African Centre for Leadership, Strategy & Development
African Centre for Leadership, Strategy & Development
Centre LSD turned my dream of being a politician into a reality. Because of this training, I chose to bridge the gap of women and youth exclusion in my political party, by picking the form and contesting in the 2019 General election. It was Tony Robbins that said, “It is in your moments of decisions that your destiny is shaped.” Centre LSD Ford Foundation Capacity building was the platform that was instrumental to waking up the giant in me. Before the training, I was a miniature, naïve and had no real political ambition. The training made feel like I have slept for too long and x-rayed the great part of me that I ever knew existed.
Before I attended the Centre LSD’s training, women and youth’s inclusion was almost 100% in my party. Political engagements of the youths were mainly for mobilization and security (Thuggery). This was so bad that about 90% of the youths were unaware of the constitution and manifesto of the party. High Money politics, discrimination, election violence, vote buying, rejection of the electorate after election and unimplemented policies by the elected was a common factor. In April 2018, I was selected by Centre LSD as a participant for a 3 days capacity building workshop. Those three days were the most amazing days of my entire life. The teachings from the different lecturers helped drive home the point. Each lecture was like a blow from the hammer, each nailed the message in. The welcome address form Dr. Otive enumerating the key importance of youths in leadership in order to address national challenges, was enthusiastic. From the teaching on the need to raise youths to participates in politics; development of the manifesto to economic/financial base for campaign, etc. were all very impactful. After the training, I picked a form, came to my constituency and organized a free health outreach, met and got the blessing of the elders in my constituency, began my campaign, produced posters flyer, banners; conducted social media campaigns; organized townhall meetings; selected and trained my agents; trained the youths in my constituency against election violence and vote buying, etc. In February 2019, I contested for the Edo State House of Assembly, to represent Oredo West Constituency under Labour party. Although I did not win the election, it didn’t pull me down but opened opportunities for recognition for me within and outside the state. I suddenly became a celebrity of some sort. I began to get invitations from so many political youth groups to be a resource person and this is still ongoing. I became one whose name is turning into a household name amongst youth bodies in Benin environ and among the civil society.In Benin, they say “ÄMENAGHAWON”, meaning what you are destined for, does not pass you bye. This was my story and encounter with Centre LSD Youths Can Lead Capacity Building. I did not know about the training until when my principal sent me to represent him and read his speech at the Opening Ceremony. That singular obedience marked the turning point in my life.
I have been actively involved in politics since 2006. My political career started with me being the financial secretary of NANs Zone B. I have been an integral part of major political parties in Edo state. I was a Pioneer member of AC now APC in Edo state, championed the youth and student mobilization for the candidacy of Adams Oshiomole and Atiku Abubakar in 2006 and 2007, Became secretary of Zone 15 Ward 5 Ikpoba-Okha PDP (2012-2017)
In these 12 years before the Centre LSD training, I have supported every party candidate from my party. Mobilized massively for their emergence and served in various positions and capacity. One thing that I never did was to contest for a state political position. I was laid back because I had no technical know-how, I was inexperience in campaigning for myself and selling my vision to the electorate. I simply had no will to actualize the dream even if I had one. Each time it crosses my mind, the fear of failure was bigger than my dream. These kept me in the same spot politically for 12 years.
Providence smiled on me in June 2018, when I was sent to the Centre LSD training in Edo State to represent my Party Chairman ADC. By divine providence, I was allowed to stay back to attend the 3days capacity building programme. The programme exposed me to a lot of things including election financing, mobilization, etc. most importantly, I learnt how to draft a breathtaking manifesto and maximize the power of the social media in election campaign. The lecture from Dr Otive particularly jolted me out of my sleep. There and then, I decided to contest for Edo State House of Assembly, representing Ikpoba-Okha. As at the time I made this decision, I did not have up to 100,000 in my account. But I had a dream worth millions of naira.
Immediately after the training, I purchased my nomination form, began fundraising to finance my campaign, set up a robust social media campaign platform, used the various social media platform to raise funds and campaign for votes, appeared on various conventional media (Tv, radio, newspaper, EBS radio Nigeria)to drive home my manifesto “The made in Ikpoba-Okha Agenda”, I gained recognition from the two major parties (APC & PDP) in the state. Additionally, I established political structure within the 10 wards of my constituency in Ikpoba Okha. Today, I am a well sort after political figure in my constituency.
Fortunately, I won my primaries and was declared the candidate and flag bearer for the election. I came 3rd out of over 91 political parties that contested for the position in 2019, without a single vote buying, I did community services during my campaign( free medical treatment for pregnant women and children, got support from opposition party, free cosmetic product for women, wrappers, clothes.
Although I did not emerge the overall winner, I have identified some of the weak points in my campaign. I am sure that in the next election I will do better. I have seen the lapses during the election I contested in 2019. It is now time to go back to a bigger platform and I am already planning for 2023 for House of Rep member.
Centre LSD gave me a leap, I am grateful.
Zainab Hamsa – a liaison from the village of Junju in Birnin Kebbi – is making changes in her own life that are apparent to her entire community. Zainab has begun participating in savings and internal lending in her community (SILC). With her savings from the group, she was able to purchase a goat that is now pregnant. She has also started a home garden and incorporates nutritional variety, such as moringa, into her diet.
Zainab is proud of her achievements, as well as her new knowledge about breastfeeding and nutrition practices. She is even prouder of her work as a liaison and the positive changes she has seen in her neighbours. Zainab encourages households to be “good neighbours” and contribute to the community by sharing lessons and information. In the households she manages, Zainab is warmly welcomed, and it is clear she has a strong relationship with each one. She disseminates the program’s messages through her work as a liaison, but also by exemplifying the curriculum’s lessons in her own life.
In Matankari, Aisha Yar Buhari is a dynamic woman, full of energy and influential in her community. She is now equipped with clear messages on health, nutrition, and livelihoods, and she is thrilled to spread this knowledge with the households she manages. She has seen many positive changes in the health of children in her households, specifically around malnourishment. She describes the children as “better” – healthier with “slippery” dark hair and healthy skin. This success spurs Aisha to continue to disperse breastfeeding and nutrition messages throughout her community.
Takulu Gadema is a poor widow and registered cash transfer beneficiary of the Feed the Future Nigeria Livelihoods Project in Babi/Bacucu, whose life has been tough since the death of her husband. The responsibility of catering for the family was not quite easy for her. She narrated this challenge to Centre LSD/Feed the Future Nigeria Livelihoods team on a visit to the village. Takulu disclosed, “Since I lost my husband I could hardly send my first son to secondary school because of financial difficulties, as I was just concerned about providing daily meal for them, since I could not afford to pay school fees of 2,500 Naira to send him back to school.” However, when she received the first cash transfer, she immediately started buying and selling grains, locally referred to as Sakai, in Danko market. At the moment, Takulu makes at least 600 Naira profit every market day. And from this meagre savings, she was able to send her first son, Abdul, back to school. Abdul shared that his dream to be educated was almost ending when he lost his father, but hope has now been restored. He also said he is happy that his family can even have three square meals on their table every day. Takulu continued that apart from the cash transfer she has received, project volunteers (known as Liaisons) come to her house and teach her how she can plan for her family in order to progress. Through their lessons, she has learned immensely on savings, which has also enabled her to imbibe a habit of saving. She saves so as to be able to pay for the children whenever their schools resume. Takulu opened up saying that she has now saved some money in her local treasury, named Asusu, which she hopes to use when sending her daughter, Aisha, to secondary school in Danko, after completing her primary school sometime this year. “Whenever Aisha is going back for secondary education in Maga, Insha Allahu the money is available,” Takulu prayerfully declared.
Diya Aliyu Damma, a wife and mother of four children, is a cash transfer beneficiary in Guddare of Ujariyo/Junju community. Before the project, she was a full-time house wife who depended solely on her husband, who is a farmer, for her and her children’s daily needs. She said that during the dry season it becomes really challenging to eat well. “When I got my cash, I decided to start a business with approval from my husband. Now I buy bags of soyabean and sell in my community to other petty traders who sell kwai da kwai (soyabean cake). I buy a bag at N14,000 with about 70 mudus; each mudus is sold at N230. Every week I make between 2000-3000 Naira per bag. I bought a ram for N10,000 and after using some of the information I got from the small ruminant training, during this previous Sallah, I sold it at N30,000. I presently contribute N100 every week to my SILC group.” –Muna godiya (Thank you very much– we appreciate it).
“apart from being fortunate to be among those selected to benefit from the cash transfer of my community. I have always dreamed of starting a business of my own and the project helped me achieve that dream. I use to sell washing soaps and small polybags but with the N15,000 I get from cash transfer, I was able to start my groundnut oil business. I buy a 20-litre keg of groundnut oil every week for N9,500 which I sell at N280 per bottle (there are 40 bottles). I make about N1700 every week, especially now that fishing has picked up under the raining season in the community. People come to buy oil to fry and sell their fishes.:
Centre LSD through her OGP project funded by the MacArthur Foundation (MAF) has become a life saver to the Nigeria Open Alliance (the CSO arm of the OGP).
The Nigerian Open Alliance, a loose coalition that predated the Nigeria signing onto the OGP was constituted in 2014 with just 3 organisations (Media right agenda, BudgIT and PPDC). The alliance was formed to campaign for Nigeria’s membership/signing on to the OGP and organised to decide critical issues that should be in the NAP. As at the early stage of formation, the alliance was a loose structure, self-funded, and was constrained by funds. Similarly, at that time, the Alliance was at the point of supporting the drafting of the NAP. This therefore required series of stakeholders’ engagements and planning meetings which the alliance was unable to effectively host because of the unavailability of funds and the high cost of these consultations. This, therefore, limited the alliance engagements only to the national level engagements and their meetings were irregular. The only fund that was supporting the few meetings of the alliance then was from BUDGIT. In 2016 Nigeria signed on to the OGP and thus the alliance was expanded to accommodate other organisations like Centre LSD, CISLAC, CODE, and NRGI, etc. at this time, (after Nigeria joined the OGP), the Open alliance which was the CSOs arm of the co-creation was not as active as it should be and thus was not able to contribute to the take-off of the OGP in Nigeria as the only organisation that was funding the alliance then was no longer able to bear the huge cost due of such expansion. This also was as a result of the fact that membership was growing and there were no funds to organize meetings and invite all members of the open alliance. In 2017, Centre LSD began to support the Open alliance with funds from her OGP project funded by MAF. With this support, the alliance grew from 4 to 10, then to 40 initially. As at October 2018, this number has risen significantly to 270. Apart from the increase in the membership of the Open Alliance as a result of Centre LSD’s support, the alliance has also been able to host 3 large meeting, as the need arose. Centre LSD also supported the steering committee meetings, regional trainings, monthly newsletter, advocacies, capacity building for secretariat and members of open alliance to deliver, facilitated regional engagements and advocacies as well as the secondment of the past two coordinators of the Alliance (Abayomi and Stanley) Centre LSD’s support has therefore led to increase in Open Alliance membership; strengthened the structure; increase advocacy meetings; increase the number of engagements both at the national and sub-national engagements; state levels sensitization; regional meeting encouraging state to set-up their own local open alliance and to engage the state government; and many more. With Centre LSD’s support, the Open Alliance has been able to effectively discharge her co-creation duties. Thanks to the Centre for being a lifeline to the alliance through her MAF project.Centre LSD laid the foundation for the passage of the NFIU law through her research on “Laws and policies: processes and procedure for Open Government Partnership implementation in Nigeria”
On July 5, 2017, Nigeria was suspended from the Egmont Group of 156 members of Financial Intelligent Units (FIUs), with a possibility of being expelled if conditions for lifting the suspension were not met. The suspension was due to the absence of operational autonomy for the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit, which was domiciled as at that time, as an administrative FIU in the EFCC before the suspension. The suspension also came in the light of the absence of confidentiality in the handling of financial intelligence by the EFCC in Nigeria.
To meet the conditions for lifting the suspension, the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Agency Bill was drafted later in 2017 to make the agency the central body in Nigeria that will be responsible for requesting, receiving, analysing and disseminating financial intelligence reports on money laundering, terrorist financing and other relevant information to law enforcement, security and intelligence agencies, and other relevant authorities in Nigeria. The bill which is to aid the anti-corruption fight of the Buhari led administration, was among other things to institutionalize best practices in financial intelligence management in Nigeria; and to strengthen the existing system for combating money laundering and associated predicate offences, financing of terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
At about this same time of Nigeria’s Suspension, Centre LSD began the implementation of her OGP project with one of her activities being the review of relevant anti-corruption laws in Nigeria. The final output of this review was a publication in October 2017 that elaborately reviewed several laws including the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Agency Bill, 2017. The publication gave an elaborate insight into this bill and proffered recommendations and one of them was to expedite actions in the passage of the NFIU Bill in order to lift the suspension on Nigeria and to prevent an eminent expulsion. A situation that will make Nigeria more susceptible to be suspected for money laundering, among others.
At the stakeholder’s validation of this publication (Laws and policies: processes and procedure for Open Government Partnership implementation in Nigeria, organised by Centre LSD, an advocacy group was formed and Centre LSD team and the lead consultant for this publication were the main drivers. The team made a series of advocacy visits to the relevant MDAs and NASS. The result of these visits contributed to the passage of the bill into law on July 11th, 2018, almost a year after the bill was first presented at the NASS.
As a result of the passage of the bill, Egmond group suspension was lifted, Financial Task Force (FATF) is now happy with Nigeria. by February 2019, they came for the final assessment to reintegrate Nigeria into the Egmond group. Having garnered a wealth of knowledge about this bill through their work and interaction with Centre LSD’s publication, the team is again assisting the Acting Director General of the NFIU unit on how to go about the implementation (Championing for independence and improvement in the human resource)
Thank you, Centre LSD, through the support of the MAF for laying the foundation for the passage of the NFIU bill and for being part of the advocacy team who made it happen.
The application of the knowledge from Centre LSD’s leadership school upgraded my business. Before the training, I was an analogue cake designer, but 6 months into the training, I became a mechanised cake designer. A great transformation indeed.
For 6 years I struggled to acquire an industrial mixer for my cake business. After the first 6 months of the leadership training, that changed. One of the class on “the Application of financial discipline” jolted me into reality and I discovered that the problem was not that I could not afford a cake mixer, but that I was not financially disciplined enough to save for it. So, for 6 months I saved and finally purchased the mixer.
Today, I have purchased an industrial mixer, a piece of equipment I could not afford before. In addition, my business has expanded, and I can now produce more than I could produce for the past 6 years of business. This transformation is because of my encounter with Centre LSD Leadership School.
Thank you, Dr Otive for establishing the leadership school.
One of the best decisions I have made in my little journey in life is to enrol in the Centre LSD Leadership School”. It was not an easy decision to make, considering the time constraint. But I made it and it paid off.” The skills I acquired have transformed me from being an employee to an employer. Not only that, it has helped me in so many ways in improving my performance on my job.
When I started the one- year leadership training, I was an employee. Midway into the training, I became an employer. For several years, I have been indecisive about establishing a business despite having incorporated two companies for that purpose. For over three years, I did nothing about starting the business. But after the class on Leadership, Strategy and Financial Management, I caught the zeal and in November 2017 against all odds, I started off and it has been interesting. In addition, I founded an NGO and will soon be launched.
My name is Margaret Benson and I am from Pakka Local Government Area. I was once a student and was in school till my senior secondary school, GDSS government day senior secondary school Pakka.
Acquiring education was my dream, but this dream was cut short by the death of my father who was the one footing the bill of my education at that time. After his death, life became unbearable, my mother couldn’t meet our needs. Feeding became almost impossible, so also was my school completion. Before his death i had finished nursery and primary school and gained admission into secondary school but had to stop in SS3 due to the inability of my mother to shoulder the responsibility alone. My mother begged me to dropped because as at then, she was training my brother in university and she said when my brother finishes she would register me in school to write WAEC and NECO because she cannot afford to train both of us at the same time.
I accepted and left school at SS3. I waited patiently with no help coming from my relatives or any other source. My mother and relatives advised me to marry but am not yet ready for marriage. My dream is to go to school, complete my education, become a doctor and clean the tears from my mother’s eyes. In September 2019, there was a call for the commissioning of Advocates for education (Masu Son Ilimi) in my community and my name was added.
When I came into the safe space, I was a very shy person, who was easily intimidated by my lack of or incomplete education. But after the orientation about the safe space and the election for the executives of the safe space in my community, on the first day, I emerged the head of the Masu Son Ilimi of Pakka, in Maiha LG. I suddenly realise I had an undiscovered leadership skill that were seeking for expression. I became vocal and transformed into an advocate to other girls and parents in the community including my mother. This gave me the rare opportunity to speak in severally town hall meetings on the importance and need for girl education.
I hope to go back to school in the next session, although I don’t know where the funds for my WAEC enrollment will come from. I hope to write my external WAEC examination. And hope to be a doctor so I can improve the health challenges in my community.
I want to thank Centre LSD under the Malala Fund for creating this safe space. You gave me the opportunity that has eluded me for years. Now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
To God be the glory for giving me the opportunity to participate in the Centre LSD Programme on capacity building. the programme was an eye opener for me. It really helped me to understand my leadership strengths and weaknesses and to build on them. It also helped build my connections and confidence. Now, I understand and interact better with others whose opinion, appearances and background are different from mine.
Before now, I never thought of being an entrepreneur, but after the programme, I decided to learn bead making. The programme really unlocked my potentials, boosted my confidence, empowered my soft skills, and made me more confident and productive.
Thanks to Centre LSD/PIND for the wonderful opportunity. I’m grateful.
Right from the inception of the programme, I knew that it was going to be a life-changing opportunity for the participants especially the mentorship programme. At first, I was in the dark as to what meeting and working with my mentor will be like, since he is someone I have never met before. But this anxiety was shattered when on my first meeting with my mentor I discovered that he is an easy-going, hard-working man that pays attention to every detail.
After four months of the programme, my clothing line that was still budding when I began this training, gained recognition in the market with demands exceeding supply in a great dimension. The company moved from a 2-workers to a 4-workers establishment. Currently we are working on reaching maximum 10 or minimum 6 before the end of the year 2013. Now, I am working on launching my label between the end of 2013. The label will help to distinguish my product and establish the brand name as a leading one because of the quality of our products.