Metro
Tribute to Nigeria’s Unsung Heroes
- Share
- Tweet /home/rhoncare/pointblank.ng/wp-content/plugins/mvp-social-buttons/mvp-social-buttons.php on line 69
https://pointblank.ng/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Nigeria.jpg&description=Tribute to Nigeria’s Unsung Heroes', 'pinterestShare', 'width=750,height=350'); return false;" title="Pin This Post">
By Ayo Oyoze Baje
“A true hero isn’t measured by the size of his strength, but by the strength of his heart” – Hercules
They are out there sacrificing their sweat, valuable time, boundless energy and precious resources to make a positive impact on the quality of life of fellow citizens, virtually on daily basis.They are diligent at their duties; exhibiting promptitude, passion and perseverance, not counting the cost, if only to put a smile on other people’s faces. But they are hardly recognized at high class award ceremonies, all because they are not the Dangotes, the Otedolas, the Jim Ovias and the Alakijas, or even the wave-making entertainers and so called celebrities. Yet, we clamour for a better country and a brighter world. What a life of contradictions!
Mind you, their professional spectrum spans different fields of human endeavor – from teachers, nurses, office assistants, through skillful artisans, security personnel to commited caregivers. But what marks them out is their avowed commitment to duty and the selfless service to humanity. Their moving mantra, or propelling philosophy is to bring out the best in them for the good of others. That is true leadership for you, all because you do not need to wear a title to be a leader, as the world- acclaimed author, Mark Sanborn rightly highlighted in his bestselling book of the same title.
Of great significance therefore, is the increasing need for Nigeria’s mass media to begin to identify, project and promote such unique and rare individuals as the society’s enduring heroes. They should be projected as our moral compass, more so in this strange era of overt focus on maddening money and mindless materialism, irrespective of their sources of inflow. Indeed, this is also the right moment to understand such individuals as the beacon bearers the younger generation of Nigerians need to guide them forward through the long, dark tunnel of ignorance and poverty. A few examples would shed more light on the purpose of this clarion call.
In fact, a personal experience evolved between the subject of the matter and my humble self back in 2018. We became friends on Facebook and yours truly always appreciated his prayers. To hit the nail on the head, he confessed that he was attracted to my person because reading through my weekly opinion essays as published by different newspapers, magazines and online portals, clearly convinced him that I have passion for good governance in Nigeria.By November of that year he invited me as one of the members of his Foundation- the Ibiyinka Macaulay Foundation with the mission of giving a helping hand to the needy. Worthy of note is that the United Kingdom -based Ibiyinka Macaulay happens to be of the Fourth generation in the lineage of the late political icon, Herbert Macaulay.
Fast forward to Saturday May 18, 2019 and yours truly was the Media Consultant to the Foundation which kick- started the provision of different gift items such as food, drugs as well as cash for the needy Nigerians at different parts of Lagos. These included the Modupe Cole Memorial Child Care and Treatment Home at Akoka, the Lagos Cheshire Home,Mushin and the Tower of Refuge Orphanage/ Motherless Babies Home, Aguda, Surulere. But that was not all there was to his uncommon spirit of generosity.
In addition to these the Macaulay Foundation also commissioned boreholes, renovated toilets and presented electric generators and television sets to schools at Iyu Road, Surulere. And after that he led the program of feeding the underprivileged people at the close of their fasting at Ebute Meta axis of Lagos state. But have you heard about Ibiyinka Macaulay before now? That is the million- naira question. Yet, there are several other unsung heroes making their mark in Nigeria’s socio– economic landscape.
Mr. Solomon Folorunsho is another of such precious pearls of humanity. As a pastor who practices what he preaches he is the Coordinator of the Internally Displaced Persons( IDP) camp at Uhogua, Benin, Edo state. He and members of his able team have been at the forefront of the provision of various food items, drugs, clothing materials and the payment of school fees for the children there in the camp. Good enough, some of them have maximized the opportunities provided to improve on their skills and learning, moving from there to some tertiary institutions.
It was therefore, a piece of heart-warming news that in November 2024 the Benin branch of the Nigeria Society of Engineers ( NSE ) provided food items at the camp. Perhaps, some other concerned Nigerians would reach out to the IDP camp to provide solar-powered boreholes,solar lights and more hostels that they are requesting for. It is big kudos to Pastor Folorunsho for beaming his God-given light of hope for survival for the needy in the darkness of hunger and poverty, as one of the country ‘s unsung heroes.
As a way forward in recognizing our history- making change makers, across various fields of human endeavor different organizations that give awards should take a cue from Cadbury Schweppes company. It established the Bournvita Teachers’ Awards in 2002. The noble and praise -worthy aim of course, is to celebrate excellence in the long-forgotten field of quality education delivery. The award which comes with a plaque,a GSM phone with sim card, N100,000 cash and one-year supply of Bournvita is part of the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility ( CSR ). The award which had Mrs. Philomena Igweze and Mr. John Ukaonu as the best teachers in both primary and secondary schools across the country back in 2002 has since transformed in scale and style. Laudable, is it not?
Of course, it is.
So, to guide the society right on the solid path to moral and professional rejuvenation, this is the time to change the narrative from the base sentiments of thinking that only the celebrities and politicians, who are supposed to be our servants are the only important people around. No! “Real leadership is that of leaders recognizing that they serve the people, that they lead”. That is according to Pete Hoekstra and it should serve as food – for – thought for us all.
Metro
UniZik Orders Investigation after Viral Video Shows Students Beating Up Lecturer
The management of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UniZik), Awka, Anambra State, has ordered an immediate, comprehensive and impartial investigation after a viral video showing students assaulting a lecturer over an alleged sexual misconduct sparked outrage online.
The incident that occurred on Saturday on the Awka campus.
Footage that circulated widely on social media on Saturday captured some UniZik students physically assaulting and rough-handling a lecturer from the Department of Chinese Studies, Faculty of Arts.
According to witnesses and the circulating videos, the lecturer was allegedly caught attempting to molest a female student within the university premises before students intervened.
The clips have drawn widespread condemnation and calls for a thorough probe, with many Nigerians debating both the allegation and the students’ resort to violence.
The lecturer’s identity has not yet been officially released by the university.
In a statement issued at the weekend, the Director of Information and Public Relations, Aloysius Attah, said the institution is “deeply saddened” by the development.
The management strongly condemned jungle justice and self-help while also taking the sexual misconduct allegation seriously.
“The Management of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, has received reports of the alleged physical assault and attack on a lecturer in the Department of Chinese Studies, Faculty of Arts, following an allegation of attempted sexual misconduct involving a female student of the University,” the statement read.
Attah confirmed that authorities have directed an immediate investigation to “establish the facts and circumstances surrounding the incident.”
UniZik says the investigation will cover two tracks:
1. The sexual misconduct allegation — to determine if the lecturer attempted to molest the female student.
2. The assault on the lecturer — to identify students involved in the physical attack and address breaches of campus discipline.
“The university remains committed to upholding the highest standards of discipline, academic integrity and the safety and dignity of all members of the university community,” Attah added.
Sexual harassment allegations in Nigerian universities have repeatedly sparked protests and policy reviews. UniZik itself has faced pressure in recent years to strengthen its anti-sexual harassment framework.
At the same time, university authorities are under pressure to curb vigilante actions on campus, warning that mob justice undermines due process and endangers lives.
For now, the lecturer has been taken off active duty pending the outcome of the probe, according to campus sources.
UniZik said further updates will be provided as the investigation progresses and urged students and staff to remain calm and allow due process.
Metro
Zion Ministry Begins International Crusade in Imo
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.
Metro
The Architecture of Enduring Impact: How Positive Posterity Walks and Works
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






