The Wait is Finally Over ! - ARISE Magazine Fashion Week Retruns to Africa

“Africa's up-and-coming fashion designers put on a dazzling show in a
three-day runway event in an unconventional city.” CBS News

"[KlûK CGDT] Drama, emotional, traditional but fresh - each look had its
own story and moment." Vogue Italia Black

"The London fashion world has descended on Lagos to parade the
latest collection to put Nigeria on the fashion map." ITV News

"The gala event was the climax of ARISE Magazine Fashion Week - the
largest event of its kind ever seen on the continent." Telegraph

Due to the phenomenal success of the inaugural ARISE Magazine Fashion Week 2011, where 5,000 guests, 51 designers, 81 models, 5 musical acts performed over three days – ARISE is once again proud to announce that it will return to Lagos in March 2012.

The ARISE Magazine Fashion Week 2012 fashion extravaganza will run for an extended period of SIX days from Tuesday 6th to Sunday 11th March 2012. Once again, ARISE will invite 50 designers to participate in its 2012 Fashion Week show. The much anticipated finale will host the spectacular ARISE Magazine Fashion Awards. The very best of the designers will be invited to participate in the annual ARISE Magazine Fashion Gala at the Mercedes-Benz New York Fashion Week in September 2012.

At last yearʼs AMFW 2011 fashion event SEVEN designers: Lanre Da Silva-Ajayi, Jewel by Lisa, Asibelua, Bunmi Koko, Tsemaye Binitie, Pierre-Antoine Vettorello and KlûK CGDT were given a golden ticket invitation to showcase their designs in September 2011, as part of the Made in Africa by ARISE Magazine Collective at the Avery Fisher Hall, New York.

ARISE Magazine founder Nduka Obaigbena says: “There is a side of Lagos that chimes well with the international fashion scene. We at ARISE Magazine recognise that the city has much to offer in the way of vibrancy and extraordinary talent in abundance making it the cultural capital of Africa. Once more we are proud to be associated with nurturing new designers from the vast continent –
and continuing our support of those who are more well-known in Nigeria and in the diaspora.”
ARISE Magazine launched in 2008 and is Africaʼs first global style and culture title. On the 8th of March 2011, ARISE Magazine hosted its inaugural show in Lagos, where it invited over 50 designers to participate at the prestigious Federal Palace Hotel, Nigeria.
Its most recent show MADE IN AFRICA BY ARISE MAGAZINE (15th September 2011) at the Avery Fisher Hall, New York, received huge acclaims from the media including this quote from Londonʼs Daily Mail: "It was a triumphant show for Ms Da Silva-Ajayi and the African fashion set, also including Jewel by Lisa, Asibelua, Bunmi Koko, Tsemaye Binitie, Pierre-Antoine Vettorello and KlûK CGDT. They threw the cat amongst the pigeons of New York high fashion with an eclectic
mix of bright colours, eye-catching designs and bucket-loads of African attitude."

Previously, ARISE had a successful run of THREE seasons (in 2009, 2010 and 2011) of the ARISE AFRICA FASHION COLLECTIVES at New York Fashion Week's Bryant Park, New York, and the successful sponsorship of the inaugural ARISE AFRICA FASHION WEEK at the Sandton Convention Centre, in Johannesburg and Cape Town in 2009.

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Beyond the Fuel Subsidy: Conversations the Government and the NLC should be having

By Ayodeji Jeremiah

(1) Despite strong economic growths in the past 5 years, our government is broke because there is extreme wastage on recurrent expenditure. Our government is too big and extremely expensive to maintain. Our National Assembly consumes a huge amount of our budget. The president, governors and local government chairmen and their assistants all have expenses that can be curtailed to bring down the cost of government but we don't see this happening. Why?

(2) Nigerians have to come to a realisation that for our government to work, it's time to do away with federal character and ethnic representation. A situation where we constitute a board and insist on having six commissioners on that board representing the six geo-political zones when that board can work effectively with two or three commissioners is unacceptable. Having a federal government with 36 or 42 ministers is unacceptable.

(3) Why is government so unwilling to repair the existing refineries? Each refinery can be repaired within 12 months while a new one can only be built within three years. If the government says there is no money to repair the refineries, how about borrowing money from the World Bank or ADB at reduced rates to do so? If those refineries work, supply will improve and people will be more than willing to allow subsidy removal to pay back such loans. At least, we will know what the government used the money for.

(4) Our Civil Service is bloated, disorganised and non-functional, yet majority of Nigerians continue to subsidise the salaries and financial inefficiencies in this sector. The NLC will not address this situation because it is not politically correct for them to do so. Fighting for N18, 500 minimum wage for less than 5 million Nigerians when majority of Nigerians are in the informal sector working in companies with less than 50 staff where the minimum wage law does not apply to them is not the way for the NLC to go. NLC should be looking at how to engage the government on how to free up resources for the informal sector, how to build new infrastructure and how to sustain our moribund manufacturing industries.

(5) If government is sincere about removal of fuel subsidy, they should give a timeline. E.g.
- Repair of existing refineries - January 2012 - December 2013
- Improvement of Power Supply to at least 10, 000 megawatts – January 2012 - December 2012
- Reduction of staff, salaries and expenditure in the Civil Service including both political and non-political office holders – January 2012 - December 2012
- Provision of Mass Transit Schemes - January 2012 - December 2012
- Repair of Railway - January 2012 - December 2013

The monies for the above can come from savings made in (iii) above and from public-private sector partnerships and from soft loans. Rather than collecting loans and mounting up debts to maintain an expensive bureaucracy and government, such loans and debts should be used to build new infrastructure

(6) There will be no 'cabal', no subsidy and corruption will be eliminated in the fuel supply chain if our refineries can work and fuel supply is improved.

(7) The fuel subsidy issue is not just economic and that is where the government got it all wrong. Anyone with A-Level Economics knows this subsidy cannot be maintained but the argument is also moral and political. Nigerians simply do not trust their government to spend the money realised from the subsidy removal wisely. Government should have come out with a detailed expense statement saying this is how and how the money will be spent with derivables clearly stated and dated.

The subsidy is the only thing Nigerians generally see as their gain from the government, removing it arbitrarily was wrong and then the government's damage control activities has been less than satisfactory. The House of Representatives, while they should be commended for their special session convened on Sunday January 8 should also be made to sit up. There are lots of other burning issues that we need their attention on. Playing on our emotions and sentiments should not be allowed, they are also culpable in the issues pertaining to our country. I did not see any statement from them slashing their salaries and bloated allowances.   

If the NLC wants to go on strike, then it should not just focus on getting us back to N65 per litre of petrol. If at the end of the day, negotiations take place and we start buying fuel at N80 or N100 or N120 per litre, then nothing has been achieved.         

Bolaji Akinyemi: Happy Birthday to a Great Nigerian Icon at 70

Professor Akinwande Bolaji Akinyemi was born on 4th January, 1942. He graduated cum laude from Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. in 1964. He holds M.A. (International Affairs) and M. A. (Law and Diplomacy) both from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, U.S. A., 1965 and 1966 respectively. He obtained his D. Phil. from Trinity College, Oxford, in 1969. He was the Director-General, Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Lagos from 1975 – 1983 and Minister of External Affairs, Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1985 – 1986. He has taught at various schools including being Lecturer and Later Senior Lecturer in Political Science, University of Ibadan, Nigeria, 1970-1975; Visiting Professor, Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, 1977; Visiting Professor, Diplomacy Training Programme, University of Nairobi, Kenya, 1977; Regent’s Lecturer, University of California, Los Angeles, California, February 1979; Visiting Overseas Scholar, St. John’s College, Cambridge, 1984 and Professor of Political Science, University of Lagos, 1983-1985. He is a Member, International Advisory Board, Centre for Strategic Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, U.S.A and Member, International Institute of Strategic Studies Committee on Regional Security Studies. He is currently Member, Presidential Electoral Reform Committee and Chairman, Presidential Think Tank, under the current Government of President Yar’ Adua of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Professor Akinyemi is a prolific writer and has authored several books and papers.

How to Transform

By Ituah Ighodalo

If one looks at the world’s ecosystem and the background of creation, one cannot but wonder in amazement at the perfection created by God. As far as I am concerned, the only imperfection in the world today is ironically the creation put in place to rule the earth. I am irrevocably convinced that the source of most of man’s suffering in the world today is man himself (his self centeredness) and his Godlessness. The inability to care about anything but himself alone. For the Black man, the situation is worse; it is very painful for anyone to suffer in a world of outstanding resources freely provided by the Almighty. There is nothing that man needs, that has not been provided; for the Black man it is an absurdity of “water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink”.

I want therefore to share with you a topic I consider important and hopefully life changing. As long as a man keeps limiting his thoughts to himself, as long as he keeps thinking only within himself, he cannot do better than himself, no matter how rich or wealthy he is; he cannot do better than himself and therefore he cannot make giant strides or make outstanding progress in life.

When we limit our lives to ourselves and our thinking doesn’t go beyond self, we literally destroy the lives of other people. No wonder our country Nigeria is going through very critical periods because we are surrounded by people on a daily basis who limit their thinking to themselves and therefore they destroy the lives of others.

About six or seven years ago, in the church, I suddenly got a phone call that one of our sisters was critically ill; so I left everything I was doing and ran to the hospital in Anthony where she was and she was already in a coma. At that time she was a senior member of our Teenage Church about 16 or 17 years old. We took her from that hospital around 8 or 9 pm and rushed her to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH). We got there around 10 pm in the emergency ward only to find that there was only one doctor on duty. Initially they refused to accept this girl because of a certain process. However on my contacting a young man I know in LUTH; she was subsequently admitted. She was then dumped on a small table because there was no bed. There was this small doctor on duty running among the 8 – 10 accident cases, sweating profusely. He will run to one patient, fix something, run to the other one fix another thing. I had to call and draw his attention that this girl needed his attention as he did not pay her any attention since our arrival.

This is supposed to be the primary teaching hospital of this nation. This is the hospital we should call the pride of Nigeria and yet there is only one doctor on duty on emergency with no facilities whatsoever. I was wondering to myself about what happened to Nigeria that things went so bad.
When I was growing up in Ibadan, the University College Hospital, (UCH) Ibadan, was a leading hospital in West Africa, it was the 8th best hospital in the entire world and here we are in LUTH with no facilities and no doctors. The nurses were slow and indifferent. They couldn’t be bothered, and couldn’t care less if somebody was alive or sick. Then suddenly, the doctor announced that we needed blood. So we began looking for  blood, and went all over Surulere. We eventually found 2 pints which she used up immediately. Then there was no more blood from the blood bank, so they said: “who will donate blood? We got those who will donate but there was no blood bag. By now, the time was 2 am; we went looking for blood bags. Then one girl said she knows where we can get blood bags. We then drove that night crossing from one barrier in Mushin to another barrier in Mushin, because all the gates were locked for security purposes; we have become prisoners in our own homes. Finally we found the blood bags under one nurse’s bed in her home. We asked her: ‘what are you doing with the blood bags underneath your bed?’ She answered that that is how she makes her own money. We finally got the blood bags and then at 4:30 am the girl died. It was one of the most painful experiences of my life. Then I looked at myself; looked at Nigeria and asked how a nation that can be so blessed yet be so poor.

What is the problem with the Black man? It is the limits of his thinking. Hear what someone called Lord Fredrick Luggard said about the Black man when he became governor general of Nigeria around 1907 or thereabout.

“In character and temperament the typical African of all his race types is a happy, shiftless excitable person lacking in self control, lacking in discipline, lacking in foresight, full of personal vanity, with a little sense of veracity, fond of music, his thoughts are concentrated on the events of the moment and he suffers little of the apprehension of the future or grief of the past.”

A hundred years later and the African is still living in the same way and everybody is wondering: ‘what is happening to us? What is happening to Nigeria? What is happening to the average African person?’ If a man is poor in intellect, it would eventually reflect in his wellbeing and that’s why a lot of formerly rich Africans die extremely poor. The world is always predictable, there will always be good times and there will always be bad times. There would always be times of plenty and times of famine. But if you are in the right place, you discover that famine or not you will prosper.

How are you still thinking and what are you thinking about? What is the total summation and collection of your thoughts? Are you lacking in self control? Are you lacking in discipline? Are you lacking in foresight? Are you full of personal vanity? Do you have little sense for veracity? Are you fond of excessive music? Are your thoughts concentrated on the events and the feelings of the moment? Are you suffering from little apprehension of the future or grief of the past? Are you lacking in organization, deficient in management, deficient in the control of man and resources. Welcome to the world of the African.

I still cannot get over the way that Colonel Moummar Gaddafi died. It was typically African. Typically and traditionally a limited thought to himself, for 42 years he ruled in Libya and within six months everything had collapsed because the man really had neither depth nor substance. What surprises me is the capacity of the African to allow another African to dominate him for 42 years and that’s what frightens me about a lot of us; we have no thoughts, no depth, no thinking and we are willing to be led by the mouth by men not capable to polish our shoes. And we run to these places, run to these men, prostrate before them and allow them to dominate our lives because we are fearful, anxious, ignorant, limited, lazy, incompetent and unable to decide where our future is going. The Black man needs to change his thinking and character.

TIMELESS EDITORIAL - Nigeria’s Homosexuality Bill: Why it is Pro-norm and the West Hypocritical

Nothing in recent times has gripped the imagination, drawn the ire (both for and against) and stirred the soul (and pens and tongues) of a very wide cross section of the public as the Homosexuality Act recently passed by the National Assembly, to await the President’s ratification. With it has come surprising yet predictable threats by Western nations to cut off aid and the collective rejection of the threats by sections of the society. The bill prescribes a 14-year jail term for anyone entering into same-sex 'marriage' or civil union.

Those who abet or aid such unions could also be sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, as would “any person who registers, operates or participates in homosexual clubs, societies and organisations” - a provision that seems to target homosexuality advocacy groups as well. The bill also sets out a 10-year sentence for “any person who... directly or indirectly makes public show of same-sex amorous relationships”.

If as reliable sources hint that the Embassy of the United States in Nigeria is presently wooing local human rights groups with funding with which to jump into the fray to heckle the populace with well-orchestrated anti-norm harangue, it would amount to the Americans meddling in the internal affairs of another sovereign state.

The trumpeters of human rights are in this case the bold-faced hypocrites. It is widely known, for instance, that virtually every jurisdiction in the West does not permit polygamy in their laws. But virtually all African countries allow polygamy, which is against the law in European and American countries.

The question might arise as to why people who are freely consenting and believe it (not that we do) to be the right thing for them should not be allowed to marry more than one partner, particularly since the concept of marriage is being redefined to allow same sex partners anyway.

As for the twin ‘consenting adults’ and ‘nobody is harmed’ arguments, the poser in the preceding paragraph puts to test the worn out argument of two consenting adults being entitled to do with themselves what they like and that law should not regulate what goes on in the privacy of people’s homes.

Firstly, what goes on between two people in the privacy of their homes has always been regulated by law. Conspiracy is a crime in most jurisdictions never mind that the people may never carry out their plans, the mere expressed intention to commit certain crimes is in itself a crime in the law of many societies.

The idea of rendering actions legal because nobody is harmed (in reality, seen to be harmed) is even more tenuous. What constitutes harm is an amorphous subject amenable to various interpretations. While there is overwhelming damning evidence for instance that two adults who mutually consent to divorce happily (that’s hilarious) leave their children scarred for life, divorce remains a very popular and very legal means of handling problems in marriage.

In contrast, there are even amusing examples of harmless (if one were to use ‘their’ standards) activities like streaking, and euthanasia which are still illegal in many ‘advanced’ societies. At the risk of stretching the example, one must also ask how polygamy which is consented to is more harmful than the acrimonious divorces that we see on Jerry Springer and Judge Judy. Clearly, therefore, those preaching tolerance from the burnished but rotten rostrums should be warming a seat in the pew.

And now we come to the issue of Aid. Were it not for the ruling class that has plundered the land for decades, the country would not have been subjected to the unfortunate tragic-comedy of UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s rant as a spokesperson of sorts for the West. The charade of the well-oiled high-stakes Aid industry and its beneficiaries has been rather well documented, but will bear some consideration.

Pre-independence, the West did the stealing by itself, brazenly carting away resources and artefacts most of which are displayed proudly in their museums to date without remorse – imagine paying to go to your neighbour’s house to watch the TV he stole from your house.

Post-independence, they do the stealing through their stooges who have put hundreds of billions of dollars (one authority estimate $300 billion since independence) of our commonwealth in the safe keeping of Mr Cameron and his compatriots. Somehow in the warped logic of Mr Cameron, it is morally upright to rebuke your partners in crime on issues of homosexual legislation but have no problem receiving stolen goods the next day.

Rather than give Africa Aid, the West should repatriate all the money they daily collude with African leaders to steal from their people; return the money to its rightful owners instead of giving us a tiny part of the interest on the stolen money and cheekily calling it Aid. In addition, the West should focus on fair trade rather than Aid. Till date, several Western countries subsidize their economy but instruct our clueless leaders to remove subsidy of every kind.

It would have been comical if it were not tragic to threaten us with the withdrawal of Aid when Nigerians in Diaspora repatriated $10 billion last year alone.

It is crucially important to understand that righteousness cannot be legislated. Laws – those of God and Man – do not on their own make people good. The purpose of the law is to regulate behaviour by suppressing (not eradicating) evil desires and thereby sustain society and ensure its healthy continuance in perpetuity.

With contribution from Wole Olabanji, who works full-time raising a godly family and part-time as an architect in real estate development advisory. He also devotes considerable time to providing Biblical perspective to tackling contemporary challenges in business and governance.

EDITORIAL: 'Sanusi: fanning into flame embers of national discord'

With the controversy over the proposed introduction of Islamic banking still raging, we consider it grossly irresponsible of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi to drag the country into yet another decidedly Islamic organisation.
The controversial CBN boss must have taken his cue from erstwhile military ruler Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida who in 1986 took a similar unilateral decision that constituted an act of impunity to the people of the Federal Republic.

Without the approval of the governing organs of the Federal Military Government, Mr Babangida put together a mission led by a private citizen, the then Sultan of Sokoto, Ibrahim Dasuki, to enlist Nigeria formally into the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (now Organisation of Islamic Cooperation), OIC.

Rubbing salt in the wound, the military honcho of the day set up an obnoxious diversionary 20-member panel to “examine the implications of the country’s full membership of the organisation”.
When Mr Babangida’s deputy, Chief of General Staff Commodore Ubitu Ukiwe, objected to the outrageous back-door move by Mr Babangida, saying he could not recall the matter coming before the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC), the highest organ of government in the land at the moment, he was in effect shown the way out on account of it.

Mr Babangida was not done. Two years later, he again unilaterally made Nigeria a shareholder in the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), whose “basic condition for membership is that the prospective member country should be a member of the (OIC), pay its contribution to the capital of the Bank and be willing to accept such terms and conditions as may be decided upon by the IsDB Board of Governors.” Both commitments remain unrevoked.

The OIC, headquartered in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is in its own words, “an inter-governmental organization ... which has membership of 57 states spread over four continents. The Organization is the collective voice of the Muslim world and ensuring to safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslim world.”

According to media reports, Mr Sanusi has gone ahead to pay the sum of about $US5 million to the nascent Islamic body as Nigeria’s contribution to the International Islamic Liquidity Management (IILM) Corporation. His is an act tantamount to burning the bridge back to shore when casting out to sea, declaring, in effect, ‘The die is cast.’

Based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, that Islamic body’s mission is: “Enabling a future global Islamic finance industry with greater connectivity, stability and sophistication”.

The corporation, which was established in October 2010 by the Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) is endowed with the mandate “to create and issue short-term Shari’ah-compliant financial instruments to facilitate effective cross-border Islamic liquidity management. By creating more liquid Islamic financial markets for institutions offering Islamic financial services (IIFS), IILM aims to enhance cross-border investment flows, international linkages and financial stability.”

We consider it an act of gross impunity for Mr Sanusi to have bypassed the National Assembly – in effect the people – as well as the Presidency to unwarrantedly invest the nation’s US$5Million in a self-advertised Islamic body, thus violating the essential character of the federation. Not to see this development as fundamentally wrong is to be blinded by religious prejudice.

While we concede the fact that Muslims have a right to set up Islamic banks should they so wish, we have to state in the strongest terms that government funds may not be commingled with or put to any religious purpose. What is expected of government is the setting up of guidelines and oversight functions as apply to and other commercial banks, whether through the CBN or some other such body. You should put your money only where your mouth is. Nigerians did NOT have a say in this matter.

What Mr Sanusi has done is unconstitutional and highly illegal. His present action (discounting previous ones) seems to suggest that religious (and other) zealots in positions of authority in Nigeria would not be bothered by the sensibilities of the overall populace and hence do not care if the nation disintegrates along religious and similar fault lines.

With the back-breaking brouhaha over Boko Haram ongoing and tearing at the very fabric of the national polity, Mr Sanusi has foisted yet another unnecessary controversy on the nation. His is an example of callous officialdom. The people simply do not need this peppery addition to their plate to chew ahead of an already ominous 2012.

The rights of non-Muslim Nigerian citizens have been infringed upon by Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s brazen and crass action clearly borne out of his religious persuasion and personal aggrandisement. (“H.E. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Governor Central Bank of Nigeria” is listed as a member of the Governing Board, “the strategy and policy making body of IILM”. His deputy, Dr. Kingsley Moghalu, is a member of the body’s Board Executive Committee.)

The share of non-Muslim members of the Nigerian commonwealth has been “invested” in an Islamic Corporation though they are not Muslim and had been guaranteed freedom of religion by the Constitution.

Mr Sanusi, however, seems to be unrelenting as he appears to be a law unto himself. According to him, his plan is for Nigeria to sell its first Shariah-compliant bonds within 18 months as sub-Saharan Africa’s second-largest economy. He is reported to have boasted that his aim is for Nigeria to become “a hub of Islamic finance”.