By Peter Claver Oparah
President Bola Tinubu’s government has taken off. It is cruising at a speed that confounds even his ardent opponents. Right at the inauguration ground, the brand new President announced the end of the petroleum subsidy regime, which was ravenous cancer assailing the Nigerian economy and which had come to become a stubborn cat that no previous leader, not even former President Buhari, was able to cage.
Again, the president announced the intention to abolish the dual currency exchange window that had prevailed for ages. The president proceeded with remarkable speed to announce several reforms expected to drive the economic growth of the country. He made sweeping changes in the security architecture of the country and dismantled the existing personnel in charge of these agencies and replaced them with new hands. He fired the bosses of both the Central Bank and the anti-corruption agency, the EFCC, to serve notice of his desire to go the whole hog in installing a new order that would improve the economy of the country.
The President has made a series of appointments that show his readiness to tap the best hands to ply the affairs of the country. In appointing some Special Advisers, the President gave pre-eminent consideration to competence and energy in achieving results rather than pandering to primordial interests that have hedged on the politics and governance of the country. This is a laudable roadmap for getting results and productively addressing the multifarious statehood problems that assail the country.
Presently, President Tinubu is on the verge of forming his cabinet and appointing those that will run the various parastatals and agencies of the government. Traditionally, there is a flurry of lobbying and desperate solicitations to get into the Tinubu government. This is natural and understandable. Various interests and people are prancing around and engaging in several moves to make Tinubu’s ministerial list. There is nothing wrong with that. However. in President Bola Tinubu, we have a renowned technocrat an astute politician, and a redoubtable talent hunter who knows how best to deploy the best hands for the bountiful result. There is no doubt that beyond the huffing and puffing of politicians and various interests, he knows what he wants, which is not different from getting the best for the country. Also, he knows how to get what he (and Nigeria) wants.
I will however offer my weak voice to recommend that the President stick to his desire for results in appointing his cabinet. I suggest he brings the best identifiable hands on board. I recommend he traverses everywhere to source for competent Nigerians, with the right progressive ambience, wherever they could be found, to handle our ministries.
I point to one such Nigerian, Prof. Ojo Emmanuel Ademola, a renowned Professor of Cyber Security, and a redoubtable Information Technology expert, an international scholar of high repute and a versatile resource person who teaches in England to President Tinubu. He merits being tapped to work on the new administration because he has a lot to give Nigeria. He needs to be on board because he possesses the apt and proper qualities to add value to governance in Nigeria.
I have personally known Prof Ademola for several years now. Both of us share the same political ideology as ardent progressives. Both of us worked passionately for the triumph of progressivism in Nigerian politics. We were together in crusading for the triumph of APC over PDP in 2015. We worked together to bring on the Buhari government in 2015 as well as the fierce and sapping battle to defend the regime against the ferocious onslaught of the embittered opposition for eight years! What is remarkable was that in this long battle, we did not receive even a verbal acknowledgement from that government. I didn’t get any. I know Prof Ademola didn’t receive any. I know thousands of other Nigerians that didn’t receive any. So it was patriotism; raw patriotism that made us carry on, at our expense, to defend the regime against the deliberate subterfuge of an opposition driven by selfish interests.
So, I met Prof on that street and we have remained on that street ever since then! Since we knew ourselves, we often carry out collaborative efforts to promote the progressive cause and what we felt was right and appropriate in the Nigerian nation.
What struck me again was that unlike us, Prof isn’t living in Nigeria. He is a diasporan. He is a rated academic in the UK where he lives a secure life. But this hasn’t slowed him from displaying heightened interest in what happens here, especially the governance interest in Nigeria. This marvels me. So, in Prof. Ademola, we have a fervent nationalist who physically stays outside Nigeria but whose heart permanently resides here.
We launched into the Asiwaju Bola Tinubu campaign with fervent passion, even when the ambition was a whispering project. For us, Tinubu remained the best for Nigeria and we didn’t stutter in proclaiming this.
Prof took the quest for Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to be Nigeria’s president personally. He wrote a well-received weekly feature that covered every inch of the Asiwaju ambition, the promises and prospects of his presidency and proclaimed it as the panacea to Nigeria’s governance problems.
In his many features on Asiwaju, his campaign, manifesto and ambition, Prof. Ademola forcefully told Nigerians that Asiwaju was a rare opportunity Nigeria could not afford to miss. He showed why Asiwaju was the best for Nigeria and navigated through a sectoral appraisement of the Tinubu presidency to convince his readers that Asiwaju was the best choice Nigerians needed to make. He targeted all sections of the country with his frantic incisive campaign. He never halted for a minute and his faith in the envisaged Tinubu presidency grew stronger as the election dream nearer and this persisted till Asiwaju was eventually elected on February 25. Even after Victory was secured, Prof Ademola continued his scholarly interventions by setting agenda for the new government; all ensured assisting the Tinubu government to secure good results for Nigerians and pointing the way to how best the country could be governed to benefit every citizen.
So, Prof Ademola has the requisite academic, intellectual, and professional competence to work and assist the Tinubu government to deliver critical dividends to Nigerians. He has the grooming needed to make a difference in the Nigerian system. As Africa’s first Professor of Cyber Security and Information Technology Management, a versatile academic sitting on the board of several local and foreign universities, Prof Ademola is what Nigeria needs to firm and develop its critical Information Technology architecture and positively impact the nation’s Education sector.
Professor Ademola is a
Professor of Cyber Security/IT Management. He is an Executive Committee Member
BCS ELITE – The Computing Leadership Forum, a BCS & CMI Subject Matter Expert, The Trademark Owner of Power-Age (Management Consulting), a
Governing Council Member, College of Technology and Management, American International University, West Africa, Gambia, an
International Advisory Board member of Dominican University Ibadan Nigeria, the Chair, Power-Age, and Institute for Enterprise Management and Analytics.
Also, Prof Ademola is one of the very few international scholars in Education, Cyber Security, Security Studies, Leadership and Management with a Google Knowledge Panel (GKP). He is a Consultant to the British Computer Society, a chartered fellow of highly reputable Royal Chartered Learned societies, and a Member of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, London.
He is one of the best experts in Education, Leadership and management (the first Professor of African descent to be a Chartered Manager in the UK since 2012), Cyber Security and Information Technology Management, Communication and Digital Economy, and Intelligence and Security Management.
Prof. Ademola has garnered several years of experience working with, consulting and advising several international organizations and agencies, and policy advocacy groups on wide-ranging areas and disciplines. His deep knowledge of Education, cyber security, privacy and artificial intelligence gives him a commanding edge to make Asiwaju’s ministerial list. The President should not miss the opportunity to tap this raw gem and bring him to work for Nigeria at this time in our history where Information Technology has become the new gold mine. President Tinubu needs to recruit this renowned hand to imbue enormous value on his government and enrich the Renewed Hope Era government with such a tested technocrat and renowned progressive as Prof. Ojo Emmanuel Ademola
Peter Claver Oparah writes from Ikeja, Lagos
