Technically: Before roofing your dream house, consider this - ITREALMS

Telecoms Clinic@ITREALMS ... making leadership SENSE with digital news!

It's alarming that despite the health implications of asbestos roofing sheets, many house builders in Nigeria still consider it fashionable against zinc, which is much cheaper. REMMY NWEKE in this piece compared the technology of asbestos and zinc roofing sheets, x-raying the pros and cons, as we enter 2025 in an attempt to reduce housing deficit in Nigeria.

Graduating from a higher institution in the North West Nigeria, Amin, 23, journeyed to the South-West in search of a job and better life. He settled down at Okokomaiko and was able to acquire land in nearby Agbara, few years later.

In the matter of Dele Farotimi before the Star Chamber by Chidi Anselm Odinkalu - ITREALMS

Commentary@ITREALMS ... making leadership SENSE with digital news!

Paul Anyebe was a judge of the High Court of Benue State in north-central Nigeria who had a young son with sticky fingers and a sense of adventure It was his role as a dad that endangered his job as a judge.

One night around 1983, Anyebe caught his son attempting to steal from his bedroom. In response, Anyebe pulled his gun in an effort to scare the boy. The gun went off, discharging a bullet which hit and seriously injured the boy. The Attorney-General of Benue State decided to prosecute Paul Anyebe for attempted murder. The Penal Code applicable in Benue State at the time had ample provisions for the crime of attempted murder.

ALTON: Harmonised shortcodes to run for one year before deactivation of codes - ITREALMS

ITREALMS ... making leadership SENSE with digital news!

The Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) has revealed that just commenced harmonisation of short codes across all networks would last for a year, reports ITREALMS.

ALTON also said the harmonisation is in pursuant to a regulatory modernisation initiative by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

Digital siege: Before we reject press freedom index - ITREALMS

Features@ITREALMS ... making leadership SENSE with digital news!

A few days ago, Nigeria joined the information world to commemorate the 2022 World Press Freedom Day. REMMY NWEKE in this piece underscored some highlights the country must scale to come out of the digital siege "... As one of West Africa’s most dangerous and difficult countries for journalists, who are often watched, attacked, arbitrarily, arrested and even killed."

FG rejects press freedom index

Recently, the Federal Government of Nigeria said it rejected the 2021 World Press Freedom Index (WPFI) which identified Nigeria as a country not conducive to journalism practice, according to the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed argued that the Nigerian press is among the most vibrant and freest in the world.

Before the next round

Commentary@ITRealms:

I am inviting our country’s popular-democratic forces, especially the Nigerian Left, to join me in looking back once again. We have to look as the Nigerian state and the various fractions, factions, groups and blocs of the ruling class now begin to take the country through another political turbulence that will end in a reconstitution of their political representation. It is this reconstitution of its “political class” that the ruling class calls election.

This opening clarification leads to an opening proposition, namely: that if the Nigerian Left consciously, responsibly and seriously adopts electoralism, it is only its participation in elections as a tangible, coherent and relatively independent political force that will begin to introduce real and unexpected contradictions in elections. A real contradiction in this context is a contradiction with both reformist and revolutionary potentials. And I say “relatively independent”, rather than “independent” in describing the popular-democratic forces’ electoral participation because I do not, ab initio, rule out the possibility of alliance which, if it is real, imposes limitations on the freedom of all sides in an alliance.

Historians of independent Nigeria’s electoral politics usually begin the narrative from the federal election of December 1959. This was the election which the history books say determined the power structure which British colonialism left behind as it withdrew from Nigeria on October 1, 1960. Between that election and now, 58 years later, Nigeria has had nine other federal or national elections: 1964, 1979, 1983, 1993, 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015. Leftists had participated in all the 10 elections. And, by Leftists I mean, broadly speaking, socialists as well as progressives and radical democrats who, even if they are not socialists, are not anti-socialist. The central question here is how Nigerian Leftists have so far participated in elections.

This central question may be put in context by locating each of the 10 federal or national elections in the political period it belongs. Nigeria’s First Republic is generally understood to be the period between October 1, 1960 and January 15, 1966, the date of the first military coup d’etat. This designation has come to stay although Nigeria did not become a republic until October 1, 1963, three years after independence. Only the 1964 election falls into the First Republic. Similarly, only the 1983 election falls under the Second Republic (October 1, 1979 – December 30, 1983). The Third Republic defined only by when it ended (November 17, 1993) and not when it started (when, please?) had no election within it.

The Fourth Republic, the current one, started on May 29, 1999. Four general elections have so far taken place in this period: 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015. The remaining four elections, that is, those of 1959, 1979, 1993 and 1999 do not belong to any of the four republics and may be called transition elections. The first of the four was conducted by the British colonialists while the other three were conducted by military regimes: General Olusegun Obasanjo (1979); General Ibrahim Babangida (1993) and General Abdulsalami Abubakar (1999).

Nigerian Leftists participated in the 1959 transition-from-colonialism election in one or more of four forms: as members of large and well-established ruling class parties; as members of small self-determination or radical-reformist parties; as members of small Leftist parties; or as independent candidates or supporters of independent candidates. The large ruling-class parties were the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) led by Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroons (later, the National Council of Nigerian Citizens) (NCNC) led by Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and the Action Group (AG) led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo. In the last decade of de-colonisation, that is, (1950-1960), these three parties, especially the AG and the NCNC, had received large numbers of young Leftists, including Marxists and labour activists, who had been dislodged from their independent formations by colonial repression. The Leftist entrants into the AG, with support and encouragement from Awolowo himself, transformed the party ideologically.

The small radical parties included the Northern Elements Progressive Union (NEPU) led by Mallam Aminu Kano and the self-determination parties included the United Middle Belt Congress (UMBC) led by Joseph Tarka. While NEPU was allied to the NCNC, UMBC was allied to the AG. Each alliance fielded a single slate of candidates. The small Leftist parties only participated in the election symbolically and for ideological and educational reasons.

In the 1964 federal election, the only federal election that took place in the First Republic, the 1959 forms of Left participation again appeared. By now the Leftist parties and groups had increased and enlarged. Beyond this, however, was a new development: a number of Leftist parties, including the Nigerian Labour Party (NLP), joined the AG and the NCNC in an alliance called the United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA). This was a mega-alliance whose component members included NCNC, AG, NEPU, UMBC and NLP. The alliance survived the December 1964 election and the supplementary election of March 1965. It then went on to fight the very bloody October 1965 Western Regional Election. The mass uprising generated by the last election led directly to the January 15, 1966 military coup d’etat.

The 1979 general election was a transition election: transition from the 13-year military dictatorship (1966-1979) to the Second Republic (1979-1983). By then several things had changed: the country had moved from the parliamentary to the presidential system; parties now had to be officially permitted and registered to participate in the contest; only very rich parties or parties of very rich people could satisfy the conditions for registration; participation as independent candidates had been abolished; and elections had become much more corrupt than they were in the First Republic.

For the Nigerian Left, the 1979 general election marked a sharp and tragic turn in the trajectory of the country’s electoral politics. In the first place, the huge material/financial conditions placed on the registration of political parties almost automatically ruled out genuinely Leftist parties. In the second place, the elimination of independent candidacy placed a stiff choice before intending Leftist candidates and unregistered and unregistrable Leftist parties.

This choice can be put like this: “Abandon your electoral ambition or come and seek a chance in one of the registered and registrable parties”. In the third place, since the big registered parties knew that the unregistered leftist parties and candidates could not participate in elections without coming to them, they imposed tough conditions on collaboration. The main condition invariably was: “Withdraw publicly from your platform and publicly join us. But you must join us as individuals, not as groups”.

This situation may be summarized this way: From the 1979 general election onwards the genuinely Leftist parties could participate in electoral contests in Nigeria only by liquidating themselves as they were and as they presented themselves. It was then that history presented the silent revolutionary alternative: “But if you must still participate in Nigerian elections, then you must adopt, or rather, return to, dialectics.

That means: differentiate between form and content; or rather, while retaining the revolutionary content, adopt two forms – one for elections and the other for the permanent democratic struggle of the masses.”

This strategic change, if adopted, frees you to seek alliances. For accessible historical illustration: First, check China in the years between the Japanese invasion and the end of Second World War. The alliance in mind here was the one between the Chinese Leftists and the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang).

After this, turn to the post-Second World War history of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Island and check the alliance between the various wings of Irish nationalism.

For contemporary illustration, turn to South Africa and check the Tripartite Alliance between the African National Congress (ANC), the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU).

*Contributed by Edwin Madunagu, mathematician and journalist, writes from Calabar, Cross River State.

ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!

Sage proffers solutions to top-five challenges before SMEs

ITREALMS:

The Sage Group has proffered some solutions for top-five challenges confronting small business and entrepreneurs on the continent, reports ITRealms.

According to ITRealms reports, Sage Advisors listed some of the challenges to include “collecting customer emails; Admin management; Finding the marketing avenue that works best for my business; Finding and winning clients who pay a premium; and Keeping up to date on best practices and new technology.

In response, the Sage Advisors said that first challenge is on collecting customers emails, that entrepreneurs could grow their database of customers or potential customers by providing great way to keep their business on front of mind.

Quality, they told ITRealms, is key, which paves the way through well-crafted e-Newsletters.

“Practice these simple tips and you’ll be able to build a list of highly engaged, and welcoming, customers,” official said.

They also divided the businesses into offline and online by offering solutions to suit each.

For brick and mortar entrepreneurs, Sage Advisor, said, it is “likely you have a sign-up sheet already sitting on the counter, so customers can opt-in when they pay for their items. Instead, catch your browsers at an earlier stage of their decision-making process. They’ll be looking around your store, so position your email sign-up sheets around the aisles. A catchy headline works a treat, and you can choose to include an incentive for their email, which will both encourage them to sign-up, and also to buy that item they have in their hands,“ suggesting a phrase “Join our mailing list for 10 per cent off your purchase today.”

For the online inclined entrepreneurs, Sage Advisor said they could optimise their website with an embed newsletter sign-up box on the homepage, or as a pop-up.

“However, online business specialist Ramsay of Blog Tyrant suggests you move your email collection invite to your ‘About’ page. He saw a huge increase in his sign-up rate when he moved his, it seems, according to Ramsay, that people want to subscribe to you while they are reading about your business."

On social media, they enjoined that “If social media is part of your marketing strategy, make sure you post a call-to-action and link to your online sign-up form, pin it so it always features at the top of your profile, and doesn’t get lost in daily posts.”

Noting that Facebook have created a specific advert format called Lead Ads which allows users to collect email addresses. Read up on what works well, and invest a small test budget to trial some contests. You can include an incentive for customer emails, such as a free quote, or a discount code.

Entrepreneurs, they advised should make out time to do admin jobs, saying time is better spent whilst making money.

For keeping up with new technologies, Sage Advisors pointed out that in one corner there's Artificial Intelligence (AI), on the other hand, there's personalisation, coupled with need to keep a tab on new social media platform popping up every few weeks.

Nonye Dom/GEE

ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!

Ndigbo lived in north 200 years before caliphate - Chekwas Okorie

ITRealms:

Igbo people were entrenched and fully established in the North, more than 200 years before the arrival of the caliphate, Presidential candidate of the United Progressives Party (UPP), in the 2015 election, Chief Chekwas Okorie, has revealed.

Okorie, whose revelation came against the backdrop of the order by Northern youths for Ndigbo to leave the zone by October 1, 2017, and the acceptance of the order by secessionist groups demanding for the state of Biafra, said. 

Urging those on both sides of the divide to take time to study the structure of the country, Okorie, who is also the National Chairman of the UPP, explained that many of those being asked to leave the North, might not even remember their families in Igboland.

Hear him: “I have been to Gusau. In the year, 2000, when I was invited as a special guest of honour to the Igbo Day celebration, it was such a colourful event. Forty-two town unions resident in Zamfara State, brought out their cultural groups of their various towns, developed there, not those invited from home. In the stadium, you could imagine where 42 cultural groups of different colourations performed. It was one of the most colourful events I ever attended.

“I became curious and then found out that there was a place called Northern Gusau, where there was an Igbo settlement for over 400 years. And that was the year 2000, the very year the Fulanis celebrated their bi-centenary of the establishment of the caliphate, which means from the time Uthman Dan Fodio came with his Fulani forces into Sokoto to the year 2000, was 200 years, two centuries. But Igbo people have been there 200 years earlier.

“I have had the privilege in the course of trying to see where my people are located, I have gone round Nigeria a minimum of 15 times in the 41 years I have been in this struggle and I have seen Igbo people, where they are located and the length of times they have spent in those places, generations after generations.

“So, I said to myself – really, the people who own this land, will include the Igbo, the Hausa, the Kanuris, the Tivs, Ijaws, Yoruba, the Binis – name them. The latest entrants to the Nigerian geographical space are the Fulanis. All the other ethnic groups are more than 200 years old in Nigeria. And as for Igbo, God created them here. We didn’t migrate from anywhere to anywhere. Nigeria is only 117 years old as a country. That means the Igbo people have lived in those places centuries before the amalgamation.

“So, when young impressionable begin to advocate our return from the North, I don’t blame them because what you don’t know, you don’t know. It is a tall order to ask people who cannot even locate their ancestral homes to return. Another take of it is that we have three or four times the number of Igbo people living outside Igboland than those living inside. I have also calculated that because of our people’s enterprise and adventurism, 80 to 90 per cent of Igbo billionaires, if not 99 per cent, are based outside Igboland. Only few have come back to establish their businesses in Igboland and you can name them on your fingertips.

“So, what we should be doing is to encourage these billionaires to think home in terms of investments, so that Igbo areas can experience rapid industrial growth. That can be achieved and not to ask people to relocate. Even if Nigeria is divided, you do not move properties and human beings. You only redraw the map. Where you are a citizen you now become a foreigner, and adhere to the laws of the new country. It has happened in many places and our own will not be any different. But nobody is going in that direction.”

He said that the solution to the ethnic questions in Nigeria, including the plight of the Igbo man, must be resolved through political means and urged those agitating to take advantage of the process to canvass the ideals.

His words: “I have always advocated it and I can say boldly that I was instrumental to Igbo people producing two members of the House of Reps in Lagos State currently; because I went there to hold a townhall meeting at Sheraton Hotel in December 2014. I invited 86 extant Igbo associations, markets and other groups, excluding town unions.

“It was a very successful townhall meeting. It was on non-partisan basis, but highly political. Nobody ever had such a townhall meeting in Lagos before me or after me. In fact, they have been asking me to come for a repeat, which will hold, but this time it will be based on UPP. With that awareness, we now have at least two seats in the state assembly in Lagos and two in Abuja representing constituencies in Lagos. This is what I like to see in Kano, in Plateau State, and all the places where we have heavy presence in certain constituencies.

“I will like to see us contribute to the election of a governor, who may not be Igbo, but may rely on Igbo votes to be able to form government. Such governments will definitely be more broad-based even in that state than what we have today. It is UPP that has a plan to unify Nigeria politically than any other political party.”

Insisting that the party was totally opposed to dismemberment of Nigeria, he said, in structure and ideals, it had mapped out strategies to address all the fears being expressed in the country, particularly from those who felt oppressed.

He added: “No. UPP is not for secession. UPP is for a restructured country that gives every ethnic nationality a sense of liberty, a sense of freedom, a sense of enjoying its own effort in human development and substantial part of its natural endowment. And Nigeria is such a country that there is hardly any section that does not have one natural endowment or the other.

“But there is an attitude of both selfishness and wickedness on the part of those who have held Nigeria to the jugular, by emphasising only resources from oil and behaving in a manner that suggest that they couldn’t wait for this oil to be depleted and exhausted. So that they could now begin to explore their own. Nobody comes with such intrigues and grows a nation.

“All our resources should be developed at the same time and people will see why they cannot constitute an island onto themselves. There is no way UPP will advocate for secession. Because we believe that if we set out to achieve what we want to achieve, there will be no need to secede. What are you seceding from? From where to where? Look, let me tell you, Igbo people own this country more than any other ethnic group. And I say it with all sense of responsibility and sense of history.”

  

Source Whirlwindnews.com

ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!

Cameroun Internet Shutdown: Before we leap for joy!

Commentary@ITRealms:

Five months ago, We at the Afrika Youth Movement (AYM) with the aid of our members on the ground from the English speaking regions of Cameroon, released exclusive interviews and video to project the strike from the youth voices in Cameroon,  a country that has seen just one president since 1986.

As a resulted, we have partnered with other human rights organizations addressing an Open Letter To Cameroonian Government On Internet Connectivity In Anglophone Regions in English and French.  

We also condemned human rights abuses in Cameroon, our member Molinge Henry spoke out for justice in Cameroon on local newspapers. 

But should we leap for joy?

With the restoration of the internet by Paul Biya, in these regions after 94 days of deprivation, euphoria has greeted not only nationals, but also activists and the diasporas as a revival of the negative impact on the populace which highlighted the international trending of #BringBackOurInternet. The legendary question hovers, should we genuinely leap for joy?

Biya has asserted that he is no different from other African leaders in Gabon, Ethiopia, Chad, Uganda, the Gambia, Democratic Republic of Congo, the Republic of Congo and others who have used internet restriction to oppress the voices of the marginalized. Their major vices toward their people have been to eliminate those who stand against their ways of power clinching despite their unpopularity and their incompetence toward thought leadership and honest governance. Their strategies to maintain their grip are no doubt tantamount to the violation of people's rights and freedom.

Before celebrating the return of citizens’ deserved internet, let us go back to the core matter; did they take to the street because of the internet cut? Or was it as a side effect to the action taken by the marginalized against their marginalization? With this established, does the internet restoration solve the anglophones’ problem?

In a series of interviews recently carried out as we commune with young leaders, activists and citizens in different fields across Cameroon on this issue.  Their only excitement that floated stemmed from the reinstallation of the ‘lazy’ internet as the guarantee to reconnect to their loved ones has been rekindled. 

Our source from Buea, whose identity would not be disclose for security reasons, says “the biggest sufferer are tech entrepreneurs whose businesses survive solely on the internet because customers can only assess them digitally through social medias and websites.” In a global system where economies of countries are driven by young tech entrepreneurs, and Buea being the tech hub of Cameroon, President Biya’s clamp down took “a great leap” backward for Cameroon with serious damage on the economy. The economic losses are estimated at a minimum of $4.5 million according to Access Now.

This shutdown disrupted access to vital information, e-financing and emergency services; not minimizing the interrupted remittances from the diaspora to Cameroon. In fact, according to the Brookings Institution, a similar decision in Ethiopia that lasted for just 30days, that is from June to July, cost the country the sum of $8 million.

Before we leap for joy on Cameroon, we have to ask questions like; what about the activists held illegally in police custody?

It should be noted that what gyrated into the internet ban was a result of protest from teachers and lawyers which degenerated to the students and the man on the street who all have been complaining against unequal laws and the biased educational policies and implementation toward the Anglophone sub system. This led to many youth being assaulted and dozens more arrested. The height of trying to control the protest from spilling over was internet shutdown. So what happens to these young activists facing trial for simply exercising their freedom of expression and association besides schools shutdown and loss of vital access to education?

Before we leap for joy on Cameroon, we must ensure it is a safe place for youth advocates, activists, academics, entrepreneurs and citizens. Thus President Paul Biya has to address the concerns of Anglophone Cameroon. A referendum should not be a bad idea except that President Biya knows his support is at an all-time low in Southern Cameroon and whatever policies he comes up with be countered. So his only way will be to manipulate results as this is what dictators are known for.

It is becoming a trend among African leaders to disconnect their people from the world and promote a façade of the real issues in the country for the benefit of a selected few whose time has gone.

It is problematic to see the international community’s reactions to issues of the Internet shutdown, notably with the statement  by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression and the statement by the UN envoy for Central Africa. Apart from these statements, there has not been international reaction or action  on the core issues and demands of English Speaking Cameroonians whose rights have been violated.

Human rights approach to the problem should not lay much weight on Digital Rights and disregard the discriminatory practices and policies by the Cameroonian government against Anglophone regions.

In the midst of  global challenges, it seems this issue is not perceived to be a priority. 

Therefore, we demand to:

1.    The Immediate release of all arrested (who are mostly Cameroonian youth) by the government 

2.    A compensation plan for businesses that have lost huge profits due to the deliberate act of the government in an era where internet is key to survival for business.

3.    The African Union to act and call on the Cameroon government to stop Human Rights violations and encourage a National Dialogue

*Contributed by Daniel Nwaeze, Media and Communications Lead, Afrika Youth Movement, email: info@afrikayouthmovement.org

ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!