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Tinubu’s INEC pick…

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Tinubu

Bola BOLAWOLE

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Joash Amupitan nominated INEC chairman by President Tinubu, becoming the first Kogi native in the role and hailed for integrity and apolitical standing

“You don win! You don win! You don win!”

Also read: Two years after, Yusuf Maitama Tuggar repositions Nigeria globally

“What is the meaning of that? What did I win? Me that I don’t play lottery or Bet Niger or Baba Ijebu!”

“What you won is more than all those combined! Whoever has INEC has everything in the Nigeria of our dispensation”

“I still don’t understand the reason for this hysteria of yours”

“Why wouldn’t you? Were you not the one who commanded President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to choose the next INEC chairman from Yoruba land? And has he not obeyed you?“

“Oh, I see! I did not command; I only said the obvious. A Yoruba person has never been the INEC chairman. Why? What crime did the Yoruba commit to be so marginalized?“

“We are still saying the same thing. What if Mr. President had ignored your so-called sound argument to do the contrary? Would you have arrested him?”

“Not really; but he would have lost an opportunity to redress a long-standing injustice against his own people. No one can grudge him for nominating a Yoruba person as the next INEC chairman if the nomination sails through…”

“Forget about sailing through! It has sailed through already…”

“Don’t let us always talk like that! The president only nominates. It is the duty of the Senate to confirm or reject…”

“But has that ever happened?”

“That it has never happened does not mean it can never happen. There is always a first time, as they say. But whose fault is it if the senators choose to do their job one way or the other? Once the president nominates, the ball rolls to the court of the Senate. They are free to play it as they like”

“I beg to disagree! They must play it according to the rules. They are to screen – and screen they must!”

“I agree with you in that. Had they screened properly, we would have been saved the series of embarrassments that have hallmarked this Fourth Republic, beginning with Salisu Buhari, the first Speaker of the House of Representatives; then Kemi Adeosun and now the Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, who was forced to resign last week”

“I like the innovation of the disgraced Minister of Innovation. You cannot be made the minister of innovation and be unable to innovate!”

“What do you mean?“

“Is it not an innovation that the erstwhile minister served his mandatory NYSC before graduating from the university?“

“I see! It turned out he never graduated and he never served…”

“You see what I mean? That is double innovation! He never graduated; he never served; yet he scaled through screening at the presidency, then with the security agencies and, finally, at the Senate…”

“We must salute the media that found him out…”

“Some people who had his records must have squealed on him. He must have stepped on toes…”

“That is true! There is no criminal that is not known by one person or another. There must be many of his type still hiding in various sectors of our national life…”

“Let’s leave that alone and let’s return to INEC. Controversy continues to trail Tinubu’s choice. They said he was a card-carrying APC member…”

“In fact, they said he was a member of the legal team that defended Tinubu’s 2023 election victory at the tribunal, but …”

”I was alarmed when I first heard that! Could they have been so stupid, both to nominate and to accept, until I saw that it was a case of mistaken identity”

“Mistaken what?“

“Mistaken identity! Osipitan is different from Amupitan. Otherwise, Obi and Atiku would have since hit the roof with their head”

“Yoruba people sef! They specialize in twisting words and tongues! Osi-pitan! Amu-pitan! Pitan, Pitan all over the place! What is the difference between the names?“

“Honestly, I don’t know! But ‘to Pitan’ means to tell a story. Maybe the names tell a story. Or the circumstances of birth or the time of birth…”

“I think ‘osi’ in Yoruba means poverty…”

“Yes, but the pronunciation of this particular ‘osi’ in Pitan is not the same as you pronounce poverty. It is pronounced differently…”

“I see! A name that tells stories signifies that the man’s tenure will tell stories…”

”That is, if it is not already doing so! One BAT nominates another BAT for a position as important as that of the INEC chairman“

“What do you mean? Who is BAT 1? And who is the other BAT?”

“Don’t you know that the initials of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu translates into BAT?”

“I see! But Amupitan’s do not! He is Joash Ojo Amupitan aka JOA”

“He is a BAT in another dimension. He comes from a section of the country which is neither South nor North. Or better still, which is both North and South, depending”

“I don’t understand”

“Amupitan is a Yoruba name. The man himself, ethnically-speaking, is Yoruba but his geo-political zone, North-Central, is part of the North”

”I see! He is at once a southerner as well as a northerner! That is double blessing…”

”Under Tinubu, it has apparently been double blessing for the Yoruba elements in the north-central zone. A case in point is Ojulari, the NNPC boss; now Amupitan, but it has not always been so”

“How do you mean?“

“In times past, the North merely used them to make up the numbers but marginalizes them when it comes to sharing the largesse that flows therefrom”

“Quite unfortunate! When they are needed; they are embraced and given the fake impression that they belong to the North, but after they have been used, they are dumped! Is that not what you are trying to say? “

“Exactly! Now that Tinubu is trying to redress this age-long injustice, some people are running their mouths”

’That is to be expected! Politics can be read into anything! But do you think the man will live up to expectations?”

“Whose expectations is the question! ”

“The people’s, of course!”

“Is it the people that nominated him? Or is it the people that will confirm his nomination? Abeg, leave the people out of it jare!”

“As INEC chairman, he is expected to conduct free and fair elections. He must ensure that elections conducted under his watch are credible…”

“Are you aware that INEC chairman alone cannot guarantee credible elections? Where do you place the politicians, the security agencies, and the voters themselves? What of INEC’s permanent and ad-hoc staff? And where do you place the government in power?’

“That is true! This is a classical case of what the economists call ceteris paribus, meaning all other things being equal, but can all other things ever be equal? “

“That is the issue, but I am surprised that Tinubu chose the person he nominated. I thought he would push it in our nose and nominate his son, Seyi, or the audacious Iyaloja, as the next INEC chairman!”

“God forbid!”

“God forbid wetin? If he did, will the heaven fall? The man is audacious enough to do anything! After the removal of fuel subsidy and forex exchange equalization, all in one fell swoop, I don’t think there is anything this man cannot do again”

“That’s true! Have you heard the news? Another PDP governor has defected to APC…”

“Stale news! We knew all along that Enugu would fall. The next is Bayelsa…”

“But I smell a rat! Can it be that the opposition people are emptying themselves into the ruling party so they can fight it from within and capture power through the back door?”

“Something like what Mikhail Gorbachev did in the USSR? He waltzed his way to the top echelon of the Communist party and thereafter unleashed his glasnost and perestroika bombshells that scattered the communist behemoth“

“My fear is: Will it be easy for the PDP to pull such sucker punch against Tinubu here? The man is a master strategist…”

“But when someone gets too wise and crafty, he may get ensnared in the process. Witness how IBB aka Maradona dribbled himself into a corner. He stepped aside never to step in again…”

“Between me and you, I never expected Tinubu to nominate a man as clean as Amupitan is said to be as INEC chairman. Has he learnt anything from the mistakes of Jonathan or is he repeating them?”

“You think Amupitan can jaga-jaga him as was done to Jonathan?“

“I have my fears! The Yoruba people are too finicky about integrity and doing the right thing…”

“Then, where do we place the whole argument? The Yoruba deserve the post; yet…”

“Just take note that it is one of the wonders of our world that a sitting president can open his eyes and nominate a man many are saying has integrity. IBB made the same mistake with Humphrey Nwosu…”

“Maybe Tinubu is sure of his onions! With the opposition parties in disarray and the politicians that matter emptying themselves into APC, what else is there for Tinubu to fear?”

“Politics is not that straightforward. By the way, we intimated our readers two weeks ago about the mathematical wonder of 2520…”

“Yes, that is true. The number looks like any other number but there is something strange about it. It is divisible by any number from 1 to 10…”

“How does that correlate with happenings in the polity?“

Also read: MEXC powers Africa’s crypto inclusion with zero-fee trading

“Simple: Not everything that appears normal on the surface is actually or in the final analysis normal”

“That is deep!”

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The strategic imperative of global business summits on Africa

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Africa

By Ehi Braimah

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Africa has emerged as one of the most strategic frontiers for global investment, trade, innovation, and economic transformation.

Also read: Customs Reform Will Unlock AfCFTA’s Full Potential, Experts Say

With a population projected to exceed 2.5 billion by 2050, abundant natural resources, a rapidly expanding middle class, and the world’s youngest workforce, the continent is increasingly attracting the attention of governments, multinational corporations, investors, development institutions, and entrepreneurs.

Against this backdrop, global business summits hosted in Africa and across the world on Africa, have become vital platforms for dialogue, partnership-building, and economic cooperation.

From investment forums and trade expos to leadership conferences and innovation summits, these gatherings bring together policymakers, business executives, financiers, academics, and development experts to discuss opportunities and challenges shaping Africa’s future.

Beyond networking events, they have become powerful instruments for driving economic growth, fostering regional integration, and positioning Africa as a key player in the global economy.

The summits on Africa and where they hold

The France-Africa Summit, otherwise known as Africa Future Forward Summit, held in Nairobi, Kenya from May 11 – 12 for the first time in an Anglophone country.

It was followed by Biashara Afrika in Lome, Togo, which held from May 18 – 22, while the London-Africa Business Summit convened by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, held on June 4.

The London Summit attracted diaspora professionals, international investors, and policymakers to discuss the harmonisation of capital markets, tech investments and economic growth on Africa.

On July 30, the Global Africa Summit will hold at the Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, Canada. The summit will focus on translating Canada’s Africa Strategy into tangible trade, fintech, infrastructure, and green energy by connecting institutional investors with emerging African markets.

Other major and annual recurring events include the US-Africa Business Summit holding in Mauritius from July 26 – 29, co-hosted by the Corporate Council on Africa and the Government of Mauritius; the Opportunities in Africa Summit in New York City where investors and entrepreneurs explore Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) opportunities in high-growth markets like Rwanda, Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire.

There’s also the US-Africa Leaders’ Summit in Washington DC, USA; the Africa CEO Forum, the Climate Change Global Business Summit on Africa which holds in Nairobi, Kenya; the Financial Times (FT) Africa Summit that will hold from October 21 – 22, at The Landmark, London; the Transform Africa Summit, the continent’s premier annual forum on technology, innovation and digital transformation organised by Smart Africa Alliance, and others.

Growing relevance of the summits

Global business summits serve as meeting points where ideas, capital, and opportunities converge. Their relevance has increased significantly as African economies seek to diversify beyond traditional sectors such as oil, gas, and mining into manufacturing, technology, agriculture, renewable energy, healthcare, and digital services.

These summits provide a unique platform for governments to showcase investment opportunities and policy reforms aimed at attracting FDI.

Investors, in turn, gain valuable insights into emerging markets, regulatory environments, and sector-specific opportunities.

For local businesses, the events offer exposure to international markets, potential partners, and financing sources.

The role of AfCFTA

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) should be the economic anchor of every Africa-focused global business summit.

Whether in Abuja, Lagos, Nairobi, Kigali, Mauritius, Paris, London, New York, Washington DC, Dubai, Moscow, or Beijing, AfCFTA must be presented not merely as a trade agreement but as Africa’s blueprint for industrialisation, regional value chains and a single market of over 1.4 billion people.

Rather than promoting 54 fragmented economies, African leaders should speak with one voice, using AfCFTA to attract investment in manufacturing, infrastructure, digital technology, agriculture and clean energy.

Global summits on Africa should therefore move beyond aid and commodity exports to partnerships that expand intra-African trade, technology transfer, skills development and value addition.

A united AfCFTA agenda will strengthen Africa’s bargaining power, reduce trade barriers, create jobs and position the continent as a competitive global investment destination.

Africa’s economic transformation depends on making AfCFTA the centrepiece of every international business engagement.

Benefits

One of the most significant benefits of global business summits is their ability to attract investment. Many investment deals, public-private partnerships, and development projects originate from conversations initiated during these events.

By bringing together key decision-makers in one location, summits reduce barriers to engagement and facilitate quicker decision-making.

Another major benefit is knowledge exchange. Participants gain access to expert insights on market trends, emerging technologies, sustainable development practices, climate finance, and global economic shifts.

Such knowledge helps businesses and governments make informed decisions that enhance competitiveness and resilience.

Business summits also stimulate tourism and local economic activity. Hotels, transportation services, restaurants, event management firms, and other service providers benefit from the influx of delegates.

Host cities often gain international visibility, improving their reputation as business and investment destinations.

Furthermore, these events contribute to capacity building. Young entrepreneurs, startups, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) gain opportunities to learn from industry leaders, access mentorship, and connect with investors. This helps nurture the next generation of African business leaders and innovators.

On a broader scale, global business summits support economic diplomacy. Governments use these platforms to strengthen bilateral and multilateral relationships, negotiate trade agreements, and promote regional cooperation. Such engagements can lead to long-term economic partnerships that benefit multiple countries.

Africa’s strategic importance in the global economy

The increasing number of global business summits on Africa reflects the continent’s growing strategic importance.

Africa possesses approximately 30 percent of the world’s mineral reserves, including critical minerals such as cobalt, lithium, manganese, and rare earth elements that are essential for electric vehicles, renewable energy technologies, and advanced manufacturing.

In addition, Africa’s agricultural potential remains largely untapped. The continent holds vast areas of arable land capable of contributing significantly to global food security.

Its expanding urban population and rising consumer demand also make it one of the most promising growth markets in the world.

The continent’s digital revolution further enhances its attractiveness. Mobile technology, fintech innovation, e-commerce, and digital payment systems have transformed business operations across many African countries such as Nigeria and Kenya.

Investors increasingly view Africa not only as a source of raw materials but also as a market for innovation and technological advancement.

The new scramble for Africa

The growing international interest in Africa has led many analysts to describe current geopolitical and economic competition as a “New Scramble for Africa.” Unlike the colonial-era scramble of the late nineteenth century, today’s competition is driven primarily by economic, technological, and strategic interests rather than direct territorial control.

Major global powers, including the United States, China, the European Union, India, Turkey, Russia, and Gulf states, are actively expanding their engagement across Africa.

They compete for access to natural resources, infrastructure projects, trade opportunities, energy partnerships, digital markets, and geopolitical influence.

China has become one of Africa’s largest trading partners and infrastructure financiers, investing heavily in roads, railways, ports, and industrial parks.

Western nations have responded by increasing investment initiatives focused on sustainable development, clean energy, digital infrastructure, and private sector growth.

Meanwhile, emerging powers are seeking to deepen commercial and diplomatic ties through trade agreements, investment missions, and development partnerships.

Global business summits often serve as arenas where these competing interests intersect. International corporations and governments use such forums to announce investment commitments, launch strategic partnerships, and strengthen economic relationships with African nations.

While increased global attention creates opportunities for growth and development, it also presents challenges. African countries must ensure that investments contribute to sustainable development, local job creation, technology transfer, and industrialization.

Effective governance, transparency, and strategic negotiation are essential to ensuring that Africa derives maximum benefit from foreign engagement.

Africa’s future

As Africa’s economic influence continues to grow, global business summits will play an increasingly important role in shaping the continent’s future.

These events provide platforms for investment mobilisation, innovation exchange, policy dialogue, and international cooperation.

They also help position African countries as active participants in global economic decision-making rather than passive recipients of external interests.

The challenge and opportunity for Africa lie in leveraging these platforms to advance its own development priorities.

By fostering strategic partnerships, promoting intra-African trade, supporting entrepreneurship, and ensuring inclusive growth, business summits can become powerful catalysts for transformation.

In the context of the new scramble for Africa, the continent is no longer merely a destination for external interests.

Increasingly, it is becoming a dynamic actor with the capacity to shape global markets, influence international investment flows, and define its own development trajectory.

Also read: Customs Reform Will Unlock AfCFTA’s Full Potential, Experts Say

Global business summits on Africa provide one of the most visible and effective mechanisms through which this transformation can be realised.

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The Sundiata Post Model (4): Realm of the long term

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Sundiata Post

By Max Amuchie | The Sunday Stew

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This fourth instalment of the Sundiata Post Model asks the inevitable question: What must a knowledge-producing newsroom do to survive, adapt and remain relevant across generations?

Also read: Sundiata Post Boss Max Amuchie Earns ScienceOpen Academic Appointment

That question is the gateway to what we call the Realm of the Long Term.

Every institution eventually enters the Realm of the Long Term. It is the stage at which immediate success gives way to enduring relevance, and where the central question is no longer whether an organisation can perform today, but whether it can continue creating public value across generations. Entering this realm requires more than ambition.

It demands governance, institutional memory, financial resilience, leadership succession, continuous learning and an unwavering commitment to trust. This is the realm in which institutions either become enduring or gradually disappear.

The Realm of the Long Term is the point at which management ceases to focus primarily on performance and begins to focus on long-term stewardship.

Decisions are evaluated not only by their immediate outcomes but by their contribution to the institution’s capacity to create enduring public value across generations.

Within the Sundiata Post Model the Realm of the Long Term rests on seven interdependent pillars: Financial Sustainability, Human Capital and Leadership, Knowledge Stewardship, Governance, Innovation and Adaptation, Trust and Reputation, and Mission Continuity.

Together, these pillars determine whether an institution merely survives the present or continues creating public value across generations.

Financial Sustainability

Financial Sustainability is the institution’s capacity to generate, diversify, steward and invest financial resources in ways that preserve its independence, strengthen its capabilities and enable it to pursue its mission across generations.

Financial Sustainability is the institution’s capacity to generate diverse, mission-aligned sources of income that preserve its independence while strengthening both its Media Operations Engine and its Knowledge Operations Engine over the long term.

No institution, however compelling its vision or noble its mission, can endure without the economic capacity to sustain its work. Institutions do not survive on ideas alone.

They survive because they deliberately create the financial resources that allow those ideas to mature into enduring public value.

Within the Sundiata Post Model, Financial Sustainability is understood differently from its conventional treatment in management literature. It is not simply about generating revenue, balancing budgets or maintaining profitability.

Rather, it is the strategic financing of a knowledge-producing institution. Its purpose is to preserve institutional independence while providing the resources required to sustain both the Media Operations Engine and the Knowledge Operations Engine over the long term.

The Media Operations Engine generates value through journalism and public engagement. Its financial ecosystem includes advertising, brand partnerships, digital marketing, content syndication, commercial publishing, multimedia production, conferences, annual lectures, policy dialogues, executive forums and other public-facing institutional activities.

These are not merely commercial ventures; they are mission-aligned enterprises that strengthen the institution’s capacity to produce independent journalism.

The Knowledge Operations Engine expands the institution’s financial horizon beyond the traditional economics of media.

As the institution generates original knowledge, it creates opportunities for research grants, commissioned studies, partnerships with universities, think tanks and research institutions, collaborative projects with international organisations, consultancy, executive education, policy research, book publishing, biographies, proprietary datasets and the licensing of analytical frameworks, indices and methodologies.

Knowledge itself becomes an institutional asset capable of creating both public value and sustainable income.
This represents a fundamental shift in how media organisations think about finance.

The Sundiata Post Model recognises that journalism and knowledge production are complementary economic activities.

The first generates public attention, civic engagement and commercial opportunities; the second generates intellectual capital, scholarly influence and knowledge-based revenue.

Together, they produce a diversified and resilient institutional economy capable of supporting long-term growth without compromising editorial independence or research integrity.
Financial Sustainability therefore extends beyond accounting. It encompasses the institution’s capacity to build strategic partnerships, secure collaborative projects, attract research funding, develop intellectual property and transform original ideas into enduring institutional assets.

In the Realm of the Long Term, Financial Sustainability is ultimately the stewardship of institutional resources in service of institutional purpose.

It is the first pillar because every other pillar depends upon it. Without sustainable financing, governance becomes fragile, knowledge production becomes intermittent, innovation slows, leadership development suffers and institutional memory gradually erodes.

2. Human Capital and Leadership

If Financial Sustainability provides the economic foundation of an enduring institution, Human Capital and Leadership provide its human foundation.

Buildings, technology, financial resources and even brilliant institutional designs do not create enduring organisations by themselves. Institutions ultimately rise or decline because of the quality of the people who lead them and the culture they cultivate.

Within the Sundiata Post Model, Human Capital extends beyond recruitment.

It encompasses the deliberate attraction, development, retention and continuous renewal of talented professionals who possess not only technical competence but also a commitment to the institution’s mission, values and standards.

An institution enters the Realm of the Long Term only when it begins to think beyond filling positions to building generations of capable people.

Leadership occupies a special place within this pillar. The true measure of leadership is not merely what is accomplished during a leader’s tenure, but what remains after that tenure has ended. Institutions become enduring when leadership is viewed as stewardship rather than ownership.

Every generation of leaders inherits an institution from those who came before and bears the responsibility of strengthening it for those who will come after.

This requires intentional investment in professional development, mentorship, succession planning and organisational culture.

Expertise must be cultivated. Institutional values must be transmitted. Leadership pipelines must be continuously renewed.

The departure of talented individuals should never threaten the continuity of the institution because knowledge, experience and responsibility lhave been systematically transferred to the next generation.

For a knowledge-producing institution, this responsibility becomes even greater. Journalists must continuously improve their craft.

Researchers must deepen their methodological competence. Editors must strengthen both editorial judgment and institutional leadership.

The objective is not merely to employ professionals but to cultivate an intellectual community capable of sustaining journalism, research and public service over the long term.

3. Knowledge Stewardship

Knowledge Stewardship is the deliberate creation, preservation, governance and transmission of institutional knowledge so that learning accumulates rather than disappears.

Every institution produces knowledge through its daily operations. Yet much of that knowledge is often lost through staff turnover, poor documentation or organisational neglect. The Sundiata Post Model rejects this waste.

It regards datasets, editorial experience, research outputs, methodologies, institutional records and accumulated expertise as strategic assets that must be governed, preserved and continuously enriched. Knowledge stewardship transforms experience into institutional capital.

4. Governance

Governance is the system of structures, principles and accountability through which an institution safeguards its mission, exercises authority responsibly and makes sound strategic decisions.

Strong institutions are not sustained by personalities alone but by systems that outlive individuals.

Effective governance establishes clear responsibilities, ethical standards, transparency, accountability and strategic oversight.

It protects institutional integrity during periods of growth, crisis and leadership transition. Within the Realm of the Long Term, governance provides stability without preventing innovation.

5. Innovation and Adaptation

Innovation and Adaptation are the institution’s capacity to respond intelligently to changing technological, economic and social environments while remaining faithful to its core mission.
Long-term institutions do not survive by resisting change.

They survive by adapting continuously without abandoning the principles that define them. Innovation therefore extends beyond technology.

It includes new products, new organisational practices, new revenue models, new research methods and new ways of engaging society. Adaptation ensures relevance; mission provides continuity.

6. Trust and Reputation

Trust and Reputation constitute an institution’s accumulated credibility, earned through consistent competence, integrity and public service over time.

Trust is not created by slogans or marketing campaigns. It is built gradually through countless decisions that demonstrate reliability, fairness and professionalism.

Reputation becomes one of an institution’s most valuable strategic assets because it influences public confidence, partnerships, talent recruitment and long-term legitimacy.

In the Sundiata Post Model, trust is not simply an ethical aspiration; it is an institutional resource that must be deliberately protected.

7. Mission Continuity

Mission Continuity is the institution’s ability to preserve its fundamental purpose while continually renewing its strategies, structures and methods.
Institutions that endure distinguish between mission and method. Their purpose remains constant even as the means of fulfilling that purpose evolve.

Mission continuity prevents organisations from losing their identity in response to short-term pressures while enabling them to adapt confidently to changing circumstances.

It provides the enduring direction that unites successive generations of leaders, professionals and stakeholders.

The seven pillars are mutually reinforcing. They are not independent compartments that can be strengthened or weakened in isolation.

The erosion of one inevitably affects the others, because institutions endure as integrated systems rather than as collections of separate functions.

Without Financial Sustainability, you cannot recruit and retain the best people (Human Capital and Leadership).
Without capable people, Knowledge Stewardship deteriorates.

Without Knowledge Stewardship, Innovation and Adaptation becomes weak because there is little accumulated knowledge to build upon.

Weak Governance eventually damages Trust and Reputation.
Once trust declines, revenue suffers, weakening Financial Sustainability again.
Eventually, Mission Continuity is threatened.

The Global South

While the region has produced many outstanding newspapers and broadcasters, relatively few have demonstrated the kind of uninterrupted institutional continuity that characterises some of the world’s oldest media organisations.

Political instability, economic volatility, succession challenges, fragile governance structures and rapidly changing media economics have made institutional longevity the exception rather than the rule.

The Realm of the Long Term is therefore not merely about preserving an existing institution; it is about addressing one of the enduring structural weaknesses of media development in Africa and much of the Global South.

The ambition is to build media organisations that do not merely survive their founders, but continue to generate public value across generations.

However, there are few media institutions that have proved capable of surviving across generations.

In Nigeria, the Nigerian Tribune, founded in 1949 by Obafemi Awolowo, has endured for more than seven decades, surviving colonial rule, independence, military governments, democratic transitions and the digital revolution.

In South Asia, The Hindu in India, established in 1878, and Dawn in Pakistan, founded in 1941, have likewise sustained their institutional identities through profound political, economic and technological change.

In the developed world, organisations such as Reuters (founded in 1851), The Economist (established in 1843), The New York Times (founded in 1851) have demonstrated similar resilience over even longer periods.

The longevity of these institutions suggests that enduring media organisations share certain characteristics.

They invest in governance, preserve institutional memory, renew leadership, adapt to technological change, cultivate public trust and develop sustainable business models.

Their endurance is rarely accidental; it is the product of deliberate institutional choices sustained over decades.

The Sundiata Post Model seeks to identify, organise and systematise institutional principles that appear repeatedly among such media organisations. In that sense, it is both descriptive and prescriptive.

It draws lessons from enduring institutions while proposing a coherent framework for building the knowledge-producing newsroom of the twenty-first century.

Finally, history shows that ideas sometimes outgrow the domains in which they were first conceived. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War was written as a treatise on military strategy, yet its principles have since informed thinking on business, leadership and organisational management.

Likewise, while the Sundiata Post Model is proposed as a framework for twenty-first-century journalism, its underlying principles of knowledge production, institutional memory, governance and long-term stewardship may ultimately prove relevant to other knowledge-intensive organisations.

Also read: Sundiata Post Marks Milestone as Amuchie’s Theory Goes Global

Whether that broader applicability emerges is not for me, as its author, to determine, but for others—scholars, intellectuals, media executives, publishers, and management experts—to test, adapt, critique and refine through practice.

Trust is sacred. Stay seasoned

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Under Akpabio’s watch, Nigeria’s budget almost a bazaar

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Akpabio

By Ikeddy ISIGUZO,

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HIS Excellency Distinguished Senator Obong Dr. Godswill Obot Akpabio, Senate President, two-tenure Governor of Akwa Ibom State, former Minister of Niger Delta, supervising the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDCC, former PDP Senate Minority Leader, who is no longer of interest to EFCC since he joined APC, should explain to Nigerians how the national budget became a bizarre bazaar in a blizzard of hustlers, under his keen watch.

Also read: Oyo Assembly Clears Makinde’s Leave Request, Deputy Takes Over

This is not an allegation. It is a call for Akpabio, to in a clear voice, stripped of fake accents, devoid of derisive side remarks, to tell us how we thought we had a budget for the needs of Nigeria.

In the last few weeks, it is clearer that the scandals in the 2026 budget are competing for brazen awards.

Honourable Abdulmumin Jibrin, Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations, exposed a major budget scandal in 2016 by accusing Speaker Yakubu Dogara, Deputy Speaker Yusuf Lasun, Chief Whip Alhassan Doguwa, and Minority Leader Leo Ogor of padding the 2016 budget. He claimed about 2,000 unauthorised and fictitious projects worth over ₦284 billion were smuggled into the budget.

The budget runs into thousands of page. The 2026 budget is in 2,790 pages, enough spaces for fake agencies and those endless solar street lights farmed out to government officials and agencies that have no relationship with street lights of any kind, to be inserted.

In 2016 Honourable Jibrin shouted until he was suspended with a lengthy absence beyond the law. Not one member of the House of Representatives spoke up in his defence though the accused prefaced the allegations with the admission that he was a beneficiary of the loot. He was suspended while the fat cats who he openly named stayed on their plum seats.

The award-winning anti-corruption Buhari administration said nothing. Its agencies followed the prompt.

Looting in this manner was called budget padding. If you have powers and adequate greed, you added whatever you wanted, often running into billions, and pulled it out as trappings of office. No questions.

The most we would hear are whimpers from those who were dealt with unfairly in the sharing of the loot.

Part of oversight functions became agencies being forced to execute “constituency projects” for legislature in parts far cast from their locations.

Have we forgotten that Federal College of Education, Umunze, Anambra State, was constructing roads in Surulere, Lagos State, 522 kilometres away? This was at a time the school considered its budget inadequate and its internal road were in a state – with no budget to fix them.

For fuller disclosure and perspective, Surulere was the constituency of the Honourable Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, now the Chief of Staff to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The construction board shamelessly announced, the project, with College of Education, Umunze, as the “client”.

Gbaja, as he is still fondly called, is not alone in this practice which persists and preceded his arrival at the headship of the House of Representatives.

The explanation from the Speaker’s Office deepened the mystery about the relationship between Umunze and Surulere.

“It is, therefore, crucial to inform the public that the Speaker did not divert or swap projects from the South East to South West, but that the legislature has a technical template for budgeting in which executing agencies of Federal Government, most time, are allotted jobs outside of their locations,” the statement clarified.

How does the College of Education, Umunze move from the “client” of the road project that was awarded to JRB Construction Limited, an Abuja-based company, to being the “executing agency” of its own project? Gbaja muddled up the explanation, if ever there was one.

The public only learnt “that the legislature has a technical template for budgeting in which executing agencies of Federal Government” were allocated projects outside their locations.

College of Education, Umunze did not bid for the project. It had no known competence in road construction. While the construction board stated that it was paying for the contract, it was also downgraded to an executing agency of a contract it supposedly awarded.

By the time the Auditor-General of the Federation audits the accounts of ministries and agencies fingers frequently point at the National Assembly as a promoter of opaque accounting practices.

The Auditor-General’s report forwarded to the National Assembly in 2025 exposed that in 2022, the Corporate Affairs Commission had N118.75 million undocumented spending, which CAC said it spent on Nigerian lawmakers on their frequent visits for oversight functions.

Will the Public Accounts Committees of the National Assembly look into these matters?Let us note that 2022 was also the year of College of Education, Umunze constructing roads in Surulere from the school’s annual budget.

It is in the midst of the abuse of budgets and budgeting processes – the building and renovating of palaces for traditional rulers, churches and mosques getting funding – that Akpabio made a most tepid statement that hinted at his timid determination to punish a contractor who he alleged embarrassed the National Assembly and Nigeria. Both can be merged to read Akpabio.

According to Akpabio, he was embarrassed while addressing the House of Representatives when he discovered that the microphones were not working well. He warned the contractor and said he had issued earlier warnings about shoddy maintenance jobs.

Why was Akpabio bringing his troubles with microphones to the attention of the public? What did he say that we needed microphones to hear?

Of all the issues buffeting Nigerians from all sides, he chose to intervene over malfunctioning microphones. It would be recorded for him among his many achievements.

The national budget is being frittered away. Funds, mostly borrowed, are being shared to individual interests that are in conflict with national interests. Akpabio is silent in a great example of absent leadership.

Akpabio will not do anything. Akpabio cannot do anything. His grovelling even in public before the President leaves little to wonder about what happens in private.

Turning up at the National Assembly proudly donnng the Tinubu cap, marked the beginning of his submission of the National Assembly to Tinubu.

When at the launching of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, renamed Tinubu Coastal Highway only last week, Akpabio broke into the “On your mandate we shall stand” song, stopping mid stanza on discovering that his croaky voice was the only one nauseating the public.

With or without microphone, Akpabio should address Nigerians on his silent role in the dispersal of our national resources through the imprimatur of the National Assembly which he controls. Could this be what standing on Tinubu’s mandate means?

Finally…
.FOR over three years Governor Hope Uzodinma has overseen the South-East like a viceroy accountable to Tinubu. He spoke for South-East or decided not to speak at all.

The summary of his speeches – the South-East is lucky to have Tinubu as President and in gratitude should vote him for another tortuous tenure.

The wider belief is that Tinubu has the South-East’s five Governors in his pocket. Alex Otti says Uzodinma cannot speak for other Governors and that they did not endorse Tinubu.

But when you listen to Otti speak about Tinubu, it is more than an endorsement. Otti possibly wants to endorse Tinubu directly not through a proxy.

NIGERIA’S football is of low capacity, riddled with administrative incapacity, technical incompetence, and corruption is a given.

It cannot survive without a major surgery to kick life into it. Any investment in our football today is a waste unless the shackles on our football are broken. First move would be dismantling the NFF which a Federal High Court declared illegal in 2012: the judgement subsists 14 years on.

The planned election should be on hold until the obstacles to inclusiveness, accountability, governance are rested. Let us organise our football, that should be a priority over who attends the next FIFA Congress or who lugs the next meaningless titles. More next week.

MRS Oluremi Tinubu has just donated N2 billion to be invested in reviving the production of Akwete fabrics in Abia State. Nice one, though I keep wondering about the source of the money she donates.

WE should be grateful to whoever or whatever got Senator David Nweze Umahi quiet in the past week.

Could it be this? The Incorporated Trustees of the Southern Kaduna Peoples’ United Association, SOKAPU, has instituted a suit against Umahi before the Federal High Court in Kaduna against the Minister of Works, David Umahi, over the death of Mary Habila on June 27 at the minister’s residence.

SOKAPU is seeking an order compelling the conduct of an autopsy on the deceased to establish the cause of death and is also claiming N20 billion in damages against Umahi over the alleged loss of life arising from what it described as a breach of duty of care while the deceased was under his custody.

Also read: Oyo Assembly Clears Makinde’s Leave Request, Deputy Takes Over

Umahi was 63 yesterday and the President hailed him as “one of my outstanding, hardworking ministers, with passion, dedication to duty, and deep sense of patriotism”.

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