May 2, (THEWILL) – The release of Magnus Onyibe’s new book, “Leading From The Streets: Media Interventions by a Public Intellectual 1999-2019”, has taken a new dimension.
According to the organisers of the public presentation of the book which will be held on May 8, at Alliance Francais/Mike Adenuga Centre, Lagos, at 9 am prompt; apart from a panel discussion on the theme “Tinubonomics: What’s Working, What’s Not, Why, and Way Forward” by experts, there will be merit awards tagged Leading From The Streets awards to deserving individuals and corporate organisations that have touched the lives of Nigerians in profound ways.
So they are being honoured because, like John F. Kennedy the 35th president United States of America, USA, stated during his inaugural address in 1961: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” in these difficult times that Nigerians are going through, the recipients of Leading From The Streets awards have imbibed the message expressed by U.S president J. F Kennedy, over sixty (60) years ago.
Also, the trio of Gen. Yakubu Gowon, former Nigerian head of state; Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka and Mr Lekan Alabi, who wrote an open letter to Gen. Gowon, requesting Prof. Soyinka’s release from incarceration during the Nigerian civil war, may meet on stage together for the first time.
Among those to be conferred with the Leading From The Streets award are Prof. Wole Soyinka, and Barrister Allen Onyema of Airpeace, Alh. Aliko Dangote of Dangote Industries, Dr Olisa Agbokoba, Col. Abubakar Dangiwa Umar (rtd), and Chief Mike Adenuga of Globacom.
As it may be recalled, Prof. Soyinka, who will be turning 90 years old on July 13, was committed to jail in 1967 by the federal government of Nigeria for twenty-two (22) months because he wrote and published an article in the mass media trying to dissuade the federal government from going to war against Biafra.
Instead of heeding his wise counsel of urging both sides to come to a negotiated settlement he was incarcerated for allegedly being an accomplice of the separatist Biafran side.
When the guns from both the Federal and Biafran armies stopped booming, an estimated one (1) million Nigerian souls had been lost with properties and infrastructure worth multiple billions of naira destroyed, mostly in the eastern part of our country. That is a catastrophe from which our country is yet to recover from, to date. Perhaps owing to his patriotic effort to stop an avoidable war and his intellectual excellence, Professor Soyinka was awarded the Nobel Laureate in literature in 1986.
Once again, consistent with his unwavering support for the downtrodden and society alike, he has recently been engaged in the struggle for Nigeria’s unity, notably his calling out of Labour Party’s vice presidential candidate for 2023 elections, threatening that there would be civil disobedience if current president, Bola Tinubu were to be sworn into office before his victory was affirmed by the court. His consistent commitment to the unity of Nigeria is one of the reasons why he is being conferred with the Leading From The Streets award.
Barrister Allen Onyema, with his airline Air Peace, has been rescuing Nigerians stranded in foreign countries during periods of conflicts, free of charge. This ranges from Airpeace flying to South Africa during xenophobic attacks against Nigerians to going to Libya, Sudan, and Ukraine to bring Nigerians home when they were stranded during wars in those countries. To cap it all, Onyema/Airpeace has dramatically crashed the cost of flight tickets from about N4m to N1.2m for the lucrative Lagos to London route that had been monopolised by United Kingdom-based airlines.
Airpeace has even gone further to offer rebate fares to Nigerian students studying abroad so that they can be encouraged to come home more often. For that selfless service, which was not offered from the corridors of political power, Allen Onyema/Air Peace is being honoured with the Leading From The Streets award.
Africa’s richest man, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has demonstrated passion for Nigeria and Nigerians by investing a whopping 20 billion dollars into building the recently commissioned 650,000 barrels a day Dangote Refinery. The mega refinery is aimed at stemming the haemorrhaging of scarce foreign exchange to Europe for the purchase of refined petroleum products, which African countries have not been able to produce and have instead been importing.
With the coming upstream of the refinery, the price of diesel has crashed from about N1,700 per litre to below N1,000 per litre. As we all know, diesel, otherwise known as Automotive Gas Oil (AGO), is critical to the production of goods and services, as well as influences the price of transport and logistics. It is the spike in the cost of living owing to the withdrawal of subsidies on petrol and naira that brought about current hardships on Nigerians, especially the vulnerable ones among us.
But with the recent crash of the price of diesel by Dangote Refinery which is a humanitarian gesture, there would significantly be a downward trend of the cost of living in due course. That is apart from the N15b that he recently expended in procuring palliatives like rice for distribution to the masses across the country to ameliorate the pervading effect of hunger.
He did all of the above not as a public servant, but as an entrepreneur/philanthropist. It is for that reason that Aliko Dangote/Dangote Refinery will be honoured with the Leading From The Streets award.
Dr Olisa Agbakoba (SAN) was in the forefront of the struggle to entrench democratic leadership in our country after a long period of military rule. Through his pro-democracy activism platform, the Civil Liberty Organisation (CLO), he and like-minded Nigerians teamed up to agitate for the exit of the military from political leadership back to their barracks until the military gave way to democratic leadership in 1999. He has remained committed to the pursuit of public good without occupying any public office.
For the reasons above and more, Dr Olisa Agbakoba has acquitted himself as a patriotic Nigerian Leading From The Streets, hence the honour is being bestowed on him.
Col. Abubakar Dangiwa Umar, a retired army officer who had served as military governor of Kaduna state under the watch of Gen. Yakubu Gowon as military head of state, was a disciplinarian and a man who is full of integrity. While in the military, he was immensely popular and could have transitioned into politics like his former colleagues by contesting to become president or governor in our current democratic setting. But he chose to continue to lead outside the corridors of power.
During the immediate past administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, he wrote an open letter to the president protesting the delay in confirming Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem as President of the Court of Appeal due to some archaic and primordial sentiments. After due consideration of his articulated points, her appointment was confirmed as Appeal Court president by then-president, Buhari, without further delay. For that remarkable accomplishment and related public good that he has spearheaded without being in the corridors of power, Col. Abubakar Dangiwa Umar (rtd) is adjudged as one of the notable Nigerians committed to Leading From The Streets.
Chief Mike Adenuga, who turned 71 on April 29, is the sixth (6) recipient of the Leading From The Streets award for his dogged determination to positively change the course of history for Nigerians by democratising access to telecommunications services.
Apart from his outstanding role in philanthropy, it is his telecommunications firm, Globacom, that introduced per-second billing for GSM telephone service to Nigerians after the foreign service providers had been operating the per-minute billing system that compelled subscribers to pay for minutes of phone calls even if they only made a few seconds of call. When Globacom made its debut in the Nigerian market, it also crashed the price of SIM cards from N30,000 to N7,900 only, thus precipitating the putting of telephone service in the hands of basically every Nigerian irrespective of their status in society.
For that remarkable gesture of positively touching lives without wielding political power, Chief Mike Adenuga with his Globacom has been Leading From The Streets, hence he is being conferred with the honour.
Apart from the merit awards, history may be made if the trio of Gen. Gowon, Prof. Soyinka, and Mr Lekan Alabi met on the same stage for the first time since the end of the Nigerian civil war in 1970 during the event. It may be recalled that a seventeen (17) years old boy, Lekan Alabi, had written a letter published in the Daily Times newspaper of the days of yore to then head of state Gen. Gowon, appealing to him to release Soyinka from indefinite detention. Then tenager, Alabi, who is now a grandfather, has promised to take advantage of the public presentation of the book to meet the chairman of the occasion, Gen. Gowon is generally known as the father of Nigeria by virtue of being the oldest living head of state, (who will be 90 on October 19) for the first time together with prof. Wole Soyinka billed to be the keynote speaker at the event.
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