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tolu ogunlesi

26 Jan, 9 tweets, 3 min read

Fulani man born in Abeokuta 47 years ago (to a father who moved there 80 years ago);speaks more fluent Yoruba than a lot of Yoruba people I know. These migration stories are far more common than we acknowledge; these are the narratives & reality we don’t highlight enough.
#Thread

Nnamdi Azikiwe was born in Zungeru, in today’s Niger State. As was Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, 29 years after Zik. Bola Ige’s memoir is titled Kaduna Boy for a reason. Their parents traveled far from ‘home’, in search of better lives, or simply pursuing business interests.

No, this is not a call to gloss over the very real ethnic and religious differences that exist, and the justifiable grievances that many hold, either inherited, or from personal experience. But those are not the only narratives that exist, or that should be actively promoted.

Differences exist, but that’s only part of the full picture. A single story. There’s more. There are many people working hard for peace even against backdrops of ethnic & religious difference. So why do the dominant narratives appear to exclusively focus on the merchants of hate?

Imam Muhammad Ashafa and Pastor James Wuye, co-founders of the Interfaith Mediation Center of Muslim-Christian Dialogue in Kaduna, joint winners of 2005 Peace Prize of Bremen, and the subjects of a film, The Imam and the Pastor. Both were militantly religious in their youth.

I’m thinking now about what the following three things did (open to debate) to help ‘cosmopolitan-ize’ Nigeria, build a culture of migration, and create the environment for people to better understand one another and know their country better.

- Railways
- The Army
- NYSC

Rail: What it did, on multiple levels, was to keep people moving: The people who built the rail lines, the ones who operated it, and the ones who traveled on it across the country, to do business. (Nigerians actually went as far as Ghana on the colonial rail-building mission).

The Military: Sadly the events of 1966 irrevocably altered things. But there was (and continues to be, in some way) a sense that the military was meant to bring people of disparate backgrounds together, and that absolutely nothing mattered beyond comradeship & service to country.

NYSC: The only opportunity that many Nigerians will ever have to live outside their ‘home zones’. Mine took me to Asaba, just down the road from the Niger Bridge. One whole year of Akpu (very cost-effective something, hunger-slayer-OPG) and White Soup, in Okwe/Cable Point 😂😂😂

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More from @toluogunlesi

tolu ogunlesi

@toluogunlesi

23 Jan

PMB has cancelled the Secure Anchorage Area (SAA) contract. An arrangement established by the previous Administration, in which vessels berthing in Nigeria paid money to a private company for security inside a ‘Secure Anchorage Area’ within Nigerian Ports. thisdaylive.com/index.php/2021…

@NigeriaGov

“We felt that it wasn’t necessary for people to be paying money to secure their vessels on waters. It is the responsibility of @NigeriaGov through @NigerianNavy & @nimasaofficial to secure at zero cost to the owners.” — @hadizabalausman, MD, @nigerianports thecable.ng/hadiza-bala-us…

@hadizabalausman

“Just between January and July (2020), OMSL received $17 million in revenue for securing vessels and none of those revenues went to the coffers of the federal government.” — @hadizabalausman

Read 4 tweets

tolu ogunlesi

@toluogunlesi

23 Jan

There’s a recurring misunderstanding/misinterpretation of public procurement numbers/costs, that does no one any good. If there’s going to be a debate let it at least be based on facts/reality not conjecture, not knee-jerk responses.

Another #thread 🙃

@GuardianNigeria

A few days ago I complained about a bad piece by @GuardianNigeria, in which they were busied themselves dividing distance by cost and then proceeding to make wild comparisons between rail projects. While also getting cost wrong in some cases.

https://twitter.com/toluogunlesi/status/1351512156047626241

The nuances of procurement, whether public or private sector, can hardly be accurately conveyed in your typical news headline, especially when headlines are driven mostly by virality ambitions. Always good to try and understand full picture before jumping to conclusions.

Read 10 tweets

tolu ogunlesi

@toluogunlesi

23 Jan

More questions than answers here:

Story says man first flew from Lagos to Atlanta. Then from Detroit to Toronto.

Is that typical? Was there a scheduled stopover in Detroit, between Atlanta & Toronto?

Or was it 2 separate flights: Atlanta-Detroit & then Detroit-Toronto?

(1/2)

Canada requires a negative Covid-test - so how did he board a flight from the US to Canada without a test?

Note that the US did not require a negative test for inbound travelers (except from the U.K.) at the time he flew. Can that explain anything?

Questions questions

(2/2)

So I’ve just seen this: confirmation that Delta has an Atlanta to Toronto flight via Detroit. Highly probable it’s the route the man flew (as opposed to two separate flights)

Read 5 tweets

tolu ogunlesi

@toluogunlesi

22 Jan

Some information about the just-launched E-ticketing platform for the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC)

#Thread

@icrcng

The contract is for the “Design, Development, Deployment and Management” of a “Secure Automated Fare Collection System” for the NRC.

According to @icrcng and @MinTransportNG, it’s a 10-year Public Private Partnership (PPP) contract, funded by the contractor, @secureidltd

@icrcng

“This is a PPP where the private sector will invest money to develop, deploy and operate an integrated ticketing solution.” — DG @icrcng on the day he presented the Full Business Case (FBC) Certificate for the concession of the E-ticketing system to @ChibuikeAmaechi, Sept 2019.

Read 12 tweets

tolu ogunlesi

@toluogunlesi

21 Jan

There’s a significant new development in the education sector in Nigeria. Yest the Federal Cabinet approved an Executive Bill proposing a number of key reform items, covering new funding for teachers, extension of retirement age, etc. Bill will now be sent to NASS for passage.

@MBuhari

What this Bill—Harmonized Retirement Age for Teachers in Nigeria Bill 2020—is essentially trying to do is give full legal backing to a number of Teaching Sector reforms & incentives already approved by Pres @MBuhari in Sept 2020.

Here are some of those reforms & incentives:

Approved by PMB:

1. Extension of Teachers’ Retirement Age to 65 & Years of Service to 40, & introduction of a Special Teacher Pension Scheme

2. A new Special Salary Scale for teachers in Basic and Secondary Schools, incl special allowances for rural postings & science teachers

Read 4 tweets

tolu ogunlesi

@toluogunlesi

19 Jan

Nigeria getting 100,000 doses of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine—expected by early Feb—through #Covax facility. Will be stored in this Abuja facility (video). (Still a drop in the ocean, but negotiations ongoing to acquire more—with focus on the ones that can be stored at warmer temps).

@NigeriaGov

Update here: @NigeriaGov through @NphcdaNG says it has capacity (cold chain) currently to store 400,000 Pfizer vaccines. The vaccine requires extremely low temperatures, so the 🇳🇬 focus is primarily on other vaccines that can be kept at warmer temperatures.

@drfaisalshuaib

More information on Nigeria’s rollout of the first batch of Covid vaccines (Pfizer) arriving early February through the #Covax facility.

Speaking: @drfaisalshuaib, ED @NphcdaNG. He answers the question: who’s getting vaccinated first?