Sanwo-Olu promises more funds for Lagos tech startups - ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

Technology startups and entrepreneurs operating in Lagos State will have a better time to improve their businesses and take their skills to another level if the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in Lagos, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, is elected to govern the state, reports ITREALMS.

The APC candidate said his government would increase the funds dedicated for the development of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and lessen the conditions to access the funds at the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF). This, he said, is in line with his drive to make Lagos economy smart and a 21st-Century economy.

LSETF was established to provide financial support to SMEs and entrepreneurs to tackle unemployment through jobs and wealth creation.

Sanwo-Olu spoke before a large number of young entrepreneurs and tech startups at the Lagos Enterprise Summit held at Harbour Point on the Victoria Island. The event had the theme: The Enterprise Initiative: Job for Lagos.

Sanwo-Olu also urged successful SME operators to take up and train interns for mentoring purpose, saying the such action would have multiplier effect on young people’s productivity and economic development.

He said: “Lagos has recorded successes and positive interventions through Employment Trust Funds. Many entrepreneurs have accessed these funds to improve their business. We are going to double the funding for this agency to reach more entrepreneurs and startups. We will also review the conditions for getting start-up loans, with the aim to lessen them for more people to access the funds.”

The APC candidate, who was accompanied to the summit by his running mate, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat and their wives, Dr. Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu and Mrs. Oluremi Hamzat, urged the entrepreneurs not to rest on their oars in bringing out innovations to improve their business and skills, noting that economic growth in the modern times was being anchored on problem-solving innovations.

Sanwo-Olu said his government, if elected, would be initiating policies that would be geared towards making working and living in Lagos safe, adding that his thematic programmes codenamed “THEME” would create atmosphere for the entrepreneurs to flourish.

He said: “Our programmes ‘THEME’ is strategically designed to solve the challenges most of our entrepreneurs are facing. We are coming to make your businesses thrive and create policies that will make you the strategic partners in making Lagos a smart economy. We believe solving traffic problems would empower entrepreneurs and SMEs to deliver their products and services on time.

“We are going to complete the light rail projects, which are projected to bring about seamless and rapid transportation in Lagos. The use of light rail will also lessen the burden on our roads.”

The APC candidate also said the environment policies of his administration would create wealth from the tonnes of waste generated in the state. He said women would play key role in driving his government’s waste management ideas.

The convener of the summit, Tonya Lawani-Okojie, said the event was organised with the objective to foster partnership between policymakers in the public sectors and entrepreneurs for economic growth.

Nenye Dom/DoP

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Dr. Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, All Progressives Party governorship candidate, Miss Omoshalewa Olusanya, Tonya Lawani-Okojie, Convener of the Lagos Enterprise Summit, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat, deputy governorship candidate and his wife, Mrs. Oluremi Hamzat after the summit. 

Winners Chapel gathers materials for IDP camps - ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

Members of the Living Faith Church Worldwide also known as Winners Chapel this Sunday gathered items which incuded clothing, foods, shoes, bedding and many more to demonstrate their loe for the displaced Nigerians being housed in about 87 camps for the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) cross the country, reports ITREALMS.

Th items soon to be dispatched to the camps came in large numbers as members demonstrated their love for God and humanity in line with the biblical injunction of giving to the needy through a generous donation of gift items ranging from clothing, foodstuff and cash.

The Apostle of the church, Bishop David Oyedepo had on Sunday, January 20, enjoined members of the church on the need to give to the needy especially now that the annual 21 days of prayers and fasting of the church ends this Sunday.

Taking his text from Psalms 41 verses 1-3,Bishop Oyedepo stressed the need for Christians to give to those around them especially those at various IDP camps across the country.

According to him; “They are not there by their making but forced out of their ancestral homes. Giving is an avenue for open doors”.

He blessed members for their steadfastness and response to the call as members of the church were seen ferrying various bags of gift items to the designated collation centres around the church. The humanitarian gifts are expected to be shared across 87 IDP camps in 10 states in the country this week.

Ayo Midele/DoP

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Ekiti to arrest parents of pupils hawking at school hours - ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, has warned that henceforth, government will arrest parents of pupils found hawking during school hours; stressing that parents must take advantage of the free education policy of his government to reduce the number of out-of-school children, reports ITREALMS.

Speaking in Ado Ekiti at an Education Stakeholders’ meeting at the Conference Hall of the Governor’s office in Ado-Ekiti on Friday, the Governor said all hands must be on deck to checkmate the declining school enrolment rate in the State so that the State’s slogan- ‘Fountain of Knowledge’ does not become an exaggeration.

Governor Fayemi, had shortly after his inauguration last year October declared free education from primary school to senior secondary school in the state and abolished all education levies and the education tax introduced by the immediate past administration in the state.

He lamented at the meeting, which was well attended by all stakeholders in the education sector, that many parents were yet to take full advantage of the free and qualitative education policy of the administration, adding that part of the responsibilities of government is to ensure that children and youth- who are the future of the nation- were properly groomed through qualitative education that will prepare them for the future.

The Governor said the current school enrolment rate of 55 per cent as against 96 per cent recorded in 2014 was unacceptable to his government, adding that something must be done urgently to reverse the ugly trend.

A press statement made available to ITREALMS by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Mr Yinka Oyebode, Dr Fayemi also disclosed that government has started compiling the records of retired teachers, with a view to determining available vacancies in the teaching service.

He added that his administration will soon commence recruitment of competent and qualified teachers who will help to raise the standard of education in the State.

The Governor also disclosed that the administration had commenced the process of returning mission schools to their original owners, but stressed that government would continue to monitor them to ensure that the schools do not decline in standard.

Earlier in their remarks, the highly elated stakeholders in the education sector had commended the Governor for the various steps already taken by the administration in restoring the lost glory of the education sector.

Representative of the State chapter of the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools, Mr Babatunde Abegunde, said the abrogation of education levies had taken off the burden of debts of school fees from parents; adding that many parents could not afford to pay their children’s school fees as salaries were not regular.

Abegunde urged Governor Fayemi to look into issues of multiple taxations in the education sector, which according to him, had hindered many school owners from undertaking infrastructure development in their schools.

In his remarks, the chairman of the State chapter of the Parent-Teacher-Association (PTA), Chief Adeola Osadare, lauded Governor Fayemi for paying the 2019 WAEC fee of about 14,000 students in the public schools across the State.

Osadare said the gesture will help many students who had dropped out of school to re-enrol, as there is hope of free school certificate examination registration under Fayemi’s watch.

Other stakeholders such as the chairman of the Nigerian Union of Teachers, Mr Samuel Olugbesan also thanked the Governor for prioritizing the welfare of teachers.

Olugbesan declared the second coming of Fayemi has been a huge blessing to teachers because “things that directly affect teachers are being addressed and given priority attention by the Governor”

Uj. N. Dom/Editor

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PDP advises Tanko to quit the Bench now - ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has noted the illegal swearing in of members of the election petitions tribunal judges by Justice Mohammed Tanko and surmised that his action was a complete nullity, reports ITREALMS.

Kola Ologbondiyans, the National Publicity Secretary and Director, Media & Publicity
PDP Presidential Campaign Organization,The PDP insists that in the face of our law, Justice Tanko cannot function as a Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), as there is no vacancy in that office since the 1999 Constitution (as amended) has no provision for two Chief Justices of Nigeria at any particular time.  Justice Walter Onnoghen is still in charge as the Chief Justice of Nigeria.

The PDP therefore charges Justice Tanko to note that he is allowing himself to be used by despotic forces in their bid to truncate our hard-earned democracy.

It is also imperative for Justice Tanko to agree that, having allowed himself to be used to desecrate the hallowed temple of justice, his oath of office and oath of allegiance, the only option left for him is to quit the bench.

The PDP reminds Justice Tanko of his membership of the panel set up by the National Judicial Council (NJC), which on March 14, 2018, forced Justice Obisike Orji to quit the bench and go on a compulsory retirement, for allowing himself to be sworn in as the Acting Chief Judge of Abia State without the statutory recommendation of the NJC.

From Justice Tanko’s first illegal assignment, which is the swearing-in of election tribunal Justices for the forthcoming elections, Nigerians can now see the raison d’etre for his illegal appointment. This action is in itself a nullity and we caution the said justices to be reminded of the popular maxim that something cannot be built on nothing. 

Nigerians can recall that the PDP had always alerted that President Buhari is bent on removing Justice Onnoghen so as to replace him with a pliable CJN that would help him uphold his rigging plots and achieve his self-succession bid, having realized that he cannot win in any free and fair electoral contest.

The PDP invites the world to note that when Nigerians were in the trenches for this democracy, General Muhammadu Buhari, as he was then known, was in cahoots with the last dictator against the will the people. It is therefore not strange that today, President Buhari, once again, wants to subdue our democracy and subvert the rule of law.
  
However, the PDP wants President Buhari to know that Nigerians, irrespective of tribe, creed or political leaning, will never allow anybody, no matter how highly placed, to push our nation to the abyss of anarchy.

Ayo Midele/Editor

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Globalstar unveils SPOT X two-way satellite device - ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

The Dublin-based Globalstar Europe Satellite Services Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Globalstar Inc. and the leader in satellite messaging and emergency notification technologies, unveils its SPOT X two-way satellite communications device is now available across Europe and North Africa, reports ITREALMS.

The latest generation of the popular SPOT family of products, SPOT X offers full two-way SMS and email as well as GPS tracking and a one-touch SOS button that instantly sends the user’s GPS location to the GEOS International Emergency Response Coordination Centre (IERCC) over Globalstar’s satellite network. The IERCC then transmits details to local first responders to dispatch help to the user’s precise location.

SPOT X is the only satellite messenger on the market to give users a permanent phone number, easy check-in function and a full, backlit QWERTY keypad for intuitive typing. SPOT X also offers the industry’s longest battery life in both tracking and SOS modes and is priced competitively.

While SPOT is primarily known for providing SOS and tracking for adventurers including hikers, sailors and paragliders, SPOT has been increasingly adopted by enterprises and non-commercial organisations to safeguard personnel working in remote or dangerous locations where mobile and radio communications are unreliable or non-existent.

Chuks Egbune/DoP

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3,000 Ekiti youths get 2019 free JAMB e-Registration pins - ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

The Ekiti State Government has distributed free JAMB forms to 3,000 qualified but vulnerable youths and out of school youths across the sixteen local government areas of the State, reports ITREALMS.

Distributing the forms on Friday, Wife of the Governor, Erelu Bisi Fayemi, said the present administration will continue to prioritize the education of Ekiti Youth for national development.

According to the Wife of the Governor, beneficiaries were chosen having obtained a minimum of six credit passes in either WAEC and NECO at one sitting.

Speaking at the event, Erelu Fayemi said this kind gesture of the present administration will benefit the youths in securing their future since they are the leaders of tomorrow.

"This is a commitment of Governor Kayode Fayemi towards extending the dividend of democracy to our teeming youths and actualization of his knowledge economy agenda."

"This singular act, if effectively utilised would permanently liberate the candidates from the shackles of ignorance, abject poverty and backwardness in life," she explained.

She however assured that the present administration would leave no stone unturned in preparing the future leaders of Ekiti with requisite qualification to enable them to improve upon the solid foundation that the present government is laying upon.

The Wife of the Governor told the audience that twenty million naira had been committed to the purchase of 2019 JAMB PINS as well as the creation of a profile, provision of  E-Training, JAMB online registration and thumbprinting exercise at no cost to the candidate.

Erelu Fayemi urged the beneficiaries to reciprocate the gesture by being committed to their studies and desist from act capable of truncating their future.

Earlier the permanent secretary Ministry of Education, Science and Technology Mr. Ayodeji Ajayi said the gesture will in no small measure relieve parents who are struggling to make ends meet from the financial burden of providing JAMB pins for their wards.

He advised beneficiaries of the programme to attend the training provided by the government and maximize the opportunity to acquire more knowledge.

The highpoint of the event was the presentation of JAMB scratch cards to some selected candidates by the wife of the Governor.

Some of the beneficiaries lauded the state government for the kind gesture with a promise to be more committed to their studies.

Uj. N. Dom

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PIX: L-R: Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology; Wife of Ekiti State Governor, Erelu Bisi Fayemi; and Permanent Secretary, Teaching Service Commission, Dr (Mrs) Bimpe Osundare; presenting a JAMb/UTME form to one of the beneficiaries at the flag-off Ceremony for the Distribution of 2019 Free Jamb/UTME forms at Ola-Oluwa Muslim Grammar School Hall, Ado-Ekiti…on Friday.

Onnoghen: PDP's suspension of campaign face-saving measure - ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has described as a face saving measure the decision by the PDP to pull the brakes on its electioneering campaign over Justice Walter Onnoghen's suspension, saying the PDP's campaign never gained traction in the first instance, reports ITREALMS.

Responding in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, on Saturday, over the suspension of the PDP's campaign, the Minister said: ''Which Campaign? Their campaign was over a long time ago. There is nothing to suspend. We said it that their campaign had floundered. You can now see. What they are doing now is looking for a face-saving way out of a dead and buried campaign.''

He wondered why the PDP is crying more than the bereaved, and asked the opposition party whether Justice Onnoghen is one of its members.

“And in any event, let’s ask them this question: Is there something that they know that we don’t know? Is there something between them and the suspended CJN? Otherwise, we did not see why they should suspend their campaign anyway, but I can understand that their campaign was bound to end this way,” Alhaji Mohammed said.

He said while Nigerians have been trooping out in large numbers wherever the President’s campaign ship berths, the PDP supporters have been dwindling by the day.

Uboshe Uboshe/Editor

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EKITI 2019 budget aim @completing abandoned projects - ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

The Ekiti State Government has said that one of the major focus of the 2019 budget signed into law by the state governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi on Thursday is to ensure the completion of all abandoned capital projects across the State in line with the four pillars of the administration, reports ITREALMS.

The State Commissioner of Finance and Economic, Mr Dapo Kolawole, disclosed this on Friday, during a Budget Analysis session with the media and stakeholders in Ado-Ekiti.  Kolawole said some new capital projects were also incorporated into the budget in order to promote sustainable and expansive economic development in the State.

The Finance Commissioner, citing earlier promise by Governor Fayemi on prompt payment of workers salaries and pensions, said the 2019 budget is structured in a way that spending on capital projects would not affect government’s plan for prompt payment of salaries of workers.

He also revealed that government was still owing contracts about N750 million on the newly built Governor’s Office that was commissioned with funfair in May last year by the immediate past administration. He , however said that the amount was captured in the 2019 budget, as government was not ready to owe any body regardless of who gave the contract.

Kolawole who noted that the four pillars of the administration will be the pillars of the budget stated that government has put in place implementation plans and operational approaches in order to ensure that the expected outcomes are achieved within the planned timeframe.

He added that the budget is tailored to improved the State’s IGR while closing monitoring same for the purpose of blocking all leakages of accruals.

While noting that the performance of the 2018 budget was 32% on capital expenditure, the commissioner said the 2019 budget has 56:44 recurrent capital ration in accordance with the Fiscal Sustainability Plan of the federal government as against 69:31 ration in the 2018 budget.

According to the breakdown analysis given by Kolawole, the 2019 budget whose size is #129,924,472,135.01 is to be funded from various sources including federal allocation which is expected to provide 29% of the funds, IGR and VAT, FAAC augmentation, ecological fund, World Bank’s IDEAS, external grants, State Fiscal Transparency Accountability Sustainability (SFTAS) and reimbursement on federal projects executed by the State, among others.

In line with the executive order abrogating payment of education levies, provision was made for grants to cater for schools while payment of gratuities which has not been made since2013 has also been provided for.

Four roads leading to Afao, the country home of former governor Ayodele  Fayose have been marked for rehabilitation. These roads are Iworoko-Are-Afao road, Afao-Igbemo road, Afao-Ire road and Ado-Afao road.

Contractual obligations owed by the Fayose-led government to some contractors who handled ongoing and some completed projects such as Adebayo-Ori-Apata-Nova road were also catered for in the budget while the airport project also catered for in the budget will be driven by a public-private partnership arrangement.

18 secondary health facilities across the State will be renovated, a permanent clinic will be put in place at the State secretariat to cater for workers’ health needs while a surgical festival is in the pipeline.

The shortwave station of the Broadcasting Service of Ekiti State located at Ifaki Ekiti will be resuscitated, according to the budget plan.

Perhaps as a way of forestalling a repeat of the failure of the State to make provision for its contingents at last year’s national sports festival, there is provision for the Sports Council in the 2019 budget.

Kolawole solicited the cooperation of all Ekiti indigenes in moving the State forward.

Present at the budget analysis were Secretary to the State Government, Mr Biodun Oyebanji; Director General, Office of Transformation and Service Delivery (OTSD), Prof Bolaji Aluko and the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Mr Yinka Oyebode, who coordinated the session.

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UK, US flay Buhari’s suspension of Chief Justice … too close to election – ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

The United Kingdom and United States of America have flayed the suspension of the Nigeria’s Chief Justice, Mr. Walter Onnoghen by President Mohammadu Buhari on Friday, reports ITREALMS.

Both countries in a press statement available to ITREALMS expressed serious concerns over the suspension.

UK said they have heard a wide range of credible and independent voices, including in the Nigerian legal profession and civil society, who have expressed concern over the constitutionality of the executive branch’s suspension of the chief officer of the judiciary.

“We respect Nigeria’s sovereign authority and its right to adjudicate on constitutional provisions but as friends of the Nigerian people, we are compelled to observe that the timing of this action, so close to national elections, gives cause for concern.

“It risks affecting both domestic and international perceptions on the credibility of the forthcoming elections. We, along with other members of the international community, are following developments closely,” the High Commission said.

Also UK enjoined all actors to maintain calm and address the concerns raised by this development through due process, demonstrating their commitment to respecting the constitution and the impartial administration of the rule of law.

“We further urge them to take steps to ensure that elections take place in an environment conducive to a free, fair and peaceful process,” UK submitted.

In a similar development, United States Diplomatic Mission to Nigeria, via its Public Affairs Section decried the suspension and replacement of the Chief Justice, Mr. Onnoghen, reports ITREALMS.

“The Embassy of the United States is deeply concerned by the impact of the executive branch’s decision to suspend and replace the Chief Justice and head of the judicial branch without the support of the legislative branch on the eve of national and state elections.

“We note widespread Nigerian criticism that this decision is unconstitutional and that it undermines the independence of the judicial branch. That undercuts the stated determination of government, candidates, and political party leaders to ensure that the elections proceed in a way that is free, fair, transparent, and peaceful - leading to a credible result.

“We urge that the issues raised by this decision be resolved swiftly and peacefully in accordance with due process, full respect for the rule of law, and the spirit of the Constitution of Nigeria. Such action is needed urgently now to ensure that this decision does not cast a pall over the electoral process.”

Chuks Egbune/

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Inequality greatest challenge to Nigeria's economy - Fayemi

Personality@ITREALMS:

Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State recently spoke with REMMYNWEKE, Editor, ITREALMS, a member of the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP) in Ado-Ekiti on his second missionary journey and development in Nigeria, asserting that creating opportunities will enable a better society, inequality remains the greatest challenge to Nigeria's economy.

Excerpts.

You have been running the government for 100 days without complaining that the last government rendered you ineffective. How come governance has been running smoothly?

Second missionary journeys are by their nature not given to excuses. If I were to start giving excuses you will ask me that you were there before don’t you know that is how things would be? And if you know that’s how it would be, are you not prepared for the eventuality? Not making excuses is not to suggest that things were in absolutely perfect condition. They were not. Things had degenerated but I was not elected to reel out what’s bad about the situation. I was elected to make it better and that’s what we’ve been trying to do. The resources are not what they used to be; they are much lower but we managed within the available resources to make life better for the people.

I’ve been here for less than three months and we’ve paid four months salaries for that period. We’ve settled pensions for that period. We’ve even started paying severance of past political office holders who were not in a position to receive their severance in that period. We’ve re-introduced free education in the state. We’ve introduced free health programme. We are starting a health mission across the state. Our empowerment programmes are restarting, putting back about 10,000 school leavers back to the school volunteer programme that we used to run.

Basically, for us, we just feel very strongly that our people deserve a new lease of life. They have had a pretty rough ride in the last four years. Lessons have been learned across the board. So, to start giving excuses or to start explaining away the challenges that we have… Challenges will always be there but our duty, and if you recall in my inaugural speech the day I was sworn in, we made a pledge that on our 100th day I will give a state of the state address that will explain in details what we met here.

Part of the reasons why we have been talking or giving interviews or saying this is what went wrong in the past is that we felt the people needed to have a full picture and we didn’t want to do it by our own reckoning so we hired Pricewaterhouse Coopers to do a forensic audit of the state. They are still here and by Thursday we will make the outcome of their investigations public. It is then up to you to do independent verification of what they’ve come up with in terms of the finance of the state particularly and in terms of the way things have been run. We want an independent, credible audit firm to do this and release that information.

Are you confident President Muhammadu Buhari will be re-elected?

It is in my own personal interest for the President to be re-elected. So, let me put my interest upfront so that there is no doubt in my mind. I am also a political scientist and to the best of my knowledge - I don’t want to be complacent - I think the President has a very good chance of being re-elected. Every evidence I can see before me, in spite of the feelings that may be one of disappointment in certain circles because the expectation was much when we came in. Have we met the expectation of the public in its totality? Absolutely not. But, have we done a much better job of protecting the commonwealth of the people? I’d like to think we have. I think it’s going to be a question at the end of the day for the voter who is best placed to protect our interest across the board.

I think the President will win the election.

What is your agenda for women in the spirit of balance for better and also against the backdrop that your wife is a champion of the cause of women?

I would like to think that for us we operate by law to the best of our ability. We were the first state, before it even became a national debate, to pass the equal opportunities law in Nigeria. That was informed by our belief that there is no way you can build a better society by reinforcing patriarchy. You just have to find means of broadening the base, protecting the minorities, creating opportunities that will enable us to have a better society.

Unfortunately, things have gone pear-shaped, in the four years that we have been away here, some of the things we’ve noticed are quite shocking. Rape incidents have increased in Ekiti yet Ekiti was the first state to actually put in place a sexual violence register.

We’ve also noticed that we’ve suffered significantly from either disinterestedness on the part of the government or general malaise in the society. Fifty-five percent of our girls are now out of school in the state that used to have the highest enrolment in the whole of the country – 96 per cent enrolment as of 2014 when I was leaving. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know why we have those problems.

If you don’t pay workers on the one hand, and on the other hand you impose an education tax, somebody who has not eaten will not send a child to school especially in the rural areas and that’s why one of the very first things I did the day I was sworn in was to cancel the education levy and reintroduce free education in the state because that’s one of the basic ways to create equal opportunity.

If there’s no equality of access there’s no way you are going to create opportunities for all particularly for the girl child who is disadvantaged anyway from being educated.

So we start from that and I know we like to play a game of numbers. How many people do you have in your cabinet who are women? How many do you have in your House of Assembly who are women? How many do you have in this and that? Whilst I think it’s important to recognise presence and more because if you have people of a particular gender they tend to understand the problems of the gender better than others, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that it’s going to be like that. I don’t really have a cabinet per se yet. But I’m going to and it’s not going to take too long.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) is presently not as coherent as it was in 2015. You had members in the National Assembly who were more like opposition and you have governors sponsoring candidates in parties. How do you think the electorate who fought to see the APC come into power, would feel?

Parties are not paragons of excellence. Parties are products of the social milieu too and they would always contain the good, the bad and the ugly. So, the reality is that APC is not different. We are not organic enough yet partly by the nature of our formation and coming together, partly because of the exigencies of the times and those who are not fulfilled by nature. Nigerians are not particularly promoters of delayed gratification whether in political parties or in government or in journalism. We want quick results, we want quick wins.

Every journalist comes here and asks me about quick wins. They don’t want to ask me about long term development goals. We are victims of that in the APC too. You can say we are victims of our quick success. Our party was formed in 2013. By March 2015 we won an election, even though we were still at the time not organic, there were still variegated interests being pursued by members of the party.

You then ended up with different centres of power in the party and people started hobnobbing with different centres of power. It’s just the nature of politics but then it’s not unique to us.

Even parties that are long established, I mean there is a civil war going on within the Republican Party in America. There is a massive civil war going on within the Tories in the United Kingdom. Even in much more mature, settled democracy, it’s taken four months for Sweden to form a government. So maybe we are not as bad as it seems but we are not as good as we would like to be. But APC is a party of the future.

President Muhammadu Buhari said some time ago that the economy is in bad shape. If President Buhari should win the election, with what you know about the economy, what would you advise him to do to ensure that we keep the economy running for the society to be better?

For me the greatest challenge in this economy is inequality. It’s not even poverty. This is not the only society where you have poor people, but it’s the gap between the mindlessly rich and the hopelessly poor that I see as the greatest challenge that we must address. How do we address that without focusing on social investment? We are only scratching the surface.

I don’t like to take credit for it but many of the things we were doing here before I went into the wilderness. When I went into the wilderness I had the opportunity of serving as the person in charge of policy and manifesto in our party. We tried to introduce all of that, our social security for the elderly, our youth volunteer scheme, those are the things that are now known as N-Power, conditional cash transfer, Trader Moni and all that. But we are only scratching the surface.

All together in the last three years that government have effectively run the budget, we haven’t even spent N300 billion on the social investment programmes. And in that same period, we have spent N700 billion to rescue Keystone Bank. We are probably going to spend more to rescue Skye Bank in its latter-day form as Polaris.

If you consider how much we spend, N6 trillion to rescue banks in the previous era, if we pour that into the hopeless and hapless segment of our population maybe we begin to address this disempowering impact of inequality on our society but it’s not just by dashing out cash to people, it’s by creating opportunities for our people as well and I think that’s where we have not done enough.

We’ve scratched the surface as I’ve said. We’ve done a lot. We now earn 60 percent less than what we used to earn and yet we are doing a lot more. People don’t give us too much credit for what we are doing and I don’t think it’s your fault. It’s also partly our fault. We are not as friendly with the media and we are not giving information as we ought to. Maybe we need training from you on how to package our views so they become more accessible and readable and available to the public but all of the things that we said we were going to do in our manifesto, in terms of concrete impact on the population, we’ve actually started.

But the way to juxtapose that is – What was the situation beforehand? Where were we? Where are we now? And where would we like to be? So for me, the advice that I will give first is that we must not let the perfect become the enemy of the good. Some good is going on in this country but our search for the perfect is probably beclouding our own honest sense of perspective of the good that is happening and that cannot be blamed on the citizenry. It has to be blamed on leadership.

We have to make that information as available as possible. Is this the best that we can be? Absolutely not. So when I hear objective criticisms of our government, I take it. I’m a local politician I’m not an Abuja minister so I hear a lot more. I spent the entire day in the market today with the Vice President and people genuinely expressed their concern. I went on a home visit with the Vice President this afternoon and an old man, 80-year-old, actually spoke from the heart about what we are all experiencing. I don’t know anyone who is not experiencing it in the country. The man told us that “Look I’m 80 I really don’t need anything. But Mr Vice President, can you just make sure that my children get jobs? They are graduates, they don’t have jobs.”

I don’t know any home in this country where you don’t have two, three, four unemployed graduates. I know the number of text messages I get even in small Ekiti from our people. Those are the areas that I think we can make a difference and we can lift our people out of poverty. It’s been done in many other places, so there’s no reason why we cannot spend the next four years focusing on that.

There are some things that we have not paid enough attention to. We need a quicker turnaround in decision making and implementation. We need to be more responsive to the yearnings of our people so that they don’t feel we are taking them for granted and we need to focus on better alternatives than (crude) oil and I don’t know any better alternative in other countries that have found themselves in our situation – Vietnam, Indonesia, China – you name it, the first route is agriculture, out of poverty. It’s when they’ve done that that they then move on to manufacturing, industrialisation.

But we can jump the hoop. We don’t have to re-invent the wheel because these things have been done elsewhere and I believe that Nigeria holds the hope for black people in the world. We need to demonstrate by example.

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