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The Street Hawking Test: AfCFTA, AU, ECO, ECOWAS, Human Rights & WAMZ

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Street Hawking

By Nneka Okumazie

Any policy in sub-Saharan Africa, by any government or union of nations, that does not mitigate or deject street hawking, is probably good for the optics, policymakers, or those benefitting from the regular gatherings – to nowhere.

Street hawking should be appalling to any African government, union, state, or region, as something to solve, or stop – not by chasing them from their spots.

Sub-Saharan Africa is vitiated by catastrophic poverty, which the bottom or close to, is street hawking, or selling in road traffic.

People are helpless. It is hard to feed. They have to keep buying things in a market that prices continue to rise. Some children have to hawk. Some have to run in traffic, expending energy, selling stuff, sometimes at really low margins.

It is easy to blame the poor, or to feel they are exactly responsible for where they are, but that is not always the case.

Those born poor are likely to live and die poor – in a country or continent – with policies that do nothing for the poor.

Maybe that’s the reason poverty has conspicuously increased.

Yes, there are more investments and growing democracies.

Some people are likely to get out of poverty through education and honest work, but the complications of underdevelopment dilutes what should be obvious and collective success against it.

There has always been a disconnection between policy and poverty.

It is almost like anything can be done without consideration for how it would perceptibly – and persistently – lift people out of poverty.

It is true that investment creates new jobs, but for many, their expenditures or economic uncertainties catches up with the new income, leaving them struggling, in debt and seeking shortcuts or new opportunities.

This low variance economic mobility makes direct action against poverty, necessary, in Africa – using capitalistic models.

Many people have different understanding or definition of what it means to be poor, therefore it is better to look at those hawking against a new policy and how it makes them stop.

If any region wants a new currency, no problem, but how does it reduce street hawking?

There are already multiple countries in sub-Saharan Africa using the same currency.

There are some using two currencies.

The problem is not currency, though there are ways it would help. But how does a uniform currency discourage or reduce street hawking?

Even the AfCFTA – in its infancy – how does it reduce street hawking?

Some Africans in other continents hawk, maybe not with stuff on the head, but holding on the hand, going from place to place.

Some don’t hawk but sell on the floor – in a pattern – outside the norm of the society.

What many of the host nations see with that is used to judge the continent and other people of the same colour.

This shows that hawking has been seen, by many, as the only way to survive, knowing nothing else.

Assuming hawking had been fought by prosperity, or productivity models against poverty, maybe that would not be so, for many Africans.

For those poor, helpless, uncertain, finding themselves in situation of despair and despondency, but believe in the Lord. They should remember:

[Isaiah 3:10, Say ye to the righteous, that [it shall be] well [with him]: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings.]

Dipo Olowookere is a journalist based in Nigeria that has passion for reporting business news stories. At his leisure time, he watches football and supports 3SC of Ibadan. Mr Olowookere can be reached via [email protected]

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Leading on the Road and Across Cultural Lines: Tips for Success

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Isoken Aigbomian Tips for Success

By Isoken Aigbomian

I’ve been asked in the past about the most demanding challenges I’ve faced in my career, and I say one of them is transitioning from implementation leadership to strategy leadership. As a fantastic salesperson, there is a good chance you will never leave ‘sales mode’.  You will always find yourself trying to create connections you can leverage later at every event or process. When you take up a more strategic role, you are less on the field and more in the drawing room, building frameworks that will be communicated to your team for implementation.

In Nigeria’s fast-evolving sales landscape, managing teams across multiple states and regions gives me a fantastic opportunity to challenge myself and grow. As the Regional Manager overseeing sales teams in the various areas, I have had to develop strategies that ensure seamless operations, meet sales targets, and drive consistent performance. In this article, I’ll share the key strategies that have helped me excel in managing sales teams across Nigeria’s diverse regions.

1. Build Trust Through Transparent Communication

Effective communication is at the heart of any successful sales team. Given the geographical spread of my team, it was crucial to establish a culture of open and transparent communication. Regular virtual meetings, calls, and on-site visits allow me to ensure alignment across all teams, discuss ongoing sales opportunities, share best practices, and address any concerns promptly. Clear communication has helped me maintain a unified approach towards achieving regional and organisational sales goals. My go-to communication style is the ‘feedback communication’ style: this way, I am assured that my audience understands the information I have passed and can communicate it to their direct reports without losing anything.

2. Understand Regional Diversity and Build Strategies That Fit into the Market Nuances

The level of diversity in a country like Nigeria is incredible. Each region in Nigeria has distinct market conditions, customer preferences, and even business practices (formal and informal). Understanding these nuances has been key to tailoring my sales strategies. For example, consumer behavior in Lagos may differ significantly from Kano or Port Harcourt, so being attuned to regional trends allows me to customize the sales approach and messaging for each area. By fostering a deep understanding of local markets, I can guide my team to more effective sales tactics that resonate with our target customers. I know that in the East, on Mondays, economic activities are slower than in other regions, while in Kano, on Fridays, economic activities are slower. This knowledge helps me create better strategies that will yield the best results.

3. Build a Cohesive Team and Empower Local Sales Leaders

Effective delegation and empowerment are essential in managing a large sales team across multiple regions. One thing I focus on is identifying strong local leaders within each region who understand the unique challenges and opportunities of their area. When hiring sales managers, this is an important skill and expectation for me because you will work closely with me to ensure the implementation of the processes. By empowering them to take ownership of their respective regions, I foster leadership skills and ensure that decisions are made with the regional context in mind. This boosts accountability and enhances sales outcomes.

4. Leverage Technology to Drive Sales and Collaboration

It’s 2025, and salespeople no longer use a Rolodex because the digital age has given us fantastic technology to create, build and manage relationships. I rely on CRM systems, project management tools, and sales dashboards to ensure that performance is consistently tracked, goals are monitored, and key data points are easily accessible. These tools enable seamless collaboration between regions and ensure that all sales teams have the resources and support they need to succeed. I also ensure that my team gets training at different levels to keep the team positively engaged and up-to-date with the latest product offerings and sales techniques.

5. Lead by Example and Drive Results

As a Sales Regional Manager, it’s important to me that I lead from the front. I prioritise actively participating in key sales meetings, setting high standards, and driving sales performance myself. By leading by example—meeting sales targets, demonstrating product knowledge, or resolving customer concerns—I inspire my team to perform at their best consistently. This has helped create a culture of accountability and high performance within the team. While setting budgets for my team, I also set budgets for myself and reinforce the culture of self-accountability, grit and technical depth.

Managing multiple teams across different regions comes with its own set of unique challenges, but by focusing on clear communication, understanding regional market dynamics, empowering local leadership, leveraging technology, and leading by example, I have been able to drive consistent success. Ultimately, sales leadership is about aligning regional efforts with broader organizational goals, and with the right strategies in place, any sales leader can excel in this dynamic role.

Isoken Aigbomian is a Regional Sales Manager, Enterprise Network Sales Division at Moniepoint Inc

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The Legal Illusion of Ownership: Why AI-Generated Content Cannot Be Protected by Copyright Law

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AI-Generated Content Somadina Eugene-Okorie

By Somadina Eugene-Okorie Esq

In the rapidly evolving intersection between technology and creativity, one fundamental misunderstanding is becoming dangerously widespread, and it is the belief that a person can claim legal copyright ownership over content, be it music, movies, articles, or any other expressive work generated through artificial intelligence.

This notion not only misrepresents the intent and scope of copyright law but also opens the floodgates to legal liability, particularly for copyright infringement and misappropriation.The question is deceptively simple: Can one claim copyright over a body of work generated using artificial intelligence?

Now, as a patent and copyright law expert, the unequivocal legal and philosophical answer is no.

This article therefore undertakes a detailed examination of above subject, and is grounded in statutory interpretation, international legal developments, and a proper understanding of how AI functions.

  1. Copyright: A Protection of Original Human Expression

At the heart of copyright law lies a central tenet which is originality. The legal doctrine is not concerned with mere novelty or surface-level uniqueness; rather, it seeks to protect expressions that are the product of human intellect and effort. It is this personal investment of creative labour that qualifies a work for copyright protection.

Under Section 2 of the Nigerian Copyright Act, 2022, only works that satisfy specific conditions are eligible for copyright. These include literary works, musical compositions, artistic works, audiovisual works, sound recordings, and broadcasts.

However, Section 2(2) makes it explicitly clear that two essential requirements must be fulfilled:

  1. Original character: In this context some effort must have been exerted in making the work to give it original quality;
  2. Fixation: The work must be reduced into a tangible or perceptible medium from which it can be reproduced or communicated.

In the absence of these twin criteria, a musical or artistic work, regardless of its aesthetic appeal, cannot be deemed copyrightable under Nigerian law.

  1. AI and the Illusion of Originality

Artificial intelligence, particularly generative AI, operates by ingesting vast amounts of existing data ranging from text, music, images, video, and code which are scraped from the internet and other digital repositories. It identifies linguistic, auditory, or visual patterns, then recombines them into content that appears novel. But appearance is not substance in law.

The machine does not create; rather it derives. It does not originate; it rather synthesizes.

And those notes, the implications are significant. Because the output of AI models is fundamentally non-original, being algorithmically assembled from pre-existing human work.Hence, such content fails to meet the originality standard of copyright law. Moreover, because these models depend on training data that often includes copyrighted materials, without obtaining licenses or permissions, AI-generated content are therefore not just unoriginal, but potentially infringing.

Thus, any person claiming authorship over such works is not just misunderstanding the law; they are possibly implicating themselves in intellectual property theft an act that is punishable before the law.

III. Artificial Works vs Copyrighted Works: A Fundamental Legal Divide

There is a legal wall of separation between copyrighted works and what we now call “artificial works.”

Copyrighted works:

  • Are authored by humans.
  • Bear the imprint of original thought.
  • Reflect creative choices in expression, form, and structure.
  • Can be clearly attributed to a person or group with identifiable intent.

Artificial works, by contrast:

  • Are generated via algorithms based on patterns in pre-existing data.
  • Lack personal creative input.
  • Cannot be said to originate from any identifiable human author.
  • Are inherently derivative and frequently simulate the work of real artists.

This dichotomy is not just theoretical; it is embedded in legal systems globally, including Nigeria, the United States, and the European Union.

  1. A Precedence: Michael Smith and the First AI-Generated Music Fraud Prosecution

In a landmark case that underscores the danger of conflating AI output with original work, a North Carolina man Michael Smith was indicted in September 2024 by US federal prosecutors. According to the prosecution, Smith allegedly used artificial intelligence to generate “hundreds of thousands” of songs, which he then streamed via automated bots to fraudulently collect the sum of over $10 million in royalties since 2017.

This is according to the indictment unsealed by Damian Williams, a U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and the FBI, which marked the first ever criminal case for AI-assisted streaming fraud. But more critically, Smith’s real offense according to the prosecution, wasn’t simply streaming artificial music, it was copyright fraud and infringement. Prosecutors argued that the AI-generated songs unlawfully utilized material derived from copyrighted content of existing artists, thus constituting theft under intellectual property law.

This case sets a precedent that is likely to reverberate globally. It sends a clear message that using AI to generate content that mimics or remixes copyrighted work is not innovation, rather it is infringement.

  1. Nigeria’s Emerging AI-Creative Landscape: A Legal Vacuum with Consequences

Nigeria is not immune to the allure of AI. From AI-generated Afrobeats album released in 2023 to synthetic voiceovers in Nollywood scripts, to recent AI-generated movies, creators are increasingly inviting machines into the creative process. However, more disturbing is the fact that Nigeria currently lacks a detailed legal framework on AI-generated works, creating a dangerous grey zone.

But this legal lacuna does not render creators immune. As explained earlier, Nigeria’s Copyright Act 2022 is more than sufficient to prosecute individuals who lay copyright claims to AI-generated works. If it can be shown that such works were copied from existing copyrighted materials, liability attaches immediately, even if the copying was done by an AI tool.

Thus, artists, producers, and studios experimenting with AI must understand thatthe lack of express AI regulation is not a license to infringe. You may not be the original infringer, but by adopting and publishing the work as your own, you assume responsibility for any infringement therein.

  1. Copyright is Not Registration, it is Originality

Many erroneously believe that securing copyright registration grants ownership. However, copyright does not arise from registration. It arises from human original creation. To this end, registration is merely evidentiary, used to assert and protect rights already earned.

Consequently, registering an AI-generated song with a collecting society or copyright body does not legalize the ownership. It only creates a false veneer of legitimacy, which can easily collapse under scrutiny in law.

As such, even if an AI-assisted song is “registered” and earns revenue through streaming platforms or publishers, the artist remains vulnerable to lawsuits or criminal charges once original creators can identify traces of their work in the AI output.

In Conclusion: Human Creativity Cannot Be Automated, And Neither Can Its Protections

The conversation about AI and intellectual property must not be driven by novelty or convenience, but by the legal and moral foundations of creativity. Copyright exists to encourage the labor of the mind and the spirit. It cannot be claimed over soulless patterns, no matter how harmonious they may sound.

Artists, content creators, and developers must therefore tread carefully. Embracing AI is not inherently wrong, but claiming authorship or ownership over what is essentially a machine-generated remix of human labour is not only a misreading of copyright law, it is an invitation to litigation, financial loss, and public scandal.

In the end, the law is clear: You cannot own what you did not originally create.

NB: This article is for educational and information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For individual cases, consult a licensed intellectual property attorney.

Somadina Eugene-Okorie Esq, an Advocate, Intellectual Property/Business Solicitor, writes from Lekki, Lagos Nigeria

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Ilorin Durbar 2025: A Living Proof of Unity in Diversity

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Ilorin Durbar 2025

By  Yahaya Yahaya

The 2025 Ilorin Emirate Durbar, held on the third day of Eid al-Adha (June 9, 2025), was more than just a spectacle of horses, culture, and colour. It was a public reaffirmation of who Ilorin is — a city of layered identities, rooted in faith, and grounded in the unshakable unity of its people.

This year’s theme, Unity in Diversity, wasn’t just a slogan. It reflected a living reality — that Ilorin is, and has always been, a city where different cultures, languages, and histories are not just tolerated, but embraced and interwoven. From the palace to the old city interiors, from the processions to the pavilions, the Durbar reminded everyone that Ilorin is a place where Yoruba, Fulani, Baruba, Nupe, Hausa, Kanuri and other communities have lived as one for generations — not in theory, but in practice.

The story of Ilorin stretches back over 200 years, and its evolution into an Emirate is one of the most remarkable examples of how faith and diversity can shape governance and culture. As a frontier city that blended Islamic scholarship with existing traditions, Ilorin grew into a unique urban centre — one that values its religious leadership while still preserving local customs and language.

The early 19th century saw Ilorin become a prominent Islamic Emirate under the spiritual influence of Shehu Alimi, whose legacy still shapes the moral and religious identity of the city today. But what made Ilorin distinct was its ability to absorb and unify — Nupe scholars, Baruba warriors, Kanuri settlers, Hausa traders, and indigenous families all found space within Ilorin’s expanding civic and spiritual structure. That inclusive spirit is not symbolic — it is practical. It is how the city was formed and how it has endured.

That unity has been tested. The battles of Ita Kudimo and Ita Ogunbo remain a key part of Ilorin’s collective memory — episodes where the city had to defend itself from the combined forces of the old Oyo empire and Baruba’s to the North. One of the most striking historical accounts describes an attack launched during Eid prayers — a moment when the city was supposed to be at rest. But Ilorin’s defenders rallied, repelled the invasion, and reasserted their control. These were not just military victories. They became defining moments in the city’s identity — a declaration that Ilorin will always stand together when it matters most.

Durbar, today, is not a re-enactment of those events — but it is a reminder. It reminds us that the unity we celebrate was built through sacrifice, discipline, and shared purpose. And every year, when the Emir emerges from the palace and proceeds through the old city, it is more than a ceremonial ride — it is a public recommitment to the bond between the throne and the people.

This year’s Durbar retained that sacred character. The Emir was led through streets not protected by military convoys, police barricades, or armed escorts — but by his traditional guards, holding only whips. There were no sirens. No armoured vehicles. Because in Ilorin, the people are the protection. The Emir doesn’t need to be shielded from his people — he is shielded by them. That’s not a gesture; it’s a relationship built over centuries.

Another defining feature of this year’s Durbar was the emergence of aso-ebi as a tool for community organisation. Uniform fabrics — chosen by families, streets, associations, or entire districts — were not just a fashion statement. They were a social framework. Planning for aso-ebi required weeks of conversation, coordination, and contribution. In the process, families abroad reconnected with those at home, groups met regularly, tailors got to work, and the community got busy. The result? The city didn’t just look united. It was united.

Durbar 2025 also showcased the impact of youth participation. Young people led media coverage, coordinated logistics, and documented the festival with fresh energy and modern storytelling. The festival was livestreamed and shared globally in real time, with clips and commentary flooding social media from Oja-Oba to London. Ilorin showed that it could hold on to its traditions without closing the door to innovation.

Through all of this, one thing remains true: Ilorin works not because it has one culture, but because it honours all of them. It is held together not by uniformity, but by a shared sense of meaning. While many other societies struggle with managing diversity, Ilorin simply lives it — through prayer, through leadership, and through moments like the Ilorin Durbar.

The 2025 edition was not without its logistical challenges — a festival of this scale always has some. But what it had in abundance was purpose, pride, and peace. And in a country still searching for models of cohesion, Ilorin has quietly offered one, year after year.

As the sun set over the city and the Emir returned to the palace, there was a quiet sense of satisfaction across the emirate. Another Durbar, successfully delivered. Another message, clearly sent. And the people — from Sabo Oke to Gambari, from Okelele to Pakata — all knew: this is ours.

Ilorin Durbar 2026 is already in sight. And if the story remains the same — of unity, order, and belonging — then the next chapter will be even stronger.

And in Ilorin, we don’t just look forward to it. We begin preparing now.

Yahaya Yahaya (Magayaki of Uke, Nasarawa State) writes from Ilorin

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