Professor Pat Utomi is an economist and a politician. He co-founded the Lagos Business School, now Pan African University.  In this interview, Utomi speaks on the on-going National Conference and the economy among other issues.

One of the biggest issues in the country today is the National Conference.  We have optimists concerning the conference. We also have pessimists. There are those who are neither here nor there. Where do you stand?

I have made it part of business to keep challenging us about what our consciousness should be. In recent times, we have begun to focus on two sets of activities to deal with this matter. The first has to do with the hope that was raised that a national dialogue could result in a certain understanding of what has kept us back and how we could look at the future so that we could make the progress that is deservedly ours given the endowment of our country.

In that regard, I was the convener of the National Summit Group which began the formal canvassing for National Conference. But I am deeply sad at what came to be known as the National Conference. It’s a tragedy for Nigeria that we ended up with how the body was constituted.

It is incapable of engaging the future; it is talk on the past and the personal quarrels of yesterday. It lacks the capacity, in terms of many of the people who are there and in terms of their endowment not because they are good or bad people, to engage the future. And so, many people are now dismissing the conference as a waste of good time, good money and all kinds of motives are now being imputed on how it was constituted, why it was constituted, and all of that.

What kind of conference would you have loved to see?
The conference should be building national consensus, talking about acceptable norms. To return to Delta, a couple of weeks ago I talked about this movement for a new Delta; I said that one of the easiest ways to characterize a new Delta is a programme that I called ‘Aregbe Times 20’.
What does ‘Aregbe Times 20’ mean? There was a lot of talk on how many pupils/students were in school in Osun State because they get free lunch. You can give breakfast and lunch in a state like Delta and not encounter any challenge finding the resources to execute it. If any progress must take place, there are two things government must do: education and healthcare. People who are well and educated will create their future.
And so when you look at what (Governor) Aregbesola is doing, you will see it translate, in few years, into a different kind of Osun State. It is not by accident that today we keep talking about the advantage that the South-west has because of Chief Awolowo’s policy on education in the 50s.
READ the full interview… http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/04/national-conference-incapable-engaging-future-pat-utomi/

 

In 1982 was an action powerhouse movie called RAMBO which starred Sylvester Stallone as a Vietnam veteran who used his advanced military techniques, machine guns and bare hands to fight off the entire police force of a few towns. RAMBO turned these towns into warfronts with his armaments. In Nigeria, there is now our own RAMBO in Vice-President, Namadi Sambo who has promised that Osun and Ekiti states will be warfronts in the coming gubernatorial elections. This time, he seems to be promising us; it will not be a movie!
What is making this threat more unsettling is the optics of several incidents we now see in the aftermath of the statement.  A couple of days after the utterance, we saw Ayo Fayose, the Ekiti ambassador in the state Governorship election cladded in a bullet-proof vest during a campaign event. That confirms that some kind of war is looming in that state. Musiliu Obanikoro, Minister of State of Defense mobilized men in army uniform to the site of the Ondo bye-election that was just concluded. The location was filled with pandemonium and violence and INEC indicted him.
Before the RAMBO statement was made, Jelili Adesiyan, Minister of Police Affairs we heard pounced on Isiaka Adeleke with 40 anti-riot policemen during last month’s PDP primaries where Iyiola Omisore became the governorship flag bearer of the party. What in the world is wrong with us about power, money and politics? Do we have to fight wars to serve the people? I don’t think so. If Ekiti and Osun become frontiers of violence in the coming elections, Vice President Sambo will be held responsible for importing RAMBO into the states.
The unpleasant cumulus the statement has further created is that Vice President Namadi “Rambo” Sambo has not come out to deny or walk back the talk. He has not apologized for heating up the polity in these states. It then affirms that our own Sambo who has now become a leading “Rambo” of the PDP meant every word he spoke. The truth now is that our own Vice-President is now SAMBO THE RAMBO who has signaled something that should make APC members, Aregbesola, Fayemi and all the citizens in these two states sleep with only on eye closed.
THIS IS STRAIGHTUP TALK!

Cross section of Indigenes and non-indigenes of Osun Boarding the Free Train Ride provided by the State Government of Osun, back to Lagos State after the Easter celebration at Osogbo Terminus, State of Osun on Monday 21-04-2014

Global leaders met in London earlier this year to discuss how school meal programmes can improve educational outcomes and boost agricultural economies.
The meeting was co-hosted by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Agriculture & Food for Development and the Partnership for Child Development (PCD) from Imperial College London, which is working with governments to build the evidence base and provide technical assistance for the development of effective and sustainable home grown school feeding (HGSF) programmes. HGSF refers to school feeding programmes which procure their food from local smallholder farmers thereby supporting local rather than foreign markets.
In 2013, up to $75billion dollars was invested by the governments of 169 countries into school feeding programmes. It is estimated that for every $1 spent feeding school children, $3 are generated for the local economy.
Keynote speaker Rauf Aregbesola, Governor of Osun state in Nigeria, reported on the success of his state’s school meals programme, known as O’Meals, which feeds over 250,000 children every school day. The O’Meals programme provides employment to over 3,000 women and purchases food from over 1000 local farmers.
The experience of Osun tallies with that of governments from across the globe, the World Bank’s Professor Donald Bundy said. He noted that analysis from the influential book, ‘Rethinking School Feeding’ that he co-authored in 2009, had identified that countries were increasingly turning to school feeding programmes as a form of social safety net for their poorest communities. In Europe, in response to the recent recession, countries such as Spain, Portugal, France and the UK had implemented school feeding programmes as means to protect their most vulnerable members of society.
This growth in school meal coverage provides an opportunity for local agricultural economies, Professor Bundy said. “School feeding programmes provide a structured demand for agricultural produce and can, when implemented correctly, encourage wider economic development. Even crisis hit countries such as Cote D’Ivoire, Madagascar, Mali and Sudan are shifting to nationally run programmes which procure their food from local smallholder farmers.”
Speaking on behalf of the African Union’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development, Boitshepo Giyose agreed. “We’re seeing more and more sub-Saharan Africa countries adopting HGSF but they still need support to achieve this. International partners have a vital role to play in promoting cost-effective and sustainable programmes.”
Speaking at the event, PCD’s Executive Director, Dr Lesley Drake said: “Research shows that when properly designed, HGSF programmes can act as a win-win for both schoolchildren and smallholder farmers alike.
“For integrated school feeding programmes to succeed like they have in Osun, governments and development partners alike need to integrate HGSF into their policies, strategies and plans for agriculture and for education.”

Photos from the 6th Reunion Luncheon of the University Of Lagos Muslim Alumni at Eko Hotel & Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos on Sunday 20-04-2014

From left –* Vice Chancellor, University of Lagos, Professor Rahaman
Adisa Bello Presenting an Award to the Governor of the State of Osun,
Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola in Recognition of his Distinguished Efforts at
Good Governance, during the 6th Reunion Luncheon at Eko Hotel &Suites,
Victoria Island, Lagos on Sunday 20-04-2014.

Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola (middle); President
University of Lagos, Musilm Alumni (UMA), Alhaji Sikiru Lere Alimi
(left), Speaker House of Assemble Oyo State, Alhaja Monsurat Sunmonu
(2nd right) and Vice Chancellor, University of Lagos, Professor
Rahaman Adisa Bello (right), during the 6th Reunion Luncheon at Eko
Hotel &Suites, Victoria Island,Lagos on Sunday 20-04-2014.

From left -* Governor State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola; Speaker
House of Assemble Oyo State, Alhaja Monsurat Sunmonu and Vice
Chancellor,
University of Lagos, Professor Rahaman Adisa Bello during the 6th Reunion
Luncheon at Eko Hotel &Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos on Sunday 20-04-2014.

 Osun State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola, Ondo state Governor, Olusegun Mimiko, Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi,
Osun State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola, on Friday urged Nigerians to imbibe the lessons of Easter, saying that peace and forgiveness were critical virtues in human existence.
Aregbesola, who described Easter as a period of sober reflection, enjoined Nigerians to live in peace and harmony at all times.
According to him, religious tolerance and peaceful coexistence among humans were necessary elements in the sustenance of development.
He said, “It gives me great joy to felicitate with Christians on this Easter celebration. As we rejoice in the glory of God, we must not lose sight of the teachings of the period.
“Jesus Christ came and laid his life for us. This is a demonstration of absolute love. We, as children of God, must learn to live in love and peace. We must learn to live an exemplary life. The redemption Jesus Christ made must not be lost on us.”
In his Easter message, Ondo state Governor, Olusegun Mimiko, urged Nigerians to pray for God’s intervention in the country’s battle against terror by religious extremists.
Mimiko described the terror attacks being witnessed in some parts of the country as “threatening the peace and corporate existence of the nation”. He added that peace was integral to national development.
He said, “The lesson is that we too can live a life of sacrifice for our country especially at this time when Nigeria appears to be at the crossroads in terms of the socio-economic and ethno-religious challenges besetting her.
“Beyond the eating and drinking in the course of the celebration, we should go to God in prayer to solicit His intervention against terror in the name of religion that is threatening the peace and corporate existence of the nation.”
“This counsel becomes imperative in the light of the fact that we do not have any other country to call our own.”

In a related development, Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi, also urged the people of the state to use the occasion to pray for God’s intervention in the affairs of the country.
He said that prayers were needed to bring lasting solution to the escalating cases of insurgency threatening the peace of the country.
The governor commended Christians in the state for living in harmony with other religious believers, which he attributed to the “peace being enjoyed in the state”.
In addition, Fayemi urged Christians in the state to use the period to pray for peace, development and prosperity of Ekiti as the state approached the governorship election to be held in June 2014.
Punch

This exercise is an attempt to develop a greater understanding of Nigeria at state level. As we had expected, our analysis confirms that Lagos State is Nigeria’s biggest economy, producing c. 12% of the country’s national income. Post-rebasing of GDP in 2013, we expect Lagos State economy to become Africa’s 13th biggest economy at c. $45bn – equivalent to Ghana.
Households in Nigeria’s southern states are better educated and have smaller household sizes. States that cluster around key commercial states also benefit from externalities. In the SW where Lagos State has the highest per-capita income, Oyo and Osun States also score highly.
Consumer companies are likely to find the greatest opportunities in states with greater purchasing power, as indicted by relatively high per capita income, including Lagos, the FCT Abuja, as well as Oyo, Osun in the SW and Kaduna and Nassarawa (both next to the FCT Abuja), and the Niger Delta states. We see opportunities for banks to expand services and employees into states that have a combination of high income and population densities, as that will provide the footfall required to open a bank branch. States that fit this profile are Anambra, Imo and Abia in the SE region; Akwa Ibom and Rivers in the Niger Delta region; and Osun in the SW. 
Below is the Socioeconomic profile of Nigeria’s states

Read/Download full report here Renaissance capital 36 shades of Nigeira