A Lifestyle Of Passion and Hardwork – Atinuke’s Story On Her Agribusiness And challenges

Enjoy this interview by Agropreneur Nigeria with Atinuke Lebile a young agro-entrepreneur without a family farming background but has grown for herself a lifestyle in Agriculture that is inspired by passion and hardwork. Atinuke started her agribusiness year 2014, today she has sole income from her 10 acre farm where she plants plantain, cassava, rice and vegetables while also processing some of her farm products.

Q1: Agropreneur, can we meet you?

Answer: My name is Atinuke Lebile a native of Ondo State, Nigeria. I live in Ibadan, Nigeria. I am a rising young female, social agro-entrepreneur with apt interest in societal and human capital development. I manage La’Luce Foods and Integrated Services. I’m a Strategic Officer at Ogunmod Farms & Farmers and Farmers’ Academy and a Production Manager at Cato Foods and Agro- allied Global Concepts. I have a passion for feeding the nation and I’m so overly excited about agriculture. I was born in December!

Q2: How do you view Agribusiness?

Answer: Agriculture is a lifestyle borne out of passion. In this way I’m able to face challenges and head on when they arise.

Q3: Did you grow up on an Agricultural farm?

Answer: No, I don’t have a farming family background.

Q4: So, what brought you into Agribusiness?

Answer: Passion and business. In spite of me being a graduate of Agriculture from the University of Ilorin, my venture into agribusiness was largely of passion and the need to do agriculture in a more attractive way like a real profitable business. The need to reduce postharvest losses experienced by farmers and develop the value chain of primary agricultural products also motivated me to go into agribusiness. I still strongly believe agriculture needs to become attractive especially to young people like me; we are the future of Africa.

Q5: When did you venture into Agribusiness?

Answer: I started agribusiness in the year 2014.

Q6: What Agribusiness do you manage?

Answer: I am into cultivation of vegetables, plantain, cassava and rice. I package ofada rice, fruits, chips, plantain flour, garri, catfish in various sizes (100g – 50kg), and I’m also involved in agro-processing.

Q7: How many acres is your farm?

Answer: 10acres

Q8: Is farming your only source of income?

Answer: YES

Q9: What time does your day start and end?

Answer: My day starts at 4am and ends at 11pm

Q10: Does your family have an influence on your Agribusiness?

Answer: Yes, they do. They respect my choice and provide guidance where and when necessary. Even though while starting my dad was not happy seeing his only daughter going into farming. He has been a great support, just like every member of my family. Financial and moral support from my family has really been encouraging.

Q11: Did you face any challenge while starting up?

Answer: YES!

Q12: What challenge did you face, and how did you deal with it?

Answer: Funding is a major challenge for startups and I wasn’t exempted in the funding issue. I also faced the challenge of standardization and certification by NAFDAC. I chose to start small to achieve my big dreams in terms of finance. I also learnt a lot from mentors.

Q13: What part of Agribusiness do you find hard?

Answer: Primary Production

Q15: What part of Agribusiness do you find most satisfying?

Answer: The part of having to create products through postharvest processing and cultivate to feed people

Q16: What is the difference in your Agribusiness now and when you started?

Answer: I am still operating at a small scale compared to where I would love to be, but I am not where I used to be. No matter how small progress is, it is still progress anyway.

Q17: Have you ever considered getting out of agriculture for a more lucrative career? 

Answer: Agriculture is the only sector that has the capacity to create many jobs. My passion has always kept me going. However, there are times that one just feels overwhelmed.

Q18: How do you see your role in your community?

Answer: My role in my community is a very crucial one because I provide food on people’s table.

Q19: How do you think the government should implement the change in the agricultural sector?

Answer: There should be strong input from the youths on policy formulations that can drive the agricultural sector in the direction of commercialization and business development. Agricultural inputs should be subsidized and marketing board should be developed.

Q20: Have you seen any change in the present government involvement with agriculture in Nigeria?

Answers: I believe there will be a change. But I would suggest that they should improve on the achievements of the last administration

Q21: Do you think Nigerians are aware or care about mechanized farming?

Answer: Sure, Nigerians care about mechanized farming

Q22: What changes do you predict the agricultural sector in Nigeria will see over the next 3 years?

Answer: There is going to be more youth involvement. Agriculture will create a lot of jobs and it will benefit from diversified funds.

Q23: Do you have any neighbor, family or friend that have given up Agribusiness?

Answer: YES, a lot.

Q24: What made them choose to give up?

Answer: It was mostly due to the enormous challenges of finance, marketing, climate change, most importantly impatience.

Q25: Do you plan to extend your Agribusiness?

Answer: YES

Q26: What is your plan?

Answer: To expand postharvest production and create more jobs. I intend to expand production to reach out to more markets.

Q27: What advice would you give a friend that is also an Agropreneur?

Answer: Take Agriculture as a business. It is viable when you give your best to it. Don’t seek overnight success. Agric will not give you sudden wealth but it will build you sustainable wealth. More females need to come into agriculture because females do things with more precision, care and passion.

http://www.agropreneurnaija.com/agrientrepreneurship/a-lifestyle-of-passion-and-hardwork-atinukes-story-on-her-agribusiness-and-challenges/

Dr. Godwin Maduka : A Quintessential Philanthropist

Dr. Godwin Maduka

For the people of Umuchukwu Community in Orumba South Local Government Area of Anambra State, Dr. Godwin Maduka is an embodiment of impactful living. Like a meteor, he was destined by providence to burn so that their world may be lighted. He has been described as one whose magnanimity has touched every sphere of human endeavour within and outside his immediate environment all in succinct recognition of his numerous strides in improving the lots of his people.

Born to the family of Maduka in the then Nkerehi (now Umuchukwu) community in Orumba South Local Government Area of Anambra State, the young Maduka had his early childhood education in Nigeria before leaving for the United States of America where he studied Chemistry, Pharmacy and Medicine excelling in all these academic disciplines in flying colours.

Dr. Godwin Maduka bagged a Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemistry from Rut College Holy Spring Mississippi in 1984 and a Doctor of Pharmacy Degree from Mercer University of Pharmacy Atlanta Georgia in 1988. He equally completed his Internal Medicine Internship at the University of Tennessee School of Medicine with a Doctor of Medicine Degree before proceeding to Harvard University School of Medicine where he completed his Graduate Medical Training, specializing in Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Management in 1997. 

He is the founder of Las Vegas Pain Institute which focuses on the unique needs of each individual pain patient and development of new levels of relief for all types of pain. He is a recipient of the prestigious “Heart Beat of Africa Award”.

Particularly striking about the personality of this great Nigerian is the fact that he has consistently kept in touch with his local community through his numerous laudable developmental projects, which span education, economy, transportation, religion, water resources, leisure and recreation, peace-building, hospitality, employment and human capital development, youth empowerment, charities, security, health to mention a few.

He commenced and single-handedly completed the construction of St. Jude Catholic Pro-Cathedral Umuchukwu including a huge mansion for resident priests and in addition sponsored the church to become an independent parish. He also built Umuchukwu Civic Centre, Umuchukwu Magistrate Court Complex, Umuchukwu Nigeria Police Station and Trinity Hospital and Maternity with fully equipped ambulance services. Others include the construction of the ultra-modern Immaculate Concept International College together with a teachers quarters. 

Also, he built a magnificent edifice for the traditional ruler of the community reminiscence of the kind of abode inhabited by first class traditional rulers in other parts of Nigeria. He also donated cars to indigenes and 100 motorcycles to the unemployed and underprivileged members of his community.

Dualization of Owerre-Ezukala-Umuchukwu as well as Umuchukwu-Ogbunka roads were all possible thanks to the kind generosity of Dr. Godwin Maduka who also has, at different occasions, defrayed the cost of accumulated electricity bills of his people amounting to millions of Naira all in an effort to ensure that his community never stayed in darkness.

Other areas of interventions by this illustrious Nigeria includes: renovations of St. Paul’s Anglican Church Umuchukwu, the residence of the Parish Priest of the said church as well as the Community Primary School; provision of free medical services to indigent indigenes of the community, and award of scholarship to more than thirty persons studying in various institutions of higher learning.

Dr. Maduka has equally built houses for the less privileged both in Umuchukwu and Owerre-Ezukala, a neighbouring community. 

An excited native of the community said, “Today, there is no more thatched house in the community. Maduka has replaced every thatched house in the area with three or four-bedroom bungalows. About 100 of such buildings are currently in place in the community. They belong to the indigent natives, especially widows. All such buildings carry green aluminum roofing sheets for easy identification and beautification of the place.”

His youth empowerment programmes span also the provision of soft loans,  and buses to youths and youth groups in the community. He has, through his contacts, secured employment to many graduates even as he has provided succor to the aged, bereaved and infirm.

As a way of boosting the moral and spiritual rejuvenation of his people, Dr. Maduka spearheaded the siting of a monastry at Umuchukwu with the needed financial support. 

In addition, he embarked on a gigantic rural water scheme and by so doing successfully delivered clean potable water to his people and the inhabitants of neighbouring communities. This singular initiative has enhanced the health conditions of his people as it has effectively curtailed outbreak of water borne diseases and other communicable diseases . 

He also constructed two bridges linking Umuchukwu and Ogbunka and by so doing strengthened inter-communal relationship between the two communities.

Dr. Maduka has remained undeterred, firm, unfazed and fearless according to his own conscience in the service of his people. Little wonder he has resolved to set up a state-of-the art pharmaceutical plant at Umunze. Work is also ongoing at the Fourteen Floor Community Building Complex which upon completion would serve many purposes including recreation, shopping malls, conference venues and so on for various government and non-governmental organizations.

According to Dr. Maduka , “I embarked on all these to save my people from my ugly experience while growing up. I grew up in a home that when it rained, it rained more inside than outside the house. Wealth would be meaningless if it cannot be used to better the lives of the people around the custodian. The wealthy must provide jobs for the youths; build skills acquisition centres for willing adults, market stalls for men and women, if society must be secure,” he said.

2016 CU-ICADI: AYES Founder Urges Africa to Invest In Entrepreneurs

President, Africa’s Young Entrepreneurs, Mr Summy S. Francis, making his presentation on the topic “Entrepreneurial Innovation as Catalyst for Development in Africa”

The President and Founder of Africa’s Young Entrepreneurs, South Africa, Mr. Summy Francis, has tasked governments across Africa to invest in entrepreneurs as a company or a nation cannot make progress unless it focuses on its strength.

An entrepreneur is an individual who, rather than working as an employee, runs a small business and assumes all the risks and rewards of a given business venture, idea, or good or service offered for sale.

Speaking at the 2016 Covenant University-International Conference on African Development Issues, whose main theme was ‘Driving Inclusive and Sustainable Development in Africa: Models, Methods and Policies, Francis, who was one of the speakers at the three-day event, said “Developing Africa without entrepreneurs is like going to war without soldiers”.

The AYES leader, whose lecture was entitled ‘Using Entrepreneur Innovation as Catalyst in the Development of Africa’, said Africa has better potentials than other continents, but the continent has been weighed down by many challenges.

“We have bigger strength that other continents do not have in spite of the bad governance, corruption and leadership challenge among others,” he said. “However, entrepreneurs are national assets, you cannot use your weakness to overcome your strength but you can use your strength to overcome your weakness.”

Francis, who saluted the industry and the determination in the average African, impressed it on African nations to create an enabling environment for entrepreneurs in terms of financial aid and infrastructure, which would help them in their businesses as Nigeria, for instance, like China, has a very big buying population that entrepreneurs could take advantage of.

“An average entrepreneur will survive anywhere,” he said. “When I started I had little or nothing selling things like sweet, pain healers and others”

Apparently unimpressed with the way State Governors in Nigeria junket to Abuja to collect allocations on a monthly basis, Francis averred that the situation would be different if the governors had the experience of an entrepreneur.

“I imagine a situation whereby the Federal Government will stop giving allocations to the State Governments. Then only entrepreneurs you would see coming out to contest governorship elections because they have the business sense to make money for the states,” he asserted.

Entrepreneurship, he argued, can be used to solve societal problems like armed robbery, kidnapping and insecurity generally. According to him, “If supported, an entrepreneur can create a business worth $4 billion like Mark Zuckerberg, the owner of social media platform, Facebook”.

Uber, an American multinational online transportation network company, said Francis, has created about 4.2 million jobs, but unlike in America and in Europe, the encouragement is rarely there. “I’m sure if Dr. David Oyedepo had gone to a bank for a loan to help him build Covenant University, they would say it can’t work,” he said.

Citing the qualities inherent in an entrepreneur, he said “Where people see challenges, entrepreneurs see opportunities. Education is the key to success, entrepreneur is the door itself”.

On how Africans can use entrepreneurship to develop the continent, he stated that, “Governments should make entrepreneurship a priority in universities and they should support it. Governments must ensure their policies are entrepreneurship friendly and involve entrepreneurs in governance.

“Governments must ensure natural growth of local industries by kicking against hiring engineers from outside Africa. They should never take for granted small businesses and help tackle financial challenge facing potential entrepreneurs.”

http://covenantuniversity.edu.ng/News/2016-CU-ICADI-AYES-Founder-Urges-Africa-to-Invest-In-Entrepreneurs#.V06UIDUrLIU

President Obama Awards Highest Research Honor To A Nigerian Scientist

Prof. Deji Akinwande

Precisely on February the 18th 2016, Nigeria's Prof. Deji Akinwande was named alongside 105 others as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers.

These early-career scientists are deemed to be leading the way in efforts to confront and understand challenges from climate change to health and wellness.

Prof Deji Akinwande received a PHD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in December 2009. Previously, he graduated with a B.S/M.S. combined degree in Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics from Case Western Reserve University.

His PHD thesis focused on the physics, chemistry, materials and electronic properties of carbon materials.

He gained industry experience designing and testing analog circuits from MHz to 110 GHz for network analyzer and signal generator instruments at Agilent Technologies in California.

He subsequently worked at XtremeSpectrum, Freescale and Motorola on the modeling, design and testing of the first commercial 100 Mb/s ultra-wideband receiver chip.

He is a member of IEEE, APS, ACS, and MRS societies.

On 5th of May 2016, Prof Akinwande along with 105 researchers officially received his award from President Obama at the white house.

The award was originally established by President Clinton in 1996, and is been coordinated by the Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Executive Office of the President.

Awardees are selected for their pursuit of innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology and their commitment to community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, public education, or community outreach.

President Barack Obama joins recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) for a group photo in the East Room of the White House, May 5, 2016.

Nigeria Remains An Important Investment And Export Destination - Tony Elumelu

Chairman United Bank for Africa  Plc, and Founder - Tony Elumelu Foundation, Mr Tony Elumelu,  was a keynote speaker in France on the 27th of May, 2016 at the 1st ‘Colloque Nigeria,’ a colloquium on doing business and investment in Nigeria, which was organised by the French Senate at the Palais de Luxembourg in Paris, France .

Tony Elumelu focused on promoting Nigeria as a top destination for investment to French investors and businesses.

According to him “Nigeria remains a very viable, attractive and important investment and export destination for French companies. As a matter of fact, I would argue that now is a good time to come and invest in Nigeria, because it is an investor’s market. The fundamentals of the Nigerian economy remain strong.”

“Nigeria has always been a unique country. We are not only the most populous country on the continent of Africa, we are amongst the best educated and most-travelled people in Africa. We Nigerians are well known for our positive outlook and can-do spirit. Even more importantly, we have a strong culture and spirit of entrepreneurship. The smart investor, knows that this is the time to enter our market because the fundamentals of the Nigerian economy remain strong, and where others perceive risk and challenge, the glass is actually half full rather than half empty.”

PHOTO NEWS : SCORECARD OF GOVERNOR WIKE IN RIVERS STATE

Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike has assured the people of the state that his administration will maintain the tempo of projects delivery after the celebration of his first year in office.

Addressing journalists recently, he said: "When the people are happy that we are working non stop, that makes me happy. We are fulfilling the campaign promises we made to the people. Ours is to continue to do what we are supposed to do, irrespective of the economic downturn''.

"I am happy that after one year we have worthy projects to show to our people. We shall not slow down. We will start to renovate selected secondary schools and general hospitals. We shall also flag off the construction of an amusement park for children in the state."

He said that his administration will continue to be accountable to the people at all times.

PHOTOS 

We Are Delivering On Our Promises - Malam Nasir El Rufai

Text of State Broadcast by Malam Nasir El-Rufai, Governor of Kaduna State, on the occasion of his first year in office; Kaduna, 30 May 2016

My dear people of Kaduna,

All praise to the Almighty for the grace He continues to bestow upon us, for preserving our lives and for the great gift of service He commanded, and for which we are but willing agents.

I address you today with all humility, with gratitude for the electoral mandate you gave us to serve you. I want to thank you for your support over the past year, and to assure you that we have used every day in office to do what we pledged to do to make Kaduna great again, to remake our state by enabling its government to do its primary duty of serving the people and improving their lives. It is a responsibility we willingly sought, and a mission we are solemnly pursuing.

In the last 12 months, we have kept faith with the commitments detailed in the Restoration Programme, the document in which we outlined our governance agenda. We promised to reform the very way in which governance is practiced and delivered. This would lay the basis for acquiring and deploying state revenues to delivering sustainable services for the people. As we have explained during our town hall meetings, these are tough times, with severe revenue challenges placing obstacles to the government’s ability to meet the many legitimate needs of the people. But as we showed during those meetings, your government has been active, doing its best to make our state better.

Your government has done a lot in this first year. We have set a new tone and style for governance. Not for us ostentation or flamboyance. From little steps such as our short convoys obeying traffic lights, and the Deputy-Governor and I donating 50% of our salary and allowances to the state, we have taken bigger steps to cut costs, shrink the size of government and began to position the government machinery to deliver real service as befits the substantive meaning of public service. We have stopped distributing state resources to a vocal minority and have chosen to redirect them to social spending that will benefit the silent majority – our youths, women, small business persons and the ordinary talakawa that had lost faith in government.

We acted quickly to reduce our ministries to 13, from 19, and we have appointed only 13 commissioners. The government is battling to remove ghost workers and pensioners so that legitimate workers and the treasury are saved from these cheats. The imperative of sacrifice stems from the urgent need to devote revenues to making schools better, modernizing our hospitals, supporting farmers, building roads and creating jobs.

That is the thrust of our N172bn 2016 Budget that we designed to provide the services that our mainly poor citizens need. At least 62% of this budget is capital, meant for Education, Health, Infrastructure, Agriculture, and Jobs. Those are things we pledged to do. And these are the things we are doing.

As you are aware, your government is feeding 1.5m primary school pupils every school day. We are repairing their classrooms, building more where necessary and providing water and toilets. Basic education is now truly free. Our children can get the first nine years of schooling without parents paying any charges to the schools. Furniture is being provided to reverse the sorry legacy of neglect that left at least 50% of school children without furniture. We are feeding our boarders better, having raised their daily meal allowance from N33 to N180 per student daily. We have recruited over 2,200 secondary school teachers, and will support those in service to improve their skills.

The health care system is being rejuvenated. Our health workers have admirably won prizes and donor support for this state. This augurs well for our programme to modernize 255 Primary Health Centres, one in each ward, and 23 secondary health centres, one in each local government. GE, our partner in this project, are importing the required equipment while the hospitals to be equipped are being readied, some with the solar power on which they will run. We need more doctors, nurses and midwives in our state. Therefore, we have sent 30 young girls to study medicine in Uganda. Our state university has now received accreditation in Human Medicine, so we will train even more doctors here. Our two nursing and midwifery colleges are being equipped to graduate more of our young men and women to work for a better healthcare system in our state.

Your government is accelerating the completion of the Zaria Water project. We have cleared the payment arrears in excess of N3billion that we inherited from the former administration, and all the components being financed by Islamic Development Bank and Africa Development Bank are on course for completion within two years in sha Allah. We are also rehabilitating 12 water works across the state to improve water supply. Residents of Kaduna are already enjoying solar street lights installed on some roads, while the repair of township roads has started. Our mass housing scheme has taken off, with the first 2000 units now under construction in Kaduna. We are now going to replicate these initiatives in our other urban centers and rural communities in the coming months and years by God’s Grace.

In agriculture, we have eliminated the fraud that fertilizer subsidy encouraged. We have replaced that with a system that gives our farmers affordable fertilizer, without subsidy or even a kobo of government money. What we have done is to pull the weight of the government to negotiate a fair price on behalf of our farmers. We have attracted big companies to invest in the farming sector here. From tomatoes to maize, rice, wheat and soyabeans, commercial farming projects, with outgrowers’ schemes for our farmers, are being launched. The first of this is the Olam poultry and feed mill project. Many more will be actualized in the next few months.

We are tackling the question of jobs on many fronts. The government is creating direct jobs where it can. We have hired 2,500 young people to bring order and sanity to our roads and environment under KASTELEA. Our youths, 6,500 of them are engaged in waste collection; 85,000 women make school feeding happen. Thousands more have gotten jobs sewing uniforms for secondary school students or working on the road projects or school rehabilitation contracts.

But we need more than these direct jobs. That is why we are working with the federal and other state governments to revive cotton production, textiles and garmenting that Kaduna used to be famous for. We travelled to France to persuade Peugeot PSA to come back strongly to Kaduna, and have submitted a joint bid with other public and private partners to acquire majority shares in Peugeot Automobile Nigeria. We are also concentrating on bringing more investors to establish businesses in Kaduna and employ more of our young people. May I at this point thank you all for the excellent support you provided for the maiden Kaduna Economic and Investment Summit (KADInvest). Our guests were impressed with Kaduna, and your conduct disproved all the negative headlines. The fruits of that summit will show in the many investments in the pipeline, mainly in agriculture, solid minerals and retail.

We are supporting our young entrepreneurs through KADSTEP, so that they can sharpen their business skills and get funding from investors, including our intervention funds with the Bank of Industry. Every effort to create jobs will be made; every step required to persuade a business to set up shop in Kaduna will be taken. We have similar funds with the Bank of Agriculture, and are active participants of the CBN and NIRSAL anchor borrowers’ programme for the benefit of our farmers.

We have created the policy and legal environment to support business. Our new Tax Code creates certainty and removes multiple taxation. With KADGIS, we are computerizing the land registry and making it easier to acquire title and to check the validity of titles to land. With KADIPA, we have set up a one-stop shop to champion investments and help every investor to settle down in Kaduna. With our new Contributory Pension Law, we have removed the fiscal peril that unfunded pensions represent, while providing greater certainty for pensioners.

I wish to commend our communities for keeping the peace. We have been pleased with the seriousness with which you have treated security alerts. Security has improved across the state, but we cannot relax. Incidents of kidnapping, cattle rustling, car snatching and robbery still afflict us like many other states in Nigeria. We will continue to support the security agencies with logistics and tools to apprehend criminals. We will continue to count on your support. Let us all remain vigilant.

Fellow citizens, it is important to acknowledge the partnership between the three branches of government in Kaduna State. Without this spirit of cooperation between the Executive, Legislative and Judicial arms of the government to advance the interest of our people, our progress would have been stymied.

Our courts have been rated highly for enforcing contracts. The Judiciary is helping to strengthen this capacity by creating an Alternative Dispute Resolution Centre for expeditious resolution of commercial disputes, and shortening the time it takes to decide cases by digitalizing court recording systems. Our Chief Judge and his colleagues have also been active in reducing prison congestion in our state.

The honorable members of the Kaduna State House of Assembly have in 12 months passed 17 bills, helping us to establish a legislative framework that will change Kaduna for the better. Five other bills are in various stages of passage. Members of the KDHA have also tabled 46 motions, and passed six resolutions. The House has been diligent in its oversight functions, with our legislators visiting all our 13 ministries and their parastatals to monitor budget implementation. We thank our Judges and Lawmakers for their hard work, and the vigilance they are exercising on behalf of the public through the timely discharge of their constitutional duties.

In the remaining three years of the mandate that you gave us, we will certainly make Kaduna Great Again. We intend to transform government into a public service machinery that is efficient and understands that government resources must be spent on the people. Each of the sectors outlined in the Restoration Programme are being improved. We will make better the schools and hospitals, build better roads, deliver potable water and revive agriculture.

I wish to urge every resident of Kaduna State never to let the fire of hope die. Our country is facing serious revenue challenges, and this is mandating adjustments by government and the private sector. There is a committed government at the federal level that is using these tough times to create the basis for better times. The Kaduna State government stands solidly behind the Federal Government in this effort to rid Nigeria of oil addiction, import dependence and food insecurity. Let us march ahead knowing that tomorrow will be better than today. Let us reject ethnic and religious divisions. Let us stay together as one family, and work together to make Kaduna great again.

God bless Nigeria
God bless Kaduna State.

Jamaican woman becomes Queen in Nigeria

For scholars of African history and, indeed, the wider society, 2016 may go down as a significant year as far as Rastafarianism and the ‘Back to Africa’ movement are concerned.

Decades after Rastafarians in Jamaica began to espouse a return to the motherland of Africa, from where their ancestors were shipped to the Caribbean during the slave trade era, from the middle of the 15th century to the end of the 19th, the seed of a Rastafarian brethren has returned to the motherland in a royal capacity.

Chanel Chin, daughter of Rastafarian reggae artiste Ludlow Chin better known as Bobo Zaro, and Marion Morgan, is now queen of the Iwo Kingdom after her marriage to King Adbul Rasheed Adewale Akanbi earlier this year.

King Abdul Rasheed, now known as the Imperial Oluwo of the Iwo Kingdom in Nigeria, after his ascendancy on November 10, 2015, had met the 32-year-old woman in Canada, where he resided before his ascension.

Bobo Zaro is known for songs such as the hit single Pain, a collaboration with Contractor and Capleton, the video of which has been seen by millions of viewers in Africa via Channel O in South Africa and the Sporah TV show via SkyTV.

Queen Chanel says she is very honoured to represent Jamaica in such abig way.

She said: “My ancestors were taken away as slaves, but I have returned to Africa as a queen. One’s destiny cannot be altered. As a young child, I always wanted to come to Africa, but didn’t know how. I feel this is a great opportunity for black people worldwide to return to their home.”

Indeed, in a Facebook post, Emmanuel Mathias, in support of the queen, declared: “Destiny is powerful, her ancestor was taken away as slave, but she return back home as queen. Let us embrace her and tell her you are welcome back home. This is one giant steptowards bringing back home our descendants that great fathers and mothers were casted away.”

The queen added: “Our forefathers and ancestral mothers were cast away as slaves to never return, but I want Jamaicans everywhere to know that Africa is so nice. The culture and traditions are so rich and lovely. It’s truly something every black person should come and experience.”

Chanel explained that as queen of Iwo land, her responsibility is to always set a proper example for young girls and women in the community.

Giving an insight into traditions and customs, she said her dressing and outfits are to always be conservative and respectful.

“No matter what I wear, my shoulders and full legs must be covered at all times. All of my clothes are custom made to match these requirements. Also, as queen, the king and I like to regularly visit the local schools in the community to remind the children of the importance of education and excelling in all areas of their school work and examinations.”

The queen said her husband is the first king to actually take the time to visit the children.

“We believe they are the future,” she remarked.

In her esteemed position as a Nigerian queen, she said she faces only minor challenges one of which is her being not fluent in the native language which is Yoruba.

“I know some words. Everyday, I am still learning.

The two met in Canada long before the Imperial Oluwo became king.

Source: 3Jamaica

Herbert Macaulay - Our Hero Past

Olayinka Herbert Samuel Heelas Badmus Macaulay (14 November 1864 – 7 May 1946) was a Nigerian nationalist, politician, engineer, architect, journalist, and musician and is considered by many Nigerians as the founder of Nigerian nationalism.

Olayinka Macaulay Badmus was born in Lagos on 14 November 1864 to Thomas Babington Macaulay and Abigail Crowther, children of people captured from what is now present day Nigeria, resettled in Sierra Leone by the British West Africa Squadron, and eventual returnees to present day Nigeria.

Thomas Babington Macaulay was one of the sons of Ojo Oriare while Abigail Crowther was the daughter of Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, a descendant of King Abiodun. Thomas Babington Macaulay was the founder of the first secondary school in Nigeria, the CMS Grammar School, Lagos. After going to a Christian missionary school, he took a job as a clerk at the Lagos Department of Public Works.

From 1891 to 1894 he studied civil engineering in Plymouth, England. On his return, he worked for the Crown as a land inspector. He left his position in 1898 due to growing distaste for the British rule over the Lagos Colony and the position of Yorubaland and the Niger Coast Protectorate as British colonies in all but name.

Herbert Macaulay was an unlikely champion of the masses. A grandson of Ajayi Crowther, the first African bishop of the Niger Territory, he was born into a Lagos that was divided politically into groups arranged in a convenient pecking order – the British rulers who lived in the posh Marina district, the Saros and other slave descendants who lived to the west, and the Brazilians who lived behind the whites in the Portuguese Town.

Behind all three lived the real Lagosians, the masses of indigenous Yoruba people, disliked and generally ignored by their privileged neighbours. It was not until Macaulay’s generation that the Saros and Brazilians even began to contemplate making common cause with the masses.

Macaulay was one of the first Nigerian nationalists and for most of his life a strong opponent of British rule in Nigeria. As a reaction to claims by the British that they were governing with "the true interests of the natives at heart", he wrote: "The dimensions of "the true interests of the natives at heart" are algebraically equal to the length, breadth and depth of the whiteman's pocket."

In 1908 he exposed European corruption in the handling of railway finances and in 1919 he argued successfully for the chiefs whose land had been taken by the British in front of the Privy Council in London. As a result, the colonial government was forced to pay compensation to the chiefs. In retaliation for this and other activities of his, Macaulay was jailed twice by the British.

Macaulay became very popular and on 24 June 1923 he founded the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), the first Nigerian political party. The party won all the seats in the elections of 1923, 1928 and 1933.

In 1931 relations between Macaulay and the British began to improve up to the point that the governor even held conferences with Macaulay. In October 1938 the more radical Nigerian Youth Movement fought and won elections for the Lagos Town Council, ending the dominance of Macaulay and his National Democratic Party.

In 1944 Macaulay co-founded the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) together with Nnamdi Azikiwe and became its president. The NCNC was a patriotic organization designed to bring together Nigerians of all stripes to demand independence. In 1946 Macaulay fell ill in Kano and later died in Lagos. The leadership of the NCNC went to Azikiwe, who later became the first president of Nigeria. Macaulay was buried at Ikoyi Cemetery in Lagos on 11 May 1946.

His image adorned the N1 note and later the N1 coin.

YORUBA PEOPLE IN DIASPORA

Yorubas have become truly global: in terms of their locations in different parts of the world; the representations of various aspects of their culture (including religion, art, music, dress, and cuisine), in these locations; the emergence of distinctive Yoruba Orisa traditions in the Americas; the physical presence, in various parts of the world, of the descendants of Yoruba people taken as slaves and now as voluntary migrants in the contemporary era; and the integration of Yoruba in African studies, Diaspora Studies, the Black Atlantic, and Atlantic history.


The geographic location of this lecture is the Atlantic, a site that unites the Yoruba in Nigeria with the coastal areas of West Africa, with Europe, and the Americas. Within this Atlantic unit, the Yoruba are located far and wide, not just along the coastlines but in the hinterland as well. The Yoruba in diaspora reveal to us profound imaginations of diasporic movements and connections, the process and outcome of cultural hybridization and identity formation, and the strategies of adaptation and social integration in diverse locations in different historical formations.

The massive expansion of the Yoruba occurred in the context of the four continents united by the Atlantic Ocean. The Yoruba were among the African slaves drawn from Central and West Africa and tragically relocated to the Americas. As the enslaved, they were funneled to the Atlantic. After the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, secondary migrations occurred as freed slaves returned to West Africa, and thousands migrated within various countries in the Atlantic World.

The Yoruba Diaspora in the Atlantic World, the contributors have examined the history of the Yoruba in different countries. The slave trade violently took the Yoruba to several places in the Americas: Brazil, Cuba, Uruguay, Argentina, Haiti, Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United States. There are characteristics and patterns. The breakdown reflects the following: first is location, a) in an extensive land mass from Rio de la Plata in South America to the Chesapeake Bay in North America, and small islands in the West Indies; b) in North America, areas of concentrations were in Virginia, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and North Carolina; c) in Central America, the Yoruba were taken to Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua; d) in South America, the Yoruba were found in Brazil, Suriname, Guyana and Venezuala; and e) in the West Indies, they were taken to Cuba, St. Lucia, Saint-Domingo (Haiti), Barbados, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago. A second relevant aspect is concentration: in sizeable numbers in relation to the totality of African slaves, the Yoruba were concentrated in three places—Bahia in Brazil, Cuba, and Saint-Domingue. In these places, their value was mainly in their labor, working on plantations and processing firms that produced sugarcane, sugar, tobacco, cotton and other profitable crops; in mines, as domestic servants; and in such other economic sectors as ports and commerce.

While the Yoruba cultural influences were the strongest in Cuba, Bahia, and Saint-Domingue, they equally established a noticeable impact in other places where their numbers were smaller. Some impacts were Yoruba-based, that is, based on elements that we can define primarily as Yoruba. Other newer influences were part of the creolization of cultures as the Yoruba interacted with slaves from other African ethnicities and with European-derived cultures and institutions such as the church and family.

Presence is one thing, impact is another. Be it in Brazil or the United States, the diversity of those countries, even when not recognized, is grounded in the multiple histories and experiences of different groups and ethnicities from various countries. Among the citizens in these places are people with Yoruba roots. Where the roots are denied or unappreciated, or simply not known, alienation develops. This consciousness has been expressed time and again in various poems, essays, and texts to underscore how diaspora groups seek recognition, self-depiction, collective affirmation, and cultural authenticity.

Where the demographic presence made it possible, the Yoruba formed communities, and reinvented a new “nation” with its own king, chiefs, and rules. They formed an identity that others recognized, defined as Yoruba, which meant that they were able to transfer and negotiate an identity for themselves. In Brazil, the Nago, and in Cuba, the Lucumi established considerable impact on religion, orality, families and social institutions. The Nago built various communities linked by elements of Yoruba culture—language, facial marks, celebrations, names, origin mythologies, drums, songs, music, and more. The Yoruba gods and goddesses became defined as pan-Yoruba and migrated into an overarching religion of Candomblé, which in turn was used to reinforce Yoruba ethnicity.

Whether by orality or literacy, the Yoruba have contributed to developments and discussions of religion, culture, ethnicity, gender, and other issues that define migrations, globalization, and multiculturalism. These discussions foreground the reality of culture as a mosaic. Thus, on the one hand, they adopted cultural elements from their hosts and demonstrated the dictum, “when-in-Rome-behave-as-Romans” formula. By so doing, they respected other peoples and their cultures and knew what to take from them. There was no desire to pursue a project of ethnic absolutism. On the other hand, they sought to promote and protect what they regarded as the core values of their cultures. In combining those two options—borrowing and maintaining—the Yoruba affirmed the principles of assimilation and cultural retention, of creolization.

Within the duel framework of assimilation and retention, came the seeds for nationalist resistance. Countless Yoruba women and men of courage engaged in processes of cultural rebirth and collective affirmation. As stifling and crippling as the plantation systems were, there were a number of Yoruba people who demonstrated enormous courage in rebelling against enslavement and domination. The condition of slavery gave birth to cultural expressions that tapped into Yoruba ideas, practices and history, making language and religious practices resilient in the face of powerful attacks. These expressions were in turn nurtured by a sense of nostalgia, the search for liberation. Even to worship a Yoruba god was interpreted by those in power as a militant expression. Mythologies became very powerful devices of remembering, of re-enacting aspects of the past, of formulating practices for the future, of aesthetic imagination. Mythologies supplied the basis for creating ideologies of acculturation to Yoruba identity outside of the Yoruba homeland.

Enslaved communities, as with colonized subjects, are ridiculed by those in power. To fight back, the Yoruba turned to their mythologies to indict slave masters and colonizers, and to ridicule the culture imposed on them. In turning to Yoruba gods, they subverted repressive forces and actors. In creating hybrid religious forms, they borrowed clandestinely to accept a culture and then strategically reinvent it. Turning Yoruba gods into the equivalences of Catholic saints was not in any way an affirmation of the inferiority of their own heritage nor dependency on a borrowed one, but a recognition of their own in a way that relocate them to the center of worship. They were not making a plea for Sango or Yemoja to be recognized by repressive forces but that such forces were powerless to destroy their own heritage. By turning to their own history and drawing from it to construct a cultural presence, they created the legitimacy for Yoruba practices to spread globally. Indeed, the Yoruba were critical of themselves as they sought new ways to practice culture, debating issues around authenticity and orthodoxy, but in the process they legitimized their presence and successfully reproduced their culture for over five hundred years. Outsiders to the cultures ultimately accepted Yoruba practices, and by the twentieth century they became part of legitimate academic fields.

Cultural manifestations translated into a myriad of concrete actions, most notably of slave revolts. The Yoruba were among those agile and free blacks who played leadership roles in a number of revolutionary actions in and around the Americas. Violent insurrections involved the ability of the leaders to mobilize other slaves and to build alliances with free people of color. Jane Landers described these revolutionaries as “Atlantic creoles,” and provided evidence for the 18th century of how, among others, Yoruba royalists, maroons, and counter-revolutionaries fought against the slave system, gained freedom, and even established autonomy for themselves. Among them were José Antonio Aponte, a famous Yoruba who led the 1812 revolt against slavery in Havana Cuba, and Juan Nepomeceno Prieto, the well-known leader of a Yoruba brotherhood called the Lucumi, also in Cuba.

A linkage has been established between conflicts in Africa, enslavement and migration patterns. A link has also been established between the military and cultural background of slaves and major slave revolts, as in the 1739 Stono Revolt in South Carolina, the Haitian Revolution of 1804, the Aponte rebellion in Cuba in 1812, and the 1835 Malé revolt in Brazil. We can see the role of the Yoruba in some of these. The 1812 rebellion in Cuba was connected to the Yoruba. During the 18th century, the Oyo Empire made thousands captives who were then sold as slaves in the Atlantic slave trade. Slaves were also sold in the first three decades of the nineteenth century, captives from the wars that led to the fall of Oyo and the struggles by its successor states, notably Ibadan and Ijaye, for dominance. Many of these slaves made it to Cuba.

In moments of protest and violence, the consequences were drastic, but they ended more in the display of courage and resoluteness. In the Aponte rebellion, the authorities executed the twelve leaders, whipped many insurgents, and threw them into prison. The aspirations for freedom and justice were not killed whether in Cuba, Brazil, or the United States. To make a point, the authorities executed thirty-four protesters and publicly humiliated seventy-eight of them by whipping, and putting one hundred and seventy in prison. Loyal slaves were also rewarded with freedom, although their masters had to be paid by the colonial authorities, judicial officials, and some citizens who donated money. However, the rewards did not stop the acts of resistance. In 1835, the Yoruba again revolted in Havana to seek an end to slavery and overthrow the government. Fearful of more uprisings, some slave masters began to call on Spain to end slavery while others called for greater vigilance.

Many Yoruba also used legal and political means to protest slavery, and to fight for abolition, as in the case of the Afro-Brazilian Luiz Goma, a politician, lawyer and writer who died in 1882, six years before the proclamation of abolition. The activities of Goma have even been compared with those of Frederick Douglass in the United States.

Furthermore, radical politics continued in the post-slavery years, expressed in various forms during the twentieth century. The expression of “Africanity” has generated both political and cultural movements in all countries where the Yoruba can be found.

Forced relocation brought about by the Atlantic slave trade and the colonial subjugation by European powers imposed a certain kind of history on slaves and colonial subjects. It is a history of domination, one that attempts to erase the history of slaves and subjects, destroying their archives, and trivializing their subjectivity as agents of change.

Exploited and dominated people were presented as primitive, foolish, lazy, and incompetent, creating a damaged image as a justification for domination and exploitation. Irrespective of where they came from in Africa, the generic name of “black” was imposed on them, a way of asking them to forget where they came from and to accept a homogenous debased identity. In rejecting a blanket racial category, the Yoruba opted for a “nation” instead, in which they defined themselves in specific terms, and were accepted as such by slaves from other African groups. In this definition, history and memory played a significant role: they had a sense of geographical place of origin, the breakdown of their specific culture, and of course the use of language. Even with the minimal material objects they carried with them in support of their religions and worldview, they had memory to support their belief system: the memories of their practices, rites and rituals, myths, tales and proverbs; lyrics and rhythms; architecture and sculptures; and other vectors of religious philosophy.

Regenerative projects are the conquest of humiliation and tragic histories, displaying how the Yoruba who survived the trauma of the Atlantic slave trade and the racism that followed have become triumphant. Enslaved subjects in the Americas saw in Yoruba mythologies and religions resources to escape degeneration. To escape, they needed to preserve Yoruba inheritances, using various elements as combative instruments.

Regeneration is not just about affirming past heritage, but also about new inventions and creativities. The Yoruba in the diapora have redefined and expanded the boundaries of Yorubaness. In taking Sango and Ogun abroad, they globalized the gods. They are no longer gods localized in fixed towns of Oyo and Ire as mythical origins but redefined in regionalist and Atlantic terms as religions of the Yoruba in Havana and Miami. The cults of Osun and Yemonja have also traveled far and wide doubling as part of the Orisa, and also as the radical politics of using gendered religion to advance feminist and liberational politics.

The reimagining of the gods and goddesses outside of the Yoruba homeland creates many new practices for worshiping, making sacrifices, and communicating with the spiritual world. What the gods and goddesses can do for devotees has become endless, adjusted to meet the demands of the contemporary moment. As enunciated by various Yoruba religious leaders, the Yoruba believe, among others, in the orisa, divination, magic, the use of herbs, a supreme being, ritual songs and dance, and the power of the ancestors. In Brazil, Candomblé reflects elements of Yoruba religion, expressed in divination, healing, music, spirit possession, and sacrifice.

The Yoruba are outsiders within various other cultures in different parts of the world. The narratives of existence have become so diverse, so complex, that mythologies that sustain the Yoruba as insiders within cultures such as the Oduduwa origin story may not be sufficient or always useful with the Yoruba who are outsiders within cultures where they live in multiracial, multiethnic, and transnational spaces where an individual can proclaim that other civilizations are of me and mine.

The historical layers, as the older diaspora has demonstrated, are many. The new Yoruba in the West are recent immigrants, mainly in their first generation. They are transnationalists who talk about their Yoruba homeland and their new adopted homeland. Some present narratives that tend to imply that they carry multiple personalities of transnationalism in one body. The reconciliation of the multiple personalities entails a host of different strategies by various individuals, although globalization has provided limitless opportunities to recreate “home” in multiple locations.

Today, the Yoruba world is dominated by the young, our future. But the young are decreasingly active in Yoruba culture, far more exposed to Western culture, disconnecting their intellectual interest from indigenous ideas. Yoruba history and culture must be integrated into major studies irrespective of the future careers of students. The process of cultural immersion advances the project of cultural reproduction, enabling critical engagement with stories, legends, mythologies, proverbs, and rituals to affirm the value of the past and to minimize the burden of modernity. Expressions of cultural identity cannot be neutral in the context of globalization and Western cultural hegemony. Neither can they be neutral in the context of a growing generation of parents in cities who are disconnected from reproducing the Yoruba language and its values. Cultural competitions can close the gap between generations (as youth engage with adults as audience) and also between creativity, thought, and fragmented human lives. They can bring back forgotten voices of the past, thereby raising consciousness about the past and the present. We will certainly discover excellence in youth and creativity in ways that will advance our lives and thoughts.

We have to culturalize ourselves before we can culturalize others. The past must always have a useful function. Places that the Yoruba call “home” have expanded far beyond the geographic space of southwestern Nigeria. Those within the original homeland who invented the Isese (original traditions) have to find lasting values in them. Those “abroad” have to find value in their hybridity, combining Yoruba with elements of the culture where they live. All have to find values in continuity and change, developing the techniques to accept contradictions and ambiguities in the evolution of new cultures, popular cultures, and youth behavior. Changes will come, but locality remains as well. Modernist theories that older traditions and religions will just fade away have been proven wrong by the resilience of culture. Globalization theories that predicted the disappearance of the local are not correct either. Cultures and ethnicities remain powerful. Nationalism has been formulated around the two of them. It is how people understand themselves and their heritage that shapes how they understand others.

Our vision of modernity, as Yoruba, must remain expansive, accommodating, receptive to change, and progressive. As those at home and abroad see themselves in the framework of a “nation,” they should continue to learn from one another, interact on the basis of common interest, share ideas to promote development and innovations, and minimize divisive conflicts, while promoting competition. The Yoruba live within national, regional, continental, and global universes, as members of diverse spaces: trans-ethnic, trans-national, trans-cultural, even trans-racial. All these spaces have to be managed, but they also have to be crossed to benefit one another, to promote peace, and to minimize conflicts. We must rework the relationships between the Yoruba insiders within culture and the Yoruba outsiders within cultures so that we can merge our interests in all the locations, all the centers, and all the margins in order to create a genuine dialogue in the promotion of Yoruba humanity and progress.

Acknowledgment : Yoruba People in Diaspora

4th African fashion show opens in Geneva

No fewer than six African designers converged in Geneva on Saturday night to showcase the continent's fashion style in colour display of ethnic fabrics.

The event which was held under the platform of the 4th African Fashion Show Geneva (AFSG), saw presentations from Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, and Rwanda.

Others are: Zimbabwe and South Africa with guest appearances from non-Africa nations of Russia, Brazil, Indonesia and France.

In an interview with the Europe Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Founder of the AFSG, Mrs Temitayo Omotola said that the show was aimed at correcting the stereotypes about Africa.

She said the correction was being done by telling the story of the continent's rich culture to the global community.

''Africa is a beautiful, vibrant and dynamic continent with brilliant and creative minds. It goes beyond the usual stereotypes of conflict, diseases, hunger and poverty often recorded in the media,'' she said.

According to her, the AFSG is rooted in celebrating the continent's diversity through music, fashion, dance and Fine Arts- thereby bringing visibility to the diverse talents from designers to artists.

Omotola also explained the inclusion of some non African designers in the show, saying that it was necessitated by the growing economic partnership with Africa with some BRICS nations.

She expressed the hope that subsequent editions of the show would be for charity in order to support causes such as refugees and the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Africa.

Also, the Tanzanian designer, Bijoux Pwatne, said she was motivated by the styles and colourful prints of African wrappers which her mother wore daily and also designed for friends and family.

Pwatne, who resides in Norway, said African fashion continued to receive global response as it had gone beyond a seasonal style mostly associated with spring and summer seasons.

''The global response is amazing, African styles through ethnic prints are no longer the next big thing in fashion but the in thing in fashion,'' she said.

Pwatne stressed the need for more support from governments to fund young talents in the industry.

Other designers who spoke to NAN were unanimous in their call for support from governments, and the African Union as well as regional bodies like ECOWAS.

They all opined that such support would create wealth and employment and also lead to revenue generation for the nations.

The highlight of the show was the live ''on stage'' painting of an African landscape which was immediately auctioned for CH 350 (Swiss Francs) an equivalent of 400 U.S. dollars.

The event which attracted audience from the diplomatic core and African communities in Switzerland was sponsored by the Nigerian Bank of Industry and Brussels Airlines, among others.

My Governorship, An Assignment From God – Governor Akinwunmi Ambode

Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode on Sunday said his ascension into office one year ago as the 14th Governor of the State was an assignment from God, just as he vowed to continue to serve humanity selflessly throughout his tenure and lifetime.

Governor Ambode, who spoke at a thanksgiving service held at the Chapel of Christ the Light, Alausa, Ikeja in commemoration of his first year anniversary, said his election despite many challenges, was a clear indication that God was involved right from the beginning and as such he would continue to draw strength and inspiration from the Almighty.

He said: “Exactly a year ago today, I stood before a larger congregation trying to commit myself to the opportunity that you gave me to serve you and I have tried as much as possible not to misplace that opportunity.

“I just want to thank everybody for believing in me. When I became a politician, I used to call myself a techno-politician, that is a technocrat and a politician. I never believed that I could ever survive up till this moment if not for the grace of God.

“I believe so much that this is an assignment from God and that is why I am doing it with all my totality and give back to humanity. God has been too kind to me and for that reason, I have decided that I will serve the people selflessly to the will of God,” the Governor said.

Governor Ambode, who thanked all those that stood by him, specifically appreciated his mother, family and his wife, Bolanle, who he described as a prayer warrior standing in the gap of prayer for him.

The Governor also thanked the National Leader of All Progressives Congress (APC) and former Governor of the State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Oba of Lagos, HRM Oba Rilwan Akiolu for believing in him and supporting him.

He said: “I want to openly thank God for using them (Tinubu and Akiolu) and believing in me as well as supporting me and giving me to Lagos State. I want to thank all our party members and leaders led by the State Chairman, Chief Henry Ajomale. As much I was new, I was the new face of Lagos and they supported me.”

He thanked members of the State Executive Council, civil servants, religious leaders, the Judiciary and the Legislature, saying the three arms of government in the State have worked greatly together in the last one year, which was why the State is progressing.

In his sermon, Presiding Chaplain of the Chapel, Ven. Femi Taiwo commended Governor Ambode for his sterling performance in the last one year, saying it was audible and visible for everyone to hear and see.

The clergyman, who said he was not given to praising people especially when not necessary, said the administration of Governor Ambode was a regime of noiseless transformation and alluded to the various road projects, educational transformation, street light project, massive investment in security, among others.

Earlier, Governor Ambode in his Democracy Day Broadcast Message to Lagosians, which he titled, “Daring to Dream and Ready to Actualise”, said that despite the fact that the global economy is in turmoil and the Nigerian economy is facing huge challenges, Lagos has continued to march on with confidence and a clear vision.

Highlighting some of his plans for the next one year, Governor Ambode said that plans are underway to install a fiber optic network around the State to boost broadband access to our homes and offices, improve the transportation system as well as continue the massive infrastructural development ongoing across the metropolis.

“We shall build and rehabilitate more roads; we shall ignite our Tourism and Entertainment potentials by approving a new International conference center and entertainment and theatre district; our television and radio stations will be fully overhauled to make them first class.

“We shall automate our bus system and introduce new buses; we shall overhaul our garbage collection system to make it more efficient; we shall build and refurbish more schools; we shall commence disbursement of loans to entrepreneurs and our youth under our Employment Trust Fund; establish a Rent-To-Own housing scheme and many more initiatives.

The Governor said that more importantly, greater attention would be paid issues involving the elderly, the youth and the people living with disabilities in the coming year, while schools and hospitals will receive special attention comprehensively.

“Fellow Lagosians, I renew my oath and pledge to serve you diligently, with passion, love and perseverance. I have always wanted to serve and I just ask that you continue to give me the cooperation to serve you and together, we will all realise the Lagos of our dreams where we thrive and not just survive.

“I also ask you to dream along with me as we actualize a vision of a vibrant, non-discriminatory, clean, prosperous, safe Lagos that we can all be proud of and God will help us all achieve our dreams,” Governor Ambode said.