Feature/OPED
Buhari’s Tweet about CNN/BBC Report on The #EndSARS Campaign
By Jerome-Mario Utomi
The information in the public domain reveals that President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday, December 9, 2020, via a tweet stated that he was ‘disgusted’ by the coverage of the protest against police brutality done by the foreign media.
Buhari criticised the CNN and BBC for allegedly not rendering a balanced reportage of the protest tagged #EndSARS.
“I was disgusted by the coverage, which did not give attention to the policemen that were killed, the stations that were burnt, and prisons that were opened,” he had said.
To be sure, my first reaction to that tweet by Mr President was to seek the latest meaning of the word disgusted. And this is what I got from Wikipedia, the world’s information search engine. It says; disgusted is an emotional response of rejection or revulsion to something potentially contagious or something considered offensive, distasteful, or unpleasant.
In The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Charles Darwin wrote that disgust is a sensation that refers to something revolting.
Without dwelling further on the correctness or otherwise of CNN/BBC reports, as it is not the kernel of this piece, it is, however, important to underline that many commentators/analysts have but peripherally argued that Mr President enjoys prerogatives to feel disgusted over such report that dealt very strong blows on the reputation/image of a nation under his watch.
Indeed, while I appreciate their views that every great leader should be concerned about all form of dent targeted at the image of his/her society, group, state, region or nation, no matter how little, I chuckled at the claim by some that manipulators in the media especially influential news organizations like CNN/BBC, can intentionally ignore or downplay transgressions and prevarications on behalf of the people they agree with while making an enormous fanfare about any imperfections found in their perceived enemies.
Notedly also, even as their argument was not sufficient to push through their corrupt understanding of disgusted, coupled with the fact that Mr President claim that the CNN/BBC did not give attention to the policemen that were killed, stations that were burnt and prisons that were opened have since been found to be inaccurate, the whole episode have for two reasons left me lost in the maze of high voltage confusion.
First, no matter how long we live in denial as a nation, the Tuesday, October 20, 2020, Lekki Toll Gate tale where scores of protesters were reportedly shot at by shooters believed to be officers of the Nigerian military, will continue to resonate on the nation’s political wavelength until proponents of disorder develop courage and stamina to ask for forgiveness from Nigerian youths that they have wronged. Any other solution is at best temporal.
Secondly, this piece believed and still believes that, like every forest which has layers-ranging from the ground level and scaling up the heights, there exist articulated concerns in ways that render the content of Mr President’s tweet as misguided.
Separate from the belief by Nigerians with critical minds that the country is right now in its most fragile state since the end of the civil war, even if the President must for any reason feel concerned about any issue, he should have de-focussed on the #EndSARS debacle as the consequence of its poor management/handling has more than anything else presented his administration as a bunch that is unwilling to draw a lesson from its past mistakes/wrong leadership judgements. He should have rather concentrated more on fundamental issues such as the provision of security, education, infrastructure and pursuit of the economic welfare of citizens which are his constitutional responsibilities.
In fact, there are numerous examples of great leaders across the globe that in a period of crisis like ours, generated breakthrough ideas via a concentration on fundamental issues.
One of such leaders that naturally comes flooding of which President Muhammadu Buhari could draw a lesion form is Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirate and Ruler of Dubai.
He (Al Maktoum) on one occasion stated “there was a time we used to worry about the aftermath of the depletion of our oil resources, but these worries are dissipating. We have successfully diversified our economy by focusing on trade, tourism, services and creating new opportunities. We have succeeded because we mastered the art of exploiting the best resources in the world for acquiring inexhaustible riches.”
The ingrained lessons inherent in this comment is that while the Lekki Toll Gate narrative remains a sin that the federal government must continue to share from its guilt no matter the volume of excuses generated, it would have been considered more rewarding if Mr President in that tweet told Nigerians how his administration is tackling the offensive, distasteful, unpleasant and unacceptable, and nagging security and economic situations in the country.
He urgently needs to be familiar with the fact that the nation will continue to find itself stuck in difficulty accelerating the economic life cycle until his administration creatively contemplates diversifying, and focusing not on CNN/ BBC reports on Lekki Toll Gate shooting or its likes, but on trade, tourism, services, creating new opportunities and reduction in the cost of governance.
The need for diversifying the nation’s economy becomes imperative when one commits to mind that such a step will provide options for the nation to reduce financial risks and increase national economic stability: As a decline in particular revenue source might be offset by the increase in other revenue sources.
Same goes to the education sector. Mr President must redirect strength dissipated on gloating over CNN/BBC reports, to finding answers to the nation’s education sector that is on the progressive decline. And take pragmatic steps to fund the sector in ways that can bring back the kind of learning and nation envisioned by our founders. He must sincerely take politics out of education and feel concerned and remorseful that for over seven months Nigerian universities students of which youths composed a greater chunk of them have been at home, no thanks to the strike action embarked upon by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the inability of the Federal Government to meet with their demands.
This administration must take advantage of all the educational tools available to return us to a place where our public education system will be the envy of the world.
To use the words of Ben Carson, part of that education will include preparing people for jobs of the future, which will decrease unemployment and increase fulfilment while brightening future generations’ prospects.
Lastly, we should shine the bright light of truth on the forces of manipulation that run rampant throughout our society today. Improvements in education, combined with wisdom and knowledge, would then turn our country around’.
In conclusion, while this piece urges Mr President’s handlers to imbibe the culture of verifying information before circulating /dissemination as such is capped with the capacity to reduce citizens’ trust in the federal government, I hold the opinion that the government must do something to help the youths come out of this challenge. It Is in the interest of the government to develop the political will to help Nigerian youths. It is also in the interest of the government to address the issue of the millions of out of school children in the country. This should be done not merely for political consideration but from the views of national development, sustenance of our democracy and most importantly, averting future #EndSARS protests.
Jerome-Mario Utomi is the Programme Coordinator (Media and Public Policy), Social and Economic Justice Advocacy (SEJA), Lagos. He could be reached via; je*********@***oo.com or 08032725374.
By Winston Osuchukwu
The average Nigerian borrower is widely considered high-risk – a claim repeated in credit committees, priced into retail loans, and largely treated as settled fact. Every credit market accepts that an individual loan may not be repaid; this is ordinary, priced risk. The high-risk claim, however, is applied to whole segments – the informal trader, the gig economy earner whose income is steady but split across several accounts, the remote worker paid by an overseas client into a fintech FX wallet. What the assessment establishes is not whether they are likely to repay, but how they fit into an arbitrary segment. Having spent years building decisioning systems for this market, my thesis is a specific one: “high-risk” does not mean “no credit” – it simply requires that the lender embrace alternative datasets to price the risk appropriately.
This is not a criticism of the institutions that built their frameworks around collateral and documentation; those were rational responses to the tools available at the time. When data is scarce, prudence means defaulting to the status quo. The limitation is not that this approach is wrong, but that it leaves a blind spot – excluding fundamentally sound borrowers whose economic lives simply are not captured on the bank’s ledger. A market trader who has moved consistent, growing volumes of cash through mobile money for three years is not, in any meaningful sense, unknowable. Their financial behaviour is observable and patterned; it simply occurs outside the traditional banking system, rendering it invisible to conventional underwriting.
This is the gap technology is now positioned to close – not by replacing institutional judgment, but by augmenting it. When AI-driven analysis is applied rigorously to the financial behaviour these borrowers generate, a far more complete picture of their repayment ability emerges – and a meaningful share presents a risk profile that compares favourably with segments the traditional system has long considered safe. The “high-risk” label, applied broadly to an entire category of borrower, was never a risk pricing tool so much as the limit of what the available tools could see.
For banks, this is the opportunity to extend capital with confidence beyond the borrowers who fit their stringent criteria. Nigerian banks are highly liquid; the constraint on credit growth has rarely been capital, but the ability to assess and price the borrowers who sit outside the traditional file. Close that gap, and the whole ecosystem strengthens: banks grow their loan books into segments they have long wanted to serve, and the real economy gets the capital it needs to expand.
This is precisely what we focus on at Mathesis Analytics: building AI-powered credit decisioning that gives lenders a fuller, more defensible picture of the individuals long excluded as high-risk when they were simply misjudged. The Nigerian credit gap has never been a non-lendable population problem, but one of incomplete visibility. By unifying varied data sources and partnering with the institutions that hold the capital and scale to move the market, we translate out-of-ecosystem behaviour into reliable, bank-grade risk scores. Closing this gap is one of the clearest, highest-leverage opportunities in Nigerian financial services today.
Winston Osuchukwu is the founder & CEO of Mathesis Analytics
By Ohore Emmanuel Ufuoma
The Early Years classrooms have effectively become surrogate homes where educators now tie shoelaces, calm separation anxiety, supervise naps, enforce discipline, and provide comfort after minor injuries, which ought to be duties that should be performed by parents.
The extended work hours from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. for six days a week, economic realities, and the proliferation of all-day, weekend-inclusive early learning programs have repositioned schools as the primary environment for early childhood development.
For a typical four-year-old, 9.5 hours in school account for about 75% of waking weekday time. With Saturday sessions added, the home is reduced to a space for meals, sleep, and brief routines.
The mandate of Early Years teachers has expanded far beyond academics. Current practice requires them to handle physical care, emotional regulation, and behavioural guidance concurrently.
Daily responsibilities include toileting assistance, feeding, conflict mediation, fatigue monitoring, and maintaining individual routines for 15–20 pupils.
The parent-child dynamic shifts when parents deliberately delegate care of the child, and even punishment, to educators. While parents set apart evenings and weekends for practical tasks, like food, homework, and bathing.
Psychologists term it “contact without connection.” Although parents are physically present, time is divided and focused on tasks.
Children are more obedient and organised in class than they are at home, according to teachers. Parents describe the contrary. The pattern shows an expected result: the parent becomes the outlet for exhaustion, while the educator becomes the authority figure.
The labour market triggered the transfer of responsibilities between parents and educators.
Dual-income households are now the norm in major cities, and flexible work remains limited outside tech and finance.
Child caregiver costs compound the issue. Full-time caregiver care often costs almost half of a salary. Parents opt for schools with extended hours in order to kill two birds with one stone.
For educational centres, extended-day programs create parent-like responsibilities, and staffing, training, and compensation should reflect that. In leading centres, professional development in attachment theory and stress management is becoming standard.
For parents, the emphasis should be on quality rather than quantity.
Policymakers are beginning to prioritise employment rules that permit parental presence during early childhood and accessible, flexible daycare. Strong early attachment is associated with higher scholastic success and fewer behavioural problems in later life.
The Early Years teacher and the parents have not replaced each other. Both parties are only responding to a system that demands more hours in the workplace with fewer hours at home.
There has been a paradigm shift in the upbringing of children. The teachers now perform functions once meant for the family unit.
Intentional parenting inside the small windows has been left in the hands of caregivers.
Instead of the classroom remaining a place of learning, it has become the only home children know.
Ohore Emmanuel Ufuoma is an MBA student at Tokat Gaziosmanpaşa University, Turkey
By Quintin Roberts
When banks and financial institutions upgrade their physical security systems, they are making decisions that will affect operations for years. Branch formats are changing, cyber risks are increasing, and security teams are being asked to support more sites, more data, and more business functions. The challenge is keeping pace with change in a way that holds up over time.
A modern physical security strategy needs to go beyond protection. It needs to give teams a clearer view across branches, support consistent governance, and provide the flexibility to adapt as technology and operational needs change. The following considerations focus on foundational choices that help banks build security operations that are resilient and can grow with the business.
Choose open architecture to preserve long-term flexibility
Banks and financial institutions often manage a mix of legacy systems, newer technologies, and location-specific requirements. A proprietary system can limit scalability, options for devices, and which systems can connect across the organisation. Over time, this can increase costs and make it harder to modernise without replacing infrastructure that still has value.
Open architecture gives decision-makers more choice and preserves flexibility. It allows financial institutions to select the cameras, access control devices, sensors, analytics, and other technologies that best fit each location and adapt them as their needs change.
This allows teams to modernise in phases. For example, an institution may standardise video management across many sites while keeping existing cameras in place, then replace hardware over time.
Decide how to deploy your security system
Some banks want to keep core systems on-premises at major sites. Others prefer cloud-managed services for smaller branches, remote locations, or new sites that need faster deployment and less local infrastructure. Many need a mix of both. Deployment flexibility gives them the freedom to choose where systems run, how data is stored, and how services are managed.
This is especially important for institutions with different regulatory requirements, bandwidth limitations, and internal IT policies. A flexible deployment model helps banks modernise at their own pace while maintaining control over performance, cybersecurity, compliance, and cost.
Unify operations to improve visibility across branches
Managing video surveillance, access control, intrusion, and other systems separately slows down response time and makes investigations harder. Operators may need to sign into different applications, search through data in different ways, and manually piece together what happened. Across hundreds of branches, these inefficiencies can add up quickly.
A unified security platform gives teams one operating picture across systems and sites. A local team can respond faster to an incident at a single location, while a central security operations centre can monitor trends, support remote sites, and apply consistent procedures across the network.
A unified system that creates a shared context makes incorporating analytics or AI-driven capabilities more effective, further accelerating searches, identifying patterns, and reducing overall investigation time.
Put cybersecurity and governance at the forefront
Physical security systems are connected to the broader IT environment. Devices all need to be managed as part of the bank’s cyber risk profile. If systems are outdated or inconsistently configured across branches, they can create unnecessary exposure and make long-term management harder. When cybersecurity and governance are a foundational part of the system, encryption, authentication, user permissions, system updates, audit trails, retention policies, and privacy controls are applied consistently across locations.
A centralised approach makes this consistency sustainable. It provides accountability for banks, helping teams keep track of who accessed which systems, who changed permissions, how long video is retained, and how evidence is shared. This is important for meeting regulatory expectations and adapting security operations over time. Further, consistent policies make organisational risk management more effective by standardising how risk is handled across the organisation, adding to future resilience.
Automate workflows for better risk mitigation and investigations
Investigations often involve information from several systems and locations. A suspicious ATM transaction may need to be matched with video, or an access event may need to be reviewed alongside intrusion activity. If that information sits in separate systems, investigations take longer and are harder to document.
Unified systems connect the relevant context across video, access control, license plate recognition, and other systems. This supports faster investigations and helps teams share evidence internally or with law enforcement while maintaining the chain of custody.
Improve business operations using physical security data
Physical security systems collect valuable operational data every day, from occupancy levels to device health. A unified platform can turn this data into useful insights, helping security teams identify recurring issues and improve resource planning. Other departments can use the same information to improve customer experience, branch operations, and facility management.
For example, occupancy and queue data help banks understand when branches are busiest. Device health monitoring enables teams to identify maintenance needs before systems fail. And with centralised reporting, leadership can see patterns across the full branch network rather than relying on isolated site-level reports.
Making the right choices for the long term
As banks modernise their physical security infrastructure, long-term resilience will depend on foundational choices. Strategies based on open architecture, deployment flexibility, unification, cybersecurity, governance, and data all help financial institutions build systems that can adapt well into the future.
Quintin Roberts is the Regional Sales Manager for Genetec Africa
