Following the G-20 summit held in India, I have been amused by the debate about whether or not Nigeria should be more than a guest again at the next G-20 meeting in Rio, Brazil. If South Africa is a member, why not Nigeria?

How do you offer Africa’s largest economy only a complimentary ticket every time to such an important global event, leaving it with the rather humiliating option of begging for a place? 

I thought that we had outgrown the belief that respect is earned by size or by simply hanging out with the right crowd, regardless of performance. If it’s not just another boost for the testosterone of a few African leaders who attend such meetings, it’s difficult to understand why they cannot see that they would have to put their house in order first to earn respect on the outside. 

I don’t know what President Cyril Ramaphosa’s membership is doing for South Africa or what the AU membership of the G-20 is doing for the continent. Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu obviously feels that if Ramaphosa can be on the stage at this pageant of global powers, then so can he also.

But I frankly think that both of them and others on the continent have barely paid enough attention to the opportunities that come with building truly vibrant regional and continental institutions. African leaders must pay attention to what is happening back home, in their own backyard. It’s the sheer force of their record of performance that would compel the world to notice and take them seriously. 

Lesson from EU

The EU, one of the world’s most prosperous trading blocs today, started as a trading community of six European countries with a combined population of 170m at the time. Today, it has grown to 27 members with an economy of approximately 16 trillion euros.

Apart from the EU’s institutional membership of the G-20, three EU countries – Germany, France and Italy – are also members of the group in their own rights, because of the sheer size of their economies. They didn’t have to beg for membership.

Consider, for example, how shabbily Africa has so far treated the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), perhaps its single biggest opportunity in decades to remove trade barriers amongst members, lift millions out of poverty and earn a significant spot on the world stage.

Five years into AfCFTA, the continent still pays lip service to free movement of people, with Africans requiring visas to travel to at least 60 percent of the 54 countries, never mind the monumental obstacles to free trade. 

Compared to India, for example, where only three compulsory documents are required for import-export processing, Nigeria’s Customs requires nearly 12 to process intra-African goods and services, and you’re just getting started.

While Africa’s population has grown to double that of Europe, intra-African trade accounts for about 11 percent or $170 billion, which is merely five percent of intra-European trade. Intra-African trade also lags intra-Asian trade.

Missed opportunities

Nigeria is not even among the eight countries currently participating in AfCFTA’s Guided Trade Initiative (GTI), a platform that is supposed to boost the region’s trade policy framework. How can Nigeria, which ought to be in the forefront of turning this state of affairs around, but which is sadly one of the laggards in AfCFTA commitments, covet a table at the G-20? And on what terms when, like most of the continent, Nigeria is still largely a market for primary commodities with the inherent disadvantages?

According to Tom Burgis in The Looting Machine, “In Africa, the outflows (as of 2011) amounted to five to seven percent of GDP, the highest proportion in any region and growing at a rate of 20 percent a year. African losses from trade mispricing alone are roughly the equivalent to the continent’s income from aid.”

To add insult to injury, Nigeria, Ghana and Chad were listed by Burgis as first, sixth and ninth respectively among the countries that suffered the worst illicit outflows from 2005. This sounds more like a continent that needs to look after itself than one whose leaders should be hankering for a courtesy ticket for a front-row seat outside.

If you add the current state of political turmoil across a number of countries on the continent, especially the so-called coup belt, the situation becomes even more deserving of serious homework and introspection.

Whereas the OAU of those days challenged apartheid and fought against minority rule and oppression in Zimbabwe and Namibia while supporting more African states to attain political independence, its successor the AU is sleep-walking through multiple conflicts, content to make only perfunctory noises.

Meanwhile, the new crop of military rulers from Chad to Mali and from Burkina Faso to Gabon continue to dig in, sparking a dangerous wave of copycats and self-doubt about the value and use of democratic rule.  

Africa’s 1.3 billion population is perennially a source of cheap labour for developed and middle-income countries in a manner reminiscent of the slave trade; while its landmass of 30 million square kilometres has remained a booty for external forces to exploit, loot and cart away as the continent slumbers.

Instead of trying to cross seven seas to join the G-20, Nigeria should be more concerned that even though it was also a guest to the BRICS meeting in Johannesburg in August, it was not among the six countries that would get membership from January 2024, with the two new spots in Africa going to Ethiopia and Egypt.

Indo-China love

What’s more? In an increasingly multipolar world, the unspoken message by absent Chinese President Xi Jinping to the last G-20 meeting, was that his country was no longer happy to play second fiddle to US hegemony. Rather than coveting that same company Nigeria and other African countries should do more to chart their own course. And they can do so without holding out the begging bowl.

Ambition to play in the big league is not a bad thing in itself. A spot on the big stage, however, requires more than a large ego, more than an extravagant claim of untapped potential, and certainly, much more than a sense of entitlement.

For a start, since Nigeria’s president obviously loved what he saw at the G-20 in Delhi he should have asked Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, to share the story of India’s journey to the G-20 with him. As of 2005/2006, more than 640 million people across India were in multidimensional poverty.

A 2019 UNDP report on multidimensional poverty however found that in about six years, the number of multidimensionally poor had fallen from 640 to 365 million. And in just nine years of Modi, access to electricity has increased from 70 percent to 93 percent, while states with basic sanitation coverage across India are over 90 percent.

That is the sort of record that makes a country both an eligible and inevitable member of the G-20 or any other respectable global platform; not covetousness, begging or a sense of entitlement.

Ishiekwene is Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP

This story is part of CNBC Make It’s The Moment series, where highly successful people reveal the critical moment that changed the trajectory of their lives and careers, discussing what drove them to make the leap into the unknown.

Sometimes, you need to recognize that pretty good isn’t good enough.

Just ask Spenser Skates and Curtis Liu. Today, the two MIT graduates are known as co-founders of Amplitude, an analytics software business with a market cap of $1.35 billion and more than 2,300 corporate clients. A decade ago, they were on a completely different track — running a voice recognition startup called Sonalight.

It was “a version of [Apple’s] Siri before Siri even existed,” Skates, Amplitude’s 35-year-old CEO, tells CNBC Make It. The duo created Sonalight in 2011, earned a coveted spot in Y Combinator’s startup accelerator program and even reached 500,000 downloads of their app.

Then, they made what might sound like a surprising call: They shut it down.

Internally, Skates and Liu saw that people were using the app once, but not re-engaging with it repeatedly. “Sonalight was a 95th percentile idea,” says Skates. “Most ideas are terrible. It was pretty good, but it’s not the bestest best. And it was like, we should probably go for a 99th percentile idea and go find that.”

They found it in their analytics tools, which they’d built in-house to get insights into their users’ habits. “We probably spent half of our time doing that — this, like, silly hubris mistake by engineers, seeing if they could build it,” Skates says.

Yet at Y Combinator, the tools proved more effective than anything their peers were using, he says. Skates and Liu began working on Amplitude in 2012 and officially launched the analytics platform in 2014 along with an additional co-founder, Jeffrey Wang. By 2021, Amplitude had raised $336 million from investors, and Skates decided to to take the company public.

Here, Skates discusses the risks of ditching Sonalight, how to build great ideas rather than good ones and why software engineers don’t always make the best startup founders.

CNBC Make It: Why did you decide to move on from Sonalight? Did you worry that you might be trading a decent idea for one that wouldn’t work at all?

Skates: There’s always that risk when starting something new, but it actually wasn’t that hard of a decision for us. I think the question was: How successful was Sonalight going to be?

We had this really cool, magic demo on stage [at Y Combinator] where I put my phone in my pocket, I talked to it and had a conversation back and forth with it. We got this amazing amount of press out of it, a little bit of seed investment and like, 500,000 downloads. So it was like, “OK, this is real. Someone’s using this. This is cool.”

But we’d been working on it for almost a year, and it was starting to become clear to us that the technology wasn’t good enough, in terms of creating a great user experience and getting people to engage and come back. It wasn’t useful enough as a product to be really sticky.

We could probably grind on it for the next four or five years and get to some OK success as a company, but it wouldn’t be some breakout, massive success. [Sonalight] was not the best thing we could work on. There was more impactful stuff to do.

Once you decided to change gears, how did you pick the “best” new idea to focus on?

We spent a month just talking and exploring different ideas. You really want to find a problem that fits your strengths, weaknesses and interests. Voice recognition was almost too hard technically to solve. It’s like this probabilistic problem where there’s not a clear right answer.

Analytics, to the average engineer, it’s a pretty hard problem — but to us, it was a cakewalk, because we were algorithms guys. Building a distributed data store was very straightforward for us. It’s like, “OK, that’s a solvable problem with a clear answer. If we do it, people want it. Great, let’s go work on that.” It was a million times easier.

We had built our own analytics in-house. What was interesting was a lot of the insights we were getting about [Sonalight’s] customer journey, so many other companies wanted those exact same insights. We were like, “OK, this is fantastic.”

We talked to 30 companies, and found enough that had the need. So we started building.

Why did you feel the need to chase “breakout, massive” success? Was there something wrong with good enough?

[After college] I spent a lot of time thinking: How is it that I can have such a positive impact on the world? What do I know? I know how to build software. Let me figure out the biggest way I can do that.

I worked for a year in finance and high-frequency trading. I was trying, at the time, to recruit a lot of my friends from MIT [to build a startup]. I asked classmates, peers and other folks. No one wanted to start a company.

You know, the funny thing about engineers: A lot of people would talk about starting a company and get really excited, but very few would actually take the leap. Most of them would go to Google and get sucked in and just never come back.

Engineers are a risk-averse bunch. They want to do it only if there’s a clear path to success and there’s validation along the way. But startups and entrepreneurs, it’s the exact opposite. You have to be willing to take on all that uncertainty and risk yourself. Your bosses and your teachers aren’t there. No one’s there to be like, “Hey, you’re doing good.”

Either you have something people want or you don’t. You have to be willing to see through that, and see the potential in what you’re doing.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

CNBC

The naira, on Wednesday, fell to N980 per dollar at the parallel section of the foreign exchange (FX) market.

The figure represents a depreciation of N50 or 5.38 percent compared to the N930 it traded on September 13.

Currency traders, known as Bureaux De Change operators (BDCs), said the decline is largely due to the new exchange rate regime.

“This time, the rate is not affected by dollar scarcity; it is just a consequence of the new exchange rate regime,” a trader identified as Aliyu, said.

Operating in the Ikeja area of Lagos, black market traders put the buying price of the dollar at N970 and the selling price at N980 — leaving a profit margin of N10.

Meanwhile, at the official market, the local currency depreciated to close at N776.6 on Tuesday, according to data from FMDQ Securities Exchange — a platform that oversees official FX trading in Nigeria.

Data from FMDQ showed that the market opened at N776.29 to the dollar, recording a high of N799.9 and a low of N720. 

A total of $71.01 million was traded at the investors’ and exporters’ window (I & E) window — Nigeria’s official trading window.

The naira has consistently experienced fluctuations since the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) implemented the currency float policy which now allows the exchange to be determined by market forces.

On September 12, the apex bank asked deposit money banks (DMBs) to stop utilising gains from the revaluation of the naira to pay dividends or finance operations.

A revaluation of a currency occurs when the value of a currency is increased relative to another currency in a fixed exchange rate regime.

The Cable

Nigerian opposition leader Atiku Abubakar has landed a major victory in the United States as part of his ongoing push to demonstrate Bola Tinubu’s ineligibility to be Nigeria’s president. 

A federal court in Chicago ruled Tuesday night that Chicago State University (CSU) must turn over all records relating to Tinubu to Abubakar within two days, saying the former vice-president has been able to sufficiently satisfy the purpose for seeking the records, according to the ruling seen by Peoples Gazette. 

Judge Jeffrey Gilbert also ordered a deposition of designated CSU officials within two days after the records have been released, noting further that the process can be conducted during the weekend if necessary. 

“For all of the reasons discussed above, Atiku Abubakar’s application pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1782 for an order directing discovery from Chicago State University for use in a foreign proceeding [ECF No. 1] is granted,” Gilbert ruled. “Respondent CSU shall produce all relevant and non-privileged documents in response to requests for production Nos. 1 through 4 (as narrowed by the court) in applicant subpoena within two days of the entry of this memorandum opinion and order.”

“The deposition of respondent’s corporate designee shall proceed within two days of the production of documents. The parties can modify the dates set by the court by mutual agreement. Given the tight time frame under which the parties are operating, the deposition can, if necessary, occur on a non-weekday,” the court added. 

The order comes hours after Abubakar filed his appeal to the Supreme Court, following the September 6 judgement of the presidential election petitions tribunal that upheld Tinubu’s victory.

Abubakar had on August 2 filed an application for the court to order CSU to produce documents relating to Tinubu, as well as leave to get the school’s administrators to authenticate any documents submitted under oath.

Abubakar said the documents would be used as part of his ongoing challenge against Tinubu’s election earlier this year. 

The candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party said Tinubu should not have been allowed to run for president because he had submitted a forged document under oath in violation of the Nigerian Constitution. 

Section 137 (1)(j) of the Nigerian Constitution (amended in 2010) specifically stated that no one would be legitimately elected president of Nigeria if the person “has presented a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission.”

On June 17, 2022, Tinubu submitted a certificate to INEC that was purportedly issued in 1979 and signed by Elnora Daniel. But Ms Daniel only arrived at CSU in 1998 from Hampton University, 19 years after Tinubu was said to have graduated. She left the school in 2008 following a financial mismanagement scandal, or 14 years before June 2022 when CSU issued yet a fresh certificate in Tinubu’s name under subpoena from a Nigerian lawyer who had inquired about Tinubu’s education there. 

The irregularities prompted Abubakar to file the suit to compel CSU to produce records relating to Tinubu and make its top officials available for deposition to certify the produced records, according to the Nigerian opposition leader’s lawyers.

During a hearing on the matter on September 12, the CSU’s lawyer Michael Hayes, said the school could not authenticate Tinubu’s certificate if asked under oath, although he said Tinubu attended the school and graduated in 1979.

Tinubu’s lawyers, led by Christopher Carmichael, argued that the court should not grant Abubakar’s application because it was a frivolous expedition aimed at soiling the Nigerian president’s image.

Tinubu’s lawyers also argued that Nigerian Supreme Court would not accept fresh evidence that was not produced during the tribunal proceeding.

But Abubakar’s team, led by Angela Liu, had argued that the Supreme Court would accommodate the fresh facts under unique circumstances, especially as they were not available to the Court of Appeal, which is the court of first instance in a presidential election dispute.

But Gilbert said courts across the U.S. have traditionally taken a broad and liberal view in granting applications under Section 1782, a statute that allows the release of documents and evidence domiciled in the U.S. to be obtained and used in a foreign proceeding.

PG

The workforce of the Court of Appeal received a boost on Wednesday as the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Olukayode Ariwoola, swore in nine additional justices for the appellate court.

The new justices bring the number of appeal court justices in the country to 79, as information on the website of the Court of Appeal indicates that there were 72 justices before the new addition.

At the swearing-in, which took place in Abuja, the CJN warned the new justices against the temptation of collecting gifts that could tarnish their reputation and truncate their career progression.

He said, “Many high-profile cases would definitely come to you on appeal; they may likely come in some juicy and irresistible gifts that are often intended to dent your reputation and integrity. I admonish Your Lordships to flee from such disguised temptations because your reputation and integrity matter much and count enormously in your rise to honour and fame in life.”

He urged them to conduct their duties in accordance with the law of the country, adding that with their current position, they would be subjected to more public scrutiny than ever.

Ariwoola said, “You must, against all odds, conduct your affairs within the ambit of the law and the oath that has just been administered to you. The level of public scrutiny of your conduct will, henceforth, assume astronomical dimension because you have willingly taken up an appointment that will strategically place you perennially in the eye of the storm.”

Meanwhile, the CJN lamented that political cases are taking a toll on other categories of cases, especially criminal cases, before the courts in the country.

The CJN said while the political cases were being prioriotised because they have time limits, other cases are piling up in the courts and putting the judges under pressure.

He, therefore, encouraged Nigerians to explore alternative dispute resolution mechanisms as opposed to going to court to settle their disputes.

The CJN said, “Today’s ceremony is an indication of the times that we are currently in. Several novel crimes are being committed in the country that have now made litigation to be on a steady rise. Political cases, especially, are taking a monumental toll on our dockets.

“Indeed, the times we are in are not pleasant, to say the least. No court in the land is spared of this. We are constantly on our toes and the dockets are ever-rising in response to the challenges of the time.”

He lamented that the situation had placed Nigeria among countries with a large number of litigation in the world.

Ariwoola, however, advocated alternative dispute resolution to save the courts from “unnecessary burden and depletion of both human and material resources.”

He said, “This underscores the undisputed fact that Nigeria continuously ranks among the most litigious countries in the world. I strongly believe it is high time we began to imbibe the culture of less litigation and more alternative dispute resolution mechanisms so that our courts can be freed of unnecessary burden and depletion of both human and material resources.”

Punch

Ondo State House of Assembly has served an impeachment notice on Lucky Aiyedatiwa, the state’s deputy governor, over alleged gross misconduct.

The impeachment notice was served on Aiyedatiwa yesterday after an emergency plenary session in Akure, the state capital.

The deputy governor was alleged to have approved millions of naira for the purchase of a bulletproof SUV for his personal use.

It also noted that Aiyedatiwa allegedly asked that the money be sourced from the state palliative fund and gave the approval while Governor Rotimi Akeredolu was on medical vacation in Germany.

During plenary, the majority leader of the house, Wole Ogunmolasuyi, quoted section 188 of the constitution to justify the need to write Aiyedatiwa over the allegations. He then moved a motion to serve the deputy governor the impeachment notice.

Ogunmolasuyi’s motion was immediately seconded by a member of the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the assembly, Tope Angbulu, representing Akoko South West II. 

Subsequently, Olamide Oladiji, the speaker, directed Benjamin Jaiyeola, clerk of the house, to write to the deputy governor, informing him of the allegations levelled against him.

Nine of the twenty-six lawmakers signed the impeachment notice, accusing Aiyedatiwa of “gross misconduct” and gave the deputy governor seven days ultimatum to respond to the allegations. 

Aiyedatiwa had acted on behalf of Governor Akeredolu when the latter was away from the state for a three-month medical leave in Germany.

On his return, the governor sacked the media aides attached to the deputy governor’s office.

The development came amid an alleged rift between Aiyedatiwa and Akeredolu. But the deputy governor had said he remained loyal to his principal.

A source in the state assembly who spoke on condition of anonymity said at least 23 lawmakers have already appended their signatures, supporting the impeachment notice against Aiyedatiwa. He explained that the deputy governor had been under intense investigation over alleged gross abuse of office.

He said, “By approving funds for himself, he already caused trouble and was aware the governor wasn’t happy with it when he returned from his medical leave.”

The deputy governor could not be reached for comments as effort to get him to talk on the matter proved abortive as of the time of filing this report last night.

Daily Trust

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Blasts heard in Kyiv, other parts of Ukraine

Blasts could be heard in Kyiv after an air raid alert on Thursday morning, Reuters witnesses said, as authorities sent rescue teams to at least two locations in the Ukrainian capital.

Air defences are at work and rescuers are on their way to possible blast sites in the city's eastern and southern districts, city Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Missile debris fell in central Kyiv and non-residential buildings were damaged in the east, causing a fire, he said, with some people seeking medical help.

Officials and local media also reported blasts in Ukraine's Kharkiv, Khmelnytskiy, Rivne, Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions.

** Notable remarks on Ukraine at UN Security Council

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday attended a U.N. Security Council meeting in person for the first time since Russia invaded in February 2022. Following are notable quotes from the meeting:

UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT VOLODYMYR ZELENSKIY:

"Unfortunately, this seat in the Security Council, which Russia occupies illegally, through backstage manipulations following the collapse of the Soviet Union, has been taken by liars whose job is to whitewash the aggression and the genocide being carried on by Russia.

"Therefore, the U.N. General Assembly should be given a real power to overcome the veto. This will be the first necessary step. It is impossible to stop the war because all efforts are vetoed by the aggressor."

U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN:

"It's hard to imagine a country demonstrating more contempt for the United Nations and all that it stands for - this from a country with a permanent seat on this council.

"President Putin is betting that if he keeps doubling down on the violence, that if he's willing to inflict enough suffering on enough people, the world will cave on its principles and Ukraine will stop defending itself.

"But Ukrainians are not giving up for they've seen what life would look like if they submit to Russian control."

RUSSIA'S FOREIGN MINISTER SERGEI LAVROV:

"Today, the West turns selectively to norms and principles (on) a case-by-case basis exclusively based on their parochial geopolitical needs. This has resulted in a shaking of global stability as well as the exacerbation and the fomenting of new hotbeds of tension, (and) risks of global conflict."

CHINA'S VICE FOREIGN MINISTER MA ZHAOXU:

"The Ukraine crisis has dealt a heavy blow to world economic recovery and global development and severely affected the world food, energy and financial security. Developing countries are the first to bear the blunt brunt.

"Relevant countries should stop abusing unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction and protect the security and the smooth operation of global production and supply chains."

ECUADOREAN PRESIDENT GUILLERMO LASSO:

"When this organization was built, we the peoples of the United Nations determined to preserve and spare future generations from the scourge of war.

"How can we uphold the principles and purposes of the UN Charter for effective multilateralism and at the same time invade a neighboring country or not condemn that invasion?"

GHANA'S PRESIDENT NANA AKUFO-ADDO:

"Russia's aggression against Ukraine is plainly wrong.

"The war is having an increasingly devastating toll on the people in Ukraine and elsewhere in the world.

"The only pathway for a comprehensive peace ... is one that must be just and based on the charter of the United Nations, and international law."

SWISS PRESIDENT ALAIN BERSET:

"With Russia's military aggression against Ukraine, the (U.N.) Charter has been violated on a massive scale. Yet Russia ... has been denying its responsibility. Its responsibility for the thousands of dead and wounded in Ukraine. Its responsibility for the millions of displaced persons. And finally its responsibility for all those plunged into deep insecurity wherever they are in the world, including incidentally in Russia."

JAPANESE PRIME MINISTER FUMIO KISHIDA:

"We condemn in the strongest terms Russia's aggression against Ukraine, which is a clear violation of international law including the U.N. Charter. The aggression must be stopped immediately and the troops must be withdrawn, right now, and unconditionally.

"The occupation and militarization of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant pose a threat to world peace and stability. Russia's nuclear threats, let alone its use of nuclear weapons, are unacceptable."

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Kiev’s ‘terrorist attacks’ foiled in several regions – MOD

Russian troops have thwarted Kiev’s plan to conduct “terrorist attacks” in several regions using drones, the Russian Defense Ministry said in the early hours of Thursday. 

According to the MOD, 19 UAVs were “destroyed” over Crimea and the Black Sea. It added that Kursk, Belgorod and Oryol regions were each attacked by a single drone, all of which were intercepted mid-air.

Telegram channel Mash reported that residents heard “explosions” and the sound of anti-air weapons in several locations in Crimea, describing the drone attack as “the most massive one yet.”

On Wednesday, Ukrainian troops shelled the village of Maksimovka, killing a civilian and wounding one more person, Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. A woman was injured during an attack on the village of Tyotkino on Monday, according to Kursk Governor Roman Starovoyt.

Kiev has stepped up drone and missile attacks on Russian territory in recent months, as Ukraine’s ground counteroffensive launched in early June failed to yield any significant victories. On September 13, cruise missiles struck a shipyard in Sevastopol in Crimea, damaging two Russian naval vessels.

** Putin never insults people, Kremlin spokesman says about chances of responding to Biden

Russian President Vladimir Putin never allows himself to stoop to insults, Kremlin Dmitry Peskov said when asked about the chances of a stern response to US President Joe Biden who had described Putin as a "dictator."

"You know that our president never stoops to this - to the level of personal insults against his colleagues. He certainly has his own opinion about this style of rhetoric. But the president, I repeat again, has never stooped to this and will not do so," Peskov said.

According to the spokesman, what is most important is that Putin is supported by the overwhelming majority of Russians, as has been confirmed more than once during presidential elections.

"In his entire career as a politician, Biden has never once garnered the same level of support as Putin. This is what he should probably strive for," Peskov said.

He said Biden faces "a very, very difficult election."

"We understand that the US is now actively clearing the electoral field of undesirable competition. But we have our own concerns, which we will be dealing with," the spokesman said.

Reuters/RT/Tass

If Nigeria were a different country, a society that draws a moral line no one is allowed to cross, the Minister of Women Affairs, Uju Kennedy-Ohaneye, would be out of her job by now. For some unclear reasons, she intervened in the case of the embattled Dean of Law, University of Calabar, Cyril Osim Ndifo, who is being investigated for cases of sexual assault. Her interference, the subtle threats she made to the young women she called on the phone, and her stunning lack of understanding of what sexual assault entails, jointly disqualify Kennedy-Ohaneye from holding a “Women Affairs” ministerial position. She gave herself away as unworthy of representing women’s interests, and the right thing was for her to be replaced.

Worth comparing to her case is the kissgate scandal that sank the head of the Spanish Football Federation, Luis Rubiales. Amidst the euphoria of World Cup victory, Rubiales kissed midfielder Jennifer Hermoso on the lips. He said the kiss was consensual, but she insisted it was not. The case outraged many, made headlines internationally, and put Spain under the spotlight. Rubiales swore he would fight to the end but eventually capitulated to the value system of his country and resigned.

Unlike Rubiales, however, Kennedy-Ohaneye’s resignation (or sack) is not imminent for at least two reasons. One is that she was appointed by a leader with zero moral legitimacy. He would look quite hypocritical if he tried to enforce the standards he himself does not embody. Number two is significant because it speaks to the larger context of her survival—our society no longer has abominations. By that, I am not merely asserting that we no longer teach children not to whistle at night or jump over a pregnant woman’s outstretched legs. No, what I mean is that our society has let down moral standards so frequently that there are no longer boundaries. If you have the means, there is simply no border of behaviour you cannot cross. Anyhowness reigns.

One of the reasons I bring this up is connected to the incident with ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo and his alleged disrespect for traditional rulers in Oyo State. In a society where public events—including those attended by high-ranking government officials—are hardly ever structured, it is unsurprising that the Obas disregarded the protocol requiring them to stand up to acknowledge the governor’s presence. Meanwhile, should all those norms not be part of the rites of their installation?

Since the video of Obasanjo talking down at the royal fathers over their disrespect for the state governor went viral, I have been almost entertained by how people construed his brashness as disrespectful of “our culture,” “our traditions,” and “our values.” The shock that attended that incident illustrates what I have come to see as the Nollywoodization of public consciousness. Nigerians have been so enamoured with the cinema portrayal of Obas as “kabiyesi” (the one who owes no one accountability) that an encounter with reality shocked them to their bone marrow.

Obas simply do not have much of the ascribed cultural or constitutional consequence under our modern political system. That they are allowed to exist as relics of the past is a political strategy that can be dissipated at any time and without serious repercussions. No traditional ruler in any part of Nigeria is too big to be sacked. In fact, it is easier to sack an Oba than to sack a regular civil servant. A governor can wake up from a drunken stupor, sack an Oba, and nothing will happen. Obasanjo could have handled the situation like an elder, but he was not entirely wrong to remind the Obas where they belong on the political food chain. Any Oba that thinks himself too big for the ìwòsí meted out to them should stay in his palace next time.

Anyway, what is more amusing about the outrage that attended the incident is how people jumped to defend the integrity of “culture” and “traditions” to the extent of questioning Obasanjo’s Yorubaness. Perhaps the most hilarious of all the public statements rashly released in the wake of that incident was the one written by the Oluwo of Iwo, Abdulrosheed Adewale, an Oba that still goes by the clownish title of “His Imperial Majesty.” His statement said Obasanjo should be made to apologise for the “desecration” of traditional institutions to prove he is truly a Yoruba man. His press release is a study in irony because if I stopped ten people on a Yoruba road and asked which so-called traditional ruler has contributed the most to the diminishing of the Obaship institution, nine out of them would mention the Oluwo. His public image is that of a lout, a mere boor who could not be ennobled by his so-called “revered stool.”

Unfortunately, he is not alone in thinking of culture/tradition in such reduced terms. People take the veneration of symbolic items as what is there to “culture,” and begin to demand what is akin to idolatrous reverence for them. Each time the issue of homosexuality arises, it has become customary that someone will justify the criminalisation of sexuality by making the “culture” and “tradition” defence. They will tritely claim that our African culture is somehow superior to that of the West that lets its queer population breathe. Such limited understanding of what constitutes culture is why they prioritise the promotion of provincial (and primordial) identities over its capacity as an ideology that, if appropriately fashioned out, enhances social flourishing.

Culture is powerful, and a society unmindful of its force will find itself weeping over the disgrace of an Oba while leaving aside its far more worthwhile potential to structure a people’s imagination. In primary school, we were given the elementary definition of culture as a people’s way of life. We can look at our society today and understand that culture is also how people make life. Culture matters because it determines thoughts and actions, the spectrum of ideas that people consider good, moral, and worth promoting. That is why what society considers “abominable” matters. They are the standards that condition how far society will go on any issue and how far it also will not.

Look at the whole architecture of governance in Nigeria and you will see that both the Obas that represent the “traditional” institution and the ones of the modern political system symbolise this abject lack of standards. Both join hands to desecrate our democratic potential, enrich themselves at the expense of the people, and have no interest in “culture” unless they can manipulate it to promote our subservience to their politics. So, yes, we know things are bad, but it is not the royal fathers who routinely commit ethical infractions that should school us on the “desecration” of culture/tradition.

That our leaders no longer set a baseline for public officers shows the extent of our cultural degradation. That we too lack the means of making them accountable shows that nothing has meaning anymore. Our culture, no longer retaining what it should ideally consider abominable, has become self-defeating and significantly contributes to our social and economic backwardness.

Punch

Mohbad is dead but the controversy surrounding his death is pretty much alive.

If you are in my generation and you don't know the crooner of "plenty enemies..." you would be forgiven. Afterall, Mhobad himself predicted in his lyrics that he would be more popular when he's laid down, prostrate and dead. And it came to pass.

He was born only 27 years ago and at that age, on reflection, I realised that that was  just a year after I was done with my Masters degree at the University of Lagos. Like people my age at that time in Nigeria, I was still  wondering what to do with my life.

Nigeria of this age is different, some of our young people found their rhythm early in the new economy boosted by high tech, digital musical entertainment economy. Their ingenuity and creativity gave them early fame, not just in Nigeria but globally.

But here is the thing, every success story has its undercurrent. The Naira Marleys of this world are the dark side of the much envied and globally acclaimed music industry of Nigeria.

Now, there are global rallies and protests asking for "justice for Mohbad" but we must admit that everyone failed him. Imole cried for help through his music. His lyrics asked for justice but we were deaf. He wrote to the Police and he was scorned. Our society owes Imole an apology for failing him, even if post humously

The best tribute we can pay Mhobad is for our society to pay more attention to what is being said by this our young and even the silence of these teeming young  people to whom we hope our future shall be bequeathed. When they cry out for help, the best we can do is listen. That way, we will be able to prevent another talent, another gifted one of our young and budding stars from being bullied to death by those we thought were nurturing them.

In all of the circumstances preceding his death, where were the elders in the music industry that Mohbad could have had access to? Was there any institutional body established to call members of the industry to order? Lawyers have the NBA. The advertising industry has ARCON, and the Medical field has the NMA. Even Nollywood, with all its flaws, has the Guilds in its factions. How come PMAN has become toothless? And other bodies like COSON are only interested in the loot of the industry?

Our society failed Mohbad, and RIP simply is not enough.

We need institutions that work. The organic nature of our society has broken down on the altar of money. Nigeria needs a moral re-armament, and it is urgent!

As a society, we  can do better.

** Soji Odedina is of First Katalyst Marketing, Ikeja, Lagos.

Every parent wants their child to reach their full potential and flourish: my mum called me Faiza because it means “winner” in Arabic in the hope that success would be inevitable. It’s an emotion that runs deep, and one that politicians across the spectrum are keen to tap into, for ever promising to build an “aspirational” or truly “meritocratic” society where any individual can make it as long as they work hard enough.

Equality of opportunity is a phrase commonly used by our politicians, even for those too scared to talk about equality more generally. Yet for decades we’ve been moving in the wrong direction. A recent report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that where you are born in the UK, and the income and wealth of your family, now matter more than ever in defining life outcomes, with social mobility at its worst in more than 50 years.

After decades of failure, it is past the time to see through the empty political promises and popular narratives that place the emphasis on the individual to succeed, rather than a system that is rigged against the least wealthy.The “dream big and you can do anything you want” soundbite may offer inspiration to some, but it will do nothing to deal with the country’s vast and widening wealth and income inequalities. Neither will a focus on education, a classic trope of the social mobility genre, which has never been and never will be a sufficient tool to bridge Britain’s class divides.

The challenge of social mobility is a stubborn one. Intergenerational mobility – the change in occupation or class from one generation to the next – declined by about 50% between the 1958 and 1970 birth cohorts. Even after New Labour investment in early years care and education, and the resulting dramatic decrease in child poverty in the 2000s, educational attainment gaps between rich and poor children born in 2000 were roughly the same as those born in 1980. Why?

Our natural inclination is to focus on where the poorest end up, but the logic of social mobility requires some to move down for others to move up. Yet the wealthiest in our society have stubbornly held on to their class position. This is evident in the findings that show surname status can persist for as many as 20 to 30 generations, or that those who go to the most elite private schools, the “Clarendon schools” (Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Rugby, Westminster, Charterhouse, Shrewsbury, Merchant Taylors’ and St Paul’s), are 94 times more likely to end up at the very top than those who go to any other school.

When the rich are able to maintain their privilege, there simply isn’t the room for others to join them at the top. The richest 1% of households in the UK have wealth of more than £3.6m, whereas the bottom 10% has £15,400 or less. Can you imagine starting a monopoly game with 230 times less than another player? Yet the multiple policy strategies proposed to tackle low social mobility over the years almost always sidestep wealth and ignore a key factor driving differences in life chances.

This is where the new IFS research is most insightful. The researchers found only around half of wealth persistence can be explained by differences in education and earnings between those with more or less wealthy parents. Instead, unearned income – namely wealth and wealth transfers, including inheritance – act as an increasing drag on social mobility. Owning your home, especially in London, where house prices have increased most in the country, sets you up for generations.

My academic colleagues and I often lament that even after the Occupy movement, Thomas Piketty’s bestselling book Capital in the Twenty-first Century, and Oxfam’s campaigning work focusing on the huge divides between rich and poor, inequality has only got worse. But this tends to be how inequality works. More wealth at the top means more power at the top. The rich capture our political, economic and social systems, block efforts for change and scare those who resist into submission. So rather than serious proposals to address our unequal society, all we are left with is the same old “education will fix it” mantra, or an emphasis on the individual to “pick themselves up by their bootstraps”.

The social mobility story has too often acted as cover for the rich, rather than as impetus for change. But the myths that it is founded upon are losing credibility by the day. Wealth inequality may not be getting the attention it deserves in the political sphere, but the mood among the public is markedly different, as plenty of people find themselves in an endless, exhausting rat race, working two jobs and still struggling to pay the bills. In response, many are waking up to the reality that they don’t get rich, or even comfortable, by simply working hard: they get rich by being born rich. The social mobility myth is dying – now we must demand an economic settlement that works for all.

• Faiza Shaheen is a visiting professor in practice at the London School of Economics, the Labour party parliamentary candidate for Chingford and Woodford Green, and the author of Know Your Place