YOUNG ACHIEVERS SUMMIT ABUJA

Young Achievers Summit 2016

Connect. Collaborate. Co-Create

Young people hold the keys to unlocking Nigeria’s domestic resources and changing our narrative from a nation with great potentials to a nation of substance with viable institutions and endless opportunities.

YOUNG ACHIEVERS SUMMIT 2016 features the convergence of young achievers and business executives from different spectrum of our economy; from Entrepreneurship to Politics, Agriculture, Technology, Media Activism, Fashion, Entertainment and Education etc.

The Summit affords participants ample opportunity to connect with like minds; listen and learn from Iconic Achievers as they share on key important issues; at the same time featuring insightful discussions from Iconic CEOs drawn from different sectors sharing practical business experiences and their life journey.

The Summit will also feature the Induction of 6 Iconic CEOs and the launch of CEO MEET UP; an extraordinary initiative that will serve as a launch-pad for many young CEOs to Connect, Collaborate and Co-create.

Our objective through the CEO MEET UP is to bring together 50 Young CEOs from diverse background who will converge every last Saturday of the month to be Mentored, Coached, Inspired and Fired-up by 6 Iconic CEOs for a period of 1 year to Create Value, Create Jobs and Create Wealth.

Ø Theme:

The Challenge of Excellence.

Date: 11^th June, 2016

Venue: Nanet Suites Abuja, Bedise Thisday Dome

Time: 9:00am prompt.

Register to attend and a chance to join the CEO MEET-UP

(Registration is free, closes 6^th of June 2016)

                                                                    www.yas.com.ng

Victor Okwuadi

Founder, I AM NIGERIA Initiative.

How can we use Social Media to mobilize support for Pressing Community Problems? @NSMC2016

Google, Facebook, Twitter etc. these are amazing inventions that have made the 21st more intertwined and interconnected.

Question is how can our generation use these

Social Tools to mobilize support for Pressing Community Problems? Join us @ Nigeria Social Media Conference to deliberate and discuss the possibilities.

Lead Speaker: 
Bukky Shonibare- ‪#‎BringBackOurGirls‬ Campaigner

Discussants:
Hamzat B. Lawal- CEO, Connected Development
Ogbeni Omotayo Adeshola Agboola- CEO, Landscape Works Services Nig. Ltd.
Cera Inspires- Blogger/ Life Coach

Moderator: FemiD Amele, Host of LetsTalk on Nigeria Info FM.

Date: 8th April, 2016.
Venue: Nanet Suites, Abuja, beside Thisday Dome.
Time: 9:00am prompt.

Register to attend (Registration is Free)
www.nsmc.com.ng

'How to use Social Media to challenge brands and business leaders to engage in CSR' @NSMC2016

Are you an Aspiring Blogger or a Professional Blogger, a Social Activist, a Community Organizer or a curious person like myself who enjoys listening to smart thinking people speak on pressing issues? 

Come listen to these great minds as they speak and discuss ‘How to use Social Media to challenge brands and business leaders to engage in CSR’ @ Nigeria Social Media Conference.

Date: 8^th April, 2016.

Venue: Nanet Suites, Abuja, beside Thisday Dome.

Time: 9:00am prompt

Register to attend (Registration is Free)

www.nsmc.com.ng

Nigeria Social Media Conference

Social Media has bridged the gap between dreaming and doing and has leveled most critical Social Barriers.

So, how can we use Social Media to challenge brands and business leaders to engage in CSR?

Join us @ Nigeria Social Media Conference to deliberate and discuss the possibilities.

Lead Speaker: Tope Fasua - President, ISEGG.

Discussants:

Kalada Hart- CEO, tatafonaija
Chinedu Igwe- Philanthropist
Basiru Sunday Amuneni- Performance Poet

Moderator: Amb Utchay Odims- Radio/TV Host

Date: 8th April, 2016.
Venue: Nanet Suites, Abuja, beside Thisday Dome.
Time: 9:00am prompt.

Register to attend (Registration is Free)
www.nsmc.com.ng

Erin Ijesa Waterfall, Osun State

Erin Garden is a thick forest that houses Erin Ijesa Waterfalls. It is located some 20 kilometers east of IIesa-Akure Road. According to the custodian of the waterfall, it was founded by a woman called Akinla -a granddaughter of Oduduwa in the year 11AD during the migration of people to Erin Ijesa town. 

The waterfall has about five layers and only few visitors can climb beyond the second layer. The water flows among rocks and splashes down with great force to the evergreen vegetation around making the scenery, idyllic to the eyes.

Exclusive Interview: Pat Utomi

Professor Patrick Okedinachi Utomi is a professor of political economy and management expert. He was a Presidential Aspirant in 2007 and 2011 Elections. He is the founder of Centre for Values in Leadership and one of the principalities behind the emergence of a political movement that brought the biggest party in Africa down.
 
In this exclusive interview, Professor Utomi shares with us all the gives and takes that gave birth to the All Progressives Congress; the key players and several economic thoughts that will put Nigeria on the trajectory of greatness.

-Professor, you were born in Kaduna in 1956 and you started your primary education at St. Thomas, Kano and moved to Our Lady of Fatima. What was growing up like for you?

Childhood was fun; those were truly the years of innocence, not just innocence for me as a child but innocence for a generation-for our country. Those were the years of trust, where a village raised a child, where somebody saw you doing wrong in the streets who you’ve never seen spanks you and says “when you get home, tell your father that so and so person spanked you for doing something wrong”. And so I grew up with a sense of being secure-of a safe world.

As a 9 year old, I traveled from Zamfara state to Onitsha all alone. I took a train from Gusau, got to Kaduna and changed trains, got to Enugu got off the train and entered a bus as a 9 year old boy. Today, a 24 year old man is going for NYSC, his mother follows him, calls for police on the other side and all kinds of things. This is a death of innocence we are dealing with here. As a child there was freedom to explore; very rascally and at the same time very dutiful and obedient. An altar boy who got to our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church 5:30am every morning to serve Mass. 

Those were the days when United States of America had a young vibrant President called John F. Kennedy and the priests at our Lady of Fatima in Igbuzor were Americans. They encouraged us with the excitement of a Kennedy. Believe it or not at age 7, I read books about American Presidents. I had a rich, colorful childhood.

-You graduated from high school at 15 and the entry for University then was 17. What were you doing before you gained admission to study Mass Communication at Nsuka? 

Well it wasn’t as smooth a direct entry track from I graduated high school, I went to the University. There was 2 years in between because of how early I graduated but I actually never intended to go to the university at all, it was not in my game plan. The time I was growing up, there was a great excitement about a new area that was opening up and that area was aviation, everybody wanted to be an airline pilot. To make matters even more complicated, one of my school mates as soon as he finished school Cert in January by February he was in America in a flying school, by November he was back in Nigeria a commercial pilot. 

Every evening after flying to Benin or wherever it was he took the F27 to, he would come and pick me up in his sports car and we will drive around Surulere. So, I started dreaming of becoming an airline pilot, I stopped thinking about going to the University but my father obviously had other ideas.

So, he said he will encourage me to be a pilot, “however, you know the best friends you make in life are friends you make on campus, so why don’t you go to the University for a year or two and make friends”. He said. It seemed very reasonable since I was so young, so I said to myself “I’ll go to the University for a year or two and by the time I’m 19 I’ll be an airline pilot.” So, I took the concessional entrance examination to Universities and lo and behold here comes admission to the University of Nigeria.

My plan was to go in for two years and have fun. I got the form, closed my eyes put down the pencil and what it touched turned out to be Mass Communication. So, I filled the form, put down Mass Communication take the entrance and somehow I passed.

Immediately after the civil war, many people around the world had written books, journals to the University of Nigeria to help them build their library. The University could not afford librarians and in the case of my department, the HOD suggested something, “Look if you students can organize yourselves, I can give you the keys to the library and you take care of it.” Nobody wanted to take up the responsibility, so I went to the HOD and I collected the keys and now am accountable to the place. What do I do next? That was the question I asked myself. So, the sense of responsibility takes over, if I’m not there nobody gets the chance to use the library.

Just to be sure people get the chance to use the library I was not sleeping or eating or in the class-I would be in the library, and since I was there, there was nothing else to do, I began to read all the books in the library and my life changed completely. Instead of going to a flying school, I went to a graduate school.

 -You professional life has been very fulfilling, in fact you were appointed by President Shehu Shagari as a Special Adviser when you came back from the US in the 80s. What was it like; I mean you were young then?

Yes. I was young, I was 27 then. Actually I didn’t expect to be appointed to anything, very amazing story about the position which I was appointed. Because of my views expressed through the media and other platforms, people were curious to know my position on some policy issues. I had made some commentaries around taxation, a gentle man who happens to be a good friend of the Vice President at the time, Alex Ekwueme and the Chairman of his committee of friends, Chief Bayo Kuku was saying somewhere that he wish he could get hold of me and someone told him he knows me and they fetched me and they asked me if I could prepare a paper on tax policy and I said “why not am a consultant, you pay, I work”.

So Chief Kuku asked me how much is the money and I mentioned an amount and he walks to the back of his car, he comes out and gives me the cash for the full consultancy. So, I did it very quickly and I did it well. When I finished I asked him if there was any more consultancy, he laughed and said “whenever you are broke, come”.

One Friday, I got a call from the SA to the Vice President and he said the Vice President will like to see me tomorrow. I went to his house and when I got there, he was making conversation on a number of policy issues and just in the middle of it he says “by the way yesterday, President Shagari approved for you to replace a Professor who was a special adviser to him on Political Affairs.”

So, I told him I will think about it and I went off. As I was driving home in Surulere, on getting home I met a classmate of mine and I told him I just had a very strange conversation this afternoon and he said what is that? I said President Shagari had just approved for me to be an adviser. And he said what did you say to him? I said I will think about it and he said let me park my car and go with you and tell him that you’ve finished thinking about it. Of course I didn’t do that but I eventually communicated to the SA that it sounded like an interesting proposition. That was how I became an adviser.

-You managed Volkswagen Nigeria for ten years, you were vice-chairman Platinum-Habib Bank, and you have pioneered a lot of successful organizations. In what ways have these responsibilities shaped the eye with which you see the world?

In very interesting ways. My position in Shagari’ administration was truncated by a military coup some months after. Just before the coup came, I was becoming very frustrated already with policy ideas that I was churning out, desperate to find things that will move the country forward. I hardly slept at a point. Funny enough almost the same kind of issues you are talking about today, corruption. So, every morning I will tell the Permanent Secretary in charge this is what and what we should do and he would say “if we do this, that ministry will complain, if we do this, we are stepping on that person’s toe”. One day, I went and I asked him, “Mr. Perm. Sec. is there anything we can possibly do?”

I was reluctant after that experience arguing everyday with the Perm. Sec. what can be done. I literality said to myself, I will not return to public life, until I am certain that the environment will enable me to make a difference, so that I don’t end up in office without the power to do anything.

Interestingly, in recent times, one of the things that have happened is that I have been asked, first example is late President Yar’Adua. He invited me to Abuja and he said to me, what is wrong with Nigeria? And I told him Mr. President if you ask me that question what you’ll get is a six hour response. So, I began to analyze Nigeria, he listened without interrupting, he didn’t fall asleep, he was listening intently and when I finished he said, “Prof that’s what everybody says, that a few people understand Nigeria and its problems as you do. Why don’t you come and let us solve these problems together”. 

I said ok Mr. President, you know there is nothing you’ll ask of me that I won’t give you my opinion, I’m a patriot, you can call me 2am and say you have this issue what do you think about it. But I am reluctant to accept public office, but if you really want me to serve in your government what you must do is appoint seven first class people and am willing to be number eight. And he said “why don’t you give me the names of those seven first class people?”

I found seven remarkable people from different parts of Nigeria that I put on that list: Fola Adeola, Oby Ezekwesili, Nasir El-Rufai and four others and I sent it to the President through Steve Oronsaye. I didn’t hear from the President and shortly after that he announced his cabinet members and we never got to see again till he passed away. There are schools of thoughts; some people believe that President Yar’Adua never saw the list. I think that if President Yar’Adua had lived he would have been a good President.

- Professor Utomi, if you are given the opportunity to serve under President Buhari, will you take it?

You know how many delegations I have received on this subject, of people who say to me, you know you always  refuse to serve, if you don’t do it this time, just shut up. Again, my conditions haven’t changed, there must be enough serious people, but I think there’s seriousness generally speaking. The question is how do we strategically position the business of selecting people? If it is a matter of shuffling and playing games-my person, your person, that will be sad, but if we rigorously pursue good people and they think I am a good person, I will be more inclined to come forward this time. Even though ideally I would have wanted two more years to finish some legacy things that I’m doing, but if I have to forego them as sacrifice to serve on this occasion, I probably will be inclined to do that.

-You ran for President in 2011 under African Democratic Congress, a party which you founded. Why didn’t you run this time?

Some corrections, first of all I ran in 2007 under the ADC and it was not so much that I founded the party. What happened was that the Concerned Professionals, a group that I was part of that fought for democracy decided that I should run in 2007. The idea was to set an agenda, how our country should be run. So, we were working on registering our own political party the Restoration Group. Again, there we encountered the first challenge of the system- we were not willing to bribe anybody, we can’t preach one thing and act differently.

We were approached by those who founded the ADC, and they literally gave us the platform to run, that was the first run in 2007. After that run, I saw what a big mess it was, how little Nigerian politicians are willing to actually engage on political issues. I traveled round this country; I went to every state in this federation by road campaigning.

One day, I got a call from Chief Anthony Enahoro and he says to me “we need to build a big movement of progressives” and I said yes that is what I have been rooting for. Bring together all the progressives to one party, have a big strong party. So, I became very active again because my primary goal in politics that point in time was to build a two party system in Nigeria, two strong political parties that can engage one another competitively and change governments from time to time.

We began to run round to get things going for the Mega Party Movement, on one occasion I traveled out of the country in one of my occupational hazards-General Buhari always says, “do you live in this country?” I travel quite a bit and I used to say to him I can’t make an income in this country. The truth of the matter is that people like me, who don’t know how to give bribes, find it difficult to do business in Nigeria. I try to earn a good part of my living outside of Nigeria.

I came back one day from those foreign trips and Chief Olu falae said to me “look while you were away, we thought we should have somebody that everybody can relate to and accept not someone who is controversial. And so we have appointed you chairman of the party” I said oh dear, really? Ok. If that is good for all. So, I became the chairman.

One day again I traveled out of the country, am arriving, as soon as am landing my phone is ringing, it’s Wale Okunniyi. He said they have decided that the strategy to use is to get all the presidential candidates into one room and then step down for each other. And he thinks it’s a skill that I have, “so we decided you are going to be the presidential candidate of the party, so that then you’ll bring the other presidential candidates, you will get them to step down one for the other.”

My clear strategy was to get everyone to step down one after the other for General Buhari. Nuhu Ribadu was at the meeting, Fola Adeola was at the meeting, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, Tony Momoh all these people. The final night when Shekarau, the governor of Kano state was running under ANPP, he had come from Kano for the meeting when we all gathered. That was the day the bomb blast in Minna took place, General Buhari had campaigned that day in Minna, so he couldn’t make the meeting that night.

Buhari team then said he will come the next day. Shekarau flew back to Kano, came back the following night because he had to campaign. So when he came, he came early, he and I were sitting and talking and I told him about my plan to pressure everybody to step down for General Buhari, let him become the symbol everybody can rally round.

Shekarau asked “have you had a private conversation with General Buhari” I said no. He said “he’s very stubborn he may not agree” I said no, am sure he will agree, I have had many conversations with him. We waited and General Buhari never showed up and I was very offended.

One of those who wasn’t very cooperative in that process was Bola Tinubu, who I have been very friendly with for many years. And there seemed to be this game with him and Chief Falae. I will say to chief Falae “Tinubu says he has no problem with you, why don’t we just come together and do this thing.” Chief Falae will tell me, “I have no problem with Tinubu, in fact the last time we came to Abuja, he stepped out of his car from the owner’s corner for me to sit” and then I will say that is good.

I will rush down to the other man, after a while I got tired of running between Falae and Tinubu. And I said ok, what is the meaningful strategy? Instead of this business of our continued to pretend that we can do this thing, I will just join the biggest opposition party which was ACN. So I joined the ACN and I kept harassing Tinubu.

One day Tinubu called me and said ok, he’s going to see General Buhari, let’s go. That was around 2012. I told him I have had so many of those meetings, but please go when you succeed I assure you I will be a frontline follower. People don’t understand that these political things cost a lot of money. I told Tinubu you can go; when you succeed I will follow immediately.

One day he came and things went well with General Buhari and I said fantastic and I plugged in along and pushing because that was what my whole engagement was about, build this movement. Thankfully all that resulted to what we have. Had we done it right in 2011, Nigeria would have been much further than where it is today.

Without Tinubu there would be no APC, there’s no question about that. I’m not just a member of the APC, I literally wrote the manifesto of APC-it was written in my house with three principal authors, myself, the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo and and Wale Edun.

-“Today is the day Democracy came to Nigeria” those were your words the moment General Buhari was declared winner. Why did you say that, we’ve been practicing democracy for sixteen uninterrupted years now? 

The day that one party can unseat another that is in power, you have a democracy. People now know that they can change their government.

-What should Nigerians expect in the first 100 days?

Well, I’m not the one that’s going to be making the decisions, so I can’t say much, but in terms of what they are going to be expecting; they are going to be expecting outlines of policies that will move people away from the mystery index location that they are in right now and that can be done.

In my opinion, it’s not going to be easy, expectations are high but it will be done by a sincerity of purpose. Just start by plugging the leaks in the system, then deploy the excess of resources that are free by plugging the leakages and provide opportunities for the poorest of the poor. Make everybody send their kids to school by simply giving free food to a child that wants to learn.

 -Isn’t that going to cost us a lot of money?

 Not at all. The money NNPC waste is more than enough to provide that. Stop these ministers from running around in ten car motorcades and governors from chattering airplanes to come from Asaba to Abuja, that money will feed a lot of kids. A lot of them are hungry and if you provide food, they’ll come to school, you develop their minds, teach them well, you’ve saved a generation.

 -You have worked so hard to make all of these things a reality; do you believe President Buhari will deliver on his promises?

You see, it’s not about the person, it’s about the movement; it’s about an idea whose time has come. You need a symbol-Ronald Reagan emerged from this kind of process and just his inspiration of the American Spirit brought out this we can from young Americans and what it birthed is the .com revolution and the 20yr olds saved their country. 

That’s what am hoping will happen, when a Buhari says “no, you don’t steal”; says to a young person on the streets who thinks he’s hopeless “you can” and he’s inspired to be patriotic and do something magnanimous and this country is reborn. That is what I’m hoping will happen.

-The outgoing administration was largely about chronic capitalism, where the rich got richer and the poor poorer. As a political economist, how can we drive an inclusive growth?

It’s very important that we do that. Inclusive growth could happen in many ways, first my view is that what you think of as economic growth currently is just rent seeking behavior in which you find people who say they are very successful business men and all they’ve done is extract rent from the system.

In this classic chronic capitalism you erect them as heroes of enterprise and they go around feeling good, buying private jets, how many jobs do they create? The kind of entrepreneurial people’s capitalism that I’m hoping for to come from our system will empower young people to create jobs.

-Lee Kuan Yew transformed Singapore from a third world country to first in a single generation, what lessons can we learn from him, looking at the kind of rot in the system right now?

Honesty and political leadership. I tell people many times, there is nothing Lee did that we did not do in this country. The only reason we did not get a result is that Lee was transparently honest; he was a patriot who cared about his country. Our Nigerian politicians are looking for their own small empires rather than nation building.

Let’s make sacrifice for our country instead of being obsessed with the size of our bank accounts and get people who think to do things. If we can manage to put square pegs in square holes, manage a cabinet that brings the best of the brightest of our country, manage to inspire our youths, the Singapore story will be a joke compare to our own story.

-“To serve is to live.” You said that, Nelson Mandela even though dead proved that to be true, the same with Martin Luther King Jnr, Mahatma Gandhi and Lee Kuan Yew. Are we going to see a service driven Buhari or something else?

I think we are going to see a very honest leader. Lee Kuan Yew was an intellectual genius; he became Prime Minister and led his country at age 35 when all the juices were flowing. It’s going to be a different kind of thing with General Buhari, but he can project confidence and if he has the right people around him, that confidence as projected will translate into nation building, but if he has the wrong people around him, we are back in square one.

-You have a passion for the dignity of the human person and the spirit of enterprise. I presume that’s why you founded the Centre for Values in Leadership; in fact your guiding principle is “Add value wherever you are.” How much value has CVL added to Nigeria since inception in 2004?

Well, it shouldn’t be in my place to talk about the value, I believe that people should do the talking. Typical example, yesterday a gentle man walked in to see me and he said to me “where I am, my career has done remarkably well, you may not know this but it all started with a statement that you made at one of those workshops twelve years ago. You said that we are created to be co-creators with God moving creation towards his perfections, that a young person who becomes an entrepreneur is a co-creator with God.” He says that his whole life changed that day.

This is what we have done with CVL, the number of young people who we have touched; who will never be the same again are uncountable. But even more powerful for me is a statement by Margaret Mead that “you should never underrate what a small committed individuals can do to change the world. Indeed that is the only thing that ever has changed the world” a group of small committed individuals. One of the things that we do at the CVL is to churn out groups of small committed individuals.

POWERED BY:

 

Tinapa Business And Leisure Resort, Cross River State

Tinapa is a business and leisure resort located in Calabar, southeastern Nigeria. The resort which is located by the Calabar River and the Calabar Free Trade Zone, boasts world class facilities that allow for retail and wholesale activities as well as leisure and entertainment. Some of these facilities include a total of about 80,000m2 of space for retail and wholesale; made up of 4 emporiums of 10,000m2 each as well as several lines of shops, warehouses and an open exhibition area for trade exhibitions and other events.

Tinapa also features a modern movie production studio commonly referred to as ‘Studio Tinapa’ or ‘Nollywood’, an entertainment strip that comprises a casino, an 8-screen digital cinema, a children’s arcade, international standard restaurants and a mini amphitheatre as well as a night club and pubs.

Event

Abuja National Stadium

The Abuja stadium is a national sports stadium located in Abuja, the rapidly developing Federal
Capital Territory of Nigeria. The stadium serves as a home to the Nigerian National Football Team, the Super Eagles, as well as a centre for various social, cultural, and religious events. The stadium was constructed to host the 8th All Africa Games,
which took place in October 2003 The 60,491-seater ultra modern multipurpose sports complex has been tagged by many as one
of the greatest architectural landmarks in the city of Abuja.

Petra A. Onyegbule

Petra Onyegbule is the founder of Tiny Beating Hearts Initiative (TBHI)
 
TBHI is an advocacy group with an objective of reducing neonatal mortality with special  ocus on Preemies. The initiative was inspired by her daughter who was born at 25 weeks. Petra was one of the strong voices that started rallying support for President Buhari long before the cause was popular. She is a force to be reckoned with and one of I AM NIGERIA #Gamechangers2015.

-Who’s Petra Onyegbule?
 Petra is a Nigerian, of Kogi extraction and a very passionate Nigerian.


-How does it feel to be a voice for the voiceless? Is it fun or frustrating?
It’s very very frustrating because of one reason, ignorance. The people that you are a voice for don’t understand why you do the things you do. Sometimes there’s a misconception on your motive and when people start casting aspersion on your motive, it can be very demoralizing because you know you sacrifice a lot and you give up all of you and you go the extra mile because you are thinking of people who are not as privileged as you are. The same people see you as one of those people who are against them and it can be very frustrating. 

 -You gave a moving and inspiring speech at TedxGarki this year about Preemies, what is it all about and who inspired it?

The inspiration was and still my daughter; she is the reason why I am very passionate about Nigeria. My daughter was born at 25 weeks and she was really small and sickly but for the dedication of the staff of National Hospital Abuja and the fact that we had resources at our disposal to easily meet with the demands perhaps she wouldn’t be alive today.

The truth is that not everybody can be as fortunate as she is and I think it’s a misnomer in a country where people have to pray for luck for children to be able to live. People should have access to quality health care; children should be given the right to live.

Nigeria signed up for millennium development goals and this is 2015, other countries have moved on to sustainable development goals but we are far from achieving the millennium development goals. And I tell people that “unless and until we reduce neonatal and infant and child mortality rate mothers will continue to die.” This in my opinion is unacceptable.

 -How best can we address this issue, is it through policy or advocacy?

There’s no one approach to this problem. Health care is a continuum; there are different stages of involvement of parents, government, healthcare providers and the society at large. Yes, you need advocacy and policies to solve this crisis and not just the policy promulgation but more enforcement. We have many beautiful policies in Nigeria but we have to ensure the right enforcement.

-Isn’t that where people like you come in? 

Again it isn’t just about the government, it’s also about people being watchdogs and insisting that government does its part. You need proper engagement at all levels.

-I presume that led to the establishment of Tiny Beating Hearts. What’s your organization’ objective and how far so far?
  
After I gave birth to my daughter, she was in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the National Hospital and the first few  days were very edgy. Any telephone was call scary. So after a while I realized that it was going to go either of two ways; either she survives or she doesn’t. Before then I would go to Google, always checking out how babies born at 25 weeks survived and then I would see millions and millions of results and then they were all from developed countries.

And I said it’s not possible that I’m the only one who has given birth to a premature baby and why are Nigerians not telling their stories? When you tell your story you inspire hope in somebody that her baby can pull through. So I said to myself “I’m going to break this thing, whether my baby survives or not I will tell the story to let people know that they are baby like this that are born every day.” In fact from my research I discovered that Nigeria has one of the highest numbers of premature babies in Sub-Saharan Africa and some of these babies actually survive and we don’t share the stories.

Tiny Beating Heart is all about raising awareness for this issue. If I knew the things that I know now even if my baby had come premature perhaps she would have come at a later date when her organs would have developed more and I would have been more proactive about her size. Prematurity comes with a lot complications and one needs to be proactive and take charge of the situations even as healthcare workers do.

So we raise the awareness and then we advocate for people who don’t know what prematurity is really about for them to get a bit more empathetic to the plight of both babies and mothers. The road is very traumatic and the advocacy at this stage is for more of society to join hands to end this scourge. 

-You were one of the people who insisted that the 2015 Presidential election was either Buhari or Buhari, even when it was an unpopular call. And you took your campaign from Facebook to the streets and places of worship why did you all of that?
  
Again it comes down to my daughter Ruby. I was sharing with a friend on one of our trips that not everybody is Petra and not every child is going to be Ruby. So what happens to the millions of babies that are born to the non-Petras; that are born to parents that are not educated and without recourses to take care of these babies? How many babies can you really say “please Facebook friends, the parents of this baby born in this hospital do not have the money to care of their baby?”

So for everybody to have the opportunity to get some of these basic things, we had to do what we have to do. I had to say this thing doesn’t end on Facebook, we had to go to the streets and make people to understand that it’s not about Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as a person but it’s about the fact that he supervises a very profligate system, he supervises a system where everything just went and that it was not sustainable in the long run and the earlier we kicked him out, the better for us.
 
Some of us saw this thing very early and the call began as far back as late 2012 to say look it has to be this person because of his antecedent. And it’s very important for a leader’s body language not to tolerate impunity that in itself was the reason why I said it was either Buhari or Buhari.

-Speaking of Impunity, we all know what Politicians are capable of. How are you sure President Buhari will not bend?

Life is all about risk taking and risks have to be calculated. Am I sure he will not bend? As at today, I’m 90% sure and think that’s high enough. President Buhari will not bend, because you don’t learn to be left handed at old age. 

-Elections are over and politicians have started politicking, are you disappointed with the signals we are getting so far?

Yes and no. No because I expected some of them, yes because I thought that the PDP had given this warning enough. During the electioneering process, people said APC was going to crumble; people said the APC was a collection of strange bird fellows, I expected that APC should have said we would do whatever it takes to proof these people wrong but they’ve shown that they were all about just getting power.

They didn’t go further to think of how to manage the success and how to ensure a balance of interest because there are many interests in the APC and unfortunately they are not aligned towards the same cause from what we have seen so far. Yes I’m a bit disappointed but again am a realist, I didn’t expect it would be rosy all through.

-Don’t you think the president being the head of the party should weigh into this crisis?

On the NASS issues I’ll apportion 70% blame to the APC and 30% to the president. When he said he was not interested in who emerges, I thought that was a politically correct thing to say. But if you say that kind of thing you have to follow through. The message I got was if your party is interested in something and you say you’re not interested, it means you are standing aloof from the party’ position and you really don’t care and that got me disappointed because you cannot stand aloof.


If people had stood aloof during the campaigns, perhaps we won’t be where we are today. You can’t stand aloof and even if you think it’s a good thing for the three arms of government to have its independent, I think experience and wisdom should be used to get all factions together. And being the head of the party not particularly in position but also in age, I expected he should have been able to get all these groups together behind scene and suggest a viable option.

That’s why I said I blame the APC because they had two months to get their acts together as far as NASS leadership was concerned. They probably went to sleep and took some people for granted and I blame the president for staying back and showing lack of concern. 

-Mrs Onyegbule, we are days into the 1st 100 days and nothing is happening. Are we or are we not gradually easing back into the old experience?

I have a very different view on ministerial appointment. I don’t think countries run because there are ministers, I think countries run because there are systems and I don’t think there’s nothing going on, I actually think a lot is going on. I see that a lot is going on. Before now there were fuel  queues around the country and the queues have disappeared without any Minister of Petroleum.
So what exactly are we talking about?

We have technocrats, we have Permanent Secretaries and people seemed to forget that this man is an old man. So, he’s coming with wisdom of age, his experience and antecedents in the past to governance. What we may term as slow may actually be wisdom and wisdom is mostly slow because you want to consider and reconsider but it’s almost always right. I think Nigeria needs structuring, who needs 36 Ministers from 36 States? What we should expect from the president is to get the right people into the right places.

-How confident are you in this President?

If I wasn’t confident I wouldn’t do all that I did. The sacrifices were enormous and not just financially but otherwise. Every Saturday I was awake early to get the campaign bus from Victoria Island and go all through to Oshodi to pick my crew members. After that we will go talking to people, if I wasn’t confident in the fact that Buhari will do it I wouldn’t waste my time.

-You once said on your Facebook Page that if your boss, PMB does not perform after 4years you’ll throw him out, do you still hold that view?

Of course. That is one thing with working with your conviction, you don’t owe anybody any loyalty, you only owe your conscience loyalty. For the fact that I worked on my own terms we will throw him out if he does not perform. We didn’t bring PMB because we love his face, we brought him in to fix the things that are bad and if he does otherwise we will push him out.

 -As a game changer, if you had the chance to advise the president on a national emergency. What would that be and how can we possibly address it?

I think it’s wicked for any woman to want to bring life into this world and for the woman to die while doing that. I also think it’s very wicked of society to make that woman go through pregnancy for 9 months or 5 months in my own case and then you have that baby and through the agony you lose the baby and there is no system to support you.

If there’s any emergency of which there is like power which affects us all, I will pick health. People should be able to go into hospitals with an assurance of quality healthcare.

One way to do that is to ensure that whoever will take a position in his cabinet never should use private hospitals, never to Jet out of the country on Medical Tourism, unless it’s proven that our hospitals cannot handle the issues. We can’t be paying you and you’ll be using our money to buy services outside, it doesn’t make sense. 

-Petra Onyegbule, one last word to describe Nigeria.

Nigeria is a potentially great country and I love the fact that we are very malleable. And anybody who is not a Nigerian should at least live in Nigeria for sometimes to see the beauty that Nigeria is.

POWERED BY:

Muson Centre, Lagos State

The MUSON Centre, acronym stands for the Musical Society of
Nigeria (Muson). It has three big
halls that play host to musical concerts, art exhibitions, political launches, live theatre, wedding receptions, etc. The Centre is suitably located on 1.666 hectares (2.881 acres) of land in a quiet leisure and cultural zone of central Lagos, granted to the Society in 1988 by the Lagos State Government. The MUSON
Centre opens from 7.00.a.m to 12.00 Midnight.

Mary Slessor’s Residence, Cross River State.

Built conspicuously in the heart of Okoyong in Odukpani LGA
of the state is the monumental one story block that housed the
famous missionary Mary Slessor. 

Born on December 2, 1848
in Aberdeen, Scotland, Mary Slessor started her extensive, unique and indefatigable life saving the destitute and historic missionary activities in the Old Calabar Province in 1876, and served for almost half a century.

ADAORA ONYECHERE

Adaora Onyechere is a broadcast Journalist with Daar Communications Plc and also the co-anchor of Kaakaki on Africa Independent Television (AIT). She is the CEO of Signature Heels.
 In this exclusive interview,Adaora talks about her journey as a journalist and a social entrepreneur.

 Tell us about yourself?

My name is Adaora Onyechere. I am from Imo state, okigwe local government area to be precise. I am born to Chief Ike Onyechere (MFR), my Mom; Dr. Mrs. Love Onyechere is the honorable Commissioner for Women Affairs and Youth Development in Imo State.
 
My Dad is a bundle of talents; he is an author and also a publisher. I am a bit of my Dad and my Mom, but when it comes to strength and energy and talking, I got that from my mother and I got the conservative writing skill from my father.

I work for AIT; I’m one of the anchors of Kaakaki-the African Voice. I am first an entrepreneur, before a broadcast Journalist. I am a mother and I don’t just mean one child but a lot of children. I have a foundation where I carter to displaced kids.
 
I lived most of teenage life in England; I came back to Nigeria in 2009.

 What was growing up like for Adaora?
That’s a very deep question. I grew up in a lot of places, we moved a lot as a child. My father worked in an oil company, when we were growing up. So, we shuttled between Port-Harcourt, Owerri, Lagos and Enugu. With regards to that, I went to four secondary schools. So, I have a lot of Alma Maters; everybody claims I am a bit of them. Maybe because they see me on TV now, but when I was nobody no one claimed that (laughs), but I finished from Owerri Girls Secondary School.

Immediately after I had to stay at home a bit. I tried to see if I could settle into a Nigerian university, but it didn’t work out quite well. I left Nigeria very early as a child. I went to the UK. I did a diploma in law as a foundation student and then I told my dad “this is not my calling”. I don’t think I want to do law; reading and rereading other people’s judgment cases to analyze my life. But I’ve also been told that I will make a good lawyer. Maybe, sometime in my early forties or there about, I probably might dabble into it. 

I studied English major and broadcasting minor in my first degree. I worked with a lot of television houses in the UK. I worked with BBC channel 4; I anchored a show on Ben Television called “Nollywood Review.” I was also, a lead actress in a soap Opera called “If Only”, which was used to raise awareness for HIV/AIDS, in sub-communities, in the counties of west England. For me, my life is an embodiment of art and craft. 

Who or what inspired your love for Journalism?

I don’t know if it was somebody that inspired it. I love to put some of my thoughts on paper, and I talk to people a lot. There’s a difference between when you are a talkative and conversational. There’s never a dull moment with me. I realized that wait a minute, once I walk into a room the light goes on bam. Like everybody says “ah she’s here now”.

I realized that for me, if I ever wanted to do anything television, one am a shy person, which doesn’t reflect, or doesn’t come across when you see me on the street. I’m a very shy person. I‘m very sensitive, and fall short between dramatic and energetic. I thought I would do well, perhaps as a talk show host for social activities and social life and relationships and analyzing the home front but I never thought I would do politics. Politics was never in my agenda; in fact, I used to think that politicians were perhaps, outside lawyers, the worst exaggerators on the face of the earth.

 What I understood was that television is the most powerful tool for mental hypnosis, in the sense that if you watch something on TV two times, it’s bound to sound and look like the truth to you. I watch Oprah and I see her bring her spirit into her talk show. Her spirit in a sense that she is not a make believe talk show, she is an artist of her experience. If Oprah could come from all of that, because I went through quite a lot of things in my life and I think that could actually be her personality, it could inspire me to stay strong in the profession.

Talking about the inspiration for the profession, I think writing and my personality have always been a television factor, but I never thought that I would do TV, because I had a speech defect when I was growing up. I think believe, passion and talent go a long way. if you have talent and you have no passion, the talent will die before it even starts, but believe in the passion for it grow, for you to nurture it is a whole total mentality that you have to experience.

What is the inspiration behind Signature Heels?

When I thought about Signature Heels, I thought of it at a time when it was supposed to be a personal agenda. I wanted to look very Afro-centric, so I would wrap my own ear rings, my shoes and bags and people would say “I like what you are wearing, where did you make it?” and I am like, I made it , “it’s like how much?”. This is something I made to wear.

I had not thought about putting a price to it and then they ask “how much” am like N1500. And I would pull the ear ring in my ears and give the person who liked it and I would have some money in my pocket. Then I go home and I will think wait a minute, so you mean I just sold something I made out of sheer curiosity.

Also, I realized that over the time and space, we have begun to westernize a lot of our thinking, our culture and our wardrobe. We have moved from a time when we would see women naturally tie wrapper and feel confident and beautiful to a place where they thought or they think western apparels were more in vogue than being African. And on the other hand, the people across borders are thinking oh, Africa is a land of uniqueness and beauty and when they come here, rather than come and wear those contemporary clothes they are used to, they come here to buy our materials, they come here to invest in our ideas that are just home grown, meanwhile we want to look like them.

So, I just thought maybe because of the power and the tool of the media-it has a way of driving the mind to think of what it sees often and that’s why you find a lot of our younger generation wearing more trousers, wearing more leather skins and painting their hair. It’s not because they don’t know where they are coming from but because this is for them what is most societal acceptable.

I don’t disagree with growing with time, because this is the 21st century. But at the same time, I disagree in loosing who we are and I think that’s what inspired me to really go into Signature Heels-to have a sense of Africa on everything. Most importantly to be able to collaborate with other African countries to also retain their

cultures and also think of a way of exporting our ideas. I thought it would be a powerful tool to be able to take a Tanzanian raft material and put on a Nigerian design and export it to Germany or you have like Ukwu-Ose material (a material that is endogenously Igbo, and it means a tale of pepper) to wrap a shoe or an iPad and somebody buys it and says “what is this?”. It’s fabrics on electronics that is the fusion of the idea. 

Signature Heels is just a baby now, the strength of my idea is to make Signature Heels a walk-in one-stop African shop, where you find everything from all over Africa in the shop.

Your bags and shoes are handmade, that means you source your fabrics locally. How do you do that?
 Well, it’s really difficult because of the stability and the unstable market. Prior to the time when the demolition in the FCT wasn’t really as avid as it now, you would find material hawkers. And I prefer to patronize people who were struggling to make a living, because you are putting a pay check to their struggle, than people who already have shops like this; who have been able to build capital over time; who have a base.  

What happens is that the people are not just selling that for a living, it matters to them that you are patronizing them because you are also going to encourage them to keep recycling culture. But over time, a lot of them have withered because there is no place for them to stay and hawk.

As a young and a successful woman, what word of advice do you have for the women?

A lot of women when you ask them, they will say “I have a lot of dreams but I don’t have capital” or they will tell you “I come from a poor background” or they will tell you “I am not educated” or they tell you “everybody I go to, want to sleep with me” that is the usual line that you hear.

My word of advice for women is that your passion can fuel your talent, in the sense that I make all of these. This is just one part of me, am also a poet and I would want to record and I would want to mass produce my cds and give it to students but it needs capital. For me to be able to get the capital to produce I invest in my passion time, and I collaborate with people who understand what passion is and we come out with this. It builds the virtue; the virtue is the value which is money and then the money which becomes capital feeds and helps to produce the cds which are products of my poetry. You’ve got to realize that nobody was born to help anybody.

Everybody on the face of the earth is determined by destiny to find an innate ability to survive. Now survival does not mean to hustle-to hustle and to work hard are two different things. To hustle is to have something that keeps you in existence which is just for you to get by. To work hard is to invest time in something that fuels passion which is enterprise.

For a lot of women out there who are looking for sugar daddies and boyfriends to carter to them. Those sugar daddies and boyfriends were not born to carter to them.
So therefore, when they complain that they sleep around to earn a living, it’s also based on the fact that they have predetermined that they will not make use of what God has given to them. For every human being there’s ability, there’s an innate source that fuels your drive. There’s something that is got to awaken your passion.

Is Adaora married/why?
No am not. Well, it’s not a question of why it’s when. Because if you say why, it would seem like I haven’t gotten a plutoria of advances or suitors. My life is a box of fireworks. Marriage for me is very much in the pipeline, it’s very much around the corner. The fireworks are buzzing already but whether it will happen it will happen.

I have seen too many divorces, because a lot of younger people are marrying for the wrong reasons. They rather have the ceremony than the institution. You have people investing in weddings rather than investing in themselves to build themselves so that they are able to sustain their marriage. A lot of us have this misconception that marriage solves all problems, in fact what you see while you are dating somebody multiply it by 25 when you marry the person. If you tolerate a relationship, you’ll endure a marriage.

Marriage for me is an institution of honor, I rather get it right and late than go into it as much as I could early enough and get it wrong. People have to understand that a marriage supplies the emotional energy to be the best you can to your children and your society.

Describe Nigeria in one word.

We are a nation filled with different people, different tribes, and different culture. Regardless of all the bickering and rivalries, we will not be without one another.
 

Our strength is in our unity and our weakness is in our division. Nigeria is the symbol, the synonym, the sign, the strength and the energy of what it truly means to be a family. Nigeria is a family and we are not afraid to love.

POWERED BY: 

PROF. DORA AKUNYILI 14 July 1954 - 7 June 2014.

Professor (Mrs.) Dora Nkem Akunyili was a Pharmacist, Pharmacologist, Erudite Scholar, Seasoned Administrator, and a visionary leader. She was a Senior Lecturer and Consultant Pharmacologist in the College of Medicine, University of Nigeria, Nsukka (U.N.N.), Enugu Campus, before she became the NAFDAC boss.

AWARDS
•Time Magazine Award 2006.
• Person of the Year 2005 Award – Silverbird Communications Ltd.
• Award of Excellence – Integrated World Services (IWS), 2005.
• Award of Excellence – Advocacy for Democracy Dividends International, 2005.
• Meritorious Award 2005 – St. Michael’s Military Catholic Church, Apapa, Lagos.
• African Virtuous and Entrepreneurial Women Merit Award 2005 – African Biographical Network, 2005.
• Award for the Best Government Parastatal – National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), 2005.
• An Icon of Excellence Award – The African Cultural Institute and Zenith Bank Plc, 2005.
• 2005 Grassroots Human Rights Campaigner Award- London Based Human Rights Defense Organization.
• Most Innovative Director Award- Federal Government College, Ijanikin, Lagos, 2005.
• Integrity Award 2003 – Transparency International.
Source: Wikipedia.

She was born in Makurdi, Benue State, but brought up in Nanka and was married in Agulu, both in Anambra State of Nigeria. Dr. Akunyili’s educational career started with her passing the First School Leaving Certificate with Distinction at St. Patrick’s Primary School, Isuofia, Anambra State in 1966, and the West African School Certificate (W.A.S.C.) with Grade I Distinction in 1973 from Queen of the Rosary Secondary School, Nsukka, both in Nigeria.

These exceptional results in the First School Leaving Certificate, and W.A.S.C. earned her the Eastern Nigerian Government Post Primary Scholarship and the Federal Government of Nigeria Undergraduate Scholarship. She got her First Degree in Pharmacy, B.Pharm (Hons) in 1978 and her PhD in 1985 from U.N.N. Professor Akunyili was a Post Doctorate Fellow of University of London and a Fellow of the West African Post Graduate College of Pharmacists. To prepare her for Managerial positions, she was trained on Computer Education Programme by WHO/UNDP/World Bank Sponsored and Senior Management skills Course in RIPA, London, in 1994 and 1998 respectively.

Akunyili started her working career as a Hospital Pharmacist from 1978–1981, in the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (U.N.T.H) Enugu, after which she ventured into academics as a Graduate Assistant (Research Fellow) in the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, U.N.N. from 1982–1986. In the University system, she made a steady progress from Lecturer I in 1986 until she was made Senior Lecturer in 1990. She transferred to College of Medicine, U.N.N. in 1992, where she was made a Consultant Pharmacologist in 1996, a position she held until 12 April 2001. Due to her love for teaching and nurturing young ones, she was also a part-time lecturer of the West African Postgraduate College of Pharmacists Lagos, Nigeria from 1992–1995.

Akunyili was also prepared for her administrative position at NAFDAC by her four years stint as Zonal Secretary of Petroleum Special Trust Fund (P.T.F.), co-coordinating all projects in the five South Eastern States of Nigeria (Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo States). As a Scientist and a Scholar, she presented over 20 research papers in various local and International Scientific Conferences, and
published a book and 18 Journal Articles. She supervised PhD and Masters Candidates in Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka and U.N.N. respectively both in Nigeria.

Akunyili was a devout Catholic and was married to Dr. J.C. Akunyili, of the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu till her death. They had 6 children together. Her hobbies included reading and writing.