Lagos Business School (LBS) Bags Global Accreditation

The Lagos Business School (LBS) has finally achieved international accreditation from the Advanced Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the school which was founded twenty five years ago and has been committed to world class standard of teaching, learning, research, academic and professional management; measures up with few business schools that can boast of such international mandate in the globe.

Lagos Business School (LBS) Faculty and Strategy Expert, Chris Ogbechie while addressing press on Friday in Lagos made it known that Lagos Business School has become the first institution in West Africa to be accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). With effect from December 1, 2016, LBS joins the league of less than 5% of business schools globally, to be accredited by this body.

AACSB is the leading global accreditation body schools offering undergraduate, masters and doctorate degrees in business and accounting. Founded in 1916, AACSB has its headquarters at Tampa, Florida, United States of America, it is the largest business education network, linking students, academia and business education around the world.

By the feat of AACSB Accreditation, Lagos Business School has once more distinguished itself as a management education provider of high repute in Africa. Only four other schools in the entire continent have this accreditation, three in South Africa and one in Egypt.

Schools that are also accredited in the world by AACSB include: Harvard University -Harvard Business School (United States-Massachusetts), IMD (Switzerland), Imperial College London- Imperial College Business School (United Kingdom-England), University of Cape Town – Graduating School of Business (South Africa-Cape Town), IESE Business School (Spain), Yale University-Yale School of Management (United States-Connecticut).

According to Ogbechie, the accreditation process is designed to validate business schools that are committed to global standards of excellence in strategic management and innovation, student experience, and quality of both teaching and non teaching staff.

The AACSB International accreditation, among other benefits, accords students of accredited schools the opportunity to participate in international student exchange programmes with other accredited schools. It also increases students` competitiveness in the domestic and international labour markets, helping them get recognized worldwide by top employers and other universities.

In addition, the accreditation provides faculty members of these schools with opportunities for in-depth research and global recognition. Faculty and staff of accredited schools are assured of the school`s visibility and increased capacity to attract top quality students for their programmes. Alumni of accredited schools can be proud of their alma maters` global visibility and recognition – a validation of the quality of their certificates.

Wole Soyinka Fulfilled His Pledge, Throws away His Green Card.

Nobel prize-winning author Wole Soyinka said Thursday he has fulfilled his pledge to throw away his US residency green card and leave the country if Donald Trump won the presidential election.

Shortly before the vote, Soyinka had vowed to give up his permanent US residency over a Trump victory to protest against the Republican billionaire’s campaign promises to get tough on immigration.

“I have already done it, I have disengaged (from the United States). I have done what I said I would do,” the 82-year-old said on the sidelines of an education conference at the University of Johannesburg.

“I had a horror of what is to come with Trump… I threw away the (green) card, and I have relocated, and I’m back to where I have always been” — meaning his homeland Nigeria.

The prolific playwright, novelist and poet won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986 and has been a regular teacher at US universities including Harvard, Cornell and Yale.

At the same time he said he would not discourage others from applying for a green card.

“It’s useful in many ways. I wouldn’t for one single moment discourage any Nigerians or anybody from acquiring a green card… but I have had enough of it,” he said.

Soyinka, one of Africa’s most famous writers and rights activists, was jailed in 1967 for 22 months during Nigeria’s civil war.

He was reported to have recently completed a term as scholar-in-residence at New York University’s Institute of African American Affairs.

NCC SUSPENDS DATA PRICE HIKE.

NCC suspends directive on data segment price floor

Following the concerns that visited the directive to introduce price floor for data segment of the telecommunications sector beginning from December 1, 2016, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has suspended any further action in that direction.

The decision to suspend this directive was taken after due consultation with industry stakeholders and the general complaints by Consumers across the country.

The Commission has weighed all of this and consequently asked all operators to maintain the status quo until the conclusion of study to determine retail prices for broadband and data services in Nigeria.

Recall that the Commission wrote to the Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) on November 1, 2016 on the determination of an interim price floor for data services after the stakeholder’s consultative meeting of October 19, 2016.

The decision to have a price floor was primarily to promote a level playing field for all operators in the industry, encourage small operators and new entrants.

The price floor in 2014 was N3.11k/MB but was removed in 2015. The price floor that was supposed to flag off on December 1, 2016 was N0.90k/MB.

In taking that decision, the smaller operators were exempted from the new price regime, by virtue of their small market share. The decision on the price floor was taken in order to protect the consumers who are at the receiving end and save the smaller operators from predatory services that are likely to suffocate them and push them into extinction.

The price floor is not an increase in price but a regulatory safeguard put in place by the telecommunications regulator to check anti-competitive practices by dominant operators.

This statement clarifies the insinuation in some quarters that the regulator has fixed prices for data services. This is not true because the NCC does not fix prices but provides regulatory guidelines to protect the consumers, deepen investments and safeguard the industry from imminent collapse.

Before the new suspended price floor of N0.90k/MB, the industry average for dominant operators including MTN Nigeria Communications Limited, EMTS Limited (Etisalat) and Airtel Nigeria Limited was N0.53k/MB.

Etisalat offered (N0.94k/MB), Airtel (N0.52k/MB), MTN (N0.45k/MB) and Globacom (N0.21k/MB).

The smaller operators/ new entrants charge the following: Smile CommunicationsN0.84k/MB, Spectranet N0.58k/MB and NATCOMS (NTEL) N0.72k/MB.

The NCC as a responsive agency of government takes into consideration the feelings of the consumers and so decided to suspend the new price floor.

Signed

Tony Ojobo

Director, Public Affairs

NCC

MARRIAGE PROCEDURES IN YORUBA CULTURE

The Yorubas are scattered all over the Diasporas, they however originated from the south-western Nigeria of the four major sociolinguistic groups in the country. The others are the Igbo; they reside in the eastern part, the Hausa and the Fulani to the northern side of the country.

The wedding ceremony is the last event that rounds off the relationship between prospective couple. As soon as a young man identifies the woman he wishes to marry, he and his peers cunningly find a way to make the girl know about his feeling towards her.

Once they communicate and confess their love for each other, they can then eliminate the service of an alarina (a person who helps lovers carries love messages for lovers). The girl naturally don’t tell her parents about her relationship with a man, it is the man who tells his parents, his parents will then take few of their relatives to the girl’s parents. Once the girl’s parents give consent to the relationship, the wedding date may be set.

Before the wedding the girl’s family will tell the man’s family what the pride price will look like. Usually the bride price consists of sugar or sugar cane, a number of tubers of yam, kola nut, bitter nut etc. As soon as the bride price is taken by the girl’s parents, the wedding day is fixed. Mostly, it is the husband side that chooses the date of the wedding.

The wedding day is the day of merriment, the day of dancing, eating, drinking, and rite performing for the parents of the couple, their friends, relatives and sometimes foes. The marriage however, goes beyond the union of the couple, it is indeed the union of the families of the couples that is why a Yoruba culture says “You don’t only marry your spouse you marry him/her along with the in-law.” During this period both families are introduced to one another.

The groom during the ceremony is compelled to come with some of his friends to portrait and ask the bride’s parent for their daughter’s hand in marriage, if they oblige them, they hand the bride over to them.

The couple are dressed in native attire, the groom is embellish with agbada, buba and sokoto while, the bride is adorn with iro, buba and gele (head gear).

The girl on the other hand, is escorted by her friend and relatives to her new home. When she gets to the door step, there is always a prayer session where water is used to wash the bride’s feet, this done to wash away any bad luck she might be bringing into the husband’s house away.

Before she is finally ushered into her husband house, she is given a calabash to slam on the floor; it is believed that the numbers of the pieces of the broken calabash is the number of children she will give birth to.

Finally, her husband is expected to make love to her the wedding night and he is expected to meet her virgin. If she is not, she and her parent are disgrace or sent out of the village the live. 

Absurd Tradition

ABSORD TRADITION

I am starting this write up with Chinua Achebe’s quote “A man who makes trouble for others is also making trouble for himself.”

The African people have very strong cultural beliefs which their whole lives is tied around, these beliefs form the basis of their existence as a people. These beliefs however differ from region to region. African people from region to region have their unique ways of proposing for marriage, conducting marriage ceremony, burial, how a family should be run etc.

During my youth service in Ebonyi State in Nigeria I came across some cultural practices I never suspected or think existed. These cultural practices to me coming from the western part of the country look so strange, in this article I’m going to share one of my numerous awkward cultural practices I came across during my service year in Ebonyi State.

I served at Abakaliki, Enyandulogu Agalagu, Ishieke, Ebonyi Local Government Area to be precise. Enyandulogu Agalagu is a remote town in Abakaliki and it is about 15 minutes drive to the Abakaliki township stadium. My place of primary Assignment is located at the same town and it is very close to Ishieke town where the state university is located.

It was a very hot afternoon, I was heading home after the day’s work when I noticed group of people clustering around an open compound was a man sitting on the floor with robe tied on his wrist and feet, the man was looking so scared, he is a familiar person to me, whenever I was heading to school in the morning he always greeted me in Yoruba language, he understands the language because according to him he lived in Ogbomoso, Oyo State for several years.

On several occasions we’ve met in a local bar where we have light conversations and share experiences, I never saw him drunk, he does not take more than two or three shots of kia kia (local gin) and sometimes I or another person may buy him a bottle of beer or two and then and then we exchange greetings and he leaves for home which is just the opposite street.

So, when I saw him in that horrible condition I was disturbed and curious, I wanted to know to know what he has done. In the evening I called two of the indigene of the of the town which I have a good relationship with and inquired from them what the man has done to make people subject him into such inhuman condition, I was surprised at the answer I got.

First, I was told the crowd I saw were his own family members and the family of his in-law. Second, I was told he was beaten seriously where he was sitting in bondage by every member of the family present and that after the beating, the culture mandate him to buy drink for all the people that partook in the ritual (beaten).

The third is the shocker, I was told everything they did to him was a ritual, it must be done or else the gods of the land themselves will punish him and according to them the punishment of the gods is more severe than that of man. His offence was that he often beat up his wife and four children whenever he was drunk.

The next day I saw him putting on black singlet, he has marks of the cane all over his body, he was pushing a wheel barrow full of cocoa yam, I was told he was taking it to his in-law.

The west where I come from I don’t think such practice exist, the worse the woman do is to run for her life if she could not take it any longer. This kind of experience reminds me of the Akure monarch who battered his wife in 2010, who subsequenly died 2011 of the injuries inflicted on her by the monarch sustained Mr. Adepoju Deji. It was repoted that the mornach who relocated to the UK was deposed by Governor Olusegun Mimiko. I think it is because the king shows himself to be a very bad example to his people.

Africa is rich in culture and the culture is dynamic, I cannot believe even a man in African that is patriarchal can be so humiliated publicly for behaving in a graceless, improper and incongruous manner. But, I still believe if such practice exited everywhere I think wife beaters will not be much as we have it now.      

Poetry

Oh! My Country                                              

Oh! See what they have done to my Nigeria!

Oh! See how they ridicule my Naira!

They discover crude and crudely

Bring down the groundnut pyramid

They found oil and simply leave palm oil

They left cocoa, kola, yam and fruits

So, when oil left, they are left with nothing

They wish to increase productivity

But their weak hands cannot farm again

They wish to make Naira strong again

But they seems to have forgotten the road

To which to ride to groundnut, cocoa and palm oil

The land is still overly fertile

If they can come back to the land, it can yet show them the way.  

HYBRID LIBRARY INDEED

Akinboro Oladayo Samson

 HYBRID LIBRARY INDEED

One of the responsibilities of government is to provide social amenities for the people. The people of Mushin Local Government Area were joyful when the past local government Chairman Adepitan erected a building on surplus land at the St. Jude Primary School, Ilasamaja, Mushin.

The building was commissioned by Muiz Banire whom the building was named after, the building carries a big sign board indicating the architectural beauty of the Library.

This building is not just a building. It has boldly at the top HYBRID LIBRARY a name that is uncommon to most of the student living in the area but sounds well. People were happy especially students and parents who know the importance of education.

The most unfortunate thing about the library however is that after it was commissioned, it was not opened for people to use for several months. The building was just their on its own wasting along with its beauty and glory. After sometimes a very good observer will notice the presence of people living in the so called Hybrid Library, you will see people spreading their wet clothes on the fence, some relaxing with comfort on the balcony and you begin to wonder as a right thinking member of the society what the building was actually erected for.

Later on, it was noticed that students have started trooping in to the Hybrid Library with their bags on their back and some carrying a handful of books in their hands. It was a thing of joy at the initial stage because from the outside the Hybrid Library has started functioning.

Ironically, I took it upon myself to visit the library and see what is inside the building, when I got in it was an eyes sore. Plastic chairs and computer tables with sockets everywhere but no single computer, about two shelves with few books on them, it is a total disappointment to the students whom had vision a big library full of computers, shelves with updated books just like a standard library.

Some of the politicians around when people lament on the state of the digital library said the computers and books for the library had been booked for in the overseas and will soon arrive. It’s being years now we are still waiting for Godot, which may never come. Right now students in their hundreds take their books to the Digital Library to read and go home with sometimes two Librarians, sometimes one and most of the time no one.

It is however, obvious that the Hybrid Library was built to score a political point, the building was erected to amuse the on lookers and not to serve the purpose it was supposed to serve, a thing that is common in the country like ours, which is most unfortunate.