Putin spoke at the opening session of a two-day Russia-Africa summit attended by a sharply lower number of African heads of state and government compared with a previous summit in 2019. While discussing the halted Black Sea grain deal, he promised large no-cost shipments of grain to six African countries.

“Our country will continue supporting needy states and regions, in particular, with its humanitarian deliveries. We seek to actively participate in building a fairer system of distribution of resources. We are taking maximum efforts to avert a global food crisis,” Putin said.

"I have already said that our country can replace Ukrainian grain, both on a commercial basis and as grant aid to the neediest African countries, more so since we expect another record harvest this year,” he said.

Russia intends to ship up to 50,000 tons of grain aid to Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, Eritrea and the Central African Republic in the next three to four months, Putin said.

Without directly referring to Putin's promise, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres took a swipe Thursday at donations of grain to developing nations, saying they cannot compensate for the global impact of Moscow’s cutoff of Ukrainian grain exports.

The UN chief said the United Nations is in contact with Turkey, Ukraine, Russia and other countries to try to reestablish the deal that saw Ukraine export over 32,000 tons of grain, allowing global food prices to drop significantly.

Guterres told reporters at UN headquarters in New York that taking millions of tons of Ukrainian grain out of the global market will lead to higher prices, and these increased prices “will be paid by everybody, everywhere, and namely by developing countries and by the vulnerable people in middle income and even developed countries.”

“So, it’s not with a handful of donations to some countries that we correct this dramatic impact that affects everybody, everywhere,” Guterres said.

Both Russia and Ukraine are major grain suppliers. They agreed a year ago on a UN- and Turkey-brokered deal that reopened three Ukrainian Black Sea ports blocked by fighting and provided assurances that ships entering the ports would not be attacked. Russia declined to renew the agreement last week, complaining that its own exports were being held up.

Promising Russian food exports to Africa is key to Putin’s stated goal of using the summit in St. Petersburg to bolster ties with a continent of 1.3 billion people that is increasingly assertive on the global stage.

Africa’s 54 nations make up the largest voting bloc at the United Nations and have been more divided than any other region on General Assembly resolutions criticizing Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

The Russian mercenary group Wagner has been active in Mali and Central African Republic, and Eritrea has voted against more UN General Assembly resolutions criticizing Russia’s invasion than any other African nation.

Burkina Faso is seen by some observers as a likely next target for Wagner, and Zimbabwe has long been bitter about U.S. sanctions against it. Somalia, while a U.S. ally, is often held up as an African country most affected by any restrictions on grain supplies related to the conflict in Ukraine.

The Russia-Africa event follows South African authorities announcing last week that Putin had agreed not to attend an economic summit in Johannesburg next month because the trip could expose him to arrest under an International Criminal Court warrant for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

Putin on Thursday announced other moves to deepen relations with Africa, including increased enrollment of African students in Russian universities, the opening of Russian state news media bureaus in many African countries and a proposed “common information space in Russia and Africa, within which objective, unbiased information about events taking place in the world will be broadcast to Russian and African audiences.”

Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said that while only 17 heads of state were attending the summit, 32 other African countries were represented by senior officials or ambassadors. The Kremlin said that crude Western pressure to discourage African nations from taking part caused the number of leaders taking part to shrink; in 2019, 43 heads of state attended.

Along with grain, another issue likely to be on the agenda is the fate of the Wagner mercenary group led by Yevgeny Prigozhin following its brief rebellion against the top military leadership last month. The private contractor's future will be an urgent issue for countries such as Sudan, Mali and others that contract with Wagner in exchange for natural resources like gold.

Russian officials and Prigozhin have said the company would continue working in Africa.

A peace proposal for Ukraine that African leaders have tried to pursue is set to be discussed as well.

Euro News

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukrainian forces press southward, say strategic village recaptured from Russians

Ukrainian forces pressed their counteroffensive through the Russian-occupied southeast on Thursday, capturing the village of Staromaiorske in a campaign to drive a wedge through Russian defensive positions.

The counteroffensive has focused on securing villages on the southward push and areas around the eastern city of Bakhmut, taken by Russian forces in May after months of battles. Ukrainian officials have reported slow, steady progress.

Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged intensified Ukrainian attacks over the last few days, but said they had made no headway. He told Russian television that every Ukrainian assault had been beaten back, and that Moscow's forces had inflicted significant losses on their opponents.

A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Ukraine had deployed additional Western-trained troops to at least one axis in the counteroffensive, but had held back some. Media reports spoke of a new phase in the drive.

A video posted on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's Telegram channel showed Ukrainian soldiers celebrating the capture of Staromaiorske in the southeast.

"The 35th brigade and the 'Ariy' territorial defence unit have fulfilled their task and liberated the village of Staromaiorske. Glory to Ukraine!" said a soldier in the video that Reuters was unable to immediately geolocate.

The village lies to the south of a cluster of small settlements that Ukraine recaptured along the Mokri Yaly River as the counteroffensive began.

"Our defenders are now continuing to clear the settlement," said Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar declaring Staromaiorske liberated.

Reuters could not independently verify battlefield reports.

Zelenskiy has said that the counteroffensive is proceeding more slowly than he would like but warned people not to expect rapid results akin to a movie scene.

Zelenskiy on Wednesday had obliquely hailed "very good results" on the battlefield, while giving no details.

PRESIDENT TOURS EAST, SOUTH

On Thursday, he toured southern and eastern regions, including the major city of Dnipro and the port of Odesa, where he discussed damage to port facilities from Russian air strikes, and the town of Ochakiv, subject to frequent Russian shelling.

In his nightly video address, he said little about the front, other than praising the recapture of Staromaiorske.

Ukrainian military analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko said the new focus of Ukrainian efforts on the southward drive was Staromlynivka, a village less than 5 km (three miles) away.

"It really serves as a stronghold for the Russian occupiers, the peak of the second defensive line in this location," he said in an interview with the RBC UA media outlet.

The drive southward is aimed at severing the land bridge Russian forces have created linking areas occupied in the east in the 17-month-old invasion and Crimea - annexed in 2014.

Despite gains achieved by Ukrainian troops, mostly in the northeast and far south late last year, Russia still holds about 20 percent of Ukraine's land.

On Wednesday, three different media outlets cited unidentified U.S. officials as saying Ukraine had launched a new phase of its ambitious counteroffensive.

Asked about these reports, Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukraine's defence minister, told Reuters that "there is nothing new" happening at front lines. "In the south, we are moving forward slowly but surely," he said.

In the east, Russia's defence ministry said Russian forces had repelled Ukrainian attacks around the village of Klishchiivka, which occupies elevated ground near Bakhmut, and north of Robotyne on the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region.

In her account, deputy minister Maliar wrote on Telegram that Ukrainian forces were "gradually moving forward" near Bakhmut, and that fighting was continuing near Klishchiivka and two other villages.

Maliar also said Ukraine had beaten back Russian attacks on two northern fronts near Kupiansk and Lyman.

** Western tanks get pummelled on Ukraine front line

The general in charge of Ukraine's stuttering offensive in the south says Russia has created multi-layered minefields and fortified defensive lines which were making it difficult for military equipment, including tanks and armoured vehicles supplied by the West, to move forward.

"That is why most of the tasks have to be performed by troops," Gen Oleksandr Tarnavskyi tells the BBC.

He says Russia's military has displayed "professional qualities" by preventing Ukrainian forces from "advancing quickly".

"I don't underestimate the enemy," he adds.

So far there's little evidence that Western supplied tanks and armoured vehicles have been able to tip the balance in Ukraine's favour.

Several Leopard tanks and US Bradley fighting vehicles were damaged or destroyed in the first days of the offensive, near the city of Orikhiv.

Ukraine's 47th Brigade, which had largely been trained and equipped by the West to try to break through Russian lines, were soon stopped in their tracks by mines and then targeted by artillery.

Russia released multiple videos of the incident claiming Ukraine's offensive had already failed. In reality it was an early setback rather than a decisive blow.

We visited the same brigade's outdoor workshop, hidden in a forest behind the front line, where they are now trying to repair more than a dozen armoured vehicles - most of them US Bradleys.

They first arrived unscathed but now bear the scars of battle. Broken tracks and buckled wheels - the tell-tale signs that several have hit Russian mines.

Serhii, one of the engineers, says: "The faster we can repair them, the faster we can get them back to the front line to save someone's life."

But he also admits that some are beyond repair and will have to be either scavenged for spare parts or "returned to our partners" to be rebuilt.

While Western armour has provided Ukrainian troops with better protection, it has not been able to punch through the rows of Russian mines - one of the biggest barriers for Ukraine's advance.

Travelling the southern front we also saw British supplied Mastiff armoured vehicles damaged and destroyed.

The 47th Brigade is now using some of its older, Soviet-era tanks to clear minefields. But they too can't escape the explosives hidden in the ground, even when fitted with specialist mine-clearing equipment.

Nearer the front line, tank commander Maksym showed us his recently-damaged T-64 tank. It's been fitted with two rollers on the front to deliberately set off the mines. He lost one of the rollers the night before as he was trying to clear a path for troops.

"Normally our rollers can withstand up to four explosions," he says. But the Russians, he adds, have been laying mines on top of each other to destroy their mine clearing equipment.

"It's very hard because there are too many mines," Maksym says, adding that there were often more than four rows of minefields in front of the Russian defensive lines.

It's been painful to watch the battle unfold for Doc and his drone reconnaissance team from Ukraine's Volunteer Army.

Doc, his call sign, took part in last year's successful offensive on Kherson. But he says this time it's proving to be much tougher. For the first time in the war, he says, soldiers are being injured by mines more than artillery: "When we go forward we meet minefields everywhere."

Doc shows me a video he recently filmed from one of his drones while Ukrainian troops advanced towards a Russian trench.

There's a massive explosion as soon as the soldiers enter. The trench was empty but rigged with mines. Doc says Russian forces are now using remotely controlled mines. "When our soldiers get to the trenches they push a button and it blows up, killing our friends." He says he's seen the tactic being used over the past two weeks and calls it "a new weapon".

There is a military logic to Ukraine's offensive in the south. It's seen as key to dividing Russian forces and reaching the occupied cities of Melitopol and Mariupol - all the way to Crimea. But the focus on this axis means that Ukraine is also now attacking Russian defensive lines where they're strongest.

Gen Tarnavsky says his forces are doing "hard and painstaking work". He says "any defence can be broken but you need patience, time and skilful actions".

He also believes that Ukraine is slowly wearing down their enemy. Russia, he says, doesn't care about losing men, and recent changes in their military leadership "means everything is not OK". He insists that Ukraine has yet to commit its main strike force.

"Slow or not, the offensive is taking place and it will definitely reach its goal," he says.

I ask Gen Tarnavsky how we can judge whether it's a success or a failure?

He smiles and replies: "If the offensive were not successful, I wouldn't be talking to you now."

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russia announces major airstrikes on key targets in Ukraine

Moscow has launched fresh long-range strikes against Ukraine’s military infrastructure, targeting weaponry stockpiles, ammo and fuel depots, as well as several airfields, the Russian Defense Ministry announced in its daily briefing on Thursday.

The strikes, conducted over the past 24-hours, involved “long-range, air- and sea-based high-precision weapons,” the military said, without elaborating. The strikes targeted “command and control” centers of the Ukrainian military, as well as multiple rear repair bases, storage sites and airfields, it added. The targeted storage facilities were used to stash “water drones, as well as missiles, weaponry and military equipment received from European countries and the US,” according to the ministry. All designated targets were successfully hit, the military stated.

Unverified footage circulating online showed multiple cruise missiles flying over western Ukraine. While Kiev routinely claims destruction of most incoming projectiles, President Vladimir Zelensky in this instance has made a rare admission, stating that “several hits” had been registered. He didn’t specify exactly which installations have been affected by the attack.

The strikes also affected multiple fuel depots, including an aviation-fuel storage facility in Ukraine’s western region of Khmelnitsky, as well as a major fuel and ammo stockpile in Zaporozhye Region, which has seen a sharp uptick in fighting over the past day.

Russian troops have repelled a major attack in the area, inflicting heavy losses on Ukrainian forces. According to the country’s military, Kiev’s troops lost more than 280 personnel, at least 25 tanks and ten infantry fighting vehicles during the battle.

Over the past week, the Russian military has ramped up long-range missile and suicide drone strikes against Ukraine, repeatedly targeting port infrastructure in the country’s south, as well as military installations in its west. The strikes come in the aftermath of a recent Ukrainian attack on the Crimean Bridge.

The facility was targeted by two sea drones, which inflicted considerable damage to the road section of the bridge and killed two Russian civilians, a couple whose now-orphaned 14-year-old daughter was seriously wounded in the attack.

** US to begin delivering Abrams tanks to Ukraine in September — Politico

The US administration is poised to begin delivering US-made Abrams tanks to Ukraine in September, the Politico newspaper reported.

According to the newspaper’s sources, several tanks will be sent to Germany for modernization in August.

"The plan is to send a handful of Abrams tanks to Germany in August, where they will undergo final refurbishments. Once that process is complete, the first batch of Abrams will be shipped to Ukraine the following month," Politico quoted anonymous sources as saying.

The US is sending older M1A1 models instead of the more modern A2 version, which would have taken a year to get to Ukraine, the newspaper said.

"The initial batch will involve six to eight tanks," an unnamed industry official was quoted as saying.

According to the report, the older vehicles "are being stripped of their most sensitive technology, including in some cases secret depleted uranium armor, before they can be sent to Ukraine."

The Ukrainian military may start using the tanks after undergoing a 10-week training course. They are expected to complete their training in August.

"We’re definitely working to get them to Ukraine as fast as we can," the newspaper quoted Pentagon spokesperson Col. Martin O’Donnell as saying.

The official, however, declined to discuss specifics on the timeline.

Reuters/BBC/RT/Tass

When I first voted in an election in Nigeria in 1983, the Internet was just newly born. It had not even been properly named. 

Forty years later when I voted for the fifth time, my daughter who attained voting age only 13 years ago and has since voted only once, as far as I know, was telling me from thousands of miles away, where she now lives with her family, how she thought I should have voted and for who. I laughed.

This was by no means a unique experience. A very close friend and managing director of one of Nigeria’s leading media houses told me at the height of the 2023 elections that the politics of who to vote for and why so polarised his home that he had to convene a family meeting where it was decided that all political talk was off limits until after the elections.

As a teenager in 1977 when I followed my parents to the airport to see off my aunt to the UK, there were roughly 120k phone lines in Nigeria. And such luxury well beyond a kid like me from a poor family severely limited not just what I could say to my aunt for many years after she left, but also the speed and frequency.

 Today, it’s a different world!

A new book by Niyi P. Ibietan, the fruit of his doctoral research, and entitled, Cyber Politics: Social Media, Social Demography and Voting Behaviour in Nigeria, deals with this fraught, long-standing debate.

Seventy-five years ago, or so, when Paul Lazarsfeld and others took this question to the streets of North Carolina after the US Presidential election to ascertain what influences voter behaviour in what is now famously called the Columbian studies, the researchers concluded that media and campaigns have minimal effects on voters. 

Or to adapt Bernard Cohen’s famous phrase, the press was increasingly vital in awareness and relevance, but not necessarily in voter behaviour and attitude.

Before Lazarsfeld and others conducted the Columbian studies, contributions from social psychology in the 1930s, especially following the impact of Hollywood which was then on the rise, and Hitler’s exceptional propaganda in the War, had created the impression that people were like “sitting ducks” for information, or what in technical jargon was the “Hypodermic Needle” theory. 

The social context for it in Europe at the time was that it was unlikely for Hitler, especially, to have succeeded, if individuals had not become isolated, atomised and left completely vulnerable to the “bullet” of propaganda.

By the time Marshall McLuhan wrote the Gutenberg Galaxy (1962), expressing the view that instantaneous communication would undermine geographically based power imbalances, the world had almost gone full circle from Laswell to Lazarsfeld, Melvin DeFleur and other scholars whose studies showed that social factors also play a role in mediating information.

So, what is the point of Ibietan’s Cyber Politics? 

He not only examines earlier studies on the impact of social factors, including peer, opinion leader and family influences on voter behaviour, he also sets out the broad objectives of the book, raising issues that are both specific and contemporaneous in value.

In other words, instead of leaving the reader wondering what happened on the streets of North Carolina in Lazarsfeld’s studies decades ago and how that affects him in Gwagwalada, Abuja, Cyber Politics uses Nigeria’s 2015 general elections as anchor. 

It explores, among other things, the question of whether political conversations amongst Nigeria’s estimated 33 million active social media users, especially the influencers as of 2021 had any significant impact on the outcome of the 2015 election. 

Interestingly, the winner of that election, President Muhammadu Buhari, thought social media helped him win. Did it, really? And could it mean that President Goodluck Jonathan who in 2011 actually announced his intention to run for president on Facebook, lost momentum four years later in that space? Or were there other factors for Buhari’s victory?

What commends Cyber Politics, is its laser-beam focus on the role of three pre-selected social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp – on voter behaviour especially in the election under reference. 

Whatever anyone says, I suspect politicians believe that social media works. Whether it counts at the ballot is another matter – and of course, the subject of this book. 

What do I mean? When it became obvious during the 2023 general elections that political ads were not coming to LEADERSHIP as projected, for example, I called folks in the campaign of one of the major parties to ask why.

“Well, sorry,” one of the seasoned media guys on the campaign told me.

“We’re doing more on social media now.”

I was scandalised that folks who had built their careers in the mainstream and whom we were banking on would leave us high and dry! But I understood, even if I did so with a heavy heart! Why? A BBC online report www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zd9bd6f/revision/7 said, “Politicians are investing heavily in the use of websites, blogs, podcasts and social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter as a way of reaching voters.”

“During the 2019 election campaign,” the BBC report continued, “the Conservatives spent one million pounds on Facebook alone, at a point, running 2,500 adverts.”

As of the time of writing, my anecdotal research in the mass communication curriculum of the University of Lagos; Ahmadu Bello University; and the University of Nigeria, turned up virtually no current locally authored full-length texts in cyber politics. 

In light of the exponential growth in social media adoption and use in the last few years, two election cycles after 2015, Covid-19 and #EndSARS, students, researchers and scholars would find Cyber Politics a valuable resource material.

As a journalist, for example, shouldn’t I be concerned about the emergence of social media as the “Fifth Estate of the Realm”, a prospect that the author raised in his book?

Would this new estate, in which users are both producers and consumers of information, displace the Fourth Estate, especially if as Time Magazine said in its February 5, 2009 edition, journalism was already in its death throes? 

Well, it’s nearly a decade and a half since, and we have seen that the death of journalism was perhaps slightly exaggerated. Convergence has also taught us that it is possible for the Fourth – and perhaps the Fifth – Estates not only to coexist, but also to be mutually reinforcing. 

Cyber Politics helps the voter ponder if the social networks they belong to or the influencers they follow have any potential effects on their political behaviour either in terms of mobilisation or their actual voting decisions. Sometimes we think we’re our own man, until we realise like Pavlov’s dog, that someone somewhere might be pulling the strings. 

The author makes the important point that “social” did not start with the Internet – after all man is a ‘social’ animal. What the Internet or technology has done, however, is to put a seal on our global village.

But is it true that social media influencers are “motivated to undertake organised campaigns during the election using their platforms, largely due to the need to bring about a better social order?” It does appear to me (and perhaps this was unique to the 2023 elections) that social media influencers were just a force for good as they were a force for mayhem. 

The sludge of fake news sometimes unleashed by so-called influencers, not to mention toxicity of the avatars in that space who often insisted it was either their way or the highway, left people like me bereft and alienated. 

What about the adverse role of Big Tech in privacy breaches and data manipulation – I’m speaking of course about Meta’s $725 million settlement over the Cambridge Analytica scandal and Elon Musk’s $44 billion Twitter adventure! Were these also motivated by a desire to do good? It would be interesting to see how Cyber Politics 2.0 or any other research into the 2023 election explores these episodes.

Yet, whatever Cyber Politics or any other text on voter behaviour may say to politicians, our politicians, while they may keep one eye on social media they will, as Joseph Stalin famously said, keep the other eye on “the people who count the vote!”

Politicians can also not be too far from the millions of voters in remote villages and influencers currently out of the social media loop, who still speak in tongues other than clicks and bytes. 

Yet, even that landscape is changing slowly. What Ibietan does in his book is to help us understand, and perhaps, better navigate an evolving social space where a simple networked device is fundamentally affecting our shared values and interests.

** Ishiekwene is the Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP (This is an abridged version of the review of the book, Cyber Politics – Social Media, Social Demography and Voting Behaviour in Nigeria. Read in full: www: azuishiekwene.com)

It took less than 60 days for the fabled political wizardry and leadership ingenuity of President Bola Tinubu, the Jagaban Borgu, to unravel. In fact, the jury is still out as to who, between him and his predecessor, former President Muhammadu Buhari, unravelled faster. Some say Tinubu did. At this stage in Buhari’s presidency, his so-called ‘body language’ still enthralled many. Not so for Tinubu – there is no body, not to talk of language.

At the end of the day, the biggest tragedy of the unfolding saga is the likelihood of comparing Tinubu to Buhari and the former president, warts and all, besting him. That will be the day! So far, there is practically nothing Tinubu has done better than Buhari in Aso Rock, yet, we were told he would hit the ground running.

He hit the ground and fell flat on his face and those who were busy insulting anyone who dared to ask candidate Tinubu questions before the election are today pleading for understanding and time. But time is a luxury that we can ill-afford in the prevailing circumstance.

Before his inauguration on May 29, Tinubu’s spin doctors promoted him as the best thing that happened to Nigeria’s democracy. He is a quintessential democrat, an astute politician, they ululated; a technocrat par excellence with the axiomatic Midas touch in public office. He is the father of Modern Lagos, they crowed, and a rule of law aficionado. Nigeria is lucky to have Tinubu as president, they chorused. All he has to do in Abuja to pull the country back from the precipice is to recreate the ‘Lagos magic.’

Tinubu amplified that chorus line in his inaugural speech: “Our administration shall govern on your behalf but never rule over you. We shall consult and dialogue but never dictate. We shall reach out to all but never put down a single person for holding views contrary to our own. We are here to further mend and heal this nation, not tear and injure it.”

He further listed five principles, which he said will guide his administration. And first is a solemn vow: “Nigeria will be impartially governed according to the constitution and the rule of law.”

But it is no surprise that the Tinubu administration failed in the very first rule of law test – the Godwin Emefiele travails in the hands of the presidency-supervised Department of State Services (DSS) – because, to borrow a local parlance, all the hype is nothing other than ‘packaging.’ Tinubu is the exact opposite of the picture painted of him by his minions.

The president is not a democrat and has no respect for the rule of law. He has the reflexes of a dictator – a maximum ruler who brooks no contrary views. For him, politics is a zero-sum game where the winner takes all. Many Nigerians seem to have forgotten that Tinubu holds the dubious record of being the only governor in this Fourth Republic that had three deputies.

He took oath of office on May 29, 1999 as Governor of Lagos with Kofoworola Akerele-Bucknor as deputy. But by 2002, the Afenifere chieftain had fallen out of favour and was humiliated out of office. Even Femi Pedro, the investment banker with whom Tinubu started his second term in 2003 as deputy governor, equally fell out of favour, was demeaned and forced to resign. He completed his second term with Abiodun Ogunleye, a chartered accountant, who today has the unflattering record of Nigeria’s shortest serving deputy governor – 13 days only.

Elections are the hallmark of democracy and for elections to express the will of the electorate, they must be free and fair. Tinubu does not believe in the tenets of free and fair polls. He is a disciple of the Machiavellian school of thought that believes in the end justifying the means, a philosophy he expounded so eloquently in London in December 2022.

In a video that went viral shortly after his Chatham House outing late last year, Tinubu was seen admonishing top APC operatives in London to grab power by all means – fair and foul – in the 2023 elections.   

“Political power is not going to be served in a restaurant. They don’t serve it a la carte. At all cost, fight for it, grab it and run with it,” he told them. And that was exactly what he did on February 25 that has thrown the country into a paroxysm.

He has lived by that philosophy all his political life, deploying ruthless methods, including using maximum violence to scuttle voting in opposition strongholds, particularly in Lagos. As president, he has no qualms replicating the same formula nationwide going forward. In Lagos, Musiliu Akinsanya, alias MC Oluomo, is the enforcer. Could that be the role Asari Dokubo is being primed to play at the national level? Time will tell.

Is Tinubu the architect of modern Lagos? I doubt if anyone will, in good conscience, answer in the affirmative. That honour, many believe, should be bestowed on Lateef Jakande, who was governor in the Second Republic.

In the 50 months that Jakande governed Lagos, the poor breathed. His administration introduced housing and educational programmes that targeted the poor, built new neighbourhood primary and secondary schools and provided free primary and secondary education. He established the Lagos State University and the Nigerian Institute of Journalism, constructed over 30,000 housing units, including low cost estates; completed the General Hospital in Gbagada and Ikorodu and built over 20 health centres. The metroline project he started to facilitate mass transit was stymied by the Buhari junta that sacked the Second Republic.

So, what exactly did Tinubu achieve in Lagos State that advertised him for the job of being President of Nigeria? Okay! He was an efficient tax collector who increased the internally generated revenue (IGR) of Lagos from about N600 million monthly in 1999 to about N6 billion monthly by the end of his tenure in 2007.

But good governance is not all about taxing the people, exactly what he has found out with the splurge of taxes, which is what the sudden removal of fuel subsidy, proposed increase in electricity tariff, hike in school fees, import duties, etc., is all about. Governance must have a human face and a leader must have the milk of human kindness and empathy.

In just two months, Tinubu now has the dubious record of throwing more Nigerians into the poverty loop than any other administration – military or civilian – in Nigeria’s chequered 63-year history.

What is even more galling is his unpreparedness. To imagine that two months after Tinubu thundered at his inauguration that “subsidy is gone,” the president has no clue whatsoever what to do to reduce the suffering of Nigerians because there is no actionable plan, hence the resort to Buharinomics. Borrowing the Buhari template of cash transfer to ghosts, literally, is the greatest disembowelling of the so-called genius.

To imagine that it has taken a man who said Nigeria’s presidency was his life-long ambition, a man who knew from the time he picked the presidential ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) that he would be declared winner of the February 25 poll willy-nilly and five months after he was declared winner, regardless, to accomplish the simple task of compiling his ministerial list.

Perhaps as you are reading this, the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, will finally be reading out the names of the would-be ministers. But that will only be because the law now says the president must present a ministerial list to the National Assembly not later than 60 days after inauguration. If not, we may well have faced the embarrassing situation, once again, where it took the president six months to draw up a list of cabinet members.

It is a double whammy for a president who professes rule of law to sit down in his office and watch the DSS, an agency of state directly under his purview, flagrantly disobey court order as it did on Tuesday at the Federal High Court in Lagos where the suspended Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, was arraigned without a whimper. The only reason why the DSS would act so recklessly was because their action had presidential imprimatur.

Welcome to the Jagaban country – a country where thousands of citizens are thrown into abject poverty everyday; where poor implementation of policies has worsened an already precarious situation; a country where gangsters and thugs are treated like royalty even as they flaunt their private army and brandish sophisticated weapons.

Could all these be what it means to be an astute politician? Maybe! But this astuteness pushes Nigeria dangerously to the edge.

As Tinubu wilfully abdicates presidential responsibilities, handing same to unelected aides, some of them boasting that they have become Nigeria’s de facto Prime Minister, the only reason why Nigeria has not erupted in mass protests is because the propagandists are in Aso Rock. The vuvuzelas who know how to psyche up the people and wheedle the unwary with lies and whoopla are in power.

But one thing is clear. Events in the last two months have proved that the fabled Tinubu phenomenon is nothing but a farce and this ride which Nigerians have been forced to hitch with the rickety emi lo kan wagon will be bumpy. One hopes he does not crash Nigeria.

Jeff Bezos did not set out to become the king of home-delivered paperback books. 

But we're at a point in history when an entire generation knows Amazon only as the dominant player in e-commerce, and doesn't remember the time when Amazon was that scrappy little startup that pioneered the shipping of words-on-paper to your door.

I can assure you, that was an amazing innovation at the time.

Today, when you think of Amazon, you think of it as the place to get everything you need – right now. But it wasn't always this way. At one point, Bezos had his mind fully focused on books. Everything that came later was the result of a startup strategy of thinking big and acting small. 

I'll use Amazon as the late-stage example for using the same think-big-act-small strategy – like a cake I baked earlier to show you the gorgeous final product. And I'll use two of my own startup experiences to show you the way.

From Books to Those Little Creamer Cups

So when I sat down to write this article, I had just ordered coffee pods and those little creamer cups (an indulgence) on Prime, and they arrived at my door less than 90 minutes later – before I finished my first draft. 

I can picture Jeff, circa 1994, thinking, "Joe is writing. He needs his coffee. Not in five days or even two days. He needs it now. That's how I'm going to make him and everyone else a customer for life. It's worth the extra spend to make it happen."

It most definitely cost Amazon more money to fulfill my order than I paid, and it's not a mistake, and it's not random loss leadership. I ordered golf gloves too (Amazon does everything) and those won't be here until tomorrow. But the coffee and the creamer got here right now. 

What blows my mind is the creamer cups. That's next-level data gathering and planning. 

"Coffee? Right now? We can do that. But doesn't he take it with a little splash of cream?" 

This is a micro example of the end result of a company strategy that made the company massively successful by thinking big and acting big. 

And Amazon is far from finished when it comes to thinking big. The same strategic mindset that brought about two-day shipping, Amazon Web Services, and the Delivery Service Partner program is foraging its way into the NFL on Prime Video, brick-and-mortar groceries, health care, and allegedly even mobile phone service (again).

How does this apply to you? To answer that, we go back to 1994 and delivering books – because they were flat and relatively standardized to ship, and the margins were amazing.

And to think big and act big, Amazon first had to act small. Then perfect everything.

Washing Cars to Mobile Auto Repair

So if Amazon is the pre-baked cake, this is the growth stage example. 

In 2017, Automated Insights, an NLG tech startup I had sunk seven years and all of my brains and guts into, was almost three years past having been successfully acquired by a private equity firm. My partner, the founder, had left some months prior, and the writing was kind of on the wall for me to figure out my next thing.

I decided to go wash cars.

Scot Wingo, the former founder and CEO of Channel Advisor, a company that aggregated e-commerce data that he had taken public, had been on our board through our acquisition. He had co-founded Spiffy a couple years earlier, a mobile car wash and detail company. 

I'd known Scot for about 15 years at that point, so he was the first person I sat down with to brainstorm my options. By the end of that meeting, I knew that washing cars was the books and CDs of mobile service, and I didn't want to do anything else.

In 2017, Spiffy had a couple of dozen vans and maybe 50 mobile-wash technicians, offering service in four cities. But we were collecting data, perfecting the process, building out our own vans and software. We were using some of the same strategies Amazon used when they were selling books – thinking big, acting small, and perfecting the process. 

In 2018, we started offering oil changes, then we started working with fleets, and then we added on tires, brakes, and other light repairs. Today, we're no longer mobile car wash, we're "mobile vehicle care and maintenance," in 50 cities, with 500 techs, and always hiring. 

Startup Education and Advisement Sucks

To be fair, the startup capital costs to get into the automotive space are extremely high. Spiffy has raised over $30 million to get to where we are today. 

So yeah, that's not a path most entrepreneurs can take. What about the early stagers?

Spiffy isn't my first rodeo. In fact, I've founded or been ground floor at over a dozen startups, including a few founded and funded out of my own pocket, for less than $1,000 in startup costs. 

Not long after my first startup success, over 20 years ago, I started advising other founders, because the path I had to walk was difficult and risky and stressful and the education and advice I had received was awful. 

Soon, I was being offered obscene amounts of money to advise growth-stage and late-stage startups. I was still advising early-stagers, who were mostly broke, and still writing articles like these to put out as much free, real, tactical startup advice and education as I could. 

Then my free time started drying up, and the opportunity cost of doing "free and cheap" started to compound. It occurred to me that there was a huge space between free advice, which helps a lot of people a little bit, and super-expensive paid advice, which helps a couple of people quite a lot. 

I founded Teaching Startup to bridge that gap, recruiting experienced entrepreneurs to answer questions from other entrepreneurs (experienced or not), via email. I literally started the whole thing on Mailchimp, using that platform as the product, the CRM, the subscription model – everything but the credit card swipe for the paltry $10 a month I was asking. 

And then it blew up, in a good way. I was told to go edtech, to use video consultations, to do seminars and webinars, to write books. In other words, to act big now that I was thinking big. 

But three years in, I'm still perfecting the process. I'm not trying to be the next Gary Vee or one of those people who can fill hotel ballrooms or convention centers with motivational goodness. I'm trying to make more and better entrepreneurs, as many as I can. It's boring. It's sluggish. It's not "sexy."

But neither is delivering books. 

I'm thinking big, trying to figure out how to "get people their coffee right now" by making the startup founding and leading process less painful, less expensive, and more available. But I'm acting small, sticking to email and content, real answers, and slow growth to get me to a much larger goal. 

This is how you build it like Bezos. Whether you raise millions of dollars for the latest flavor of AI technology or customize bikes in your backyard, you should be thinking big, acting small, and perfecting the process. 

Inc

Nigeria produced the first major shock of the Women's World Cup as they stunned Australia 3-2 on Thursday to leave the co-hosts' tournament hopes on thin ice and home fans reeling.

Asisat Oshoala volleyed into an open goal in the 72nd minute to seal a deserved win for the Africans after Uchenna Kanu cancelled out Emily van Egmond's opener on the cusp of halftime and Osinachi Ohale nudged Nigeria ahead after the break.

Australia cut the deficit to one goal when Alanna Kennedy nodded home a header in the 10th minute of stoppage time but Nigeria rode out the final seconds to claim one of the finest wins in their history at the global showpiece.

The victory in front of a huge crowd at Lang Park put Nigeria top of Group B level with Canada on four points but ahead on goals scored. The 11-time African champions eliminated Ireland in their last group match on Monday.

Nigeria coach Randy Waldrum said his players were in party mode in their changing room at Lang Park.

"I think they’re still singing and dancing right now," the American told reporters.

"I can’t get in there and get a word in edge-wise.

"So many people didn’t believe in me, didn’t believe in the team. The one thing we’ve done is talk about believing in one another."

The Matildas must beat Olympic champions Canada, held to a 0-0 draw by Nigeria in their opener, to be assured of making the last 16 at a tournament where they fancied themselves among the major title threats.

Lacking talismanic striker Sam Kerr and attacker Mary Fowler through injury, Australia's makeshift forward line peppered the Nigeria goal but saw a slew of chances fly wide and over the bar in both halves.

Defensive lapses ultimately cost the hosts but coach Tony Gustavsson was reluctant to find fault.

"If the performance was poor I'd say it was, but the performance wasn't poor," said the Swede.

"You look at the stats, we should walk off the field as winners of this game."

Van Egmond, brought into the starting 11 in place of Fowler, put Australia in front in the first minute of first half stoppage time with a crisp finish from a Caitlin Foord cross.

Australia's joy was fleeting, though, with midfielder Rasheedat Ajibade setting up Nigeria's equaliser with a deflected shot that landed at the feet of Kanu who scored from close-range seconds before the interval.

Waldrum had his main strike threat Oshoala start on the bench in a selection surprise but two minutes after she came on, Nigeria had the lead.

Back from suspension, Ajibade made the difference again as she headed the ball towards the far post after a corner, allowing Ohale to force the ball over the line in the 65th minute.

Under pressure, Australia's defence broke down seven minutes later as a mix-up between goalkeeper Mackenzie Arnold and Kennedy allowed Oshoala to pounce.

Arnold came off her line and Oshoala swerved past her on the right to sneak in the volley from a tight angle.

Australia pushed hard in search of goals, and Kennedy popped in her late header at the far post but Nigeria held on for a huge boost of confidence before they face Ireland.

Reuters

Soldiers in Niger seized control in the West African nation after the country’s president, Mohamed Bazoum, was detained by the presidential guard.

The security forces have “put an end to the regime” due to “the continuous degradation of the security situation, the bad economic and social governance,” Colonel-Major Amadou Abdramane said in a statement on state broadcaster Tele Sahel late Wednesday.

All institutions have been suspended and parliament dissolved, according to the statement made on behalf of the National Council for the Protection of the Homeland, which referred to itself by the French acronym CNSP.

The group, which said it represents all the units of the security and defense forces, also imposed a curfew between 10:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m.

Land and air borders are closed until the situation stabilizes, Abdramane said. “It’s asked of all foreign parties not to interfere.”

It wasn’t immediately clear who was the leader of the coup that followed the arrest of Bazoum and the occupation of the presidential palace earlier Wednesday by the presidential guard.

The move sparked ire among Niger’s neighbors and international partners including France, the US and the European Union.

The US State Department urged “elements of the presidential guard to release President Bazoum from detention and refrain from violence,” according to a statement on its website.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday spoke with President Bazoum, signaling US support for him as the democratically elected president.

“We call for his immediate release,” Blinken said. “We condemn any effort to seize power by force.”

The whereabouts of Bazoum, who came to power two years ago in the first democratic transfer of power in Niger since independence from France in 1960, wasn’t clear late Wednesday.

Bloomberg

Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has given a nationwide strike notice beginning on 2 August to protest the removal of fuel subsidy by the federal government.

Although no official statement has been issued by the Congress, its spokesperson, Ben Upah, confirmed the strike plan to an online newspaper on Wednesday.

“Yes, the nationwide strike will commence on 2 August 2023. We will soon issue a communique to that effect, ” Upah said

General Secretary of the NLC, Emma Ugboaja, did not respond to calls to his mobile phone on Wednesday.

It was, however, gathered that Congress gave the government a seven-day ultimatum to reverse all perceived anti-poor policies failing which it’ll proceeded on the industrial action.

President Bola Tinubu had, during his inauguration on 29 May, announced the removal of fuel subsidy, an action that suddenly pushed up the price of the product.

A few days later, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) announced a new price regime ranging from N537 to N600 per litre of petrol.

On Tuesday last week, the NNPCL further pushed the price to N617 per litre, saying market forces informed it.

The court had in June stopped the NLC from going on strike following a case instituted by the government.

A committee set up by the government to negotiate with the NLC and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) on subsidy removal has not made much progress.

The strike threat is coming a few hours after the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) began an indefinite strike.

NARD embarked on the strike on Tuesday night despite the intervention by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Tajudeen Abbas.

The doctors are demanding implementation of a one-for-one replacement policy for healthcare workers, immediate payment of all salary arrears, implementation of a Consolidated Medical Salary Structure, and a new hazard allowance, among others.

PT

The federal government has reacted to the seven-day ultimatum issued by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to embark on a nationwide strike over the hike in the price of petrol and the high cost of living in the country.

On Wednesday, NLC issued a seven-day ultimatum to the federal government to reverse all “anti-poor” and “insensitive” policies.

The policies, the union said, include the recent hike in the price of petrol, and the sudden increase in public school fees, among others.

In the communique signed by Joe Ajaero, NLC president, and Emmanuel Ugboaja, the union’s general secretary, the union accused the federal government of showing enormous disdain and contempt for the Nigerian people and declared a war of attrition on citizens.

However, in a statement, B.E Jedy-Agba, permanent secretary at the ministry of justice, said the union is restrained by the order of the national industrial court from embarking on any strike regarding the removal of petrol subsidy.

She said the court had on June 5 granted an injunctive order restraining the NLC and Trade Union Congress (TUC) “from embarking on the planned industrial action/or strike of any nature, pending the hearing and determination of the pending motion on notice”.

Jedy-Agba advised the union to explore other means of negotiations with the federal government rather than “resorting to self-help and undermining the orders of the court”.

“It is noted that the issues (removal of fuel subsidy, hike in prices of petrol and consequential increase in the cost of living, etc) which precipitated the above court action are the very same issues over which NLC has now issued another strike notice,” the statement reads.

“The NLC has submitted to the jurisdiction of the court and is being represented by the reputable law firm of Femi Falana. It is therefore our minimum expectation that the NLC will allow the courts to perform their constitutional roles rather than resorting to self-help and undermining the orders of the court.

“We note with dismay that this latest strike notice is consistent with the inexplicable disdain which the NLC leadership has visited on the authority of the court in recent times following earlier inciting and derogatory remarks made by the NLC president against the court.

“Aside from the above legal inhibition against any strike action of any nature, we also note that both the federal and state governments are engaging with stakeholders to cushion the collateral effect of the removal of fuel subsidy and increment in fuel price.

“It would be a great act of service to Nigerian workers and the nation’s economy for NLC to explore negotiations rather than embark on any strike action.”

The Cable

Immediate past national vice chairman (North West) of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Salihu Lukman, has asked President Bola Tinubu to “retract from illegal acts”.

He said this in his resignation letter dated July 26, 2023.

Daily Trust had reported how Lukman kicked against the move to announce former Kano state governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, as national chairman of the party.

APC insiders confirmed that Tinubu tipped Ganduje for the office of national chairman following Abdullahi Adamu’s resignation.

But Lukman said going ahead with such move was against the interest of the founding fathers of the party.

“I hereby kindly resign my position as National Vice Chairman, Northwest of our great party, All Progressives Congress (APC). My resignation is with immediate effect, which becomes necessary given my conviction that the atmosphere in the party is completely at variance with the founding vision of forming a progressive party.”

“Rather than remaining in the leadership of the party and become a source of distraction for leaders and especially for the young government of Tinubu, it is better to excuse myself and take time off from politics.

“I will however retain my membership of the party in the hope that our leaders, especially Tinubu, will retract from acts that will be unjust and illegal, which is crucial to any claim of being democratic or progressive whether as politicians or as patriotic Nigerians. I wish to convey my sincerely gratitude to our leaders in Kaduna, especially Nasir El-Rufai for finding me worthy of nomination to serve at the highest level of the party’s leadership.”

Daily Trust