Feature/OPED
Diamond Bank: Battling for Survival Under Uzoma Dozie

By Bamidele Ogunwusi
The last four years have not been years with more of good news for Diamond Bank, one of Nigeria’s wholly indigenous banks that emerged in the banking architecture of the country in December 1990.
Since it started operations in 1991, the bank has challenged the market environment by introducing new products, innovative technology and setting new benchmarks through international standards. At a point, the bank was Nigeria’s fastest growing retail bank.
For fourteen years, the bank was under the control of its founder, Mr Pascal Dozie, who was also the Chief Executive Officer of the bank. The fourteen years, according to many stakeholders, were the formative years of the bank and the bank indeed rose to the occasion churning out several innovations.
He relinquished the Chief Executive position to Mr Emeka Onwuka at the end of 2005. His exit would however be heralded with improved performance of the bank, which recorded a profit of N5.445 billion for the year 2005.
Onwuka, who took over effectively from January 2006 and handed it over to Alex Otti in 2011 and later to the son of the founder, Uzoma Dozie in March 2014.
The Otti’s years as Managing Director of the bank was referred to as the golden era and the most productive in the history of the bank.
Diamond Bank in Numbers
The period between 1991 and 2000, the bank tried to make its mark in the murky waters of the banking industry in the country and from 2000 the bank began to see improvements in its performance.
In 2001, the bank reported a loss after tax of N467.819 million while there was an improvement in its performance the following year when it reported a loss after tax of N134.960 million. This greatly improved in 2003 when it posed a profit after tax of N903.411 million.
This steadily grew to N7.086 billion at the end of 2007 financial year. It was N2.508 billion in 2004, N5.44 billion in 2005 and N3.977 billion in 2006.
This leaped to N12.821 billion in 2008, while bad loans brought the operations of the bank on its knees in the subsequent two financial years when profit dropped to N1.328 billion in 2009, a loss of N11.214 billion in 2010, another loss after tax of N13.940 billion in 2011.
There was, however, a resurgence in 2012 when the bank posted a profit after tax of N22.108 billion , the first full year in the Alex Otti’s leadership of the bank.
Under Dr. Otti’s leadership, Diamond Bank made a remarkable return to profitability with impressive growth across all performance indicators year-on-year.
After writing off toxic risk assets, which resulted in the loss of N16 billion in 2011, the lender posted a profit before tax of N28.36 billion in 2012 and N32.5 billion in 2013. The bank also saw its total assets rise from N564.9 billion in February 2011 to N1.18 trillion by December 31, 2012 and N1.52 trillion on December 31, 2013.
He is credited with creating the office of the Chief Risk Officer and designating an Executive Director to head the department. He also spear-headed the expansion of the bank by doubling the full staff count from around 2,000 in 2010 to over 4,000 as at mid-2014, even as he vigorously grew the bank’s footprints from a network of 210 branches in 2011 to over 265 branches three years later. It was also under his watch that the bank established an international subsidiary in the United Kingdom, in addition to expansion in Francophone West Africa (Senegal, Togo, and Ivory Coast).
It is to be noted that the Central Bank only recently classified the bank as one of the eight systematically important banks in Nigeria under his watch.
Since the current MD, Uzoma Dozie took over the leadership of the bank in March 2014; the bank’s fortune has been nose-diving.
Many saw his emergence as desperation on the side of the Dozie’s family to ensure that the leadership of the bank returns to the family.
Pascal Dozie was the Executive Director in charge of Lagos Businesses between 2011 and 2013 until his appointment as Deputy Managing Director in April 2013 and charged with the responsibility of overseeing the Retail Banking Directorate of the Bank.
He has attended various specialist and executive development courses in Nigeria and overseas
Following the resignation of Alex Otti, Uzoma Dozie was unanimously appointed by the Board as the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Bank effective November 1, 2014 while the appointment was approved by the Central Bank of Nigeria in December 2014.
In 2015, the bank’s profit after tax went down from N28.36 billion to N5.656 billion. It went down further to N3.499 billion in 2016 and a loss of N9.011 billion in 2017.
In 2017, noticing that it could no longer continue to cope with losses from its subsidiaries, the bank sold its West African operations in Benin, Togo, Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal to Manzi Finances S.A., a Cote d’Ivoire-based financial services holding company.
The bank said the sale of these operations was to enable it focus its resources exclusively on Nigeria as it is poised to capitalise on the positive macro fundamentals inherent in the Nigerian market.
Commenting on the transaction, Diamond Bank’s CEO Uzoma Dozie said: “After 18 years of building the Diamond Bank franchise in other markets in West Africa, the time has come to fully apply our resources to Nigeria. This, Dozie said aligns with Diamond Bank’s strategic objective: to be the fastest growing and most profitable technology-driven retail banking franchise in Nigeria”.
Aside the sale of these operations, the bank is also on the verge of selling its United Kingdom’s operations.
The lender struck a deal with British industrialist, Sanjeev Gupta, earlier this year, after selling its West African subsidiaries last year.
In May, Diamond Bank posted a 2017 loss, its first time in the red in six years after selling assets to conserve capital and to focus on its home market.
Its half-year 2018 pre-tax profit declined by 69 per cent to N2.92bn, hurting its shares, which further fell by 1.60 per cent on Tuesday.
The bank said it expected loan growth to return; growing five per cent this year after credit declined in the first half by 3.6 per cent.
A Bank in Coma
With the latest S&P Global Ratings downgrade of Diamond Bank, it is evident that the fortunes of the bank, which was once one of Nigeria’s top banks about a decade ago has strangely deteriorated into a bank in a coma.
Diamond Bank was downgraded On Weaker-Than-Expected Asset Quality; Outlook Negative
S&P believes that the bank’s provisioning needs will be higher than it initially expected, which will put pressure on the bank’s capitalisation.
Additionally, its foreign-currency liquidity position also remains vulnerable, due to a large upcoming Eurobond maturity in May 2019.
“As a result, we are lowering our global scale ratings on Diamond Bank to ‘CCC+/C’ from ‘B-/B’ and our Nigeria national scale ratings to ‘ngBB-/ngB’ from ‘ngBBB-/ngA-3’.
The negative outlook reflects pressure on the bank’s capitalization and foreign-currency liquidity,” The foremost rating agency said.
The rating action by S&P considers Diamond Bank to be currently dependent on favorable business, financial, and economic conditions to meet its financial obligations.
It said it believed that the bank will have to set aside higher provisions than they initially expected, following the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standard No. 9 (IFRS 9), which implies weaker asset quality than expected and exerts significant pressure on the bank’s capitalization,” The report said
It went further to say that “Following the bank’s successful disposal of its West African subsidiaries, and imminent disposal of its U.K. subsidiary, it expects it to convert its license into a national banking license. The license conversion would mean a lower minimum capital adequacy ratio (10% versus 15% currently) and lower risk of breach. However, the timing is uncertain, and it considers that there is significant pressure on its capital position. Moreover, four of the bank’s 13 board members have resigned recently, which could create instability if left unresolved in the near term.
“As at Dec. 31, 2017, the bank’s regulatory capital adequacy ratio reached 16.7 per cent. It dropped to 16.3 per cent in Sept. 30, 2018, on the back of IFRS 9 implementation and amortization of tier-2 capital instruments. The initial implementation of IFRS 9 resulted in the bank taking a Nigerian naira (NGN) 2.5 billion (approximately $7 million) deduction from retained earnings at June 30, 2018.”
The agency believes that the bank will have to take higher provisions for IFRS 9, using the N31 billion of regulatory risk reserves that it holds under the local prudential guidelines. Based on peers’ experience and the bank’s weak asset-quality indicators, it estimate the impact will significantly exceed the regulatory risk reserves and estimates that their risk-adjusted capital (RAC) ratio will reach 3.4%-3.9 per cent in the next 12-24 months compared with 5.3 per cent at year-end 2017.
The impact, according to S&P, will be somewhat tempered by the capital gain when the sale of the bank’s U.K. subsidiary is finalized.
“We expect the bank’s credit losses to average 5 per cent over the same period, while nonperforming loans (NPLs; including impaired loans and loans more than 90 days overdue but not impaired) will remain above 35% in the next 12-24 months after reaching 40 per cent at Sept. 30, 2018.
“Overall, we think the bank will display losses in the next 12-24 months. In May 2019, Diamond Bank will have to repay its maturing Eurobond principal of $200 million. The bank plans to use its foreign-currency liquidity and the proceeds from the sale of its U.K. subsidiary for the repayment, among other sources. Any delays or unexpected developments could exert downward pressure on the ratings.
”Following the recent resignation of board members, the bank could face some outflows of deposits, but the granularity of its deposit base and its historically good retail franchise are mitigating factors.
“The negative outlook reflects the pressure on the bank’s capitalization from weaker-than-expected asset-quality indicators and on its foreign-currency liquidity due to a large upcoming maturity in May 2019. We could lower the ratings if provisioning needs proves higher than what we currently expect, leading to a decline in capitalization as measured by our RAC ratio (below 3%) or a breach in the local regulatory requirements.”
Financial experts believe that the declaration by S&P may have further put the bank in a more precarious situation and many are calling on the management to look into the system of the bank and proffer solution.
Cyril Ampka, an Abuja-based financial expert, believes that the dwindling fortune of the bank was not unconnected with the decision of the “owners” of the bank to keep the management of the bank in the family.
“If you look at the time the bank started having this problem you will see that it coincide with the emergence of Mr Uzoma Dozie as the Managing Director of the bank. The decision of the owners of the bank to still keep leadership of the bank within the family is not favourable to the fortune of the bank,” he said.
Though the bank claimed it now controls 40 per cent of the volume of Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) transactions in the banking sector but there are indications that the bank is losing several of its clients in most parts of the South-East and South-South to another Tier 2 bank.
No Merger Talk
Reacting to a report that the bank is in discussion with Access Bank over a possible merger or takeover, Uzoma Uja, Diamond Bank’s Company Secretary, said it was not in discussion with any financial institution at the moment on any form of merger or acquisition.
Uja said that the attention of Diamond Bank had been drawn to the rumour in the media stating that the bank was purportedly in discussion with Access Bank to acquire the bank.
“We wish to state categorically that the bank is not in discussion with any financial institution at the moment on any form of merger or acquisition.
“We trust that the above clarifies the position of the bank with regards to the rumour on the various media platforms,” Uja said.
However, recent analysis by proshare had revealed a concern around the survival of the bank and the need for the CBN to act decisively on its financial stability mandate; given the disposition and realities of its Tier 1 banks, a few that had its own hands full in dealing with legacy challenges apart from new operating environmental issues.
The bank had to content with a CBN levy over a disputed role with regards to MTN Nigeria causing it to issue a notice on CBN Levy on the London Stock Exchange on Sep 07, 2018
Sometime later in September 2018, as the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) issued letters and was set to suspend Skye Bank, Unity Bank and Fortis Microfinance for non-submission of its financials in violation of the post-listing rules. A day before the ultimatum expired, the CBN Governor wrote in to ask the NSE to stay action on these institutions because the CBN was involved in serious discussions for which such an action by the NSE may complicate/jeopardize.
It noted that the withdrawal of license of Skye Bank Plc, and issuing a new one to Polaris Bank, equally left a lot of unanswered questions about the investor protection mandate of the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) and of NSE’s observance of its post listing rules which, at the heart of it, dealt with the investor-market trust and integrity issue.
Consequently, it observed that if in the case of the stress test conducted by CBN, which they found out had three (3) banks failing the minimum regulatory liquidity ratio of 30%, but that the non-disclosure of the names of such banks in a controlled manner presented signaling challenges.
“If in the case of Diamond Bank, with its sheer size and base, has its capital eroded due to huge NPLs with no proactive approach to its resolution plans; and continues to engage in communications juggling, what signals should the markets pick from the state of affairs of such an institution?”
The hole created in the capital gap is quite huge and to fill the hole will require, according to the analysts. Significant haircut from the CBN; Forbearance of accounts (including NPL’s) against the bank; and A fresh injection of capital that could easily come from an ‘acquisition’.
Note: The headline of this story was cast by Business Post but the article was culled from Daily Independent Newspaper
Feature/OPED
Investing in Women: A Catalyst for Change in Africa

Empowering women is about more than justice, gender equality and human rights. It is the most effective way to improve standards of living for entire communities – especially in emerging economies.
As the world marks International Women’s Day (IWD) this month, it is an ideal time to reflect on the value of empowering women for all of society – not to mention the next generation of women.
A report by the International Labour Organisation determined that, “at a basic level, women’s employment, paid and unpaid, may be the single most important factor for keeping many households out of poverty.”
This is because – as other studies have found – women are more likely than men to invest a large proportion of their income to educate their children. Therefore, as women enter the workforce in greater numbers and earn higher salaries, more is spent on children’s education, including girls’ education. This can then lead to an ongoing cycle of better education for future generations of women.
Pan-African entertainment group MultiChoice Africa is well positioned to support this process of empowering women through training in the media and entertainment sector.
The organisation has long shown a deep commitment to promoting diversity, and its preferential procurement policies are intentionally aimed at empowering women. MultiChoice Africa invests in building a gender-balanced workforce through strategic recruitment and people development – and this has borne fruit.
Today, the group provides entertainment and consumer services to 20.9m subscribers across sub-Saharan Africa. It produced 6 502 hours of local content last year, with more than 30 local content channels across 10 markets. The group has customers across 49 markets in sub-Saharan Africa and adjacent islands through DStv and GOtv, and its linear OTT service DStv Stream.
This continent-wide penetration has been achieved with a workforce made up of 48% women employees – up from 47% in 2023 – and 43% female representation in senior management positions.
MultiChoice spent ZAR90 million on the training and development of women staff in 2024 through initiatives like its Advancing Women Mentorship Programme. This initiative offers select groups of women the chance to attend masterclasses with executives, as well as networking sessions, mentorships and expert classes to enhance their technological and management skills.
In addition, since 2012, the MultiChoice Innovation Fund has disbursed ZAR407 million in loans, grants, and business-development expenses, specifically targeting black women and youth-owned businesses in fintech, edutech, healthtech, HR tech and media. To date, 77 black-owned small businesses with at least 50% female, black ownership have benefited, creating more than 1 400 jobs.
The empowerment of women is a direct, purposeful MultiChoice business strategy, brought to life through significant empowerment programmes and budget allocations.
Progress through storytelling
However, as Africa’s most-loved storyteller, MultiChoice Africa sees its fundamental role as being to entertain, inform and empower the African communities that inspire and build the company in return.
In fulfilling this purpose, it works to also empower women through the hyperlocal content it produces for markets across the continent.
In line with the goals of International Women’s Day, MultiChoice aims to achieve full gender equality in its industry, and on the African continent. Indeed, the group is well on the way to achieving that in its workforce and in its content strategy.
The MultiChoice approach is to ensure women have a voice in the media and entertainment industry. It is working to help them acquire the skills to express themselves creatively, and to inspire audiences of millions of African girls and young women.
A powerful platform for achieving this is through the MultiChoice Talent Factory (MTF) academies in three African capitals – Lusaka, Nairobi and Lagos. These institutions provide fully paid annual courses in the fundamentals of TV and filmmaking – everything from screenwriting to directing to sound engineering, editing and producing.
Half of the students intake are females, and their time at MTF sees them equipped to produce films of their own. Many young women filmmakers have produced highly impactful work that has premiered on MultiChoice platforms and won accolades at awards shows across the continent.
Their work is itself an expression of the IWD theme to “Accelerate Action” towards gender equality.
MultiChoice Africa platforms have achieved encouraging gender-transformation successes. The right inputs are being implemented, and they are generating the right outputs.
While more remains to be done right across society before full gender parity has been achieved, the media has shown itself to be a critical platform for shaping perceptions and encouraging change.
At MultiChoice Africa, women have found their voice. They are shaping Africa’s future. And they are doing that through the power of African storytelling.
Feature/OPED
The Challenge Facing 95% of IT Leaders as Regards AI Agents; How to Overcome it

By Linda Saunders
Generative AI has transformed how people interact with technology through prompts, and the next frontier promises an even greater impact. As organisations refine their AI strategies, we are witnessing the next chapter of work and the emergence of digital labour with agentic AI.
Since the launch of Chat GPT many business leaders focused on what they thought was the right topic – the Large Language Models ( LLMs). But these models are quickly becoming a commodity, as each one races to build the best for a specific use case.
To truly unlock value from AI, you need to focus on everything around the model such as the orchestration, the low code / no code approach to building and refining, the metadata framework and a data engine that compliments the data strategy. It’s this platform advantage that is seeing agents across the globe stand up and deliver value with real data, leveraging real integration in a few short weeks.
To unlock the action and value of generative AI requires a deeply integrated and connected platform with a one code base, but this takes significant time and money to build unless you have already been empowering your human employees on the Salesforce platform. Our platform leverages everything you have built to empower your digital workforce. Its a win-win where even for those who are not quite ready for a digital workforce – will be unlocking their ability to pivot to an agentic workforce with every flow, cloud, integration and build – Ultimately future proofing their business.
Agentic technology is a multi-trillion-dollar industry opportunity. The agentic enterprise will operate with unprecedented independence capable of responding to queries and handling complex tasks autonomously. This autonomy will optimise workflows, drive innovation, and break down barriers related to the need for continuous human intervention.
By 2028, Gartner predicts that 33% of enterprise software applications will include agentic AI, up from less than 1% in 2024, allowing 15% of day-to-day work decisions to be made autonomously.
Yet, AI agents are only as good as the data they have. They need connected data—both structured and unstructured—to understand user queries and make informed decisions. That’s where integration and APIs come in, building a solid foundation for these agents.
While 93% of IT leaders are either implementing or planning to implement AI agents within the next two years, they face significant integration challenges that hold back the full potential of these agents.
According to the latest MuleSoft Connectivity Benchmark Report, which surveyed more than 1,000 IT leaders globally, 95% struggle with data integration across systems. On average, only 29% of applications are connected, which really affects the accuracy and usefulness of AI agents.
The report found that, on average, enterprise organisations are using 897 applications, and those with AI agents are using even more—1,103 applications. 90% of IT leaders say data silos are creating business challenges.
The more applications and AI models there are, the harder it gets to integrate everything. Data silos make it even tougher, limiting agents’ access to the data they need and leading to less accurate and useful outputs.
Disconnected data also places major strain on IT resources. IT leaders are looking for ways to boost efficiency and productivity, but they expect their teams’ workload to increase in the next year. Balancing current capabilities with integrating AI agents across hundreds of unique applications while maintaining those systems, is a real challenge.
To unlock the full potential of AI agents, businesses need to align their integration and AI strategies. APIs and integration solutions can simplify and unify data infrastructure, allowing AI agents to access critical data and interact with existing systems and automations. This can significantly improve IT infrastructure, enable data sharing across teams, and integrate disparate systems.
Organisations that have successfully integrated their data and systems using APIs are reaping the rewards: increased productivity (49%), faster response to business needs (49%), and higher revenue generation (45%). On average, half of an organisation’s internal software assets and components are available for reuse, which means companies can leverage their existing investments, instead of starting from scratch.
The reliance on IT teams highlights the need for a clear automation strategy, along with robust governance and monitoring to ensure everything runs smoothly and securely.
A well-rounded automation strategy is crucial for integrating AI effectively, but many teams are still working on theirs. One key part of this strategy is making AI accessible to non-technical users, which is essential for broader adoption and creating a solid foundation for employees to build on, and this is where agents are changing the game.
Every company, team, and employee will soon have an agent. But how useful is a team of agents if they can’t interact with other systems or agents to coordinate and take action across the entire business? AI must have a smooth handoff to a human, and if that transition isn’t well-coordinated and seamless, any benefits are quickly undone
As AI, integration, automation, and API use continue to drive transformation and performance, organisations that invest in these technologies to harness unlimited digital labour are best placed to stay agile, efficient, and ultimately succeed.
Linda Saunders is the country leader and senior director solutions engineering Africa at Salesforce
Feature/OPED
Beyond the Grip of Godfathers in Nigeria’s Politics

By Kayode Awojobi
Democracy, by its very definition, is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. It is a system built on the principles of popular participation, accountability, and governance that reflects the collective will of the electorate.
However, in Nigeria, democracy often takes on a different meaning—one in which a few powerful individuals wield enormous influence over the political process. This phenomenon, commonly referred to as godfatherism, has become an entrenched feature of the country’s political landscape.
The role of political godfathers in Nigeria is complex and often divisive. While some view them as experienced mentors who provide guidance and structure within the political system, others see them as power brokers who prioritize personal gain over the collective good.
Godfathers serve as kingmakers, using their resources and influence to propel candidates into office. Yet, once these candidates assume power, they are often expected to remain loyal to their benefactors, a reality that frequently leads to governance dictated by the interests of a select few rather than the needs of the people.
The influence of godfatherism is not an abstract concept but a lived reality that has shaped political developments in several states across Nigeria.
In Osun State, for instance, the fallout between former Governor Gboyega Oyetola and his predecessor, Rauf Aregbesola, underscored the fragile nature of godfather-protégé relationships.
Initially handpicked as a successor, Oyetola later distanced himself from Aregbesola’s influence, leading to a fierce political battle that ultimately contributed to his loss at the polls.
Similarly, in Oyo State, Governor Seyi Makinde has had to navigate tensions within the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), where certain political figures who played a role in his rise to power later accused him of abandoning party structures.
Perhaps one of the most well-documented cases of political godfatherism in recent years was the dramatic conflict in Edo State between Governor Godwin Obaseki and his former benefactor, Adams Oshiomhole.
Oshiomhole, who had championed Obaseki’s election in 2016, later fell out with him over governance and party control. This dispute culminated in Obaseki’s disqualification from seeking re-election under the All Progressives Congress (APC), forcing him to defect to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), where he secured a second term in office. The episode highlighted the extent to which political godfathers expect loyalty from those they help install, often leading to bitter confrontations when protégés seek independence.
In Rivers State, a similar dynamic is playing out between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his predecessor, Nyesom Wike.
Wike, whose influence was instrumental in Fubara’s emergence as governor, has been accused of attempting to control the new administration from behind the scenes. The power struggle has resulted in political unrest, including an attempt to impeach Fubara and the defection of several lawmakers loyal to Wike.
The situation escalated to the point where President Bola Tinubu declared a state of emergency in Rivers State, suspending Governor Fubara, his deputy Ngozi Odu, and all elected members of the state House of Assembly for six months. Retired Vice Admiral Ibok-Ette Ibas was appointed as the state’s administrator to oversee governance.
This further reinforces the argument that political godfathers, rather than serving as stabilizing forces in governance, often become sources of crisis when their influence is challenged.
To be sure, political mentorship is not inherently a negative concept. In well-functioning democracies, experienced politicians often guide emerging leaders, offering advice and leveraging their networks to ensure effective governance.
However, the Nigerian brand of godfatherism is rarely about mentorship in the true sense of the word. Instead, it is largely about control, an arrangement where those who ascend to political office must remain subservient to their benefactors. This practice undermines democracy by limiting political choices, suppressing independent leadership, and reducing accountability to the electorate.
The continued dominance of godfathers in Nigerian politics raises a critical question: should a few individuals determine the fate of millions, or should the democratic process be allowed to run its course?
Proponents of godfatherism argue that it provides stability, ensures continuity, and helps navigate the complex terrain of Nigerian politics. They contend that without the financial and structural backing of political godfathers, many candidates, especially those without deep pockets, would struggle to compete in elections. In this sense, godfatherism is viewed as a necessary evil in a system where political survival often depends on strong backing.
On the other hand, critics argue that the culture of godfatherism erodes the foundations of democracy, replacing meritocracy with patronage. When candidates owe their political success to an individual rather than the electorate, they are more likely to prioritize the interests of their benefactor over those of the people.
This reality has played out time and again, with governors and other public officials making appointments and policy decisions that serve their godfathers rather than their constituents. The result is governance that is often disconnected from the real needs of the populace.
If Nigeria’s democracy is to mature, there must be a shift from the current model of political patronage to one that prioritizes competence, transparency, and true service to the people. The electorate must become more discerning, resisting the imposition of candidates whose loyalty lies elsewhere. Political parties, too, must work toward greater internal democracy, ensuring that primaries and candidate selections are based on merit rather than the dictates of a few powerful individuals.
The experiences of other nations provide valuable lessons. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela, despite his towering influence, stepped aside to allow new leaders to emerge, ensuring that democracy remained intact beyond his tenure. In the United States, political mentorship exists, but power is not concentrated in the hands of a select few who dictate governance from behind the scenes. These examples suggest that it is possible to balance political influence with democratic principles.
Nigerian political godfathers must rethink their roles. Rather than seeing themselves as puppet masters, they should position themselves as genuine mentors, guiding younger politicians without stifling their independence. They should invest in institutions rather than individuals, ensuring that governance structures remain strong regardless of who is in power.
Ultimately, the power to end the stranglehold of godfatherism lies with the people. The electorate must recognize that their votes are their most potent tool for shaping the future of governance. If voters reject candidates imposed by godfathers and insist on accountability, the culture of political subservience will gradually diminish. Democracy thrives when the will of the people is supreme, not when a handful of individuals determine the political direction of an entire nation.
As Nigeria looks toward future elections, the conversation around godfatherism must shift. It is time to move beyond the era of political overlords dictating governance from the shadows.
The country must embrace a system where leadership is earned, not handed down; where politicians serve the people, not a select few; and where democracy is truly of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Kayode Awojobi is a multiple award-winning broadcast journalist, social and political commentator. He writes from Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State
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