By Denis Agbo

Style is everything. In dressing there are styles, in teaching there are styles; in fact style is that unique approach which one employs to distinguish oneself and stand out from the crowd. It reflects one’s personality, taste and aesthetic. It conveys identity, creativity and individuality. It’s an expression of inward mind displayed outwardly.

Style is not just in Arts such as in writing, fashion, music or lifestyle, it also applies in natural and social sciences. For instance, the automobile inventions by different brands of cars such as the use of different fuel systems, carburetor or injector are technological styles of the inventors. In social science, styles dwell in various concepts such as leadership approach, communication methods, parenting styles or even conflict resolution styles. At the end, the converging aim is to achieve a desired result of improvement.

Philosophers such as Nietzsche and others have explored style as a way of expressing individuality, tradition, and even moral character; Nietzsche, for example, saw style as emerging from a community’s way of life and being passed down through generations, while also allowing for individual innovation. He linked style to psychological and physiological expression, suggesting that good style comes from those who share similar psychology and taste.

True to the philosopher kings, Prof Paul Nnamchi, representing Enugu-East/Isi-uzo Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives has a background that connects him to ensuring that he prioritizes human resource development. As an ex-seminarian he has the moral responsibility of ensuring that men and women of good faith hold the key to the society’s development. Growing up from poor parental background and becoming a professor of global recognition, Nnamchi knows that it was only education that could have brought him to the limelight.

Being well-read and in adherence to his Igbo maxim that ‘one whose palm kennel was cracked for him by a benevolent spirit should not forget to be humble,’ Prof Nnamchi has refused to be severed with his past, but in the instead has ensured that whoever is interested in acquiring standard education gets it at the lowest cost if not free.
As a lecturer in the University of Nigeria,
Nsukka (UNN), Nnamchi had commenced giving people opportunities of harnessing human capital resources and upon getting into the National Assembly, nearly two years ago, he upgraded the sponsorship of his annual Information Communication Technology (ICT) training for the upper secondary school students and expanded it into the two local government areas of his constituency in Enugu state.

As if he had been to the National Assembly earlier, Nnamchi quickly attracted the award of tertiary institution scholarships to over 200 indigent constituents through the Interim Joint Matriculation Board (IJMB), an Advance level examination program that allows candidates to gain direct admission into 200 level of Nigeria universities and some foreign institutions.
Realizing that one essential prerequisite for attending primary and secondary schools, even in tuition-free, is clothes, Prof Nnamchi went and procured school uniforms for the indigent primary school constituents which he distributed among the needy.

Still on education and Nnamchi’s realization of the ultimate importance of human capital development, the legislator had since articulated bills which have passed second readings and public hearing up to clause by clause considerations for the establishments of Federal University of Agriculture in Ako-Nike in Enugu East local government area and a College of Health Technology Mbu, in Isi Uzo local government area of the constituency.
Bills have also been presented for the upgrading of the federal College of Education Eha-Amufu into a University of Education, same as for the establishment of a Skills Acquisition Centre in Ikem, Isi-uzo LGA and Gifted school at Trans-Ekulu, Enugu East Local Government Area.

Denis Agbo, a public affairs analyst wrote from Enugu

*By Tunde Olusunle*

A short video clip trended on the social media a few days ago. The narrator who was probably driving his automobile, drew attention to the truck ahead of him. According to his narration, he desired to commute from Egbe, the major southernmost community in Yagba West local government area in the Okun-Yoruba part of Kogi State, to the neighbouring Kwara State. Locals in Egbe, however, had warned him about the crimson activities of faceless criminals in the names of Fulani herdsmen and rampaging marauders on the highway. He thus sought help from a pin-down truck manned by uniformed and armed security personnel, to lead him to safety within the territory of Kwara State, ostensibly for a fee. The truck could be seen in the video, piloting his car. This 50-second video clip summarises the security situation in Okunland today.

Hitherto, Okunland across its several hamlets, communities and towns, was an idyllic island of serenity, calm and civility. Farmers, hunters, teachers, civil servants in the employ of the state and local government authorities, as well as retirees, peopled the villages and homesteads. After a hard day’s work, home folks congregated beneath wide-spread leafy canopies of abutting trees. They played *ayo olopon,* known by the name “mancala,” and draught, *awon oro-oro* games, as they wound down from the day’s preoccupations. Liquid soothers included *emu fun fun* and *oguro,* both variants of palmwine. But for the mischief of headstrong goats, people harboured no fears about possible trespassing of their abodes. While conducting his doctoral thesis at the University of Ilorin which birthed the *facekuerade* performance theory, my friend and brother, Sunnie Ododo, relocated from his cosy home in Ilorin, to Kabba, and stayed for weeks. Such was the allure of Okunland.

Sadly, at no point in the history of the Okun-Yoruba people of Kogi State has the question of security been as worrying as it has been in recent weeks and months. Call it “one day, one disaster” and you will not be wrong. From the hitherto innocuous *Oyo Iwa* community in the northernmost extremes of Okunland, in Lokoja local government area, to *Egbe* in Yagba West, the southernmost community in the zone, Okunland has been encircled and buffeted by faceless marauders. There are unsavoury narratives from across the six Okun local government areas, namely: Lokoja, Kabba-Bunu; Ijumu; Mopamuro; Yagba East and Yagba West. Forests and woodlands in the area which share similar vegetation with Yorubaland in the South West, have been infiltrated by Fulani herdsmen, deadly bandits and cold-blooded kidnappers. These days, they have become as emboldened as to venture into communities fully armed with weapons, roam around and take with them their preferred victims, including the vulnerable and elderly.

Okunland has been flung into perpetual fear and gripping despair. The local economy of the people predominantly powered by subsistence agriculture, petty trading, returns on artisanal preoccupations, and so on, has been paralysed. Armed gangs stipulate impossible ransoms on families and communities, which in turn are forced to dispose of prized assets, notably livestock, parcels of land and residential homes, to meet up with ransom deadlines. Callously, certain cells of outlaws receive sweatily-sourced ransoms some enabled by crowd-funding, and still proceed to annihilate their victims. They unwittingly plunge families and communities into double agony.

Disturbed by these developments, Okun people on different platforms are galvanising panaceas to address this scourge. The *Okun Development Association, (ODA)* which is the umbrella body of all Okun bodies and groups had a one-day Security Summit in Kabba, Friday March 28, 2025. President of the ODA, Ambassador Rotimi Akenson, convened the summit which was robustly attended by respected technocrats, royals and government appointees at the state and local levels, from across all six Okun-speaking LGAs. These included serving Commissioners; the State Security Adviser and prominent traditional rulers. Proceedings were moderated by no less a professional than former Director-General of the National Institute for Security Studies, Abuja, (NISS), William Toyin Akanle, PhD, mni.

The summit resolved among others, that: A well-funded community policing structure is a panacea for addressing security challenges in Okunland; and that the establishment of community-based Security Trust Fund, (STF) in Okunland is inevitable. It noted that sharing credible information with security operatives is key, since security is everyone’s business. The Summit also suggested that proper profiling of settlers in our communities is important, just as it posited the adoption of technology-driven security models. The congregation recommended that job creation, economic empowerment, and social interventions are essential in reducing the proclivity of our youths towards crime, while asserting the need for incentives, motivation and morale-boosting for Okun vigilantes and hunters. A high-powered implementation committee to facilitate the actualization of these proposals has been emplaced. Akanle is the Chairman, while Femi Oloruntoba, who retired as a Director from the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, (NDLEA) is the Secretary. Ambassador Sola Enikanolaiye, in the Presidency; Attorney Tunde Irukera, immediate past Executive Chairman of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, (FCCPC) and the multitasking Okun businessman, Yinka Braimoh are on board.

Equally agonised by the relentless rampaging of nondescript outlaws across Okunland, is the *Okun Development Initiative, (ODI),* a strident advocacy group. The organisation has scheduled a pan-Okun Unity Summit, for Friday May 30 and Saturday May 31, 2025. ODI which is altruistically complementing the precedence of ODA, has as National Coordinator, Olusuyi Otitoju, a former Commissioner representating Kogi State in the Federal Public Complaints Commission, (PCC). The theme of the forthcoming summit is: *Okun Unity: The Power of One Voice, the Strength of Many Hands.* The converge aims to bring together Okun sons and daughters, who have been torn apart by the acidity which has tinctured Okun politics in recent times. This fact is captured by the overarching focus of the forthcoming event, which aims to engage with Okun brothers and sisters to band together as one, since disparate broomsticks, cannot be deployed for sweeping.

Instructively, the forthcoming ODI Summit will be the second time the group is rallying Okun people together to deliberate on issues germane to the wellbeing of the people and the area. Between November 24 and November 26, 2016, ODI staged its premiere Okun-centred public event with the theme: *Breaking the Bonds of Underdevelopment in Okunland.* It focused on the security, unity and development of Okunland and was richly graced by the cream of Okun elite in business, bureaucracy, academia, media, politics, industry, not forgetting elder statesmen from the area. As far back as its 2016, ODI had drawn attention to the imperative for the security of lives and property in the sub-zone, which has transmogrified into a veritable hydra. Despite the near 10-year lacuna between its premiere and the proposed coming together, it is noteworthy that the ODI recognises the importance of constant engagement in the march towards the fruition of the dreams and aspirations of the Okun nation.

The second edition of the ODI Summit which will be chaired by General Funso Owonibi, (rtd), will have Kogi State Governor, Ahmed Usman Ododo, as Special Guest of Honour. Serving federal parliamentarians from Okunland, notably Sunday Karimi, Senator Representing Kogi West; Leke Abejide, Member Representing Yagba federal constituency, and his counterpart, Idris Salman, Representing Kabba-Bunu/Ijumu, are expected at the programme. Vice Chancellor of the Federal University Lokoja, (FUL), Professor Yemi Akinwumi will be the Guest Speaker, while the *Obaro of Kabba* who chairs the Okun Traditional Council, Oba Solomon Dele Owoniyi is the Royal Father of the event. To underscore the harmonious relationship between the ODA and the ODI, President of the ODA, Ambassador Rotimi Akenson will be Father of the Day at the ODI Summit. Long-serving Kogi State Commissioner for Finance, Ashiru Idris, FCA, chairs the planning committee.

It is noteworthy that the people of Okunland across associations and groups are propelling action concurrently and simultaneously on the insecurity plague in the area. This clearly attests to the severity of the security situation in that part of Nigeria. Equally worthy of note is the fact that irrespective of political inclination, leaders and representatives of the zone appreciate the imperative for coordinated action to stem the current tide and potential slide into chaos. To this end, they are supporting and featuring prominently in the activities and programmes of various Okun groupings, for the collective good of an erstwhile oasis of therapeutic peace and quiet.

*Tunde Olusunle, PhD, Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, (FANA), is an Adjunct Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Abuja*

By Smolette Shittu-Alamu

Dr, Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina is a PhD holder in Agricultural Economics. He has very intimidating credentials as a globally respected technocrat and scholar. Since the year 2015 he has been the President of the Africa Development Bank (AFDB) the monetary institution based in Abidjan, Cote D’ivoire.

He was re-elected for the same post in 2020 and would complete his second and final term as president AFDB this September. This very respected former Nigerian Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development did serve as a professional technocrat in government and in politics under the Goodluck Ebele Johnathan’s presidency from 2011 to 2015. It was from that post that he went on to serve as president of the Africa Development Bank (AfDB).

Before reaching the global renown and heights he has attained in life as well as the commanding level he has reached today in the global world, the then young little boy had known life as the son of a poor farmer. Therefore he has known the pains of not to have in life. Although he is from Ogun State, he was born and raised in Ibadan like a typical peasant farmer’s child .

Young Akinwumi attended not a high sounding school names such as Kings College nor Igbobi College; not CMS Grammar School nor St Gregory’s, but the modest Baptist High School in Ejigbo the present day Osun State. At the then University of Ife where he later on studied Agricultural Economics, he was too brilliant and too diligent a lad not to have grabbed the First Class Honours result. Oh yes he did get that.

Thus Adesina became the first ever student in the history of Unife now Obafemi Awolowo University to be awarded first class in Agricultural Economics in 1981. From Purdue University in the United States of America, Akinwumi Ayodeji Adesina bagged the MSc degree in 1985, and the PhD in 1988. His thesis won the Outstanding PhD Thesis Award in 1988.

That same year Akinwumi Adesina won the Rockefeller Foundation’s Social Sciences Fellowship. This award was what launched him into international career as an Africa and Development Expert.
Before becoming a federal minister in Nigeria he had always shown himself to be a firm believer in private sector-led growth for nations especially in the developing world.

He was Vice President in-charge of Policy and Partnership at the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). In that capacity he had several bold and innovative policies and finance initiatives that leveraged over 4 billion dollars in Bank finance commitments to the African sector .

He equally served as Associate Director and Regional Director for the Southern Africa Office of the Rockefeller Foundation.
lndeed, we are merely speaking about a Nigerian intellectual who has written about seventy scholarly publications and who as a Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development for only four years (2011-2015) radically changed the perception of the Agric value chain in Nigeria from subsistence to a viable business that attracted 5.6 billion dollars into private sector investment.

The Electronic Wallet system he introduced as Minister, reached some 15 million farmers throughout this country. The system dramatically transformed the levels of farmers in Nigeria. The project succeeded in ending 40 years of corruption in the fertilizer business in Nigeria. By the twist of two fingers, local farmers readily got provided with subsidized farm inputs via their mobile phones.

This is a bold reform but which has had to be carelessly abandoned somehow when he left office. As President of AfDB since 2015 ,he launched the transformation of human lives on the African continent, via his Hi fives programme namely Light up Africa,Ttransform Africa, Power the Continent, Feed Africa and Integrate the Continent’s people so as to save the continent from itsself as an economically backward landmass but which ironically is the richest in the world.

Now to the purpose of this write-up.
Very recently, this highly professional Agric Economist who is the sitting president of the Africa Development Bank (AfDB) spoke out the truth to the Nigerian situation when he drew a comparison between the Nigerian people of 1960 at independence and their counterparts he finds on the streets 65 years later.

The conclusion Adesina drew was that Nigerians are worse off today then they were in 1960. Somehow this Adesina view has not gone down well with presidential spokesmen in the Villa

In a swift response to what the facts present and Dr. Akinwumi Adesina has only echoed , the presidential megaphone led by Bayo Onanuga who is Special Adviser to the President on lnformation and Strategic Communication condemns the Adesina position and blames him for basing his conclusion on what he calls “figures that do not align with available data.” Onanuga went on to say that ” no objective observer can claim that Nigeria has not made progress since 1960″.

But seriously speaking is Onanuga right? No he is not. In fact he can’t be right. This is because having plenty of money in one’s pocket does not translate into wealth. Or does it?. If the common man fed his family with five or even ten naira in a month in the 1960 years but does so with five hundred thousand naira in a month today, 65 years later would we say such a man has progressed?

Bayo Onanuga went on to say that “even as the nation awaits the NBS’s recaliberation of our GDP, we can comfortably say without contradiction that it is at least 50 times if not 100 times more than it was at independence”. lf our GDP is 100 times more than what it was in 1960 how has that helped us we may ask? We ask.

The presidential aide also accused the AfDB boss of “speaking like a politician in the mould to Peter Obi but did not do due diligence before making his unverifiable statement”. Habba, Bayo Onanuga.Will an Agricultural Economist like the AfDB boss make an unverifiable statement? Will he? Should he? Will he not do due diligence before he talks about his own country’s. Does he not readily see the result of government initiatives and policies in the people?

Let us be more frank and factual.As President of AfDB can Dr.Adesina truly be said to be some one who does not have economic indices of all African nations at his finger tips?

We may not be experts in Economic matters even as Onanuga wants us to believe. We can give it to him that GDP per capita is not the only criterion we can use to determine whether people live better now than they did in the past. All the same our little understanding of basic Economics tells us it is a poor tool for assessing the living standard of our people. Is GDP per capita not always silent on whether we as Nigerians enjoy better access to health care, education and transportation such as rail, and air now than we did in 1960 65 years back.

Yes Nigeria today has more primary schools, secondary schools, tertiary institutions than she had in 1960. We have more road networks , medical facilities, phone lines accessibility etc. But with a population leap from 45 million in 1960 to the nearly 230 million in 2025, has our population not shot up to about 5 times in 65 years? Is this not a problem? Have our facilities this exponential increase in population growth causes not rendered useless and inaccessible all the imaginary gains?

Yes every Tom Dick or Harry has access to phones but have the available facilities translated into effective service provision? The answer is a big No. 65 years on, electricity supply to our homes remains on by which band you belong to. A B C or D. Is this something we must be proud of? Does this happen in the developed climes?

Today 65 years after independence, our school system can not contain all our children of school-going age. It is a known fact that 2,000 students in our higher institutions do receive learning in halls meant to sit just about 500 people at a go! The students when they come out can’t access jobs for years and so have to japa in the end.

There is insecurity in the land. Everywhere there is strife, there is disappointment hunger,thirst, frustration and killings. No where is safe today.Yet in 1960 to the 1980 years one could travel the length and breadth of our country without blinking an eye.We had factories that produced or assembled cars,produced batteries brake pads and tyres. Food was very available.

We lived a life of being our brother’s keeper. The poor could eat and did not have to beg nor play tricks to live. Are we not worse at 65 years ago? We all are, except those in the corridors of political power and Yahoo Yahoo practitioners.

The presidency’s rather dismissive reaction to Dr Akinwumi Adesina’s very clear statement of fact is rather worrisome. We conclude by stating that Dr Adesina is right; but the presidency’s reaction is very wrong. Ethics as moral principles show how people should conduct themselves in social affairs.

Ethics ensure the imposition of obligations on us as public functionaries to refrain from doing or saying whatever things are wrong. Our Presidential Aides must learn to study and develop ethical standards. They must try to live up to reasonable and solidly based conducts.

They must refrain from being often time economical with the truth.They will do this by accepting to stand by the truth always
and be able able to stand on the side of the people they have been invited to serve.

Smolette Adetoyese Shittu-Alamu
Osogbo.Former Director of news osun state broadcasting corporation