a definite disaster, and only a supremely forgiving electorate would give him another chance.

    It is fascinating and thought-provoking that former President Olusegun Obasanjo chose to release his explosively controversial three-volume autobiography, My Watch, at this critical juncture as the country anxiously awaits the important 2015 general elections. His portrait of Jonathan in the tome is a punch with the devastating potency of a Boko Haram bomb blast. It remains to be seen whether Jonathan will survive the hard blow.

    What makes Obasanjo’s picture notable, not to say believable, is that he was fundamentally, and perhaps culpably, the prime puppeteer in the plot that produced Jonathan as president in 2011. While his insight and magisterial pronouncement on Jonathan’s career cannot exculpate him, it would be simply illogical and fallacious to respond to Obasanjo’s viewpoint with an ad hominem attack suggesting that his negativities should make him unbelievable in this respect.

    On Jonathan, Obasanjo wrote: “Jonathan is lacking in broad vision, knowledge, confidence, understanding, concentration, capacity, sense of security, courage, moral and ethical principles, character and passion to move the nation forward on a fast trajectory.” He continued: “Although he might wish to do well, he does not know how nor does he have the capacity to. To compound his problem, he has not surrounded himself with aides sufficiently imbued with the qualities and abilities to help him out. Most of them are greedy hangers-on or hungry lacklustre characters interested only in their mouths and their pockets.”

    Obasanjo further highlighted Jonathan’s alleged “inadequacy, myopia, personal interest and self-aggrandisement, lack of sagacity, wisdom.”  He added: “Under Jonathan we seem to have gone from frying pan to fire. If in the past corruption was in the corridors of power, it would seem now to be in the sitting room, dining room and bedroom of power. If what is called ‘corruption’ is stealing, under the watch of Goodluck Jonathan, then government has become legalised and protected robbery.”

    This vignette is particularly interesting against the backdrop of the news that Transparency International (TI), the respected watchdog, this month ranked Nigeria 136th on its 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) focused on 175 countries. The assessment was based on the presumed extent of public sector corruption in the countries. Nigeria scored 27 out of a maximum 100 marks, and was listed as the 39th most corrupt nation in the world.

    Considering the lamentably positive excitement that the information generated in Aso Rock, the seat of the country’s presidency, as far as the Jonathan administration is concerned, it’s a big deal and worth celebrating. To appreciate why the Jonathan presidency somersaulted in ecstasy over the latest ranking, it is important to note the background: Nigeria was ranked 144th in 2013, 139th in 2012 and 143rd in 2011. So, with the 2014 position, the 2013 standing has been bettered, if such a positive word may be used, by eight rungs. Does the administration think there is a significant difference between being 136th and being 144th?

    It is possibly a reflection of corruption, or more specifically, corrupted thinking and understanding, that Jonathan’s Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, burst into song.   Perhaps more appropriately, he should have burst into tears. Okupe gleefully said in a statement: “The latest TI rating is a proof that President Jonathan’s effort in the fight against corruption is yielding positive results. There is no doubt that since President Jonathan came on board as president of this country, the fight against corruption has been taken several notches higher.” He further said: “Unlike any previous administration in the country’s history, the present administration has instituted institutional reforms aimed at giving fillip to the anti-corruption war.”

    Okupe’s zeal is understandable, considering that the 2014 grade is Nigeria’s best on the CPI under President Jonathan. It is evidently a merry matter for those who are in power but have failed to exercise their power to arrest corruption in the country in any impressive manner. However, this moment cannot be for crowing, and it is both puzzling and disturbing that Okupe demonstrated unawareness by his effort to take advantage of the news for publicity purposes. Okupe needs to be told, or taught, that the country’s 136th position in a class of 175 is still as shameful and embarrassing as it has been since the inauguration of the Jonathan administration, and certainly does not qualify as a publicity opportunity.

    Particularly relevant to the country is the TI observation: “A poor score is likely a sign of widespread bribery, lack of punishment for corruption and public institutions that don’t respond to citizens’ needs.” TI Chairman, José Ugaz, said: “The 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index shows that economic growth is undermined and efforts to stop corruption fade when leaders and high level officials abuse power to appropriate public funds for personal gain.”

    It is a point to ponder that there is a striking common ground between Obasanjo’s uncontrolled demolition and Transparency International’s institutional perception.  Indeed, it may well be impossible for the Jonathan administration to significantly minimise public sector corruption, given his peculiar perspective. This is the leader who said on national television: “Over 70 per cent of what are called corruption (cases), even by EFCC (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission) and other anti-corruption agencies, is not corruption, but common stealing.” There is nothing to add, except to wonder at Jonathan’s thought process.

    In this context, the emergence of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari as the presidential candidate of the potentially victorious All Progressives Congress (APC) and Prof. Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) as his running mate can be better appreciated for the promise of immaculate integrity.