Achievers are people willing to go the extra mile to make things happen. They do this both for the sake of humanity and self fulfilment. They find meaning in making things happen in an extraordinary way. That is what it means to be an achiever who deserves  to be recognised.

The world is replete with one consensus-reward for honesty, accountability, transparency and good work.

The world’s oldest Excellence Awards, The Nobel Prize: motivated by Alfred Nobel in 1901, was born out of the desire to recognize and reward outstanding contributions in various fields to encourage achievements that benefit humanity, focusing on Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, and Peace.

Some of the world’s most outstanding and oldest excellence awards are; Academy Awards (Oscars) initiated in 1929 to reward excellence in entertainment and film industry. Others include: the Fields Medal in 1936, the highest honour in mathematics and Turing Award in 1966, which recognizes groundbreaking contributions in computer science. There is also Order of the British Empire initiated in 1917  recognizing public service, arts, science, and charitable contributions.

A few of the above awards, recognized globally for their prestige and historical significance are being sustained for their impact in shaping, inspiring, motivating and bringing out the very best in individuals’ field of endeavour.

This is what DAILY ASSET annual awards was set out to emulate; to fuel and inflame passion, zeal and innovation in men and women, young and old. The awards are motivated by the prospect of accomplishing something important and making a difference, both in their own and other people’s lives.

Achievers innovate, stimulate and energise teamwork. They push frontiers of development.

High-achievers remain enthusiastic. He or she does the best in profering solutions, even when everyone else sees things through the prism of impossibility. Simply put, achievers think out of the box.

People gather every other day for myriad reasons. But when an organisation (DAILY ASSET) with a constitutional responsibility, under Section 22 of the Nigerian Constitution, to

mirror society and hold public officers accountable for their stewardship, pulls together eminent personalities from diverse backgrounds for the sole purpose of honouring those that have excelled in their chosen fields, then society is being shaped for the better.

As a result, the gathering to celebrate outstanding individuals and corporate entities who have demonstrated exceptional dedication, innovation and impact in their fields is the contribution of DAILY ASSET to setting high standards. It is also to appreciate excellence. In a world with multiple blocks of failure and few for success, some individuals and corporate entities who rise above board calls for our collective applause.

By recognizing these achievers, we acknowledge the power of hard work, passion, and perseverance. Their successes will motivate others to strive for greatness, creating a ripple effect of excellence that can transform industries and communities for the overall advantage of the country.

To our honorees, your work shines brightly. We are proud to recognize your excellence. Your commitment to your craft is a testament to what is possible when talent meets opportunity. You are role models, showing us what is achievable with dedication  and determination.

As we honour our awardees,  we also acknowledge the impact of their ingenuity, which no doubt will continue to inspire present and future generations.

By Iyorwuese Hagher OON.

I read Dr Reuben Abati’s recent article in ThisDay titled “The Importance of Kashim Shettima” and found it troubling and problematic. The article is troubling and problematic in its presumption and motive, and it is entirely unnecessary.

Three years into the Tinubu Presidency, Reuben Abati, one of Nigeria’s most celebrated journalists and public intellectuals, and an oracle of Aso Rock, has to sound the gong to announce, “The Importance of Kashim Shettima”, which should be self-evident.

If Dr Abati’s motive is to coerce President Bola Ahmed Tinubu into prematurely reappointing the VP, through coercive public opinion and the mass media’s hypnotism, in favour of Kashim Shettima, then the article does more damage.

The article portrays Kashim Shettima’s “Importance” as an omnipotent, mechanised force, while the President and somnambulant APC voters are the “Unimportant” who must obediently acquiesce to the dictates of powerful media spin doctors.

Abati justifies his article as a response to people flying kites bearing the names of pretenders to “Kashim Shettima’s job,” which he says makes Shettima uncomfortable. He names Yakubu Dogara, Dr Rabiu Kwankwaso, Professor Bala Gana Zulum, Caleb Mutfwang, General Christopher Musa, and even the Most Rev. Matthew Hassan Kukah, the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto. These, Abati reminds us, are merely childish, because none of them, in Abati’s eyes, has anything to offer President Tinubu. Rather than fly a childish kite, Abati seems ready to enter the political conversation, like the youth of Borno who shouted “No Shettima, No Borno votes.” Abati is ready to take his own chair and hurl it at anyone who opposes his journalistic will. And hurl he did. Poor Donald Trump is hit by Abati’s missile twice. He calls Donald Trump, the US President, the “Self-appointed defender of Christians” in Nigeria and the “Self-styled Commander of the World”. 

Abati attributes to President Trump one of the reasons the “Important Kashim Shettima” might not return as Vice-President, concluding that Donald Trump might resist the Muslim-Muslim ticket. Abati adds complexity to his spin by calling on those who birthed the Muslim-Muslim ticket to rise up and defend Nigeria’s sovereignty against Trump, because nobody should use Shettima’s religion against him. It violates his human rights.

But Abati’s sights on “The Importance of Shettima” become deadly. He scoffs at the Christian community in the North, describing them as “Wallowing in triumphalism” because of the misguided U.S. President’s favour and his unjustified attack against the Caliphate! How can the grieving, impoverished, and erased Christians in the North be blamed by Abati for wanting his Shettima’s job, when all they are praying for is the freedom to return from the exile of IDP camps to their ancestral lands, freedom to be alive, to feed themselves, and to educate their children? Abati is cruelly blaming the victims whose lives are structured by rhythms of fear, poverty, and death. This is simply beyond the pale.

Abati calls on the people who birthed the Muslim-Muslim ticket to rise up and defend Nigeria’s sovereignty, which presumably is the Muslim-Muslim ticket.

The most damaging fallout from Abati’s article is that, after disbanding the Christian and Muslim pretenders to the throne (Shettima’s job) and “flying childish kites”, Abati jumps into the ring, gloves and all, and aims at Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He taunts the president, “Nigerian politics is far more complex and different from the containerised, localised politics of Lagos State”. The simple implication is that, if, as Governor of Lagos State, Tinubu got away with changing his deputies after his first term in office, he should not dare repeat that feat on the “Important Kashim Shettima”, who, according to Abati, “Tinubu should rescue his Vice-President from the harassment and mental torture of having to hear every day that other persons want his job.”                 

I hope neither the Vice-President nor Dr Abati will be angry with me for pointing out the article’s inherent weakness and its potential to cause harm. Vice President Kassim Shettima is a good man. He was an excellent two-term governor of Borno State and a Senator. But the job of VP does not belong to him; it belongs to the Nigerians. “We the people” hired him and his principal to these jobs. Furthermore, Abati should never disparage or humiliate other high-ranking Nigerians who might aspire to that office. It is within their right to aspire. 

Finally, I wish to conclude by highlighting the immense difficulty Nigerians have in coming to terms with the truth about us.  In 2019, I aspired to be president on the SDP ticket. Our party was tied up in acrimonious litigation and failed to present a candidate for that election. A friend gloating over my fate told me that no Nigerian from the North Central or the political Middle Belt should ever aspire to the offices of president or vice president. Southern presidents, usually Christians, skip the North Central Zone of the North to choose a Muslim vice-president in the North. Sadly, Muslim presidents from the South also prefer Muslim vice-presidents from the North.  This is why Reuben Abati cleverly ignores names from the North Central Zone, a major APC voting population. His kite flyers do not bear the names of Senator Simon Lalong, nor the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume. 

We have always heard rumours of many other people who claim to be eminently better qualified than Akume. We often hear that Akume was to be replaced. And very many people are jostling to become the SGF during President Tinubu’s second term. Akume is never perturbed. He does not anguish nor hire spin doctors to tout his loyalty and qualifications. The job of SGF does not belong to him, and he knows that a thousand journalists sounding gongs in the president’s ears to reappoint him now would not matter. 

Was Abati’s omission of Senator Akume’s name from the kites flown at Shettima’s job an honest oversight or a strategic one? It is difficult for any Nigerian to belittle the political oracle of Benue State, who has been a key ally, friend and battle-tested commander alongside the president: a two-term governor, three-term senator, an honourable minister and now the SGF. Furthermore, Akume has never lost any political fight. Like Tinubu, he anointed the three successive governors of Benue State. He is the most dominant and visible person in North Central State and the APC leader. He is poised for more political victories. Perhaps Abati honestly did not consider Akume’s high-flying kite. Senator Akume is shy, humble, respectful and not corrupt. He built his distinguished, cerebral public life by recognising the value of teamwork. He obviously does not want Shettima’s job. His own is a handful, keeping the nation working for Mr President. 

After all is said and done, there is nothing further to say or do about this VP matter. The appointment and removal of the vice-president are the President’s sole prerogative. When the President’s spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga, dismisses this VP matter as a “non-issue”, it should rest.  

Iyorwuese Hagher

Dayton, Ohio.

District: Kogi West

Party: All Progressive Congress (APC)

Position: Chairman, Senate Services Committee

Motion: Need For The Federal Ministry Of Education And The West African Examination Council To Review Their Policy And Implementation Date On Guidelines For The Change In The Curriculum Of Secondary Schools In Nigeria In Order To Allow Secondary School Pupils Adequate Preparation Before Examination

By Eze Okechukwu

Only few egg heads will dispute the fact that Senator Sunday Steve Karimi is the best dressed senator of the 10th assembly.

Born on March 10th, 1962 in Egbe, Yagba West Local Government Area of Kogi State, he attended both primary and secondary school education in Egbe, before proceeding to study Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Kwara State Polytechnic where he bagged his Higher National Diploma with Distinction.

He would teach Further Mathematics afterwards and work as an Engineer with the Defense Industries Company Nigeria Limited (DICON).  After about 9 years, he resigned and established his own Firm known as the Atlantic Drilling Fluids Services Limited, which has become a reputable indigenous company executing several Water projects in Nigeria.

He was elected into the House of Representatives in 2011.  Reelected in 2015, making him the first Lawmaker in his Federal Constituency to be so crowned. However, in February 2023, he was elected as the Senator representing Kogi West.

Prior to the motion he raised yesterday at the floor of the senate, bothering on the Nigerian educational system which he contended should review their policy and implementation date on guidelines for the change in the curriculum of secondary schools in Nigeria in order to allow secondary school pupils adequate preparation before examination, Senator Karimi has a track record of legislative and oversight accomplishments with his numerous Bills and Motions which  have direct impact on Nigerians.

They range from Education, Security, Agriculture, Rural Development to Youths and Women Empowerment; a feat that has continually endeared him to his constituents and beyond.

However, after laying bare his motion yesterday during plenary, the Senate noted that Section 14(2)(b) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999(As amended) provides that the Security and Welfare of the people, is the primary purpose of government, and to this end, Section 18 of the same constitution provides that Government shall direct its policy towards ensuring that there are equal and adequate educational opportunities at all levels.

The Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is required by the ground norm to promote science and technology, strive to eradicate illiteracy and ensure education for all its citizens.

The senate further noted that in line with its constitutional mandate and in tandem with Goal 4 of the United Nations Sustainable Goals, the Federal Republic of Nigeria created the Federal Ministry of Education to pursue educational policies for the Nation and also established the West African Examination Council pursuant to WAEC Act 1973, as the major examination body for Senior Secondary Education in Nigeria.

Aware that pursuant to the statutory mandate of the West African Examination Council in Section 2 of its establishment Act, the Council issued a new guideline for the registration of students for the 2025/2026 Examination.

The guidelines require that all SS3 Students nationwide are required to adopt the new curriculum immediately, despite the fact that the Guidelines was initially scheduled to operate in the next two years, and applicable to pupils who are currently in SS (Senior Secondary Education)1 and who are scheduled to write WAEC SSCE in 2027/2028.

The senate further aware that by virtue of the new Guidelines, subjects such as Computer Studies, Civil Education and ‘’All Previous Trade Subjects’’, have been removed from the WAEC(West African Examination Council’s) Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination, as the courses no longer offered nor to be examined in the Exams slated for May/June 2026, despite years of preparation by Senior Secondary School Pupils in Nigeria.

Worried that with the removal of these three Subjects-(Computer Studies, Civic Education and All Previous Trade Subjects) all pupils across all specializations and combinations (be it sciences, humanities and business courses) are left with maximum of just six courses each, despite the Examination Council’s requirement of a minimum offering of eight (8) and maximum offering of (9) subjects/courses for WAEC Senior Secondary Certificate Registration and Examination. This implies that each pupil will have between two (2) to three (3) courses to be examined upon in May/June next year, despite never offering the courses before and with abysmal preparation.

Cognizant that although the introduction of New Trade Subjects such as Beauty and Cosmetology, Fashion Design and Garment Making, Livestock Farming, Computer Hardware and GSM Repairs, Solar Photovoltaic Installation and maintenance and Horticulture and Crop Production are commendable, insisting that students without prior education on these subjects should be examined thereon in May/June 2026 will have negative implications on the students exams and quality of examination results and standards.

The senate afterwards resolved that the Federal Ministry of Education and the West African Examination Council should exclude the current SS3 Students, who are slated to write Senior Secondary Certificate Examination in May/June 2026 and November/ December 2026 from this Guideline.

That the New Guidelines by West African Examination Council be implemented commencing with the current SS1 Students, who will be scheduled to write WAEC SSCE in 2027/2028 Academic Session to allow for adequate training and preparation in order to preserve/maintain credible educational standards.

For anyone close to events at the 10th assembly, Senator karimi’s Bills and Motions are of great impacts and crucial benefits. Here’s a brief of his earlier Bills and Motions: Dishonoured Cheques Repeal and Re-Enactment Bill 2023, Central Bank of Nigeria (amendment) bill 2023, Penal Code Amendment Bill 2023, Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences (Amendment) Bill 2023 Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2023, Federal University of Agriculture, Kabba Bill 2024, Federal University Of Medicine And Medical Sciences Bill, Egbe, Kogi State, Constitution Of The Federal Republic Of Nigeria (Alteration Bill) (State Police Bill) 2024, Constitution Of The Federal Republic Of Nigeria (Alteration Bill) (Local Government Autonomy) Bill 2024, Constitution Of The Federal Republic Of Nigeria (Sixth Alteration) Bill 2024,  National E-Gaming Bill 2025, National Sports Development Fund Bill 2025, Federal Highways (Amendment) Bill 2025 and Federal Delegated Legislation/Statutory Instruments Bill 2025

Motions:

Motion on Urgent need to prioritize nation building, national unity and development in the 10th national assembly, Motion on urgent need to appraise the condition of Nigerian federal roads and to re-think financing options, Motion on urgent need to investigate the various turnaround maintenance projects of Nigerian refineries in order to uncover waste and forestall further waste of scarce public resources, Motion on urgent need to step up efforts to stem the tide of oil theft in the Niger Delta Region and to better safeguard oil and gas infrastructure in the region, Motion on urgent need to investigate the central bank of Nigeria Naira Redesign Contract, Motion on urgent need to halt the disbursement of $800million dollars subsidy palliative loan and channel it to people centered self-financing developmental capital projects, Motion on urgent need to investigate petroleum subsidy regime from 2011to 2023, Motion on urgent need for the senate (national assembly) to immediately intervene in the bickering crises of pricing and logistics between Dangote refineries limited and stakeholders in the Downstream sector of the Nigerian economy to ensure removal of unnecessary bottlenecks, ensure energy security and fair pricing in the interest of Nigerian citizens, Motion on need to eschew and condemn all forms of violence in the forthcoming Edo and Ondo gubernatorial elections and call for justice for inspector Akor Onu co-sponsored with senator Adams Oshiomole, Motion on the need to address and manage market exploitation of consumables in Nigeria, Motion on need to appraise the current economic improvements and its impacts of prices and necessities in Nigeria.

On the humanitarian angle, Senator Sunday Steve Karimi has added a massive value to members of his senatorial district.

In the Outskirts of Egbe, Yagba West Local Government Area of Kogi State, he built a Forward Operating Base for the military, which he handed over to the Military authorities on the October 14th, 2024. He also purchased 2 Brand new Toyota Hilux Vehicles for Operations for the Base.

He constructed the Pakuta Bridge which links Aiyegunle Gbede-Kiri Road in Ijumu and Kabba Local Government Areas of Kogi State. In October 2024, he launched a Bursary scheme for indigenes of Kogi West in Public Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria. In the first year, almost 1000 indigenous students benefitted with each receiving N100,000.

The Women aren’t left out in his constituency projects as many have benefitted from his empowerment schemes. He has repaired and reconstructed the Lokoja Fish Market as the Kakanda Cottage Hospital and donated a large chunk of money to the victims of Ebbe Boat mishap in Kupa community as well as 1million each to the Central Mosque Kotonkarfe, Felele Mosque, Old Market Central Mosque and Andankolo Central Mosque.

During festivities, Senator karimi gifts Rice and Semo in large quantum to members of his constituents. Insiders say about three trailers carrying those food products have docked in the area, awaiting sharing on December 17th, 2025 as his Christmas and New Year empowerment largesse.

On the strength of his brilliance, which has given birth to those highly impactful bills and motions, his large heart for his people cumulating in the aforementioned personal support schemes, we choose Senator Sunday Steve Karimi as our senator of the Week, hoping the gentleman politician of the 10th senate will keep fulfilling his mandate with fate, until the contract expires.