Metro
Sermon: A Climate of Darkness
By Babatunde Jose
The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “There is no leader who closes the door to someone in need, in hardship, and in poverty, but that Allah closes the gates of heaven to him when he is in need, in hardship, and in poverty.” ‘Amr ibn Murrah reported:
Sunan al-Tirmidhī 1332
Many analysts and watchers of the ‘Nigerian Drama’ have come to the inescapable conclusion that Nigeria is what it is today because its people have chosen to live in mediocrity and like Simon Kolawole said, “we readily adjust to sub-human conditions; throwing up our hands in surrender and gleefully describe rotten banana as ‘ripening’.”
A race of docile citizens, we have become accustomed to suffering and smiling. Nothing shakes the Nigerian. Pushed to the wall, he would not push back. The most complacent people on earth, we have been described as the happiest people, despite our living in horror and bondage. We seek solace in the Quran and the Bible, some in our traditional religions when faced with the daily hardship that has been wroth on us by our irresponsible leaders and our unquestioning attitude. Not content with accepting our miserable lot, we crown our tormentors with high chieftaincies and accolades when they pass. The ‘Baba ke’ syndrome is a definition of a crazed people who have sold their birth rights, freedom and mortgaged their rights to good living. The Managing Director of AMCON recently said that the majority of recalcitrant obligors owing N5trillion are ‘big men and women’. The worrisome aspect he said, “unlike what happened in other climes, was that these obligors still manipulated their way to emerge as members of the national assembly, ministers, chairmen and women of big organisations and pro-chancellors of universities.”
We acquiesce and joyfully participate in rigging elections, accept rigged elections and hail those responsible for our pauperization as ‘honorable’. They allocate questionable fat salaries and allowances to themselves and we accept; they then squander our patrimony in the name of ‘constituency projects’ and we also accept. For how long will we wait at the ‘gate of hell’?
In other climes people would have taken the leaders to account, not here; the land that flows with the proverbial ‘milk and honey’. For decades we have lived in perpetual darkness. What did we do, we resort to self-generation of electricity through the importation and improvisation of generators. It is said that there are more generators in Nigeria than motor vehicles.
According to the Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), the nation had spent about N2trillion on funding legislators’ community projects since year 2000 without commensurate development at the grassroots. This money could have paid for the $5billion Mambilla Power project which was conceived in 1980 but still a 39-year work-in-progress. Long after its conception China embarked on the Three Gorges Power project on the Yangtze River, in 1998 and it went into service in 2012. The Three Gorges Dam has been the world’s largest power station in terms of installed capacity (22,500 MW) since 2012. In January 1975, construction started on the Itaipu Power project on the Parana River. Jointly owned by the Paraguay and Brazilian governments, the project was completed in 1984 and in 2007 its operating capacity was expanded and today it is the world’s largest power project producing 14 Giga watts. Both projects did not take ‘thy kingdom come’ to execute. What then is wrong with us?
To transmit and distribute the little electricity that we produce is a problem; hence communities are placed under a ‘climate of darkness, some for months and others for years. My area in Apapa was once placed under darkness for 7 months because of a faulty transformer; can you imagine that? In that area, we had a cluster of 4 supermarkets, a bakery, and other shops and of course Jay Kay Pharmacy, not to talk of Guest houses, offices, residences and a petrol station. It was a harrowing and expensive experience. In the end after taking the matter to the highest level, it took just a day to replace the transformer. This is the kind of country we run. Some communities have been left in darkness because of less serious and fixable problems.
Narrated Ma’qil, I heard the Prophet (saws) saying, “Any man whom Allah has given the authority of ruling some people and he does not look after them in an honest manner, will never feel even the smell of Paradise.”
Yet it is said that we have spent $60 Billion on the power sector in two decades. The current power situation does not lend credence to this. If it is true, our people have not reacted to it with any protestation. Rather we continue to buy more generators. In the absence of robust and reliable data on the actual cost of purchasing fuel for generators nationwide, a report by the Good Governance Initiative, a non-governmental organisation advocating uninterrupted power supply in the country, said Nigerians spend N3.5tn on fuelling their generators annually. Equally sad is the fact that government and its agencies make provisions for generators and fuelling in their budgets.
On May 29, 2019, power generation stood at about 3,000; yet we are the largest economy in Africa, while South Africa and Egypt are trailing us. But on the single index of electricity, they are better than us. That is why our economy is weak and it contributes to our poverty problem.
Nigeria is called the second poorest power supply country in the world. Still, there could always be a bright future. The main idea is to concentrate on the renewable sources of energy which can drastically change the situation and promote better energy output for the country: And a resolve on the part of the leadership to do the needful as regards our power problem.
It is interesting to know that electricity was first produced in Lagos Nigeria in 1896, exactly 15 years after its introduction in England; it is however sad and lamentable that 123 years after, the country lives under a ‘climate of darkness’.
The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “Whoever is appointed over the affairs of people in any way and he conceals benefit from them, Allah will conceal benefit from him on the Day of Resurrection.” Source: Musnad Aḥmad 21504
Barka Juma’at and a happy weekend
The 2026 World Conference of Zion Prayer Movement Outreach will be held next week at Zion City, the permanent site of the ministry at Mgbichi, Ngor Okpala, Imo State.
A press statement released by Zion Ministry in Lagos on Friday disclosed that the three-day crusade will begin on Friday, August 21, and end on Sunday, August 23, 2026.
The World Conference is the largest annual gathering organized by Zion Prayer Movement Outreach and attracts participants from across Nigeria, Africa, Europe, North America, Asia, the Middle East and others parts of the world.
It is the Third time the annual conference will be held outside Lagos, and the crusade will mark the end of the 100 Days Fasting and Prayer started in May by the ministry. Like in previous editions, hundreds of thousands of Zionites from across the world are expected to attend this year’ conference.
The Annual 100 Days Fasting and Prayers is one of the ministry’s most significant spiritual programmes during which members engage in a season of prayers, fasting, worship, Biblical reflection, thanksgiving and fellowship. The programme culminates in the closing World Conference drawing worshippers, pilgrims, clergy, volunteers and media representatives.
The Spiritual Director of Zion, Evangelist Chukwuebuka Anozie Obi, said that the crusade is expected to record thousands of people giving up their lives to Christ, awesome miracles, instant healings, deliverance from bondage, salvation of souls and verifiable testimonies.
By Tolulope A. Adegoke PhD
“We are not the final word, nor the first; we are the crucial comma between what was endured and what is yet to be authored. To walk in victorious posterity is to accept that the soil beneath our feet is borrowed, the air in our lungs is loaned, and the systems we build are merely scaffolding for a cathedral we will never see completed. True victory, then, is not found in the monuments we leave behind, but in the capacity we cultivate in those who will inherit the work. For the future does not begin when we are gone—it begins the moment we decide to act as if we are already guests in it.”
Introduction: The Shift from Legacy to Posterity
In the lexicon of leadership and development, the term “legacy” has long been the gold standard. It implies what one leaves behind. However, to speak of “Positive Victorious Posterity” is to engage in a far more active, dynamic, and demanding discipline. Posterity is not a passive inheritance; it is a living entity that we are actively shaping with every decision made in the boardroom, every policy enacted in the legislature, and every culture cultivated within a community.
To walk in Victorious Posterity is to move with the deliberate intention of ensuring that future generations are not merely surviving the consequences of our actions but are thriving because of the systems we install today. To work in this realm is to engineer solutions that are anti-fragile—gaining strength from the volatility of the future rather than crumbling under it.
This write-up explores the mechanics of this philosophy, dissecting how it functions at the individual, corporate, and national levels to solve the pressing challenges of inequality, environmental degradation, economic instability, and social fragmentation.
Part I: The Foundational Pillars of Victorious Posterity
Before we can apply this concept, we must understand its structural integrity. Victorious Posterity rests on three interdependent pillars:
1. Intergenerational Equity: The recognition that the rights of future generations carry equal weight to the rights of the present. This is not a moral nicety; it is a fiduciary duty. When we drain natural resources or accumulate national debt, we are borrowing from the future’s pocketbook without their consent.
2. Adaptive Resilience: Victory is not the absence of crisis, but the ability to emerge from crisis stronger. Posterity-focused systems are built with “slack”—redundancies and buffers that allow for shock absorption, whether that be economic downturns, climate events, or supply chain disruptions.
3. Semantic Integrity: The narratives we build today become the operating systems of tomorrow. A culture that celebrates short-term greed will produce a generation of transactional leaders. A culture that celebrates problem-solving and empathy will produce innovators and healers.
Part II: Impacting Peoples (The Micro Level)
At the individual and community level, the walk of Victorious Posterity is primarily concerned with Human Capital Development. The pressing challenge here is the “Skills Mismatch”—the growing chasm between what educational institutions produce and what the future economy demands.
The Solution: Victorious Posterity works by shifting educational paradigms from “knowledge retention” to “cognitive adaptability.” It is about teaching people how to think, not what to think.
· Example (Finland’s Education Reform): Finland has moved away from “subject-based” teaching to “phenomenon-based” learning. Students don’t just study history; they study the historical, geographical, and economic impacts of climate change on their specific locality. This walk toward posterity ensures that children graduating today are not memorizing facts that will be obsolete in a decade but are instead solving real-world problems. The result is a populace that is inherently ready to pivot, upskill, and contribute meaningfully to a volatile job market.
· Example (Community Banking in Bangladesh): The Grameen Bank model didn’t just lend money; it walked with communities to build credit history and entrepreneurial skills. By focusing on women and rural populations, it ensured that the posterity of those villages would not be defined by generational poverty but by generational commerce. The victory is visible in the literacy and health outcomes of the next generation, who now have mothers that are business owners.
Part III: Impacting Corporates (The Meso Level)
For corporations, the greatest pressing challenge is the tension between Quarterly Returns and Long-Term Sustainability. The modern capital market often penalizes long-term R&D in favor of immediate stock buybacks. Victorious Posterity demands a redefinition of the “Fiduciary Duty” to include stakeholders beyond the shareholder—employees, environment, and society.
The Solution: The walk of victory for a corporation involves embedding ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) metrics not as a PR exercise, but as core operational KPIs that dictate supply chain decisions, hiring practices, and innovation pipelines.
· Example (Patagonia’s “Earth is Now Our Only Shareholder”): Patagonia’s radical restructuring is a masterclass in Victorious Posterity. By transferring ownership to a trust dedicated to climate action, they effectively built a corporate structure that cannot be forced to prioritize profit over the planet. Their work involves using regenerative organic agriculture in their supply chain, which regenerates soil health. This is a direct intervention to solve the agricultural crisis. They are working now to ensure that cotton farmers fifty years from now have arable land, rather than desert.
· Example (Microsoft’s Carbon Negative Pledge): Unlike “Carbon Neutrality” (which allows for offsets), Microsoft’s pledge to be Carbon Negative by 2030 requires them to remove more carbon than they emit. This pushes the corporation to invest heavily in direct air capture technology and biochar. By walking this path, they are solving the challenge of “climate techno-pessimism,” proving that heavy industry can be a solution to environmental damage rather than the cause.
· The “Reverse Mentorship” Model: Corporates that work for posterity invert the traditional mentorship dynamic. They pair senior leadership with junior Gen-Z employees to understand emerging technological trends and social ethics. This ensures the corporate strategy remains relevant to the future demographic it aims to serve.
Part IV: Impacting Nations (The Macro Level)
At the national level, the challenges are systemic: Resource Scarcity, Geopolitical Fragmentation, and Aging Infrastructure. Nations often operate on a 4-year election cycle, which is antithetical to the 30-year horizon required for infrastructure and education. Victorious Posterity requires the establishment of “Future Generations Ombudsmen” or similar legislative checks that protect long-term interests from short-term political expediency.
The Solution: National policies must pivot toward “National Resilience” and “Circular Economies.”
· Example (The Netherlands’ “Deltaworks” and Room for the River): The Dutch are historically known for fighting the sea. However, in their walk toward posterity, they recognized that building ever-higher dikes was a losing battle against rising sea levels. The “Room for the River” program strategically relocated dikes inland, lowered groynes, and created water buffers to allow controlled flooding in designated areas. This is the victory of coexistence over conquest. It solved the challenge of catastrophic climate flooding by designing a landscape that accepts water rather than merely resists it, ensuring the nation’s survival for centuries.
· Example (Estonia’s Digital Governance): Estonia built its digital infrastructure on the premise that government services should be accessible to citizens regardless of geography or time. By creating a secure, blockchain-backed digital ID system, they have solved the challenge of bureaucratic corruption and inefficiency. Their posterity is “digitally native”—meaning future generations will inherit a government that is transparent, efficient, and low-cost, rather than a burdensome bureaucracy.
Part V: The Psychological Framework—The “Walk”
To “walk” in this manner requires a psychological shift from a “Survival Mindset” to a “Stewardship Mindset.”
· The Challenge: The modern world is riddled with “Doom-scrolling” and “Climate Anxiety.” This often paralyzes action. People feel that the future is bleak, so they consume more now.
· The Victorious Walk: This philosophy reframes the future as a garden to be tended, not a battlefield to be survived. It requires leaders to exercise “Radical Optimism”—the belief that human ingenuity, combined with ethical constraint, can solve technical problems.
· Practice: Leaders must engage in “Reverse Thinking”—imagining the year 2075 and looking back to 2026. From that future perspective, what decision would they wish they had made? This mental exercise forces leaders to abandon sunk costs and embrace daunting transitions (e.g., moving from fossil fuels to green hydrogen).
Part VI: The Strategic Framework—The “Work”
To “work” in Victorious Posterity involves a practical, step-by-step strategic model that I term the “Posterity Matrix.”
1. Impact Auditing: We cannot manage what we do not measure. Corporates and nations must develop “Lifecycle Assessment” tools that measure the total cost of a product or policy over a 50-year horizon, not just a 5-year horizon. This includes social cost of carbon, social disruption of automation, and biodiversity loss.
2. Generational Councils: Establish advisory boards comprised of individuals aged 15-25 to review major policy proposals. Their lack of experience is actually their asset; they are the voice of the future’s user experience.
3. Diversified Sovereignty: At the national level, this means investing in domestic food and energy production to insulate the nation from global shocks (e.g., Israel’s desalination and drip-irrigation technologies that made a desert nation into an agricultural powerhouse).
4. Ethical AI Deployment: Posterity works when AI is used to augment human potential, not just replace it. Nations must invest in AI that predicts infrastructure decay (bridges, roads) to fix them before they collapse, solving the crisis of aging public assets.
Conclusion: The Intergenerational Contract
Positive Victorious Posterity is not a destination; it is a continuous, iterative process of negotiation between the living, the unborn, and the planet. It demands that we view time not as a linear arrow, but as a cycle of renewal.
For the Individual, it means becoming a lifelong learner who contributes more knowledge than they consume. For the Corporate, it means becoming a regenerative entity that creates more value (environmental and social) than it extracts. For the Nation, it means becoming a guardian of resources, a cultivator of peace, and an enabler of human dignity.
The pressing challenges of our time—political polarization, ecological collapse, and economic inequality—are not insurmountable. They are merely the friction that forces us to innovate. Victorious Posterity walks with the humility of knowing we are not the final chapter and works with the audacity of knowing we are the most important chapter so far. It is in this tension between humility and audacity that victory is forged.
Let us stop asking, “What will we leave behind?” and start asking, “What are we building alongside?” Because ultimately, posterity is not waiting in the future; it is being assembled in the present, piece by piece, by those who dare to walk forward with their eyes fixed on the horizon, and their feet firmly rooted in the soil of today.
Dr. Tolulope A. Adegoke, AMBP-UN is a globally recognized scholar-practitioner and thought leader at the nexus of security, governance, and strategic leadership. His mission is dedicated to advancing ethical governance, strategic human capital development, resilient nation building, and global peace. He can be reached via: tolulopeadegoke01@gmail.com, globalstageimpacts@gmail.com
Metro
Empowering Rural Women Initiative: Nestlé Nigeria Celebrates Five Years, Receives 50 Zaria Retailers
Nestlé Nigeria has marked the fifth anniversary and 10th edition of its Empowering Rural Women Initiative by supporting 50 women retailers in Zaria, Kaduna State, with practical business training and grants in the form of Nestlé products valued at three times their existing stock.
The intervention also marked the beginning of a three-month mentorship period designed to help the women apply their training, manage the additional stock effectively and build stronger, more sustainable businesses.
Launched in 2021, the Empowering Rural Women Initiative supports women retailers who have demonstrated the determination to grow their businesses but have limited access to training, mentorship and the resources required to expand.
Before the Zaria edition, the programme had supported 432 women entrepreneurs across several communities in Nigeria. The addition of the 50 women from Zaria brings the total number reached to 482.
Programme monitoring shows that more than 80% of participants from previous cohorts have sustained and grown their businesses beyond the initial stock boost provided through the programme. Many now operate at a significantly higher level than when they joined, with larger inventories, higher turnover, more customers and stronger financial and business-management practices.
Across Nigeria, women entrepreneurs sustain local commerce, support household incomes and ensure that everyday products reach their communities, particularly in areas where small retailers provide an important connection between consumers and larger markets.
Speaking at the event, Boladale Odunlami, Commercial Manager, Nestlé Nigeria, highlighted the scale of their contribution and the importance of enabling their continued growth. He said, “Women account for approximately 60% of the retailers in Nestlé Nigeria’s retail network. Every day, they help us reach consumers, build trust within communities and keep our business moving. Their contribution is significant, and we value them as important business partners. The Empowering Rural Women Initiative reflects our belief that the women who contribute to our growth should have the opportunity to grow with us. By investing in their skills and strengthening their businesses, we are helping them increase their earning potential while building a stronger, more capable and more resilient retail network.”
The training for the Zaria participants covered bookkeeping, merchandising, stock management, financial management and customer service. Over the next three months, mentors will provide practical guidance as the women manage their increased stock, apply their new knowledge and reinvest their profits to support continued growth. The participants were also encouraged to learn from one another and build relationships that could provide support beyond the formal mentorship period.
Reflecting on the programme’s five-year journey, Victoria Uwadoka, Corporate Communications, Public Affairs and Sustainability Lead, Nestlé Nigeria, said, “The true measure of this initiative is not the support we provide on the day, but what the women go on to build with it. Five years on, we are seeing women sustain their growth, expand their businesses and create greater economic security for themselves and their families.
“That is Creating Shared Value in action. As these women build stronger businesses and better livelihoods, they also strengthen the retail network that connects Nestlé to communities across Nigeria. It is a model in which progress for the women and progress for our business reinforce each other, turning an initial investment into lasting value.”
The Zaria edition was delivered with the support of Nestlé Nigeria’s implementation partners and local distributors. During the mentorship period, their continued engagement will support the participants as they put their training into practice and work towards stronger, more profitable businesses.
As the Empowering Rural Women Initiative enters its next chapter, Nestlé Nigeria remains committed to building on the progress recorded over the past five years and enabling more hardworking women to develop stronger, more sustainable businesses.
