Last Thursday, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan was suspended for six months by the Senate for violating its rules. But with the disciplinary action coming after she had formally submitted a petition alleging sexual harassment against the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, it is the chambers that is now on the defensive. The highest legislative body in the country is being inadvertently perceived as aiding and abetting predatory behaviour against women, even among its own members. It is a self-inflicted problem. A more circumspect Senate would have put the disciplinary matter against Akpoti-Uduaghan in temporary abeyance by first dealing with the sexual harassment allegation against its presiding officer; after all, as a Yoruba adage says, if tree falls on tree, conventional wisdom teaches that you start the clearing process from the top.

At the Women in Parliament session held at the Inter-Parliamentary Union Meeting (IPU) in New York, United States, on Tuesday, Akpoti-Uduaghan internationalised not only her ordeal but also used the platform to speak for Nigerian women. “I was suspended illegally because I submitted a petition for sexual harassment against the President of the Nigerian Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio,” Akpoti-Uduaghan said. “I thought that by submitting the petition, he would recuse himself and both of us would submit ourselves to the Committee on Ethics, Privileges, and Public Petitions for a fair, transparent investigation. But unfortunately, I was silenced, and I was suspended,” she told the gathering. “That means I’m here illegally…It depicts the crisis of women’s political representation. My suspension is not just about me. It’s about the systemic exclusion of women from political leadership in Nigeria.”

Considering what many of the male Senators have been saying on this crisis, it is almost difficult to fault Akpoti-Uduaghan’s claim that her ordeal has to do with her gender—regardless of whether her allegation against Akpabio is true or false. In asking that the suspension be reduced from six to three months, Senate Minority Leader, Abba Moro—leader of her own party, the main Opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that ought to be in her corner—compared Akpoti-Uduaghan to a ‘recalcitrant child’ that you sometimes ‘beat’ when they misbehave. The Deputy Chief Whip, Senator Onyekachi Peter Nwebonyi made matters worse by going on air to retort that Akpoti-Uduaghan has “six kids from six different men”, a false claim; and that her “lifestyle is blocking the chances of other women who want to enter politics.”

I wonder why the Senate cannot understand that the entire saga has gone beyond the person of Akpoti-Uduaghan or the veracity of her allegation. It is not for nothing that the United Nations has devoted several days in a year to remind the world of impediments against the female gender. The last four months provide a ready example. Between 25th November and 10th December 2024, we had the annual global 16 days of activism which basically just called for an end to violence against women and girls. Then on 6th February this year, we had the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation. Five days later, on 11th February, was the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. Of course, we were all aware that last Saturday, 8th March, was 2025 International Women’s Day. But I doubt if many were aware that Monday, 10th March was also the International Day of Women Judges.

To mark the event, the United Nations Office for Drug and Crimes (UNODC) published a feature story on a female judicial officer in Kenya, Christine Njagi with the headline, “‘Be the headliner, not the footnote’: Women in Justice/for Justice.” While sharing her experiences on the challenges women and girls face in Kenya, Njagi said in whatever situation women find themselves, they should strive to be the headliner and not the footnote. “Don’t be afraid at times to swim against the current—you might be the one who will change the flow of the river,” Njagi admonished. That appears to be the manual from which Akpoti-Uduaghan draws her inspiration. Whatever may be her motivation, the moment she was shut down by Akpabio while protesting the seat-change, she had elected to be the headliner rather than the footnote in the battle she knew was coming. By suspending her, after she had formally submitted her petition on sexual harassment, the Senate has only played into Akpoti-Uduaghan’s hands.

It is possible, as Senator Nwebonyi said, that Akpoti-Uduaghan’s allegation against Akpabio “is a case of personal, unsubstantiated, and conveniently timed accusations—claims of sexual harassment that supposedly took place over a year ago but surfaced only after the accuser was summoned for disciplinary action.” But not many people really care anymore, perhaps because of the way the Senate handled the issue. When the holder of a superior power position is accused of sexual exploitation, intimidation, or implicit threat, there is an obligation on that institution to treat such allegation, especially coming from a member, with seriousness. That perhaps explains why for many, the real issue is no longer whether Akpoti-Uduaghan’s sexual harassment allegation against Akpabio is true but rather that the Senate, in suspending her—even if for another ‘offense’—has denied her the opportunity of a fair hearing.

My position on the former ‘uncommon transformer’ of Akwa Ibom State is well-documented on this page, and one of my recent columns on him, ‘Akpabio: A Man for Every New Season’ has been trending on WhatsApp since this crisis started. I have also received suggestive messages from readers about what I should ‘write on Akpabio’. But that is not my way. I have nothing personal against the senate president. No matter what some of us may think of Akpabio, it would be unfair to jump to any hasty conclusions based on a claim that has not been proved to be true. Besides, removing Akpabio as Senate President will not resolve a problem that is institutional. What we must ensure is that women and girls who find the courage to raise an alarm relating to sexual harassment are respectfully listened to and not intimidated into silence. We must find a way of supporting a fair and discreet interrogation of such issues, without humiliating either party. This is because we live in a patriarchal society where women who refuse to accede to sexual demands from their superiors could easily have their careers delayed or truncated with irreparable damage done to their self-worth, sometimes for life.

To mark the 2025 International Women’s Day last Saturday, platitudes eulogising women in Nigeria  were offered by our men in positions of power. But the reality is that we operate a system patently skewed against women. At the Women in Parliament session attended by Akpoti-Uduaghan on Tuesday, a new IPU report, ‘Women in Parliament, 1995-2025’ was released to commemorate 30 years since the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. The report reveals that the percentage of seats held by women in national parliaments has risen from 11.3% in 1995 to 27.2% in 2025. Meanwhile, in 15 States Houses of Assemblies across Nigeria today, there is not a single female lawmaker! Let’s not even talk about how a female lawmaker who was elected Speaker by 90 percent of the membership in a State House of Assembly was arm-twisted to surrender the gavel to the unpopular man she displaced. Even if the decision was not taken because she is a woman, the signaling was bad considering the overwhelming support she enjoyed from her colleagues.

The situation is only slightly better at the centre. In the current Senate, there are only four members among 108 Senators. Among the 360 lawmakers in the House of Representatives, there are only 16 female members. But the real problem is that even those few members are most often treated with disrespect. Exactly nine years ago, I wrote about this in a column titled, ‘In Defence of Nigerian Women.’ Interestingly, it is the current First Lady of Nigeria, Mrs Oluremi Tinubu who provoked my column at the time.

Presenting a motion to mark the 2016 International Women’s Day with the theme, ‘Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality’, Senator Tinubu (as she then was) had argued, “We represent courage and resilience; without us (Nigerian women) I don’t think this country will move forward.” The contributions that followed from some of the male senators were, to put it mildly, reckless. Eight months ago, I rehashed most of my arguments in another column, ‘For Akpabio, A Teachable Moment’, after he tendered a public apology to Akpoti-Uduaghan on the floor of the senate for demeaning her with a biting remark that the Senate is not a “nightclub”. What that episode and the earlier one that elicited my column nine years ago reveal is that when those who make laws for society act in ways that suggest a lack of respect for women, there is a problem.

That precisely is why many women, including those who may habour doubts about Akpoti-Uduaghan’s claim against Akpabio, are angry about the way the Senate has handled the matter. But it is not too late to make amends. The suspension of Akpoti-Uduaghan should be lifted. She should also be availed the opportunity to prove her sexual harassment allegation against Akpabio before the Senate Committee on Ethics. If she cannot provide evidence, Akpabio reserves the right to sue for damages. For any family man, the psychological wound of being falsely accused of sexual offense is deep and it is not something that should be taken lightly. For that reason, I am delighted by the way the IPU President, Ms Tulia Ackson, who is also the Speaker of the Tanzania National Assembly, handled Akpoti-Uduaghan’s allegation. She said they have only heard one side (from Akpoti-Uduaghan) hence would also need to hear the other side (from Akpabio and Nigerian Senate) before they could draw any conclusion. Keeping an open mind is exactly what is required on such an allegation until all sides are heard and the person who asserts can prove.

Meanwhile, my counsel for Akpoti-Udughan is to return home for the new battle ahead. All the white, black and red lions she defeated to get to the Senate have launched a subterranean but well-funded campaign for her recall. However, since the larger issue that has been thrown up is about gender inclusion in Nigeria, let me also conclude with the last paragraph of my 2016 column which still resonates, especially for our lawmakers. It will serve the Senate and also the larger Nigerian society: The recent obsession of some senators with the denigration of a vital segment of our populace indicates something more sinister about the state of our legislature. In a country beset with so many pressing existential issues requiring legislative intervention, it is a negative testimonial that some of our lawmakers can only find relevance in denigrating women. I therefore do not hesitate to say to the unrepentant chauvinists in our midst: Next time you think about Nigerian women, think of your mother and please mind your language!

Adieu Dubem Onyia

It was a sobering moment for us on Monday afternoon at the General Hospital in Maitama, Abuja, as we watched the body of the late former Minister of State, Foreign Affairs, Chief Dubem Onyia, being wheeled to the morgue. Only two hours earlier, the Director, Programmes and Administration at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Mrs Vivian Emehelu, had left the office abruptly after receiving the sad news about her father’s passing. So, I joined the Centre’s Director, Partnerships and Development, Amara Nwankpa and Director, Finance, Babatunde Ahmadu, to support Vivian and her family through the initial post-mortem procedures at the hospital. Yesterday, I also joined members of the Centre’s Board led by its chairman, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to visit the bereaved family. Onyia was a very pleasant man with whom I related very well for almost two decades. He was also a strong advocate for peace, cooperation, and African self-determination both at home and abroad. May God comfort the family he left behind.

(Being Prof. Adebayo Okunade’s 70th Birthday Anniversary and Valedictory Lecture Delivered at the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan, on Wednesday, 12th of March, 2025)

Professor Bayo Okunade has crossed into the seventh bracket; he is now effectively a septuagenarian—that state of hoariness where he joins the gang of the sages who have been given the capacity to connect divinity with humanity in terms of wholeness. Seventy is a weighty number in spiritual and cultural terms. In spiritual terms, seven and ten elevates sacredness in numerical reckoning both for the Israelites, the ancient Egyptians and the Yoruba. Seven indicates perfection and ten signals completeness. Must be the reason why Psalms 90 says “The years of our life are seventy.” This makes seventy years a most notable year that represent fullness—the time of reckoning and deep reflection and appreciation. And yet, for the Yorùbá, in terms of the chronological reckoning as àgbà, àgbàlagbà, arúgbó, we also see why seventy is just another chance at consolidating a life well-spent. 

That he would eventually become a teacher was something that was almost inevitable. Being born to parents who were teachers could not possibly have been rosy for any young child. Teachers, especially those who have strong cultural knowledge about parenting and child upbringing, could only be seen back then as efficient taskmasters. They are those who were already seen as exemplary and who, by the force of societal expectations, also expect their children to take after them exemplarily. So, when he resumed his teaching trajectory at the Olivet Baptist High School, Oyo, it was a critical juncture that would not only lay the foundation of his political science teaching and scholarship—he was the Government teacher. It was also the point at which a young, suave and brilliant Government teacher began to enlighten me particularly as a green-eye Aáwé lad about a possible future in political science tutelage. 

This is why, on this occasion, I am celebrating Prof. Okunade’s in terms of the consummation of his stature in the political science scholarship in Nigeria. A brief historical note will serve the purpose of properly situating the significance of Okunade. The emergence of political science in Nigeria was chequered by two significant issues. The first was the colonial administration and its fear of a possible emergence of an ideologically sophisticated student body. The second reason for the delay in the establishment of political science as a discipline was a similar fear by the nationalist elite who suspected that political science will radicalize the Nigerian masses and expose the elite’s standpoint. 

By the time Okunade would be completing his undergraduate and graduate studies, he was already getting drawn into the foundational curriculum and pedagogical issues that would shape the political science teaching orientation and scholarship at Ibadan, and provide the stimulus for redirection. From independence to the Nigerian civil war and the aftermath of military incursion into politics, Nigeria was already going through a flood of postcolonial national issues, replicated across Africa, that demanded that political science needed to be taught differently. Bayo Okunade the student was a witness to these curricular unfolding and growth. And Bayo Okunade the teacher was eminently situated at the preeminent citadel at the University of Ibadan, that was to serve as the bastion of the political science education in Nigeria, as part of a critical mass of change agents who had been saddled with the responsibility of bringing political science theorization to bear on the sociopolitical and national experiences of the postcolonial Nigerian state. 

This scholarly enthusiasm attending the deployment of social science scholarship to the understanding of the Nigerian national experiences is demonstrated in his first set of over fifty publications, from 1985 to 2010, and the legion of others thereafter. These publications range from local government structure, public policy, public bureaucracies and human rights to foreign relations, electoral processes, constitutionalism, democracy and democratization. This entire corpus signals the urgency of mastering the conceptual, intellectual and empirical bases of the symptoms and morbidities of the Nigerian state and its multiple consequences on and for Nigerians. It was inevitable that the Department of Political Science would be at the forefront of the radical discourse on revolutionary possibilities that ensured. For instance, that a staple of our intellectual and academic learning was the Marxian political economy perspectives on the postcolonial frameworks and trajectories of the Nigerian state was inevitable. Dependency and World System theories and its centre-periphery structure made strenuous efforts that provided the basis for a class analysis of the Nigerian society, especially given the capitalist accumulation enabled by colonialism and its deepening by the postcolonial comprador elements. As the radical fervour of the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary scholarship started to wane on the rubbles of the collapse of the communist Soviet Union, it became increasingly important that political philosophers, political scientists and other committed scholars began to explore alternative theoretical resources and praxis that could facilitate a critical understanding of the structural, institutional and historical bases of Nigeria’s federal system and its hobbled economic development which had from then till now made national development a mirage. 

This is the critical defining juncture that opens up the fundamental significance of Prof. Okunade’s social constructivist theoretical framework which enabled a formidable research contribution to the body of scholarly knowledge about political engineering as it relates to Nigeria’s sociopolitical dynamics. With Naija Marxism and the Nigerian Left floundering, and the Nigerian federalism in a lopsided constitutional mire, the next best thing on the table was the idea of restructuring. In the absence of the possibility of a revolution, how do we restructure the political structure of the postcolonial Nigerian state that has been hobbling national development, nation-building and democratic governance for more than six decades since independence? Prof. Okunade has not minced words on this issue: it cannot work. According to him, “any system that is not totally off the mark can work. It takes people for a system to work. For a system to work, there has to be consistency with the construed norms and supportive ethos that will make it work. If we change the system, even with restructuring or whatever, how much of what were on ground are we substantially complying with? And then we change to another system. They are the same thing.”

On the contrary, a much more fruitful course of discourse should be on leadership, and how it could be deployed in facilitating the emergence of a well-ordered society in Nigeria. For sixty-four years, it would seem that Nigeria has been locked in a national question that has not produced any significant governance and development answer by which the lives of Nigerians could be transformed. And, to quote Albert Einstein, insanity is precisely to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different result. And such a society, for Okunade, would revolve around the critical variables like the rule of law, constitutionalism, human rights and local governance. These requisite institutions and their fundamental ethos make for an efficient public administration that backstop good governance and our idea of a society that functions efficiently for the betterment of the citizens. The responsibility to pull all these variables together in the service of a vision of a society that governs for her citizens rests squarely on the shoulders of a good political leadership. Such a leadership must be, on the one hand, morally and technically good; and on the other, effective in terms of governance programmes and policies. 

Beyond Chinua Achebe’s announcement and analysis of the leadership predicament, Prof. Okunade provided a fundamental iteration of the political leadership as a “big challenge.” This challenge is grounded on a more empirically sophisticated frameworks of the variables involved in bad leadership and the consequences that have kept Nigerians impoverished since independence. And that empirical political analysis has been further demonstrated by the inability of the continent itself to throw up a critical mass of leadership figures that is able to win the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership for four consecutive years. The transformational qualities that the Mo Ibrahim Award requires of the recipient is what Prof. Okunade infuses into his own deep analysis of what leadership requires. The worth of a leadership, as Daren Acemoglu and James Robinson demonstrates, in Why Nations Fail (2012), derives from whether their decision facilitates the emergence of extractive or participatory institutions. The issue is critically about “how decisions actually get made, who gets to make them, and why those people decide to do what they do.” And then, there is the equally fundamental issue of how these decision aggregate in the design and operational function and optimality of public institutions. 

What we see, between Okunade’s concession to political leadership, and Acemoglu and Robinson’s concession to institutionalism, is the agelong discourse on the relationship between agency and structure. Yet, both are caught in an empirical grip of counterexamples that undermine their theses. On the one hand, the authors of Why Nations Fail are hard-pressed to explain why China has kept progressing economically under successive authoritarian regimes (same can be said about Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew, as well as other Asian Tigers) while India’s progress might be hard to attribute to its putative democratic leaders. On the other hand, Prof. Okunade’s thesis also need to explain the successes of China and Singapore whose leadership demonstrated governance effectiveness without the accompanying ethical imperative.   

To rehabilitate Prof. Okunade’s theory of leadership out of this quandary requires first that we undermine the intrinsic assumption in Okunade’s theory, about the leader as a change agent with singular capacity to make people do what is needed. This is evident, in Okunade’s inaugural lecture, from his assessment of leadership activities from Tony Blair and George Bush to Olusegun Obasanjo and Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. I think that this understanding of political leadership stifles the significance of the relationship between leadership, social change and infrastructural development. Indeed, it puts a lot of over-extended pressure on a political leader in terms of the expectation of magical transformation by a wave of the leader’s wand that turns poverty to prosperity. We must therefore ask, legitimately, if this understanding of political leadership is sufficient for national transformation. This question is justified when we take cognisance of Nigeria’s unique political sociology and how it throws up compromised leaders who are forced to play bad politics with the commonwealth to hold on to power. There is a one-to-one relationship between this skewed political sociology and the construction of elite nationalism in Nigeria. 

An alternative articulation of the nature and role of leadership can be found in the change space model of leadership. The change space model is meant to facilitate the capability of the institutions and systems of government to encounter and engage changes while factoring in contextual pressures and circumstances. It therefore depends on a distributed and multilevel understanding of leadership that requires, (a) a political leader as the lead change agent, and (b) a critical mass of change agents who can bring abilities/competences, resources and context together in facilitating genuine and transformational change through a problem-solving approach. 

Apart from helping us move away from the idea of a leader as a change agent with a singular capacity, it also proposes the understanding of leadership as what influences the difference between a change that is intended for development, and the one that is actualized through infrastructural development. A change leadership is the one that initiate the change space and motivates it efficiently to achieve desired transformation. With this model, therefore, we have a conceptual framework to make sense of the relationship between “leader” and “leadership” in understanding how the change space through leaders and the leadership dynamics that mobilize people, ideas, resources and infrastructures in order to be able to catalyze change. The leadership is therefore expected to: (a) build coalition for change; (b) assemble a team with sufficient IQ, wisdom and commitment to initiate, implement and deliver the change; and (c) grant required authority, incentive and support, with accountability, to these team of leaders in their own right, so they could achieve optimal productivity, performance and impact, that will deliver the change. 

It would be interesting to see what a change space model of Nigeria’s political trajectory would have yielded if interjected into Prof. Okunade’s analysis of leadership. More worthwhile is what the idea of distributed and multilevel leadership framework could mean for our understanding of impactful politics and national development. This in my assessment of Prof. Okunade’s “big challenge” of the political leadership in Nigeria—a leader who has the capacity to build and motivate a change space populated by different levels of leadership frameworks, political, religious, social, bureaucratic and civil. It is therefore safe to hypothesize that while a leader is a key and critical factor in transforming a state, it does not by itself resolve the myriads of predicaments and problems that bedevil the Nigerian state and society.

To conclude: Prof. Bayo Okunade stands in a continuum of scholarly excellence that has at one end the scholarly genius of Billy Dudley, E. U. Essien-Udom, Peter Ekeh, Bayo Adekanye, John Ayoade, Tunde Adeniran, Busari Adebisi, Larry Ekpebu, Alex Gboyega, Femi Otubanjo, Fred Onyeoziri, Jimi Adisa, Kunle Amuwo, Eghosa Osaghae, Adigun Agbaje, OBC Nwolise, Rotimi Suberu, and the host of other stellar personalities and scholars that lit up the credentials of the Department of Political Science. Prof. Bayo Okunade’s theory of political leadership—a systematic and empirically sophisticated articulation of Chinua Achebe’s diagnosis of the Nigeria problem—unarguably presents a research outline that speaks to the need for more theoretical and practical engagement with the leadership phenomenon in a postcolonial context like Nigeria. I see this as a critical challenge to the political science scholarship in Nigeria; the challenge of articulating theoretically feasible and nuanced understanding of what ails the Nigerian state, her leaders and leadership and her citizens.

Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has accused Bauchi State governor, Bala Mohammed, of betrayal.

In a chat with journalists on Wednesday in Abuja, Wike specifically accused Governor Mohammed of betraying the ‘G5 Governors’ prior to the 2023 elections.

The defunct ‘G5’ governors, who are all members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), include Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State and former governors Nyesom Wike of Rivers, Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia, Ifeanyi Ugwuwanyi of Enugu and Samuel Ortom of Benue State.

Daily Trust reports that the group is believed to have contributed to Bola Tinubu’s victory in the presidential election.

Narrating what played out, Wike said: “Bala Mohammed was having a problem with Atiku and Co. That day, I was going to commission a lounge at the airport. When he landed, I said there was no need to come to town when I was coming to the airport. He called me. Ibrahim Adoke, the former Attorney-General, was there.

“He said Atiku would kill him if Atiku wins and that we must support Asiwaju. We organised G5 to pay Bala a visit in Bauchi, not knowing that he was using us to settle with Atiku. When we got there, he was happy. The next day, Tambuwal led a team to go and see Bala, and Bala abandoned us.

“That’s why I say before you hold some position, you must be a man of character. That’s why I always talk about character.”

[DailyTrust]

Members of the National Working Committee, NWC, of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, are currently meeting in Abuja, the nation’s capital.

The meeting, which is being held behind closed doors at the party’s national headquarters, is presided over by the PDP National Chairman, Umar Damagum.

This comes two days after the Supreme Court dismissed a motion for a stay of execution of a High Court judgment removing Senator Samuel Anyanwu from office as National Secretary and replacing him with Sunday Udeh-Okoye.

There was a heavy presence of security personnel, including operatives from the Department of State Services, DSS, the police, and the Civil Defence Corps, at the PDP headquarters in Abuja.

Earlier, party staff clashed with thugs and some members loyal to the embattled PDP National Secretary.

A PDP staff member who witnessed the clash and requested anonymity told journalists that the scuffle began when supporters of Samuel Anyanwu entered the party premises.

According to him, the pro-Anyanwu supporters attempted to lock out some members of the PDP National Working Committee who were arriving for their usual midweek meeting. However, they were overpowered by staff, private security guards, and some police officers attached to the secretariat.

The incident led to the deployment of additional security personnel to prevent a further breakdown of law and order.

[DailyPost]

Actress and filmmaker Omoni Oboli has announced her movie “Love In Every Word” is back on YouTube after being taken down due to copyright issues.

The movie, which had gained over 7 million views, was removed from the platform after a Canadian-based network engineer, Chinonso Obiora Skyberry, filed a copyright infringement claim against Oboli.

However, Oboli revealed on social media that the issue has been sorted out and the movie is now back on YouTube. 

She expressed gratitude to her fans for their love and concern during the period the movie was taken down.

“Love in Every Word is back! Hey, besties, thank you for the love and concern. We deeply appreciate you all for your calls, messages, posts, tweets, comments, everything! I’m sorry I couldn’t respond at the time. 

“There was a little misunderstanding with our movie LOVE IN EVERY WORD. It’s been sorted out now, and we are back stronger than ever! So let’s make up for the time lost, besties. 

“Time to make sure the whole world watches LOVE IN EVERY WORD on Omoni Oboli Tv on YouTube. God will forever be glorified,” she wrote.

“Love In Every Word” is a romantic movie starring Uzor Arukwe and Bamike “Bambam” Olawunmi. 

The movie has received positive reviews, with many praising the chemistry between the lead actors.

[TheNation]

Born on May 21, 1913, to the Egba family of the Lagos lawyer Olawolu Moore, Lady Kofoworola Ademola was a Nigerian educationalist, writer and advocate for women’s education.

She was the first Black African woman to be awarded a degree from the University of Oxford.

Kofoworola studied English Literature and Education at St Hugh’s College, Oxford from 1932 to 1935 and was set on becoming a teacher. Her time at St Hugh’s College was also significant in that she paved the way for more black women to study at Oxford. She wrote a biography during her time at Oxford about her life and experiences, a book which challenged the stereotypes of African people in 1930s Britain. Her account appeared in colonial civil servant and historian Margery Perham’s 1936 collection, Ten Africans, a book of cultural importance both at its time of publication and today. Kofoworola understood from her own experience the benefits of cultural collaboration and felt that meeting people from other cultures would improve peoples’ cultural understanding, providing the potential to create a more peaceable world. With this in mind, she suggested that at least two African women should be admitted to study at Oxford each year.

As the only African woman at Oxford, Kofoworola said that she was regarded as a “’curio’ or some weird specimen…, not as an ordinary human being.” And that people would make “ineffectual remarks about our ‘amazing cleverness’ at being able to speak English and wear English clothes.”

Kofoworola worked tirelessly to advocate for women’s education and women’s rights more broadly. Having attained her degree from Oxford, she returned to Nigeria to fulfil her ambition of becoming a teacher. Kofoworola began teaching at a prestigious girls’ school in Lagos and co-founded two new schools for girls: the Girls Secondary Modern School in Lagos and New Era Girls’ Secondary School, Lagos where she also worked as a teacher and head teacher.

She wrote numerous children’s books, often basing her tales in the folklore of West Africa. Her stories include Tortoise and the Clever Ant and Tutu and the Magic Gourds, which form part of the Mudhut Book series.

In 1939, she married Adetokunbo Ademola, a civil servant. They had five children. As the wife of a Yoruba prince, she was entitled to the style of Oloori – and as the daughter of one, she was herself an Omoba as well – but due to the fact that her husband was also a knight, it is as Lady Kofoworola Ademola that she was best known.

In 1958, Kofoworola Ademola was elected the first president of Nigeria’s National Council of Women’s Societies where she continued to advance the rights and representation of women. She became the first Nigerian woman to be appointed Secretary of the Western Region Scholarship Board, a department of the Ministry of Education.

Kofoworola also became director of the Western Region of the Red Cross. She was awarded a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1959 by Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, and an Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) in Nigeria by Tafawa Balewa’s government for her ongoing work and contribution to Nigerian society. She continued her work up until her death in 2002 at age 89.

President Bola Tinubu has nominated Melvin Ayogu to the board of the Central Bank of Nigeria and has requested Senate confirmation for the appointment.

The Special Adviser to Tinubu on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, made this in a statement on Wednesday.

Tinubu also sought Senate confirmation for Nwakuche Ndidi as controller-general of the Nigerian Correctional Service.

He said the requests, conveyed in letters to Senate President Godswill Akpabio, were read during Tuesday’s plenary.

Tinubu had previously nominated Robert Agbide, Ado Wanga, Murtala Sagaley, Urom Eke, and Olayinka Aliyu to the CBN board in February 2024.

However, on February 29, 2024, the senate confirmed four people as members of the board of the CBN after Eke rejected the offer, citing “conflict of interest”.

Tinubu replaced Eke with Ruby Onwudiwe on March 13, 2024; however, a day after, reports circulated that the president withdrew her nomination over political affiliation with the Labour Party, an opposition of the All Progressives Congress.

The decision reportedly followed pressure mounted on the president by members of the APC, as Onwudiwe publicly supported Peter Obi, who contested on the LP platform against Tinubu, at the 2023 presidential elections.

[Punch]

Nyesom Wike, minister of the federal capital territory (FCT), says Siminalayi Fubara, governor of Rivers state, should face impeachment if he violates the constitution.

Speaking at the media chat in Abuja on Wednesday, Wike said politics should not be taken lightly and that removing the governor would not be a criminal offence.

“Politics is not play. If you have committed an offence to be impeached, what’s wrong? Is it a criminal offence? It’s provided in the constitution. Am I a member of the Assembly?” Wike asked.

“If you have committed an infraction of the constitution, and the Assembly deems it fit to say you should be impeached.

“I have heard people say, ‘Oh, if they impeach him, there will be a breakdown of law and order.’ Rubbish! Nothing will happen.”

More to follow… 

[TheCable]

In a filing on March 12, the SEC said it needed "a longer period" to consider the proposal. The SEC initially accepted Grayscale's application in January, starting a 45-day review process that can be extended up to 240 days.

The next deadline for a response is May 21, but a final ruling could take until mid-October.

As Grayscale waits for a decision, Franklin Templeton has joined the race for an XRP ETF by submitting its own proposal with the SEC. Franklin XRP ETF seeks to provide exposure to XRP's spot price, with the assets custodied by Coinbase Custody.

Shares for the XRP ETF would trade on the Cboe BZX Exchange after being created and redeemed using cash converted into XRP via a third party. Importantly, investors would not have access to XRP Ledger forks or airdrops.

Franklin Templeton's filing is the latest addition to the growing list of asset managers seeking approval for an XRP ETF, following Bitwise, 21Shares, Canary Capital, WisdomTree, and CoinShares. The SEC has 240 days to evaluate the application and make a decision.

However, analyst Eric Balchunas is not keeping high hopes from the SEC. He posted on X, "This is the 64th alt/meme coin ETF filing that is now awaiting approval, by the way."

The ETF filing process involves both an asset manager and an exchange working together. First, the asset manager (like Franklin Templeton or Grayscale) submits an S-1 (or S-3) registration statement to the SEC, detailing how the ETF will function. At the same time, the exchange (like Cboe BZX or Nasdaq) files a 19b-4 rule change proposal to list and trade the ETF. The SEC then has 45 days to review the exchange’s filing, with the option to extend the deadline up to 240 days for further evaluation before making a final decision.

At press time, XRP trades at $2.20, up by 3.52% in the last day.

[The Street]

 Bolivia's state energy firm YPFB will use cryptocurrency to pay for energy imports amid a painful shortage of dollars and fuel in the landlocked South American nation, a company spokesperson and a government official told Reuters on Wednesday.

The country is battling a dangerous slide in foreign currency reserves afters years of dwindling exports of natural gas, which has sparked off a fuel crisis in the country with regular long lines at gas stations and scattered protests.

A spokesperson for state-run energy firm YPFB told Reuters that a system had been put in place to use cryptocurrency to purchase fuel imports after a government approval to use digital assets to help meet demand.

"From now on, these (cryptocurrency) transactions will be carried out," the spokesperson said, adding that the new purchasing system was designed to help support national fuel subsidies in Bolivia amid a shortage of hard currency.

A government spokesperson said that YPFB had not yet made use of digital currency to purchase energy imports, but that it was planned to do so.

Bolivia, for decades a net energy exporter due its large reserves of gas, has become reliant on imports as domestic gas production has dwindled amid a lack of major new finds.

[Reuters]