Starting and running a small and medium sized business efficiently can be one of the most challenging activities you would face in your lifetime, especially, for an up-and-coming entrepreneur in a developing country where the market forces seem to constantly be opposing. With the increase in the numbers of new entrepreneurs coming into the market space due to the current mass layoffs and high unemployment quotient, competition is at a high point and stiff. It is therefore imperative for the entrepreneur to consider brand positioning strategies to get the desired identity and perception for the business to ensure it stands out of the bunch. As a standard, “building a strong brand” should be one of the business goals.

With the advent of the telecommunication companies and the not too long restructuring of the banking sector in Nigeria, the concept of branding quickly gained popularity. Branding, even if it was still a vague perception became synonymous with the unique value that businesses, products, services and even personalities were delivering. In that order, it seemed branding was just adopted and mentioned to create the needed publicity and buy-in. Somehow, this act seemed easy enough and magical and it got the target audience going. Without the right knowledge, branding has been and still is misunderstood as good advertising and design by a majority of the target audience.

Today, branding is gradually losing its buzz and getting infamous as the target audience are clearly observing that the total brand experience they are getting from products and services is not giving the projected or essential value. Thus, most products or services delivered are considered shoddy rip offs and consumers do not waste time in considering and patronizing other brands especially when the affected brand is not in an unchallenged market. This brings about a constant struggle for the consumer as there is a clog of indecision that clouds which products or services are even having strong brands. Even marketing executives are also beginning to see the waste attached with big spending budgets on advertising and have cut down especially in this post-recession period.

Building a strong brand for your business is still highly imperative when starting a small or medium sized business. The key is to first have quality products or services specific for the prospective customers. Mediocrity is very difficult to brand, so adequate work must be put into product or service development during the initial business building stages. The challenge emerges on how to create a true brand that has the strength to build loyal customers and particularly in this period when the customers are beginning to lose trust in the concept of the brand.

What every entrepreneur must know is that a brand is a unique promise that is deliberately made and delivered consistently. The brand must be flexible enough to embrace innovation and still stay consistent as the customers’ demands evolve. The brand must deliver the intended value to the target audience through distinct experiences. The brand also rewards loyal customers. The brand is more of how your business is perceived than how it is packaged. Businesses with wonderful wrappers do not necessarily mean that they have a nice taste. Businesses that have more customers than their competitors do not always state that they have a strong brand. A brand is strong when it has in terms of value delivery, a higher emotional connection with the target audience, than being functional. When creating a brand, instead of just focusing on the quantitative value of the business, the entrepreneur must focus more on the qualitative value as it affects the human senses. That means that your brand should work at having a relationship with the passions of the target audience. A brand must be positively different. It should seek to challenge the status quo culture of your target audience through insights, research and continuous value delivery. Brands with a share of heart always do better than those with share of wallet on their minds.

A brand has a core idea that relates to the culture of their target audience and in a direct way adds value by altering that culture positively through continuous value delivery. Branding is largely more than a plan to have an attractive outlook through advertising and packaging or greater number of customers. To build a brand, a business must begin to consider building a business personality that the target audience can bond with on a functional level and more on an emotional level. Today, customers are seeking brands that will stand out as consistent heroes and thrive through innovative ideas that will seek to change the culture as it is presently known. More than ever, when the target audience looks at the business you are building, they want to see a reflection of their personality in the brand.

Nosa Emma – Iyamu also known as the alias, Senosir, is an advocate of branding and entrepreneurship. He is passionate about the growth of micro, small and medium enterprises. He believes strongly that equality in wealth distribution and the growth of developing economies are tied to the development of the MSMEs. After brief years of working as an employee, he stepped on the path of the entrepreneur with a mission to assist MSMEs in creating viable indigenous brands and building business structures. He is a self-motivated, confident and inspiring natural strategist with great adaptability skills. He enjoys travelling, writing, strategic planning and making valuable relationships. He has reinvented himself as the entrepreneur, the Brand Strategist, the Publisher and the Christian Gospel Rapper. 

Twitter: @Senosirbrands

Blog: www.umayiason.blogspot.com

The future is bright regardless of what Nigeria or Nigerians may wish. The future is bright for all and sundry and the generality of Nigerians. Let us all stop complaining and try to make things work. Let us all roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty.

A lot of things can still be done in this our country of great resources. What is the reason for my optimism – I look at Nigeria, country of 150 million odd people, now that is vast human resources, that is an amazing collection of knowledge, intelligence and human supply.

I look at Nigeria with her huge land mass, now that is substantial land material, enough to farm and feed the world. Now that is something.

I look at Nigeria with all her mineral wealth, coal, oil, diamond, gold, columbite, bauxite, tin, now that is a lot of natural mineral, that is amazing amount of potential wealth.

I look at Nigeria with all her agricultural products, now tell me, what does not grow in Nigeria, what crop do we not have – yam, cassava, rice, wheat, millet, sorghum, beans, pineapples, mangoes, palm oil, potatoes? What do we not have or have the potential to grow? It’s amazing. Even flowers are grown and exported in Nigeria. What do we not have? What can we not grow?

Look at our vast water ways, our seas, rivers and oceans, look at the abundance there from, fish, prawns shrimps, eels; look at the amount of hydroelectric energy they can generate, their availability to provide salt, to water the earth, to irrigate. Look at our climate, warm all the year round, constant and consistent. The rain comes as ordered by God, on a regular basis; the dry season comes as instructed at the due time. No hurricanes, no snow, no earthquakes, no tornadoes. Look at our animal husbandry, cows, goats, sheep, poultry, pigs, elephant, rats and even camels abound naturally in this same Nigeria. Vast vegetation of all kinds, from rain forests to savannas, to sahels to mild deserts, which all have economic values. We have hot and humid places like Lagos, cool and dry places like Jos, hot and dry like Maiduguri, cool and wet like Port Harcourt. We have warm springs in Ikogosi, cattle ranches in Obudu, game reserves in Yankari, beautiful beaches in Lagos, and all sorts of other different historic forests and landmarks, the Oshun shrines. The Edo kingdom relics, the Olumo rocks, tin mines of Jos, birthplace of Uthman Dan Fodio, the Sahara trade routes and all such places that people in other parts of the world pay good money to see.

What then is the problem of this great country of vast resources? None I dare say for we have all the basic tools and ingredients that will make the white man green, no black with envy. We are so naturally blessed. It is unbelievable and unfair to the rest of the world that we are not succeeding and rather are struggling. Consequently, I look at us as virgin territory with an extremely bright future, extremely bright, if only we had people with foresight, honest, clean and uncorrupted people available to take us there.

We should aspire towards the kind of leadership that will make our dreams come true, give us all hope and take us to our assured bright future. What we require from our leadership is not much, just a commitment to the cause and general good of Nigeria, an ability to recognize our vast potential and to acquire by one means or another the technology we presently lack (our only short coming) to harness it.

No more uneconomic contracts, no more selfish accumulation of wealth, no deals that are not in our collective best interest, no kickbacks, no bribes, nepotism or corruption. No more planlessness and poor utilization of our vast resources. No more petty rivalry and mundane demands. No more narrow-mindedness and shortsightedness. No more preventing us from achieving our bright future, and meaningless accumulation of personal wealth. Rather wealth should be attained through honest reward for honest hard work. Indeed if a leader has performed well, we should collectively congratulate and reward him because he deserves it, not because he has taken it without our knowledge.

He sits atop football administration in Lagos State. A Lawyer by training, an Administrator by calling and a kind-hearted personality by compulsion. He is Seyi Akinwunmi, Chairman, Lagos State Football Association (L.A.F.A.). David Olanrewaju caught up with this eloquent personality inside his sprawling Lagos-Island Office for an interview. Excerpts:

Sir, Can you please introduce yourself to our readers?
My name is Mr. Seyi Akinwunmi. I’m a Lawyer by profession. I’m a partner in the Law firm of Akinwunmi & Busari. Currently; I’m the Chairman of the Lagos State Football Association (L.A.F.A.). In addition to that; I’m the Vice-Chairman of The Courage Education Foundation (C.E.F.) and the Chairman of Trinity Nigeria Series. Both Organizations are Non-Governmental Organizations (N.G.O.). I’m married with 3 Children.

Your Educational Background?
I started my primary school education at Maryland Convent School, Maryland; then moved to Igbobi College, Lagos where I had my secondary school education. I did my ‘A’ Levels at Brighton College, U.K., then proceeded to the University of Buckingham, also in the U.K. I came back to Nigeria to consummate my educational profile with an L.L.M. at the University of Lagos.

Sir; what’s your general assessment of Sports in Nigeria?
Sports as a whole in Nigeria has been under-valued. It’s a pity that people don’t see how important sports is to the development of the country. In addition to that; our sports administrators over the years have been very selfish and self-centered. Do you know that people have been appointed to the position of sports Administrators either as a favour to the system or as a punishment to the system. Take a deep thought on this and you’ll inevitably agree with me.

What then can be done to improve the development of Sports (especially Football) in Nigeria?
We need to go back to the basics. We need to go back to the grassroots. Grassroots development is the backbone of sports development. Once we can do that; our sports will tremendously improve but what we have right now is over-concentration on ‘finished products.’ We have neither time nor resources to ‘waste’ on grassroots development and we want to succeed. It is very sad. If we want development and success in our sports (especially football); we should go back to the basics (i.e. grassroots). The likes of Stephen Keshi, Rashidi Yekini, Emmanuel Amuneke, Taribo West, Sunday Oliseh, Samson Siasia, Daniel Amokachi, Nwankwo Kanu, Victor Ikpeba, Garba Lawal, Finidi George, Tijani Babangida, Mutiu Adepoju, e.t.c. were at one time or the other local players. If they hadn’t been given a chance for development; they wouldn’t have exploded and contributed their quotas to soccer development in Nigeria. That is exactly what we need to do again. We need to go back to the divisions in each state. For example; Lagos has 5 Divisions. We should walk straight into those divisions and work with them. We should also involve people with proven administrative ability and competence.

How have you been able to cope and combine your business and your role as a Sports Administrator?
I have been coping very well. The reason is that sports to me is a passion. I take sports as a passion and it has been quite easy for me. Also; I have fantastic partners and wonderful colleagues in my law firm who have made it easy for me.

What’s your impression about politics in Nigeria?
Nigerian politics at the moment is dirty. It’s a winner-takes-all thing. Although politics in Nigeria is still in its infancy; it is a very bad arena for me.

What’s your ultimate life ambition?
Hmnnnnn………. That’s a big question. Well; I have a lot of ambitions but one of my ultimate life ambitions is that I want God to use me tremendously to help people around me. Once I can do that; I’m satisfied. I also want God to give me good health so that I can see my grandchildren.

How religious are you?
I’m a Christian aspiring to be the best I can be.

Can you please tell us more about your family?
I’m married with 3 kids. The names of my Children are Banke, Tominsin and Tose. Banke is 20 years old and she just graduated as the Best Graduating Student at the University of Buckingham, UK. She studied Accounting/Financial Management. Tomisin is 15 years old and she is currently in England and this year, she will start her ‘A’ Levels. Tose is 12 years old and a student at a boarding school in Abeokuta. Their mum is Jumoke. She is an architect by profession but currently; she is a Project Manager in her own company. She also advises on housing solutions and she gets paid.

How many N.G.O.s are you currently involved with?
I came up with the vision of the Courage Education Foundation (C.E.F) which I introduced to Pastor Ituah Ighodalo and in his usual unique and amazing way; he raised it up to higher heavens and I have been part of it since. Also, in any position that I am, I always put up support to assist people. For example; here at the Lagos State Football Association (L.A.F.A.); I set up a Corporate Social Responsibility (C.S.R.) Initiative to support children with autism. I’m also the chairman of the estate association where I live and each year; I make sure I pull out support for orphanages.

Were you actively involved in sports when you were in school?
Yes. I used to be an ex-footballer during my school days but I didn’t go professional. I only played for my school. I also played for the England U-19 Team and I also captained the Lagos State NYSC in 1985/1986. After that; I’ve been playing ‘social’ football. (Laughs.)

What other sports do you play apart from football?
I play Table Tennis and Squash but I don’t play Squash anymore but I still play Table Tennis.

How do you relax?
I relax by watching football and listening to news.

What’s your favourite international clubside?
I’m an incurable Manchester United fan. I love the club so much. There is no club like Man-U.

Who is your favourite Nigerian footballer of all times?
To be candid; my favourite Nigerian footballer of all times is Adokiye Ameiseimaka. I love him so much. Maybe because he played actively and brilliantly during those years that I was also actively playing football. Interestingly; he is also a lawyer and the former Attorney-General of his state – Rivers.

What can the government and the general public do to assist ex-stars who are presently not doing well?
I’m already planning towards that. I want to use them as football scouts. The government can also support them by giving them jobs and making them more valuable to the society.

How can the Nigerian football league be developed like that of Europe?
The solution is what I said at the beginning of this interview. We need to go back to the basics and throw away this conservative idea of ‘win-at-all-costs’ principle. In modern day football; any team can win comfortably and safely anywhere and at anytime but the reverse is the case in Nigeria. How do you expect us to develop that way? It is not possible. Development doesn’t come that way. Also, we need to get the government out of all our clubs. For example, all the clubs in the Nigerian Premier League are owned by the government. It is very bad. We cannot develop that way. This is the major reason why Lagos State has refused to buy any top team. The government urgently needs to hands off from sports and hand it over to the private sector if we want to move ahead in sports in Nigeria. This is the panacea.

According to Ubong Essien: “One of the finest opportunities of life is the privilege to have a second bite at the cherry, to pick up the pieces and start all over, especially where we may have performed unsatisfactorily. This is an amazing gift.” The success secret of champions can be traced to their stories. Steve Harris, a management consultant, life strategist, and author of the bestselling book: “From college drop out to corporate sell out’, shares his story of rising from gale to glory. Getting kicked off the university twice, becoming a two time office assistant and how he overcame the obstacles associated with the stigma of being a college drop out.

The Story
“From college drop out to corporate sell out” is pretty much what I call a mini autobiography of my getting kicked out of school twice, becoming a two time office assistant and how I overcame the obstacles associated with the stigma of being a college dropout, the lessons learnt, and all that helped me become a corporate sell out.

Diamond in the Rough
I had to deal with low self-esteem in addition to the fact that there is a stigma attached to not being a college graduate. Since it seemed everyone around me was making progress in their personal pursuits and I felt I was retrogressing. I later learnt that I wasn’t competing against anyone but myself.

Lessons Learnt
One, you are not in competition with anyone but yourself. Secondly, you need to look inwards to discover what God has hidden in you. In addition, the way to the top is through faithful service and lastly, turn your passion into profit.’

The Motivation to Succeed
The challenge has served as a motivation to succeed. As you can tell from the book cover, it’s a split image of me. Personally, I think the drop out part of me motivates the sellout part. I am driven to prove to myself that I am not what my alma mater said that I was. I am not one for giving excuses. I hear a lot of people say that ‘if I had a first class or an M.B.A, I’d have gone further in life’, well meet me. I ain’t got no class! So if God could do so much with someone who had so little. What’s your excuse?

Inspiration behind the Book
Truth be told, I never intended writing this book. I was working on another when I had ‘writer’s block’ for months and I was so stumped; until my editor ‘Seun Salami suggested I write my story since I was so comfortable sharing my life experience with audiences. I’m glad I listened. Thanks Seun!

How the Experience Has Shaped My Life
Dropping out of school has been the most defining moment of my life. It caused me to re-discover God, discover myself, find my purpose and add value.

The New You-The Corporate Sell Out
It’s exciting! I’m privileged to be a sought after Life Strategist, Management Consultant and Motivational Speaker. I’m paid very well to do what I love and I love what I do.

My Job as a Management Consultant
I have a blast assisting people and organisations achieve success in their pre-determined endeavours using Consulting, Training and Coaching interventions to increase their bottom-line and gain competitive leverage through their people and systems.

Advice to Young Entrepreneurs
Dream big, start small, grow fast, put God first, get a mentor and never lose your hunger!

“It won’t break!”

I grimaced at the excruciating pain I felt as my stylist kept weaving every tiny strand of hair on my scalp. My complaints had exasperated her and I was already exhausted from all the arguing. As I felt another pang of pain, I knew without a doubt that I’d have headache for weeks if I didn’t stop this right now. Shaking my head and yelling set me free from her claws.

I have an especially sensitive scalp and pores so too much tugging, pulling, twisting or weaving hurts me. Now funny thing is my stylist knows this but I guess she just expects me to fess up!

This particular stylist was fantastic with weaves and cutting but clueless about taking care of the human hair. It is guaranteed that I walk out of the salon looking great but after the weave comes off; my hair is a total mess. The weaves thrive while my hair remains unhealthy and my stylist doesn’t seem to care.

“It will grow back, don’t worry”.

My hair length has not improved since she laid hands on it so I knew it was time to kick her to the curb and I did just that. I went off in search of a stylist who wanted the wellbeing of my hair and I found one some weeks later. I am thrilled!

Whether you’ve been going to your hairdresser for a few months or several years, it is sometimes hard to make the decision to move on. Here are a few ways to tell if it’s time to change.

If you are like me…you wear weaves a lot, and your stylist completely neglects your natural strands, doesn’t advice on how to keep it healthy or recommend products, or she simply can’t be bothered about your natural hair, it is time to dump her (or him) cause honestly, if you lose all the naturals, what are you going to attach the weaves to?

If you’ve been to your stylist at least three times and you haven’t walked out of the beauty salon completely loving your hair, it’s time to find a new one. A big factor in finding the perfect stylist is connecting with one who will both listen to what you want and also deliver the result you were envisioning. So, if she convinces you to get layers even though you’re against them or cuts your hair way too short, you know she’s not the stylist for you.

Mistakes happen on occasion, but if you’re the victim of a really bad one (you asked for full bangs and walked out with a side fringe) or experienced a lot of little errors (tiger-stripe highlights one time, an uneven cut the next) it’ll be impossible to trust your stylist. Start looking for a replacement.

Sure, sometimes we’re all late or have to call in sick to work, but, if your stylist rarely shows up or constantly cancels your appointments; keeping up your appearance can be tough. Personally find this really annoying. You shouldn’t feel bad about leaving a stylist who can’t commit to a schedule.

If you’re in the mood to try a dramatically different cut or colour, you might want to look for a new salon. If you know exactly how you want to make the change, your current stylist might work, but, on the other hand, she might not think your idea suits you, or she might not have the skills to do what you’ve asked. It also helps to get a fresh take on your situation from a new stylist with new ideas.

A good stylist should be friendly and ever ready to listen, be creative, kind, patient, and understanding, and not bully or badger you into wearing a style you’d hate.

Good luck getting a better replacement!

 “I think that if you all are half as fast as I am, we can be done in no time!” is director Desmond Elliott’s rallying call to cast and crew in the midst of a grueling shooting schedule that packs two feature-length movies into eleven days. With such speed and arguable efficiency, it is no wonder that Nollywood, as the Nigerian film industry is popularly known, was recognized by UNESCO in 2009 as the second largest film industry in the world in terms of production volume–almost on par with Bollywood and far eclipsing Hollywood.

I arrived in Lagos, the heart of Nollywood production, in September 2010 on a Fulbright grant to research the industry’s social impact. This marked my return to West Africa, where I have frequented since the age of 19 – first as an exchange student at the University of Ghana and then as a participant in a Tufts-organized research trip to investigate corporate social responsibility in the Ghanaian gold mining industry. However, this most recent immersion in Sub-Saharan Africa’s most populous megacity – home to at least 15 million inhabitants – proved to be more stimulating and challenging than any of my previous experiences in the region.

Over the next ten months, I followed four Nollywood productions–Tunde Kelani’s Ma’ami, Muhydeen Ayinde’s The Return of Jenifa, Elliott’s Midnight Whisper, and Daniel Ademinokan’s Ghetto Dreamz– through the filming, post-production, and marketing stages in order to track the transactions first hand. I had hoped that my on-the-ground observations would demystify the size of the industry by showing me the process and parts needed to produce a film, total unit sales and revenue, as well as the long-term effects on the lives of Nigerians, such as job creation and poverty reduction. I discovered that Nollywood’s impact goes beyond what could be measured by numbers.

The industry’s commercially accessible format distinguishes it from other African cinema cultures–in particular that of the Francophone countries, where filmmakers produce highly stylized “art films” driven by socio-political messages. Francophone African films are primarily funded (and thus shaped) by the French government and distributed internationally to film festivals and other noncommercial channels. Nollywood films are self-financed, with historically little government subsidy or foreign aid. While African audiences rarely see most of the Francophone products, their Nigerian counterparts are characterized by a capacity to transcend local ethnic and national boundaries to be voraciously consumed by millions of viewers across the continent, the Diaspora, and everywhere else in between.

Nollywood’s emergence in the late eighties coincided with a national economic crisis that depleted filmmakers’ access to expensive celluloid film stock. This led Yoruba traveling theater artists to record their live performances on videocassettes, which were sold by electronics dealers in the markets. One such dealer wrote and funded a feature film shot entirely with a VHS camera. The result was “Living in Bondage” (1992), Nollywood’s first blockbuster, with sales of more than 750,000 copies. Today the independently financed movies continue on VCD and DVD, with an increasing number of cinema releases. The predominantly straight-to-video release format allows films to be produced cheaply, for $USD 30,000 to $USD 200,000, and quickly, with shoots lasting three to four weeks. They retail for a mere $USD 1.50 to $USD 3.50 and are voraciously consumed by millions of viewers across both the African continent and the diaspora.

Since the industry’s humble beginnings, production volume has reached epic proportions. The Nigerian National Film and Video Censors Board, the federal regulator of the industry, received 1,612 local films for censorship classification in 2010, which averages an astounding 31 new releases per week. Given filmmakers and marketers’ disregard for government regulation, this number does not include the scores of “un-authorized” films that bypass the Censors Board on their way to market release.

The set of legendary director Tunde Kelani’s Ma’ami was my first opportunity to jump in at the ground level. I joined Kelani and his crew on location in Abeokuta, about 100 km north of Lagos, for the three-week shoot of his eighteenth feature film in October 2010. Since establishing Mainframe Productions in 1992, Kelani has consistently released movies like Thunderbolt and Saworoide, which have cemented his reputation as the most celebrated director in Nigeria and have become favorites in Yoruba households across Africa, Europe, and the Americas. After pirates cut in the profits of his last film, Arugbá (2010), by selling illegal copies a few days after its release, Kelani resolved to tackle this copyright infringement by releasing Ma’ami only in theaters—a surprising move given Nollywood’s distinction as a video film industry and given the focus of its distribution networks on home entertainment consumption.

On the Ma’ami set, I was also struck by the widespread extortion that exists in movie-making in Nigeria. Kelani concedes that he keeps a budget line titled “community relations” for such occasions as when Nigerian Railways Corporation officials halted production to demand to see film permits, though the railroad tracks on which the scene was set had not functioned in decades and at that moment were covered by a bustling market. The demand was resolved after some crew members accompanied the officials to the local police station, where further “negotiations” were made to secure appropriate shooting rights to the train tracks. The community relations dilemma continued when our exit from the train station was blocked by a crowd of “area boys” (gangs of under-employed street youths) who demanded more “dash” (i.e. bribes) for shooting rights as well as the chance to meet the female lead, Funke Akindele, who is widely considered to be the biggest star in the Yoruba language film genre. I breathed a sigh of relief (and disbelief) when the Production Manager negotiated our safe passage for a paltry N1, 500 ($USD 10), which was distributed among approximately 20 area boys after a nearly hour-long stand-off.

On The Return of Jenifa set in Lagos in November to December 2010, this shadow fund came into play when local area boys again stopped the equipment truck and demanded N20,000 (USD $134) per car to enter the private housing estate where we had planned to shoot a scene. Determined to continue the shooting schedule, director Muhydeen Ayinde and director of photography DJ Tee changed locations to a nearby hotel. The boys followed us to the hotel, where as day turned into night and as the pile of their discarded beer bottles swelled, they grew increasingly insistent in their demands for more money. This disruption escalated into a rowdy fight and delayed production until midnight.

I was invited to join The Return of Jenifa set by Funke Akindele with the help of my dear friend and consultant, Faranpojo Olaitan who I met on the location of Kelani’s Ma’ami. Faranpojo was the assistant director and the Unit Production Manager Ma’ami. After honing her craft on hundreds of movie sets over the last decade, Akindele’s career exploded in 2008 after the release of Jenifa. She wrote, produced, and starred in the Yoruba-language comedy chronicling the title character’s misadventures when she leaves her provincial village life behind to attend university in Lagos. The low-budget movie took the country by storm, selling approximately one million copies and introducing such catch phrases as “bigz girls”– Jenifa’s backwoods terminology to describe the “in-crowd” on campus – to the Nigerian popular vernacular. The movie’s popularity can be measured in the culture of celebrity that surrounds Akindele wherever she goes. On location, her every step was echoed by screams of “Jenifa!” from adoring fans. Crowds in the dozens gathered to intently watch, discuss and document Akindele’s every move as she performed the most mundane tasks in between takes–from napping to eating lunch.

In The Return of Jenifa, the much-anticipated third installment in the blockbuster Jenifa trilogy, Akindele hopes to use the momentum behind her celebrity to go beyond the sales success of the original. Akindele aspires to turn Jenifa into a franchise and a cult figure, much like Tyler Perry’s Madea. A self-described “youth ambassador”, Akindele plans to use Jenifa the character to reach out to young people living with such challenges as teenage pregnancy and HIV/AIDS on a future Jenifa-hosted talk show. In addition, plans are in the work for a Jenifa sitcom, followed by the establishment of a Jenifa Foundation to support youth with showbiz ambitions.

This celebrity culture followed me to the set of Ghetto Dreamz in late February 2011. The movie chronicles the meteoric rise and tragic death of Da Grin, the wildly popular 23 year-old rapper whose life was cut short by a car accident; some mythologize him as Nigeria’s own Tupac. By the time that I arrived on set, the entertainment blogosphere had been buzzing for weeks about the last-minute crew changes. Avid Da Grin fans were highly critical of executive producer Ope Banwo’s abrupt departure from the original director and his decision to recruit the relatively less experienced Daniel Ademinokan to direct and to write the script. Fans also disapproved of the acceleration of the production schedule to meet the April 2011 theatrical release date, which was designed to coincide with the one-year anniversary of Da Grin’s untimely death. Ademinokan completed the casting process in January; shot the film over three weeks in February and finished post-production in March.

Like Ghetto Dreamz, Desmond Elliott’s Midnight Whisper had an equally ambitious shooting schedule. The drama marks the first time that two language versions of the same film were shot at the same time: English and Ibibio. Producer Emem Isong aims to target the Ibibio-speaking people in her home state in the eastern region of Akwa-Ibom, while still making a commercially viable product for the rest of Nigeria. The two versions will be packaged as two separate films and will be released at different times in different markets. When I visited the set in early February 2011, the production schedule covered 246 scenes (123 scenes for each version of the film) over an eleven-day period. Despite the grueling timetable, the set was a lesson in efficiency. Elliott – one of Nollywood’s most popular actors-turned-directors – allotted two takes per scene per language. First, he shot a scene in English in two takes: one wide-angle and one close-up. Then, the Ibibio-speaking actors rotated in and he shot the same scene, again in two takes. Despite frequent power outages and the interference of generator noise with the on-set sound level, the cast and crew maximized this system to the extent that they were able to shoot an astonishing 40 scenes in one day. The intense work pace continued beyond the completion of principal photography as Elliott began production on his subsequent feature the very next day.

It is hard not to get excited about Nollywood. Since its inception two decades ago, the Nigerian film industry has grown beyond a novelty in guerrilla film making into a sophisticated industry grappling with growing pains of piracy, quality control, celebrity culture and doing business in the informal economy. I set out to measure the social impact of the industry and found that Nollywood’s reach may be impossible to quantify with mere numbers. My fieldwork revealed the industry’s substantial capacity to create jobs and alleviate poverty, which addresses the critical issues of unemployment and income disparity in Nigeria. A standard movie directly employs 50-100 people, but its overall job creation is several times this amount due to the linkages with collateral industries created to provide services during filming and post-production, such as the yam vendors who supply the set caterer and the DVD manufacturing plants that fabricate movie copies. Per the government’s conservative estimate that 1,612 local films are released per year, I calculate that Nollywood supports hundreds of thousands of jobs annually–which present significant development potential for a country that the World Bank has estimated to have a 25% youth unemployment rate.

Despite intermittent power supply and harassment from external forces, Kelani, like many Nigerian filmmakers, innovate with limited budgets and tight production schedules to produce content that holds the rapt attention of audiences across the African continent and beyond.

A concert to enlighten the public and gather support and help for people living with the Sickle Cell Anaemia Disorder (SCD) tagged: ‘Touch A Cell’ was held on Sunday, April 1, 2012 at the Victoria Crown Plaza (VCP) Hotel, Victoria-Island, Lagos. The Concert, in its fourth year, was organised by the Sickle Cell Advocacy and Management Initiative (SAMI).

Anchored by the ubiquitous Senior Advocate of Comedy (SACO); it was a night of music, dance, comedy and great enlightenment. The Concert was organised to enlighten the public more about the disease because: ‘Ignorance creates stigmatization.’

According to the Concert Convener; Ms. Toyin Adesola, founder of SAMI, who is also living with the disease; she says: ‘Millions of Nigerians are ignorant of the real facts of SCD which has in return caused a lot of unnecessary stigmatization, fear, hatred and apprehension. Do you know that some people are afraid to shake hands or even associate with people living with SCD for the unfounded fear that they might catch it? Many people living with SCD have lost their jobs, spouses, careers, places, positions, placements, e.t.c. unjustly because of this. Our attitude towards SCD and people living with it must change! SCD is not contagious!’

Sickle Cell Anaemia (SCD) has claimed a lot of lives in the world (with Sub-Sahara Africa as the most affected). It cannot be cured but it can be managed. World statistics show that Nigeria by virtue of her status as the most populous black nation on earth records the highest number of deaths in the world arising from this disease with over 150,000 children dying in Nigeria alone annually.

Some of the performers on the night include Yinka Davies, Larry Forman (The Beat 99.9 FM), Chief Wale Aboderin (Chairman of Punch Newspapers), Oba, Kayefi, White Stone, amongst others.

Church 4 Change, a coalition of Christian leaders and an issues-based moral force focused on national reformation and social re-engineering recently organised a business roundtable at the Radisson Blue Hotel, Victoria Island, with Mr. Bismarck Rewane as guest speaker with the theme – Cost of Governance in Nigeria, what can we do?.

Pastor Wale Adefarasin, one of the promoters of Church 4 Change in his opening remarks said the church has a responsibility to its community and that there needs to be a change in the church and a transformation in the nation. Such transformation he said has to be spearheaded by the church.

Pastor Ituah Ighodalo, moderator of the event and also a promoter of the initiative said the purpose of the roundtable was to have fruitful discussions, obtain information and come up with a strategy on various national issues.

Mr. Bismarck Rewane, who is the Managing Director of Financial Derivatives Company, described the rising cost of governance as one of the germane issues Nigeria is facing today. He attributed the rising cost to two main leakages namely inefficiency and corruption. Due to inefficiencies, the real GDP growth rate is 14% less (currently at 7%) than the potential GDP growth rate of 21%. One of such inefficiencies he mentioned as the multiplicity of taxes by different government organs in order to earn more money, most of which goes back into maintaining a burgeoning government bureaucracy.

He said in a country where 61% live below $1 per day and 71% live below $2 per day and where 36% of the economy is in the informal sector, people are getting anxious about reduction in productivity and increase in the governance cost and as such, the Arab Spring Revolution should not be seen as being too far from Nigeria as the major causes have not been purely political but also mostly economic.

He said the government should be focusing on improving earnings from production wealth as there is a major problem with our natural wealth (oil and natural gas) which is depletion. Income inequality he said, should also be addressed by expansion of the economy. Impediments to new investments such as insecurity and uncertain economic policies should also be addressed.

Participants at the roundtable agreed that there is a structural problem with the nation which needs to be solved strategically. The roundtable agreed that the church and concerned individuals and organisations need to preach knowledge and build awareness as poverty and ignorance limits the kind of strategic change desired with the structure of the nation. People have to start asking questions and demanding answers of accountability from their leaders. Everyone however has to start from their own little spheres of operation. The forum also suggested that mechanisms for feedback from government officials and those in leadership should be put in place.

Pastor Richard Ikebe, the Executive Director of Church 4 Change in his closing remarks said the church has thinkers but is not putting its thinkers to work and that has to change. He described Church 4 Change as a collection of Kingdom Minded activists and advocates. The group intends to be an advocacy, pressure group and think tank that will build a movement and momentum towards desirable changes in the socio-economic and political sectors of the nation.

As human beings we are guilty of immortalizing dead heroes. Even villains become heroes when they die so it is difficult to tell the difference because people generally are sympathetic to the dead and unkind to the living.

Nigerian democracy has many unsung heroes and villains alike. We may become confused if we do not objectively analyse their efforts and reward their actions with justification or condemnation while they live preferring instead to mummify them when they die so we can satisfy that curious streak of sympathy for mortality that rests within all of us, as we have done in the past with the likes of Ojukwu or Adaka Boro.

In recent times Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu readily comes to mind as a man in the docks of our conscience, waiting for condemnation or justifiable absolution. In examining his struggles we wade into the political waters of this sage in the hope that we can lay claim to information that provides the platform for us to do justice to his reputation as a villain or a hero.

Bola Tinubu’s involvement in political agitations came to the fore when the June 12 election was annulled by self-styled military President Ibrahim Bangida in 1993. Consequently the nation was awash with waves of demonstrations and fresh militarization. In 1994, Tinubu became a founding member of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), a group of intellectually grounded activists whose public posturing vocally challenged the oppressive political and economic policies of the military government of Sani Abacha. Prior to the June 12 imbroglio, Tinubu had been a founding member of the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) and had been elected as a Senator in 1992 to represent the Lagos West Senatorial District. At the National Assembly, he distinguished himself as the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Finance, Appropriation and Currency.

NADECO was formed by a broad coalition of Nigerian democrats, who called on the military government of Sani Abacha to step down in favour of the winner of the June 12, 1993 election, Chief M.K.O. Abiola. Their image fed rightly into the consciousness of the generality of Nigerians weary of the ever changing tunes of high handed illiterate men in khaki uniforms who held the reins of power. They quickly became the symbol of mass resistance against military rule.

In the wake of these agitations, the military were swift in their brutal retaliations to opposition groups like NADECO. Some members of the group were brutally harassed and detained while some chieftains of the party like Pa Alfred Rewane were assassinated. Bola Ahmed Tinubu went into exile after suffering countless detentions and harassments in the hands of the military. His time in exile was still put to invaluable use in pursuit of democratic reforms for the Nigerian people as he worked with other NADECO members and activists in the diaspora.

In 1998 after Abacha’s demise, the country seemed set on a part of reformation and restructuring. Bola Tinubu came back home to participate in the reconciliation and rebuilding process of the country.

In 1999, two political parties, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the Alliance for Democracy (AD) emerged as the major players in the political arena of the country. Not surprisingly, Bola Tinubu tilted to the AD, a party whose manifesto was largely hailed as intellectually viable, progressive and politically sound. Most members of the AD were from the mold of the defunct Action Group and UPN (Unity Party of Nigeria); both Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s parties in the first and second republic respectively. Expectedly PDP got the crowd to work with while AD, perceived as ideologically elitist and tribally sectorial because of its major composition of Yoruba speaking members did not garner as much support across the country.

During the 1999 elections, the AD swept through the western states and secured all the governorship seats. Bola Tinubu, a protégé of Abraham Adesanya and Ayo Adebanjo, (both political associates of the late sage, Obafemi Awolowo) also clinched the AD ticket and emerged Governor of Lagos State.

It wasn’t long after his inception as Governor that political pundits realised that Tinubu was clearly his own man and had no intention of getting sucked into the culture of sycophantism that characterised the relationship between the PDP led government of the Federal Republic manned by President Olusegun Obasanjo and the Governors of the other AD controlled states. Instead he made independent decisions within the ambits of the law. One of such decision was the creation of 37 new Local Development Areas in the state to meet the growing needs of its large population; a move that sparked a public tussle between President Obasanjo and Governor Tinubu, leading to the seizure of local government funds of Lagos state by the Federal Government.

In the face of daunting opposition from the PDP machinery within his state and calculated provocation from the President, Tinubu remained astute in his pursuit for equity and justice. He frequently locked horns with PDP power brokers like Bode George, then south-west vice-chairman of the PDP and Adeseye Ogunlewe, a former Lagos State Senator, who had been initially elected on the platform of the AD before defecting to the PDP and later becoming minister of works.

Tinubu did not pander to the political whims of President Obasanjo or to higher powers within Aso Rock who sought to negate his persona. Instead he moved into tough terrain tackling issues that angelic political cronies feared to thread on or touch.

He lent his voice to sea of voices that were agitating for resource control and true federalism and expression of federal character in governance, saying there was too much power at the centre. “Until you devolve power, we’ll keep having problems. Why do we create states when we know that we will make them powerless? Why do we adopt the philosophy and principle of federalism if we know that we cannot put it to practice in a constitutional environment? It is because we have not been honest about it. It’s a unitary system in a federal environment. The power in any constitution is relinquished from the state to the centre and it should be about the security of the country.”

Of crucial importance to Lagosians and other Nigerians was Bola Tinubu’s unwavering resolve to bring economic reforms to the state through strategic and carefully thought out road map. The rehabilitation of dilapidated roads and the construction of new roads were greeted with deafening applause by Lagosians and the decongestion of traffic through the well-coordinated agency of LASTMA (Lagos State Traffic Management Authority) was a necessary miracle for road users. The introduction of BRT buses to ease commercial transportation in the state and ridding Lagos of life threatening waste dumps on major roads through the re-vamping of Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) all chronicled into his catalogue of achievements.

His leftist ideological inclinations endeared him to the people but left his enemies wanting to draw blood. A Supreme Court judgement validated his actions in the creation of Local Development Areas in the state and ordered the Federal Government to release the seized statutory allocation of Lagos State Local Government funds.

At the tail end of his tenure in 2007, the relationship between himself and his deputy Femi Pedro disintegrated when Pedro declared his intention to run for the gubernatorial elections. Although he later withdrew on the eve of the party nominations, he defected to the Labour Party whist still maintaining his position as Deputy Governor. Tinubu’s successor, who was his Chief of staff, Babatunde Fashola picked the party ticket as the party flag bearer. And despite a stifling battle with the PDP for the number one spot in Lagos State, Babatunde Fashiola emerged Governor on the platform of ACN leaving the PDP to cry wolf. Bola Tinubu’s status as a perfect political strategist was sealed. This was after the fact that he was the only AD governor that retained his seat in the 2003 elections in the south-west while others lost theirs to the Obasanjo onslaught.

Despite the obliteration of the AD political machinery and not one to hide and lick his wounds, Bola Tinubu became a rallying point for the creation of another party: this time reaching out to a broader base of minds across the country. The Action Congress was created as recourse to the demise of the Alliance for Democracy (AD). Again he presented an objective manifesto that accommodated the yearnings of a large percentage of the Nigerian people. On a fresh platform and with a larger than life size image, several disgruntled politicians from the ruling party jumped on his wagon. Soon the AC was brandishing its intimidating broom as a symbol of economic and political reform and as the credible opposition to beat.

Having served two terms as the Governor of the largest state both in terms of population and economic activities, Tinubu brought his experiences in leadership to statesmanship and continued to be politically vocal and relevant unlike other ex-Governors whose only claim to significance was when they held the reins of power during their time in office. Following the massive victory of the PDP in the highly flawed 2007 elections and ahead of the 2011 elections, he called for implementation of electoral reforms as spelled out in the Uwais report to ensure fairness and credibility in the 2011 elections.

Bola Tinubu became active in negotiations to bring together the fragmented opposition parties under the umbrella of a “mega-party” capable of challenging the PDP. The negotiations crumbled like a pack of cards and the proposed merger did not see the light of day.

ACN eventually presented the former EFCC (Economic and Financial Crimes Commission) boss Nuhu Ribadu as presidential candidate and economic czar and founder of the GT Bank Fola Adeola as his running mate. Political analysts said the ACN made a poor choice by picking Nuhu Ribadu as the presidential candidate for the 2011 race. Ribadu had fallen out of favour with the PDP powers whom he served under President Obasanjo. Lagos, which was regarded as an ACN stronghold could not secure votes for Nuhu Ribadu, it’s presidential candidate relinquishing victory to the PDP Presidential candidate, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan who got overwhelming support from Lagosians at the polls.

As Governor Fashola’s bid for re-election gained momentum, rumours made the rounds that the two political soul mates had begun to fall apart because of Tinubu’s over bearing urge to wield political control in the affairs of the new government and that he did not support Fashola’s candidacy to run for second term in office, preferring instead to support the Commissioner for Environment, Dr. Muiz Banire. These rumours were not confirmed. And if there was any truth to the story, the Asiwaju and his protégé exhibited great maturity as they continued to appear together in public without any show of personal animosity, maybe to assure everyone that the infighting between them was not damaging to the ACN. One of his enduring legacies may well be the incursion of the ACN into areas controlled by and seen as PDP strongholds either through the polls or the law courts.

In September 2011, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was slammed with charges of corruption and dragged before the Code of Conduct Tribunal to stand trial over alleged illegal operation of 16 separate foreign accounts. Earlier in 2009, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission had cleared him alongside Governors James Ibori of Delta State and Obong Victor Attah of Akwa Ibom of charges of money laundering and abuse of office and official corruption especially in relation to the purchase of shares in a telecommunications company. However several months into 2009, fresh reports emerged that the British Metropolitan Police were investigating a transaction in which the Lagos State Government made an investment in Econet (now Zain). Tinubu argued that the transaction was straight forward and profitable to the state and there were no intermediaries involved. More eyebrows were raised when the Federal Government turned down the request by Britain to release evidence for further investigation and prosecution of the three Nigerian ex Governors in a London court. In November 2011, the Code of Conduct Bureau also dismissed the corruption charges against Tinubu.

Bola Ahmed Adekunle Tinubu was born on 29 March 1952 in the city of Lagos. He attended St. John’s Primary School, Aroloya, Lagos and Children’s Home School in Ibadan. He went to the United States in 1975, where he studied first at Richard J. Daley College in Chicago, Illinois and then at Chicago State University. He graduated in 1979 with a Bachelors of Science degree in Accounting. Tinubu worked for American companies Arthur Andersen, Deloitte, Haskins, & Sells, and GTE Services Corporation before returning to Nigeria in 1983 when he went to work with Mobil Oil Nigeria as a Senior Auditor, before retiring as the company’s Treasurer.

Whether or not he is guilty of all the crimes he is alleged to have committed, his name will go down in the annals of Nigerian history as a man who stood his ground even on the brink of political annihilation to defend his belief system, which were a sharp contrast with that of politicians of his day. Perhaps we will think back and remember that in all of the controversy, he articulated our own beliefs. Maybe then, we just might sum up the courage to put his portrait beside nationalist heros like Pa Enahoro and say it was important that he stood his grounds and fought our wars to save us from the political Goliaths of our day.