The Final Third and Finishing Strong

Starting today, we enter the fastest part of the year in terms of perception. Somehow, most of us believe the so-called "ember" months i.e. September, October (which has no "ember" to begin with) November and December run way faster than the earlier parts of the year. The reason is not far fetched.

Most people start the year thinking "it's a new year" and look to take things a bit easy. It still feels like a "new year" for many even when Easter comes in early April. For many, the year never really gets started until July. From July, an understanding that time may be running out on the year sort of begins to dawn.

By the time September comes, many projects are packed into a four-month period that should have been done the previous eight months. Most people "work harder" and "faster" and seek to do a lot more than they did in the previous eight months. Before anything gets done, the pressure that goes with the end of the year comes piling and you often end up feeling "the year has gone by so fast!" But that is not true.

Those who make the best of the year are those who make the best of each day! Those who pay critical attention to the parts certainly have the whole under control. Too many times, we are focused on having a great year but we forget that if we don't take care of what is within our immediate control - a day - we cannot do much with a year.

It is never too late to make the year count. If you are given one orange and you divide it into three equal parts and you eat two of the parts, the last part left becomes your new 100 per cent. Try it, it suddenly looks a lot more important than the other two you want to be careful not to expend it too quickly. The reason is because it suddenly dawns on you that your orange could soon be finished!
You are likely to eat it a lot more slowly than you did the first two. We are naturally inclined to wanting to eat our orange and having it at the same time. The final third is often crucial and it could be the difference between a great year and a disastrous one. It is the part that calls for one to finish strong!

The best football teams in the world are often teams that play so well in the final third that  they put their goals away. The final third is the point of delivery of goals. A team that is poor in the final third is likely to suffer more defeats than a team that is very sharp and effective in the final third. A team that has a sharp and effective final third scores many goals: think Barcelona, think Real Madrid, think Manchester City. These teams are threats to their opponents because of the firepower of their final third.

Today is the beginning of your own final third for this year. No matter what you have accomplished or could not accomplish in the first eight months of the year, these last four months are likely to be what your year would be defined by. It is the closing of either a great year or a not-so-great one. It is often the indicator of what the new year would be like because it often informs the plans and agenda for that new year. The beauty of it is that it is in your hands.

Despite the distractions around us, there is a lot more about our lives that are in our hands than our minds are ready to admit. We have been conditioned to believe things would be better if we had something we do not presently have access to. We are hardly conscious of the fact that we have enough with and within us to get something started. We want a great end to the year so we are looking at having a great September to December, but how can you have a great month if you don't pay attention to the essence and value of each day?

Make this final third about each day within each week. A lot can still get done within these 121 or so days left in the year. If we choose to be focused on what counts and what matters. If we choose not to play to the gallery. If we ask exactly what we want out of this final third of the year, the year stays pregnant with possibilities for those who are ready to birth them. Have my best wishes.

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The Giftbasket: Ayahay Foundation’s Initiative to Save Lives

The plight of Nigerians seems unending these days, the most pressing issues being insurgency and the spread of the Ebola Virus Disease. While Ebola takes a strong hold on the south, Lagos to be precise, Boko Haram has the north in its grip. Amidst the chaos some people are steadfast in their quest to give hope to victims of terrorism. One of such is the Ayahay Foundation which continues to give to communities around the nation.

The most recent attempt of the foundation was the GiftbasketNG event, a charity organized in the form of a picnic in Abuja.

“If we’re not careful, from the way this violence is going, each person is going to know somebody that knows somebody that has been affected by this crisis. So how do we come together in the spirit of unity?” asks Maryam Augie, Founder and Executive Director of Ayahay Foundation. With a concerned look on her face, she adds, “How do we change the discuss from all the destruction and the deaths to all the survivors?”

Ayahay Foundation was established after two of Ms Augie’s close friends, Fatima and Aisha Yahaya, died in a car accident (Ayahay is Yahaya spelled backwards.) The foundation, which is now made up of Maryam and about 20 other young individuals in different fields, has since 2013 been helping women and children especially, by equipping them with relevant entrepreneurial  skills and providing them with relief materials.

More recently, Ayahay Foundation provided for the three northeastern states, Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa, which have for a very long time been afflicted by attacks from terrorist group, Boko Haram.

“Right now, there are 3.3 million Nigerians affected by the violence directly. Another 9 million are affected indirectly. 1000 people go into the deeper regions of Niger every single week, 83 percent of them being women and children. That’s close to 10 percent of our population,” Ms Augie said.

“With GiftbasketNG, we’re trying to see how ordinary citizens and individuals can donate relief materials towards the north east. The problem is, it’s being looked at as a northern problem. 19,000 farmers are out of livelihood, 5,000 hectares of farmland are destroyed. Whether you like it or not wherever you are in the country that affects you. So what we’re trying to say is how do people from the south, to the north, to the east come together and donate these materials?”

The picnic, hosted by Chi Gurl and Aisha Augie Kuta, took place at the Sarius Palmetum Botanical garden, barricaded by highwalls, endless greenery, and tall lush trees deep in the heart of Maitama. It was all fun and games as kids hopped around in bouncy castles and young adults earned various prizes for winning musical chairs, sack races, and other competitions.

People huddled together and talked. As some people relaxed to the music, others sat and ate suya, and pushed it down with a chilled drink. The attendees were bright and colorful, dressed in all the colors of the rainbow, and the photographers didn’t miss a bit of the joie de vivre.

But the highlight of the show, however, was the donation to the relief effort. People came forward with items they could to share with the displaced people, who were squatting in camps, possibly the forests, with barely any protective shelter, food, and possibly water.

Onyinye Muomah, a writer, who attended the picnic and declared her full support for the initiative. “Most of us hear about [the] insurgency. But when we hear about it we think, how will this affect me? Will it come to my side? Will these bombers come to my side? We often don’t think about those people that are already affected. What’s happening to them? How are they feeding?  How are they clothing? And for a young person like this who has many things going on for her, to take her time to do something about it, it is very inspiring.”

Ibrahim Isa, who works for an ICT firm and is also a member of the foundation does all he can to get more people to hear about the foundation and help out. “GiftbasketNG is kind of an awareness to launch what we are trying to do. I think it is a good initiative. People should be more involved in this. This could be any of us. We are all Nigerians, be it Muslim, Christian, or people that don’t worship anything. We have to reach out. We are all humans.” 

Even though cash donations are accepted, the foundation is more keen on food items, toiletries, and utensils.

“Today is not about the funds. It is not about the materials. It is more about the awareness. The fact that people brought stuff, yeah we’re grateful about it. But it is more about the awareness,” says Ms. Augie, who works with NEMA and Red Cross to get all the relief materials out to the displaced people.

Asides from those organizations, Ayahay Foundation is looking at other ways to get more people to join in. One of these is to get the National Assembly on board.

“The National Assembly is the closest we have to unity in this country where each and every person representative of each and every corner of this country is there. So how does each member donate ten bags of rice? That’s nothing to them. That’s 3000 bags of rice. That’s 10 trailer trucks of food. That would make a whole lot of difference to the thousands of people who are displaced.”

Ms Augie is optimistic about the impact of the Giftbasket initiative and has big plans to help the displaced in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa and beyond with relief materials.

For more info, follow the @GiftbasketNG on Twitter or visitwww.facebook.com/ayahayfoundation

You can also call these numbers: 0816 381 1559 (Elvis) and 0813 184 6445 (KC), or email  giftbasketng@gmail.com  and   Info@ayahayfoundation.org  

For breaking news out of Abuja, follow us on Twitter: @MetropoleMag

Defections and the Irony of Political Righteousness

Even in the most established democracies, when a political party points a finger at the other, it is likely to be unknowingly pointing four fingers at itself for the same reason it is pointing one at its rival. In Nigeria’s seeming democracy, the reality is not often a likelihood, it is almost a guarantee that whatever the two main political parties accuse each other of, they are likely to be both guilty of same. Let us break it down in non-cryptic talk.

What would the All Progressives Congress (APC) be without the likes of governors Rochas Okorocha, Rotimi Amaechi, Rabiu Kwakwanso, Abdulfatah Ahmed, Aliyu Wamakko, Senator Bukola Saraki, impeached Adamawa State Governor, Murtala Nyako, former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar and the likes? These political heavyweights and their supporters were mostly in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) less than ten months ago. This writer never saw an ounce of complaints or tears from known APC members on social media for such an exodus from the PDP to its rival APC.

That exodus was the move that truly set APC up as really and truly an opposition party the PDP had to take seriously. If the PDP were complacent about the competition it is now facing in the country’s political games, why would it desperately field known rogues and at least one murder suspect in gubernatorial elections? The PDP means business and its use of the armed forces to intimidate voters in recent elections is only one pointer to that reality.

The other pointer is its willingness and desperation to make deals. Don’t go all holier than thou on me: deals are part of the political business like other businesses. So the latest move involving former anti-corruption czar Mallam Nuhu Ribadu is likely to reverberate around political circles for a while. Amongst the many arguments against him, his leaving APC for PDP will be the weakest. APC members have no moral right to weep or cry over such a move because if we do the arithmetic of defections since the formation of APC, it remains the biggest gainer. If all politicians were to move back to their previous parties before the first defection into APC, the PDP would only need to conduct a primary and we’d already know who the president is, based on the winner of the PDP primaries, as it always was.

Not only is the APC the overall leader on the league table of defections, its primary MO was actually to lure members of other parties into it. Wasn’t that the crux of the voyages across the country to meet with old political powerhouses? So some of our social media friends calling Nuhu Ribadu names would probably have been seen as not being hypocrites if they had called him such names while he was in the APC. The ‘no one is a saint’ that accompanies the defection of alleged rogues into your party and the ‘s/he is a thief anyway’ that is readily stamped on those defecting from your party, especially when you never called them same while they were in your party, easily give you away as a clown.

The real conversation is the Ribadu fans from his EFCC years that feel betrayed he has joined the PDP. A party many Nigerian and often non-voting middle-class members see as the worst thing to have happened to Nigeria since 1999. It is hard to argue against the bit about whether the PDP has been a disaster. It has.

But politics is not crime fighting. The Ribadu of EFCC cannot be Ribadu the politician. The man can be the same but the same man cannot play different games the same way. Nigerian politics is about difficult compromises. For example, you must be willing to sit with someone accused of starting a terrorist group at your party’s meeting but you’d have no business meeting with same except to arrest him if you were a crime fighter. You deal with handcuffs and arrest thieves as a crime fighter. As a politician, you deal – whether you admit it or not – with renowned rogues.

Naija politics is not a gathering of All-Saints and even members of the All-Saints Church are not all saints. Politics here is a game of hard, tough, often heart-wrenching choices. Once you join partisan politics in today’s Nigeria, you have subtly made a choice to play with the bad guys. If you are a good person, you have made a choice to give our people better choices as voters. If all we do is complain about bad politicians – assuming all of us who complain are good people – all we will achieve is have same bad politicians rule over us. We have done this for 50 years; we have mostly had bad leaders rule us for 50 years!

Those pragmatic enough understand that the political parties cannot be better than what they were if they continue to be left in the hands of those who made them same. Let us stop pretending ours is an ideal society, because there are no ideal societies and ours is closer to grossly abnormal than ideal. We have to make choices, join the PDPs of this world, get power and give the system one better leader one state at a time or complain all century about the bad leaders until another century creeps in on Nigeria.

A wise friend once said, Nigeria will not be saved from Abuja because a vibration in Abuja will weaken out before it reaches across the country. Nigeria will be saved by each state choosing better leaders. A vibration in 70 per cent of Nigerian states will have a more reverberating effect on the whole country. No matter how good a man or woman we have as president in Abuja, s/he is just never going to fix this country better than if we have 36 good governors. It is the reason why the likes of Nuhu Ribadu and Nasir El-Rufai must be supported if they indeed run, irrespective of the platforms under which they run.

The north especially needs people like them to add to the good works of Rabiu Kwankwaso in Kano. We may not agree with their politics, but we cannot argue against their pedigree and result-oriented antecedents. We can talk about political ideologies after we talk about what matters to Nigeria’s 70 per cent poor; it is not PDP or APC, it is a country, states and local governments that work. The time for voting ideologies will come after we have a sane society.

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Minister of Power Warns against Inter-Agency Rivalry

The Minister of State for Power, Hon Mohammed Wakil, has cautioned agencies within the ministry against infighting and confrontations.

 

The minister gave the advice in Abuja yesterday at the inauguration of the Technical Committee on the establishment of the Electricity Management Services Limited (EMSL). He noted that inter-agency disputes have negative impact on the implementation of government objectives for the power sector.

 

“We must never engage in disputes to the extent of engaging in press war,” he said. “Agencies must avoid taking to public domain operational issues that should be resolved within the ministry.”

 

“The transformation of the power sector has recorded so much progress that we cannot for whatever reasons fight each other over mandates. The ministry can no longer watch the infighting which has now reached the media. That is why this committee is conceived,” the minister added.

 

He further stated that the committee is to provide options and recommendations on how to ensure a synergy between the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) and the EMSL.

 

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Ebola: Nigeria Records 3rd Death

The ECOWAS Commission has announced the death of its staff at the Lagos Liaison Office, Mr. Jatto Asihu Abdulqudir, to the Ebola Virus Disease.

 

The Commission made the disclosure in a statement yesterday. It said the Mr Abdulqudir, 36, was among those who assisted the Liberian delegate to a regional meeting, Mr. Patrick Sawyer, who died from the disease at a Lagos hospital.

 

The statement noted that Mr. Abdulqudir had been under quarantine following that sad incident.

 

“The Commission wishes to use this opportunity to express its gratitude to Nigerian government authorities and others who contributed to managing the late official while under quarantine,” it said.

 

It further commiserated with Mr. Abdulqudir’s family and colleagues and prayed for the repose of his soul.

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Malala, Abducted Girls & the Unholy Paradox

I will not say that I am particularly happy or saddened that the girl-child rights activist, Malala, stole the #BringBackOurGirls campaigners' show by coming to Nigeria with all of the attendant razzmatazz and red carpet that followed.

 

I share the belief that her visit might have been conceived in good faith but at the same time postulate that her public relations strategists probably saw the opening after appraising the ill-fated Chibok circumstance in Nigeria to first and foremost further her cause and to secondly give her the much needed media publicity and Nigeria presented the fertile ground.

 

However, what our countrymen failed to envisage is the fact that her visit once again redirects the spotlight of the entire world on Nigeria giving them a free right of entry to the sad truth that we lack a system that is capable of handling itself in times of emergency.

 

I tend to agree with pundits and analysts who posit that the visit of the Pakistani Child’s Right activist, Malala Yousafzai, to Nigeria to support the call for the rescue of the over 200 girls abducted by members of the Boko Haram sect was helpful because of the attention it drew to the issue. However, they failed to understand that it equally brought to limelight the weakness of our leadership and the vacillation inherent in Aso Rock.

 

It is already in the public domain that it was Malala who finally prevailed on the most powerful man in the whole of black race to meet with the parents of the Chibok girls 99 days after their abduction not to even talk about the initial cold denial on part of the Government before coming to terms with the reality that the girls were truly abducted after series of campaigns from the citizens platform, the #BringBringBackOurGirls which has now gained global followership, participation and even secured international help for the country in the rescue effort.

 

Talking of which the government now considers the #BringBackOurGirls campaigners as opposition elements. The Department of State Security Services labelled them as a franchise. Their crime being that they are putting pressure on government to expedite action on the rescue effort. At least,  Malala, a 17 years old Pakistani girl met with the president amidst lots of fanfare, trumpet blast and flourish but when the #BBOG group attempted to meet with the president they were turned back by security operatives and clustered at the Federal secretariat Junction only for the Minister of the FCT, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and other delegates from the Villa to come out and address the group on behalf of the president. The fundamental question is: what did Malala say that had not been said by the #BringBackOurGirls group? Oh! She donated to the cause while the #BBOG group came wielding placards, clad in red. Their stance has since been interpreted as opposition.

 

In a politically charged terrain like ours, it is very easy to interpret almost every move from the vintage of the forthcoming 2015 general election. It took the government weeks to finally agree that the girls were truly missing after series of denials, accusations and counter accusations. This of course the government must live with  and rightly so because,  if the military were immediately mobilised, they may have intercepted the girls before they were taken deeper into the forest and now to God knows were.

 

After 100 days in captivity and still counting, one can only imagine the plight of these girls and the level of damage that may have been caused to their persons, psychic and even their world view. The government has continued to give assurances to Nigerians. However, the people are already tired of all of these assurances without any visible impact. There are still pockets of bombing in various parts of the country. Nigerians are largely afraid and mostly don’t believe in the ability of the government to protect them. People are now living in fear which is obviously the goal of these terrorists. Perhaps the government needs to pause and have a rethink. Maybe there is a need to review the strategies being adopted at the moment. Maybe there is also a need to have a united front and stop looking at the issue from a political point of view.

 

The recent attack on General Muhammadu Buhari’s convoy in Kaduna speaks volume. It is to me a major opinion changer as political vituperators will now see that this phenomenon is not about Jonathan as wrongly suggested. Perhaps one of the reasons why this insurgency has continued to linger is because of political alienation. The ruling Peoples Democratic Party has severally accused the All Progressives Congress  of having sympathy for Boko Haram, thus, alienating its key stakeholders from decisions that could help in seeing the country through this quagmire.

 

Thousands of lives are being lost daily to this insurgency which appears to be overwhelming our military. The questions we are not asking at this point are: do we have the capacity to tackle these insurgents? Are our men in the frontline of this battle properly motivated? What are the insurance they have should something happen on the war front? Are their families covered? These and many more questions are begging for answers.

 

The recent request for $1 Billion  to fight Boko Haram has equally generated a lot of controversies. A lot of money has been budgeted for security in the last few years. Why are we not seeing its bearing on the ongoing campaign? Does any part of this fund even get to the guys in the frontline of the raging battle? Or some bureaucrats sit in their alcoves in Abuja and divert these funds? All of these questions must also be answers and satisfactorily so, before we can start thinking of any additional spending.

 

However, in spite of my puckered brow at Malala’s visit and its grand impact on the presidency, I dare say that Nigerians should thank her for directing and pushing our president into doing the right thing. Her visit was definitely a push on the quest to find and bring back the Chibok girls. It has added another strong voice to the #bringbackourgirls campaign thus making it a win-win for the local #BringBackOurGirls group here in Nigeria.

 

The scenario also makes me agree with analysts who held that Malala was smart enough to have cashed in on an exigent and terrorizing incidence thus,  turning it into a prospect which has given her not only international attention and rave reviews but an opportunity to contribute and use her wisdom to redirect and rejuvenate our government’s dithering. The lesson to draw from all of this is that experience should fear the strength of the youth.

 

Beyond all of these, the government must know that its major responsibility is the protection of lives and property of its citizenry. It is therefore apt to suggest that the government be proactive in doing same. This is because citizens are beginning to lose faith in the ability of government to protect them, not knowing where to run to for help. This is the unholy paradox. We don’t have to wait for another Malala to suggest when, why and how our state affairs should be run. It is a bit embarrassing. Moving forward, I really pray that we triumph over this hydra headed beast that is threatening our corporate existence.

 

Politicians irrespective of their divide and affiliations must realise that it is their country too. Like Abraham Lincoln once said: “I like to see men proud of the place in which they live”. The fact is that we can't all be presidents, all parties can’t produce a president at the same time, but we can all be patriots. And I believe that patriotism is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. Hence now that we are confronted by a common enemy, all Nigerians irrespective of political party or ideology must unite so that we can win this war.

 

The government must stop interpreting genuine moves by citizens which are guaranteed in a democratic milieu as opposition. The politics of 2015 must not becloud our sense of reasoning. And I suggest that our political elites come out of their political cocoons to confront this common enemy and defend the country. This is because a man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle. At this point, the south cannot say that it is a northern problem and let them face it.

 

Nigeria is much more than a geographical fact.  It is a political and moral fact - the first community in which men set out in principle to institutionalize freedom, responsible government, and human equality.  We need a Nigeria with the wisdom of experience.  But we must not let Nigeria grow old in spirit. We must not allow another Malala to come and show us the way. What we need are critical lovers of Nigeria - patriots who express their faith in their country by working to improve it. This is what we crave for.

 

*Igah lives in Abuja

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Ebola: 2 People Quarantined, 69 under Surveillance

The Minister of Health, Prof Onyebuchi Chukwu, has said that 2 people are under quarantine in Nigeria due to the Ebola virus while 69 people are under surveillance.

 

The minister who made the statement at a press briefing in Abuja yesterday however stressed that there was no need for alarm.

“69 are under surveillance and 2 are under quarantine. We are tracking all of them,” he said.

 

“Those that had primary contact will remain under surveillance until a period of three weeks from the date of contact that we can pacify them and be certain that they are free of contact.”

 

He said that the Ministry of Health was working together with the Ministries of Aviation, Transport, Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) as well as state governments to create more awareness, and to prevent the virus from spreading.

 

Also speaking, the Minister of Information, Mr Labaran Maku, said every precaution was being taken to stall the spread of the disease.

 

“Communication experts are working side by side with medical personnel to educate people,” he said. “Nigeria has taken every step professionally to avoid the spread of this virus by ensuring that all victims that had contact are being quarantined or under surveillance.”

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