By Tunde Olusunle

Seasons of politicking have always excited me through the ages. They come with multidimensional appeal and inspiration for both the creative writer and the recorder of history in motion, the journalist. They are characterised by sights and sounds, specific to the season.

They throw up slogans and soundbites, rhymes and rhythms, frills and thrills, which ring and re-echo in our consciousness beyond the period. Can I for instance ever forget a 2011 incident during which my SUV, an Infinity QX 56 was transported by a wooden ferry across the River Niger from Lokoja the Kogi State capital to Gboloko in Bassa local government area in Kogi State? It was during the off-cycle election which produced the Emeritus aviator, Idris Wada, as governor of Kogi State. My heart was effectively in my mouth for the duration of that trip. I opted to return to the Kogi State capital through a longer land route, rather than repeat that experiment.Campaigns could turn boisterous and carnivalesque, generating a tapestry of tongues, a cacophony of colours, in the frenzied ambience of festivity. Afrobeats which has hoisted Nigerian music unto the global spotlight, has become sine qua non on Nigeria’s political trail. This is the trend in the liberal north central and global south of Nigeria, typically enlivening open air campaigns and concurrent roadshows.Most unfortunately, the “do or die” desperation which has blighted contemporary electioneering in parts, has impacted the characteristic blitz and glitz of electioneering in instances. My involvement in quite a few such exercises over several decades, at various levels, has privileged me with “seven-figure gigabytes” of on-field experience such that one can speak about these issues from an informed perspective.Nigeria’s political discourse was noticeably enriched with new rhetoric in the run-up to the 2023 presidential polls. Incumbent President Bola Tinubu, Nigeria’s former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar and a former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, were the flagbearers of the three foremost political parties. These were the All Progressives Congress (APC); the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP). Tinubu encountered storms and tempests, en route securing the prized ticket. There was obvious conspiracy to deny him the ticket with over a dozen aspirants contesting against him for the flag, many candidate riding on the phantom endorsement of former President Muhammadu Buhari.In obvious allusion to the overt plots against him at the time, an exasperated Tinubu told a crowd of supporters in Ogun State, that it was his turn to be President. He captured this in Yoruba as emi lokan. Tinubu has been largely credited with the coronation of Buhari as President in 2015.Not long after the “Abeokuta Declaration,” Tinubu at an event in Owerri in the South East as part of his campaigns, trailed off his script. He spoke about a townhall different from balablu blublu bulaba, which was not captured in his prepared text. The expression caught like wildfire and assumed a life of its own.The frontline media aides to President Tinubu are very well established professionals. Bayo Onanuga (Special Adviser, Information and Strategy); Tunde Rahman (Senior Special Assistant to the President, Media) and more recently Sunday Dare, (Special Adviser, Public Communication and Orientation), come to their schedules with lorry loads of cognate newsroom experience at the highest levels.Onanuga and friends founded the irrepressible TheNews magazine and PM News, which gave the administration of General Sani Abacha a good run in the mid-1990s by the way. He went all the way to serve as Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria, (NAN) under the Buhari government.Rahman worked at different times in the Daily Times, The Punch and Thisday. He indeed floated a private enterprise, Western Post, which he conceived to fill the lacuna created by the liquidation of Daily Sketch, a quasi-rival to the Nigerian Tribune, in the once-upon-a-time Ibadan media space. I was a gratis contributing editor to the venture.

Dare, who is multilingual having been raised in the north of Nigeria, once headed the Hausa service of the Voice of America, (VOA). He cut his professional teeth under Onanuga and the co-founders of TheNews magazine. Such is the quality of media specialists in this tripod, available to support President Tinubu.In the aftermath of the appointment of Daniel Bwala as Special Adviser to the President on Public Communications and Media, a list of over one dozen appointees has been making the rounds. It features the names and designations of these many aides whose functions devolve around communicating the President and boosting his corporate profile. For the avoidance of doubt, with the exclusion of Onanuga, Rahman, Dare and Bwala, the list reads thus: Abdulaziz Abdulaziz (Senior Special Assistant to the President, Print Media); O’tega Ogra (Senior Special Assistant (Digital/New Media) and Tope Ajayi, Senior Special Assistant (Media and Public Affairs).There are also Segun Dada (Special Assistant, Social Media); Nosa Asemota (Special Assistant, Visual Communication); Fela Durotoye (Senior Special Assistant to the President, National Values and Social Justice) and Fredrick Nwabufo (Senior Special Assistant to the President, Public Engagement).Also on the list are Linda Nwabuwa Akhigbe (Senior Special Assistant to the President, Strategic Communications) and Aliyu Audu (Special Assistant to the President, Public Affairs). The last time I checked, there still is a civil service component to the media office in the State House, who are restricted to drafting press releases to be signed by the bigger bosses, eternally relegating them to anonymity.The list above does not include the nation’s Number One “salesman,” the Minister for Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris Malagi. It also does not feature the media operatives in the wing of the Vice President, Kashim Shettima.You go through this list and your mind exhumes scenes from the very engaging sitcom, Fuji House of Commotion, hitherto aired regularly on national television. At its very centre was Chief Fuji, very ably acted by the renowned thespian, Kunle Bamtefa. Chief Fuji was married to four wives, some from sociocultural backgrounds different from his.This subsisting presidential apparachik for public communication is a potential babel, the way it is. It is indeed a subtle prescription for possible dysfunction especially if the appointees work at cross purposes. True, there is an attempt at streamlining specialties in the present order, with novel creations like “visual communication,” “digital/new media,” “strategic communication,” “national values and social justice,” among others.Truth, however, is that this skinning and shredding of the flesh of the overarching schedule of presidential communication is susceptible to being counter-productive. There are glaring titular duplications and inevitable overlaps which could be latently combustible.Back in May, I wrote an essay titled: Wanted: A State of Emergency on the Cost of Governance. Therein, I canvassed moderation in the open-ended spree of political appointments, and the freestyle expansion of ministries, departments and agencies, (MDAs).All of these overburden the aggregate cost of governance, with specific regards to emoluments and overheads, to the detriment of tangible investment in infrastructures and services to drive socio-economic development. This is even as the federal government once committed to the implementation of the decade old “Stephen Oronsaye Report on the Reorganisation of Agencies and Parastatals,” which is yet to be implemented.We cannot continue to canvas foreign aid and loans, while mortgaging the futures of our children, without rethinking our penchant for rabid, voluptuous consumptiveness. Not forgetting our penchant for living large, living grand, as we would have seen in one video post which trended weeks ago, highlighting the bourgeois arrival of Senate President Godswill Akpabio to a routine session of the national assembly.And why wouldn’t the President trust the tested Onanuga – Rahman – Dare triumvirate to headline his media marketing? True, Onanuga can contribute equally meaningfully to Tinubu’s government elsewhere having been on the media beat for over four decades now. He could as well be cooling off in the padded ambience of an ambassadorial role. This, however, does not detract from his proven capacities and qualities.About time for the President to rethink and reconfigure his media and communications ecosystem, en route to repositioning his administration for less wastage, and more impactful service delivery to his primary constituents. Every new appointment exacerbates our subsisting nightmarish indebtedness to shylocks across the world, and further pauperises our people.Olusunle, PhD, a Fellow of the Association of Nigerian Authors, (FANA), teaches Creative Writing at the University of Abuja.

By Okoh Aihe

The American Elections are over and President Donald Trump won convincingly, literally blowing Kamala Harris out of the political space. The contrarians had their emotional expectations but the big boys who spent their money for Trump and the ordinary folks in the motley crowd had their way.

That is the way of politics.

Some get really hurt badly. That is what happened to the Democratic Party, to those who followed Kamala Harris and her smiles. They would wish they are having a very long sleep where waking up is not going to be immediate.

Anyway, I don’t write politics; I write technology. But permit me to observe that people are attributing Trump’s victory to his unrepentant call for America First and Make America Great Again (MAGA).

He was smart enough to latch on to a new thinking amongst a segment of the American population and there is nothing anybody could do about it. After all, people are free to stick to their various political consciousness and beliefs.

Here is my point of interest this morning. Whether it is the Democrats or the Republicans, it has always been about America, it has always been about Americans, the flag and the country which they believe in and love so much. You can’t begrudge a leader for being lavish in his patriotic beliefs or being nearly psychotic in pursuing the details.

Instead, you blame your leaders for their horrendous policies which destroy every fabric of life, including education and healthcare, policies which pursue the intelligentsia and intellectuals out of their country, to sell their knowledge to countries that appreciate and can pay some life-sustaining amounts for what is despised by their country.

Trump has only accentuated that latent feeling with his maverick nature and star influence – real estate billionaire, billionaire friends with a large crowd who are waiting on the big boys to make choices for them while being allowed to romanticise about their involvement in the process. But let’s return to technology.

Under the title, Technology, always about National Interest, we wrote on March 22, 2023: “For some of these nations, technology is always about national interest irrespective of the government in power. They demonstrate the veracity of the statement, government is a continuum.”

At the time, we tried to demonstrate that no matter the government in power in America, they will always initiate policies that promote the American interest before any other thing or country. We had looked at Trump’s positon on 5G and TIkTok owned  by ByteDance, a Chinese company.

Today we shall add President Joe Biden’s Executive Order on AI and President J. F. Kennedy epochal declaration on Space Technology.  It is always about America First, and please, don’t misunderstand them, as there are different levels of patriotism.

We also gave a list of other countries who had trouble with TikTok by putting their National interest first, not out of spite or arrogated patriotic feelings, but out of pure love for their countries. They include: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Canada, United Kingdom and a host of other countries.

However, let’s restrict our interest to America for the sake of this writing. On September 12, 2019, President Trump took a very strong position on the development and deployment of 5G technology when he said America would never leave the industry to any other country to lead.

At the time, Chinese companies, Huawei and ZTE were in clear lead globally, but Trump applied the brakes. He rallied the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Wireless industry whose promoters readily pledged the sum of $275bn to grow the industry.

“We cannot allow any other country to out-compete the United States in this powerful industry of the future.  We are leading by so much in so many different industries of that type, and we just can’t let that happen.  The race to 5G is a race America must win, and it’s a race, frankly, that our great companies are now involved in.  We’ve given them the incentive they need.  It’s a race that we will win,” he vowed.

Trump didn’t play games or appoint surrogates to drive the American dream. He challenged the industry which responded so spontaneously by pledging hefty investment which they projected could yield 3 million American jobs while adding $500bn to the economy.

Trump’s position on TikTok was not less vehement. August 6, 2020, he signed An Executive Order asking Chinese owners – ByteDance and Zhang Yiming to divest from the video sharing  platform of snackable contents for Americans to take ownership of the company which at the time was worth over $50bn.

There is the fear that the Chinese government laces Chinese equipment and platforms with spyware thus, for instance, making it possible for the Chinese government to exploit its relationship with TikTok to mine data which the company collects from its subscribers and gain an advantage over the US government or spy on journalists who report China, President Trump signed an executive order to the effect that TikTok cedes ownership to American investors. He has since adjusted his position of a complete ban, saying the company needs to exist to resist Facebook, which he described as “enemy of the people.”

This is further fuelled by the fact that China has national security laws that require companies under its jurisdiction to cooperate with broad range of security activities.

June 9, 2021, President Biden rescinded Trump’s Executive Order but continued with the scrutiny of the organisation. He would eventually ban TikTok from government platforms and terminals. He didn’t meddle with the sensitive idea of ownership change. Mind you, Biden didn’t also do anything that could affect Trump’s policy on 5G. It’s actually all about America in taking critical decisions affecting the people. It’s about America First.

On October 30, 2023, Biden issued an Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence. Here is what it says in the introduction: The Executive Order establishes new standards for AI safety and security, protects Americans’ privacy, advances equity and civil rights, stands up for consumers and workers, promotes innovation and competition, advances American leadership around the world, and more.

This wasn’t Trump speaking, it was Biden. Its not about the Democrats or Republicans, it’s about the country and her people. That is what leadership is all about. The people first before pecuniary advantages. In our part of the world, it’s reverse thinking and we blame the world for being unfair, never for once thinking that some of our actions undermine nationhood and the potency of people’s power.

Okay, let’s take a little walk back in time to May 25, 1961, when the race for space was boiling over. In his epochal  Man on the Moon speech, President John F Kennedy, declared: “Space is open to us now; and our eagerness to share its meaning is not governed by the efforts of others. We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share…

First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”

JFK, as he was popularly called, made a veiled reference to the Soviet Union which, in 1957, had sent the Sputnik into space. He challenged and committed America to lead the way, to put a man on the moon not a machine. The feat was achieved on July 20, 1969, when America landed Apollo 11 on the moon.

JFK was a Republican not a Democrat. There are major leadership decisions that must be driven by patriotism and a feeling for the people. The party is irrelevant. The people and country are the only constant in the equation. During the campaigns, Trump reached out to a segment of the people and secured their hearts. They may have helped him to win the elections but what he will do will be for America and Americans.

That formed the nexus of his campaign. There may be a little nastiness in achieving his goals but that is Donald Trump. You cannot change his character but you cannot also put his patriotism to question. It’s all about America, dear friend. Be rest assured a newly fired-up Trump is coming  with a mission where the rest of the world comes a distant second to the patriotic fire burning inside of him which only he can interpret to the rest of the world. 

By Tony Iji

Dr. Sampson Uche Ogah, president/founder of Masters Energy Group, is one of Nigeria’s leading, patriotic, visionary, and risk-tolerant entrepreneurs today. Since leaving office as Minister of State for Mines and Steel Development in 2022, the former senior banker-turned businessman and politician has been channelling all his time, energy and financial resources to repositioning his company for the future.

His objective is to grow his conglomerate, made up of over 15 subsidiaries with interests in multiple sectors, including oil & gas, aviation, real estate, transport, logistics, consumer goods, etc, to the point where it could add significant value to the national economy. Dr. Ogah was neck-deep into the pursuit of this dream when the removal of subsidy on petrol and floating of the Naira mid-last year threw virtually all economic variables and businesses off balance. While many other existing businesses scaled down their operations, shelved expansion plans, or closed shop altogether, the Masters Energy Group founder forged on. Where others bemoaned the problems, he saw prospects and profits. Instead of being deterred by the immediate negative fallouts of the fuel and foreign exchange policies, Dr. Ogah was propelled into action by them.Thus, early this year, Dr. Ogah convened a Masters Energy Group Senior Leadership Strategy Retreat under the theme: “Innovation, Exponential Revenue Growth by Cost Management and New Product Introduction.” The essence of the retreat was for senior and top-level workers at the leadership cadre to deliberate and strategically decide on innovations and initiatives the organisation was implementing to enhance its business operations.“Masters Energy Group is positioning to expand its business, increase presence in the Nigerian market and ultimately achieve an exponential revenue growth through massive investment, partnerships, and new products,” Dr. Ogah told reporters at the end of the retreat. “We want to go into a lot of business that we haven’t been before; that is why we are having this retreat for us to come together to discuss, to strategize on how this year will be better than last year,” Mrs Patience Dappa, the Group Managing Director of Masters Energy, explained. “We all know that subsidy is out of the way, so we need to look at how we can survive and sustain our business without the presence of subsidy.”Pushing against the odds facing the economy has been the focus and preoccupation of Dr. Ogah ever since. Unfortunately, it is obvious that some people are not comfortable with his bold and strategic repositioning of Masters Energy Group to expand its frontiers and support the growth of the economy. They appear resolved to do whatever is possible to distract his attention, sabotage, and, possibly, bring down the Group’s businesses. One of such heinous acts was the recent re-circulation of a nearly 10-year-old video in which the company was wrongly accused of importing expired rice into the country. A source attributed unearthing of the old 2016 video to one Lauretta Onochie, who started circulating it as a new video, presenting it like the company intentionally smuggled in an expired rice into the country to sell.” Ms Onoche, for those who may have forgotten, was the same woman whose nomination by President Muhammadu Buhari as INEC Commissioner was rejected by the Senate following public protests by Nigerians. Later, she was removed from office as Chairperson of NDDC after serving for only few months. Both incidents arose from questions over her integrity.The management of Masters Energy Group has set the records straight. In a public statement, the company categorically denied this claim, describing it as baseless and a falsehood calculated to damage its reputation. The statement said: “Our company ordered some quantity of rice in 2016 with the value of the consignment duly paid. The consignment was inspected and passed by a reputable international inspection agent prior to shipment to Nigeria. However, by the time the consignment arrived Tin Can Island Port Lagos, the restriction by the federal government of Nigeria on the importation of certain goods (among which is rice), famously referred to as Ban on 41 items, had taken effect; so we were unable to clear the containers from the Customs.”We made various appeals and representations to the Central Bank of Nigeria and Nigerian Customs to grant us a window to clear the consignment; but our efforts were of no avail. The consignment was eventually seized by the Customs in August 2016.In 2019 – more than three years after the consignment has been seized – during a working visit to the Tincan port, the then Customs C.G. (Comptroller-General) discovered the abandoned shipment within the premises, which had since deteriorated due to long exposure to heat in the container and other environmental elements. This was first thought to be a fresh import, but further investigation revealed that the containers have long been at the port and the goods degraded due to over-stay at the port. Our company was absolved of culpability.”The company reaffirmed its commitment to upholding the highest quality and ethical standards and full adherence to all import regulations. “At no point did we import, intend to import, or distribute expired rice to the Nigerian market,” it said. The company has assured that it will not be distracted by the schemes of saboteurs from pursuing its expansion programme, which has been progressing smoothly.Indeed, the Nigerian economy is beginning to benefit from Masters Energy Group’s expansion programme as it has given birth to new and enhanced operations as well as new products and services. One of them is the Joint User Hydrant Installation 2 (JUHI-2), Nigeria’s largest aviation fuel depot with a storage capacity of 15 million litres of Jet A1 fuel, which was commissioned this October. The state-of-the-art depot is a partnership between Masters Energy Oil & Gas Ltd, Eterna Plc, Techno Oil, Quest Oil, Rahamaniyya, Ibafon Oil, and First Deep Water Limited. The facility, which spans 46,000 square meters, is set to revolutionize aviation fuel logistics, offering unparalleled efficiency, safety, and cutting-edge technology. The company’s new services in the aviation sector are not limited to airline operators. The company has also extended personalized airport protocol services and exceptional hotel reservations and tour packages to passengers and tourists through its Cardinal Points business arm. It is also offering energy independence to consumers via Masters Energy solar panels. The solar energy services it provides include expert solar installations, supply of premium solar panels and inverters.Masters Energy Group has also expanded its business into logistics and interstate travel services with the launch of Alsa Logistics Limited, marking a significant milestone in its commitment to delivering comprehensive and reliable services across the country. In the area of manufacturing, the conglomerate is also looking to introduce new product lines like household products, with a projection that, by the end of this year, Masters Energy products would be in every household in Nigeria. The company is also considering exploring opportunities in the export business to enable them to overcome challenges associated with high exchange rate. Similarly, the Group is expanding its footprint in the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) business. In 2023, it performed the flag-off of the Masters Energy 40,000 metric tonnes LPG storage facility in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. It hopes to complete it before the end of next year. The company is planning to take the oil and gas downstream market by storm with its massive investment, new products, and innovation. Masters Energy presently has about 300 retail outlets across major cities in Nigeria with not less than 50 more outlets scheduled to come on stream before end of this year. Dr. Ogah is not only focused on growing the company but is also developing its management capacity and capabilities. Only recently , he completed a prestigious leadership programme at the University of Oxford with Honours. The remarkable achievement demonstrates his dedication to personal and professional growth and earned him invaluable insights and advanced skills that will, by extension, greatly benefit the company as it strives for innovation, growth, and success. In the face of all these efforts by Masters Energy Group to support the growth of the Nigerian economy and impact the lives of Nigerians, it’s disheartening seeing some dubious individuals trying to roll back the gains made by patriotic entrepreneurs like Dr. Ogah.