By Adedapo Adesanya
Popular Nigerian musician, Innocent Idibia, otherwise known as 2Face or 2Baba, has veered into an agro-allied business.
The talented music act on Monday during a chat with the chief executive officer of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), Mr Oscar Onyema, stated that he now has an agribusiness called Innobia Agro-Allied Limited.
According to him, the project is expected to drive agriculture and create a thousand jobs for youths in each of the 36 states of the federation, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja.
He, therefore, called for the support of the exchange in actualising this laudable goal.
The singer is the Good Cause Ambassador of the NSE and he was hosted by the exchange today and given the honour to close the market by beating the closing gong, though digitally.
At the closing gong ceremony held on Instagram live chat this afternoon, the multiple award-winning music star used the opportunity to drive home the importance of collaboration and appreciated the NSE for using him to inform youths in the country on the message of social change.
“I am really grateful for the opportunity and would like to thank the Nigerian Stock Exchange. I would also like to call on Nigerians to join the movement,” he said.
In his remarks, Mr Onyema lauded the impact that the entertainment sector has played in driving social change, and in particular, 2Baba’s influence.
He said the vital member of the defunct Plantainshun Boiz has used his voice to raise awareness and mobilize support for the Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability initiatives of the bourse toward achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in Nigeria.
“Since his appointment, 2Baba has been collaborating with NSE on its various CSR programmes such as the NSE Corporate Challenge, NSE Essay competition and more recently the Masks for All Nigerians campaign.
“The campaign aims at galvanizing individuals and companies towards donating 400 million masks for Nigerians especially low-income households.
“We are pleased to note that for 2Baba, music is more than making hit tracks which he has done since he hit the limelight over twenty years ago. It is also an instrument of driving change and impact within society.
“It was, therefore, not surprising that many organisations continue to desire to collaborate with him to bring about the desired social change,” he noted.
Mr Onyema further noted that the exchange has continued to thrive despite the limitations brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, through its Business Continuity Plan established in March.
“We have remained supportive of issuers and have added close to N1 trillion of fresh capital since the activation of the Business Continuity Plan in March,” the NSE chief said.
He noted that, “Recently, we committed the sum of N100 Million to support the fight against COVID-19 in Nigeria. The sum of N60 million was donated to the Capital Market Support Committee for COVID-19 (CMSCC), led by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
“The balance of N40 Million was deployed to the Masks For All Nigeria campaign, which was launched to galvanize private organizations and individuals to provide 400 million face masks to Nigerians, especially the low-income households.
“We kicked off the campaign with a donation of over 100,000 face masks. I, therefore, use this opportunity to invite corporates and well-meaning individuals to join the campaign and donate masks via http://masksforallng.com.”
Dipo Olowookere