The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Young professionals

  • Unity Bank promotes career devt for young professionals

    Unity Bank has partnered Young Professionals Breakfast Roundtable to mentor youths in career development.

    Its Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mrs Tomi Somefun, who spoke at the 2018 edition of the youth programme in Lagos, enjoined participants to see the “pursuit of greatness as a process rather than a one-off-event”.

    She was among the over 50 chief executives of companies and ventures that facilitated the programme.

    The programme, tagged: ‘YP 2018’, was the third edition and Mrs. Somefun has facilitated all the sessions in the past three years.

    Unity Bank’s commitment matches the enthusiasm of promoter of the Young Professions Breakfast Roundtable, Wale Adenuga, a multi-talented entrepreneur, whose initiative assembles an array of accomplished professionals cutting across sectors periodically to mentor up-coming professionals.

    For Mrs. Somefun, the motivation to participate as one of the facilitators of the programme lay in the discovery of the impact mentors have had in redirecting the mentees towards the options they could leverage to attain success in life.

    The disposition, according to Mrs. Somefun, also aligned with the thinking in Unity Bank, which enabled the bank to make significant inroad into the youth market through the introduction of youth-centric product, particularly the recently launched UniFi app, as a model for promoting financial inclusion among the unbanked youth/students.

    UniFi is a banking product tailored to allow youths to carry out financial transactions with ease. It is developed as a lifestyle app to enable customers do more banking on digital platform and from anywhere, anytime in their comfort zones.

     

  • Unity Bank promotes career devt for young professionals

    Unity Bank has partnered with Young Professionals Breakfast Roundtable to mentor youths in career development.

    Speaking at the 2018 edition of the youth programme in Lagos, Unity Bank’s CEO Mrs. Tomi Somefun, who was among the over 50 Chief Executives of companies and ventures that facilitated the programme, enjoined participants to see “pursuit for greatness as a process rather than a one-off-event”.

    The programme, tagged ‘YP 2018’, was the third edition and Mrs. Somefun has facilitated in all the sessions in the past three years. The commitment of Unity Bank Plc matches the enthusiasm of promoter of the Young Professions Breakfast Roundtable, Wale Adenuga, a multi-talented entrepreneur whose initiative assembles an array of accomplished professionals cutting across sectors periodically to mentor up-coming professionals.

    For Mrs. Somefun, the motivation to participate as one of the facilitators of the programme lies in the discovery of the impact mentors have had in redirecting the mentees towards the options they could leverage on to attain success in life.

    This disposition, according to Mrs. Somefun, also aligns with the current thinking in Unity Bank which enabled the bank to make significant inroad into the youth market segment through the introduction of youth-centric product, particularly the recently launched UniFi app, as a model for promoting financial inclusion among the unbanked youth/students.

     

     

    Unifi is a banking product tailored to allow youths to carry out financial transactions with ease. It is developed as a lifestyle app to enable customers do more banking on digital platform and from anywhere, anytime in their comfort zones.

  • Young professionals meet on investment opportunities

    A group of young Nigerian professionals in the Diaspora have said they will return home and contribute to the country’s economic growth.

    Last week, the young entrepreneurs, studying and working abroad, were hosted to an Investment and Networking Night, where they shared ideas with investors and successful entrepreneurs.

    The event, at the Oriental Hotel in Lekki, Lagos, was organised by Move Back To Nigeria (MBTN) and Young African MBAs (YAM).

    It was aimed at creating an investment platform for Nigerians overseas, who plan to return to the country to offer their expertise in diverse sectors of economy.

    The MBTN Chief Executive Officer, Adaraba Abdullahi, said: “The objective of this event is to connect Diaspora-based Nigerian professionals and investors with opportunities in the country, which range from strategic recruitment drives to investor outreach programme, relocation information, financial advice and real estate.”

    The keynote speaker and Chairman of Access Bank, Mrs. Mosun Belo-Olusoga, engaged the professionals on how to transform their ideas into reality despite the challenges facing the economy.

    She spoke about the modality for accessing soft loans to finance projects, saying there were financial institutions, including the Bank of Industry (BOI), willing to partner the entrepreneurs on funding.

    Belo-Olusoga said the country’s economy remained the biggest in Africa into which they could tap and set up successful business enterprises.

    She hailed the young Nigerians for returning to do business despite the challenges.

    The keynote speaker said: “This event gives me hope about the future of Nigeria, because it is in period of challenges that people strive to make changes. If these young professionals had said they would wait till when everything would work out fine, the opportunities will no longer arise. All they need to do is to figure out what they want to do when they are in Nigeria.

    “On funding, they can source finance from friends and family. Besides, there is BOI funds, which is about N200 billion, to help budding entrepreneurs and small-scale businesses. They can go to their BOI and check the condition for granting the loan. Because of their background, a lot can meet the conditions when they apply.”

    The event also featured a a panel of discussants, where the participants engaged successful entrepreneurs.

    The panellists included Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Agrolay Venture Ms Ada Osakwe, founder of Okadabooks.com Okechukwu Ofili, founder of Hotels.ng Mark Essien, CEO of TalentMine Dr. Femi Kuti and co-founder of SheLeads Africa Yasmin Belo-Osagie.

    Ms Osakwe, who was a special assistant to former Minister of Agriculture Akinwumi Adesina, shared how she resigned her job in the United States and returned to Nigeria to start an agriculture business.

    She said since Nigeria spent N5 billion annually on foods, she saw an opportunity to provide an alternative to boost local food production.

    She said: “It was a big investment for me to move into food processing at the time Nigerians spent N5 billion annually to import food that could be produced locally. We created products that did not need the use of electricity to consume. This is the strength of our business and since we started, we have been inundated with demands.”

    Ofili, who also returned from the U.S. in 2012, said his motivation to found Okadabooks. com resulted from a disappointment he had with owners of bookshops, who, he said, sold his first book without remitting his share of the sale.

    Ofili founded Okadabooks.c om to help budding writers market their books and literary journals through a software application, which serves as an online bookshop. He said he relocated to Nigeria to change the course of online business.

    He said: “You cannot change Nigeria from the Diaspora; you have to come back home and do that. Even, when you are back, you should not stay in highbrow neighbourhood and claim you want to make a change. You need to go to the heart of where people need assistance the most.”

    After his 11-year residency in Germany, Essien, a Computer Science graduate, returned to the country to found Hotels.ng, a fast-growing online hotel reservation enterprise.

    Sharing his start-up challenges with the participants, Essien said the idea almost failed because of lack of funding.

    Two years after, he said the Hotels.ng had become a rendezvous of hotel business for thousands of Internet users. He added that his company had more than 7,000 hotels in its database.

    More than 100 young Nigerian professionals attended the event from the U.S., United Kingdom, Germany, France and Republic of Ireland, among others.

     

  • Young professionals back Buhari/Osinbajo campaign

    Young professionals back Buhari/Osinbajo campaign

    The campaign by the All Progressives Congress (APC) to take over government at the centre this year has received a boost from an unexpected quarter. A group of young Nigerian professionals who are excited by the prospects of enthroning good governance in the country has thrown its weight behind the General Muhammadu Buhari/Professor Yemi Osinbajo ticket presented by the APC, saying the duo have what it takes to give Nigeria a new direction.

    The professionals, who came together under the aegis of the Valour Group, have pledged to do whatever it can within the ambit of the law to support the aspiration. Spokesman for the group, Mr. Nicholas Nyamali, described his group as a non-partisan and non-religious “political action committee” made up of young Nigerians who believe in the eminent qualities of Osinbajo as someone who can complement and work with Gen. Buhari to bring about a positive change to take Nigeria away from where it has found itself in recent times.

    “Our primary goal is to support the candidature of Gen. Buhari and Prof. Osinbajo. It is our firm belief that the duo has what it takes to give Nigeria a new direction. They are people with integrity, a high sense of accountability and they can provide disciplined leadership. These are the qualities we think are missing in Nigeria today,” he said in an interview at the weekend.

    Nyamali, a finance and investment expert from one of the Niger Delta states, said the group came into being spontaneously with the emergence of Prof. Osinbajo as the running mate to Gen. Buhari and that most of its members are friends and colleagues of the APC Vice Presidential candidate. According to him, they are doing this without the knowledge of Prof. Osinbajo and it is part of their contribution to inspire change in the polity.

    Another member of the group, Mr. Alex Okoh, reiterated that the overriding interest of the group in initiating the move is to enthrone good governance in the country. “We believe that a unique opportunity to enthrone good governance has presented itself with the emergence of the Gen. Muhammadu Buhari/Prof. Yemi Osinbajo ticket. We feel a sense of obligation to give them all the support they need, so that they can implement a framework of good governance in this nation,” he said.

    Nyamali emphasized that what Nigeria needs at this point in time is a leadership that can muster the political will to tackle the multifaceted problems facing the country. His words: “The current problems in the country today require a leadership that has integrity and the political will to stem the tide of corruption and impunity in the country. We think the current government lacks the will to do so and we believe fervently that the Buhari/Osinbajo ticket has the qualities to provide this kind of leadership.” He added that Buhari and Osinbajo “are not your archetypal Nigerian politicians hankering for power for the sake of power; they are hungry to serve the people.”

    The Valour Group spokesman said given his antecedents that Osinbajo is a man who has the heart to serve and that the combination of himself and Buhari would provide a strong leadership to the country. He added that the group is made up individuals who have known Prof. Osinbajo for over 20 years. “They are professionals in different fields of human endeavours and from different parts of the country who have interacted closely with Prof. Osinbajo as friends, colleagues, associates, fellow church members, protégés and former students,” he noted.

    Nyamali enjoined Nigerians to reflect about the kind of leadership the country needs at this point in time before deciding who to vote for. He said the outcome of the election would be decided by two factors: the needs of the country and the personal interests of individuals. He argued: “What are the needs of the country? It needs to deal with insecurity, corruption and impunity. How do we tackle these vices? We need a man who has a strong will at the helm of affairs.” He added that voting should not be done on the basis of sentiment “because one is from a certain part of the country and therefore I must vote in a certain way or because the candidate is an adherent of a particular faith.”

    He said ordinarily the people that populate his group are professionals who usually prefer to go about their business quietly and allow the politicians to do the politicking. “But, we are coming out of our comfort zone to tell Nigerians about Prof. Osinbajo because we believe most Nigerians do not know who he is. Gen. Buhari is already well-known; we don’t need to dissipate our energy about him. As people who have interacted closely with him as friends, professional colleagues, associates, fellow church member, students and mentees, he said members of the group owe it as a duty to let Nigerians know the type of person the APC vice presidential candidate is,” the finance and investment expert explained.

    As a Christian and a pastor with the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), he observed that Osinbajo has the eminent qualities required as a vice presidential candidate. He noted that the vice presidential candidate is not just a lawyer, but one that has reached the height of his career as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). He added that the APC chieftain is also intellectually fit for leadership as a Professor.

    “But, by far his biggest selling point is his service to the community as a Christian and a Pastor. One of the interesting things about him is that he strives to serve the people he comes into contact with. For example, when he was the attorney-general of Lagos State, he was responsible for setting up the Office of the Public Defender, which provides free legal services to those who may not be able to defend themselves in court.”

    The Valour Group spokesman said Osinbajo was also responsible for setting up the Citizens Mediation Centre, a platform where citizens can mediate over disputes without going to court. “These are people-oriented programmes he initiated while he was the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in Lagos State,” he added.

    As a pastor, he said Osinbajo and his wife, Dolapo, have set up several ministries that are geared towards providing for the needs of the people they come in contact with. He listed the ministries as follows: “There is the Mercy Cross, a programme that is designed to provide free healthcare and free health insurance for children under the age of five; Parents Without Borders, which provides an opportunity for members of the church to foster children in remand homes; Friendship House, a facility for single young people who have jobs in Lagos, but have no place to live. They are given accommodation for one year.

    “Others are: Women Alive, which provides anti-natal, delivery and post-natal care for pregnant women who cannot afford to provide such for themselves; a Free HospitalProgrammefor the less-privileged; the Life Changer Group, which comprise people he has brought together to help young men and women who want to advance themselves in terms of their career and education; the Liberty School, a school that provides free education and meal to primary school-age children of the less-privileged; Friends for Life, which is used to cater for social misfits such as area-boys and commercial sex workers who turn a new leaf in their lives; Just Justices, which works to assist the needy that have legal cases and are unable to defend themselves; and the Soup Kitchen, which provides food for people who are hungry.

    “These are things he did before he was chosen to become the running mate to Gen. Buhari. We think the personality of Prof. Osinbajo is what is required in the leadership of Nigeria. Gen. Buhari is already known as a man who is capable of providing a disciplined leadership to the country and ending corruption.”

    Nyamali noted that INEC is faced some logistic problems, which are not uncommon in this part of the world. But, he equally believes the commission is trying to grapple with the challenges and therefore must be encouraged to overcome some of the lapses that it has experienced in recent times. “The problems are there, we cannot wish them away, but efforts are being made to tackle them. For instance, those whose names were missing from the register have been given the opportunity to register again and ample time has been provided for people to collect their cards,” he added.