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Abiodun Mourns Jimi Solanke, Says Late Poet A Worthy Ambassador

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Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun

Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State has described the death of renowned African culture ambassador, Olujimi Solanke as a colossal loss to the theatre community and Ogun State.

The governor also condoled with the family of the veteran poet dramatist and the people of Ipara-Remo in Remo North Local Government Area of the State.

Mostly remembered by many for his television programme ‘Story land’, on the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Solanke reportedly died on Monday morning after a brief illness. He was aged 82. He is survived by his wife, Toyin, children and grandchildren.

Jimi Solanke

In a statement, Abiodun said the late Solanke had “consistently put the name of the state in the limelight for very good reasons, especially in the arts right from his days at the University of Ibadan School of Drama.”

The governor urged relatives and other loved ones of the late poet to celebrate his life and ensure that the many legacies he left behind are preserved even for generations yet unborn.

“Renowned for his tireless dedication to the arts, Baba Agba as he was widely known by his numerous fans across the country was a great ambassador of our dear state. He promoted the culture and tradition of the Yoruba race on the global stage with his drama, music, poetry and other works of art.

“In 1961, he emerged as one of the pioneer members of the Orisun Theatre Group, founded by Professor Wole Soyinka. He went on to put in several decades of diverse exposures and experiences into the global entertainment industry across several broadcast stations, countries and festivals, impacting on the sector greatly.

“Many of his admirers still recall with nostalgia, his epic performances at the Western Nigeria Television, WNTV, Ibadan in the 1960s, his unforgettable stagecraft at the World Festival of Negro Arts in Senegal and the amazing skills he exhibited at the Pan-African Cultural Festival in Algeria, all in the 1970s.

“Also to his credit are brilliant performances in epics like Death and the King’s Horseman, Kurunmi, Kongi’s Harvest, The Divorce and Ovaramwen Nogbaisi. These performances and his numerous talents turned him into a global icon of the arts.

“He was at different times described by the Oxford Times and the New York Times as a ‘Skilled Nigerian Actor’ and an ‘Excellent Troupe’ respectively, owing to his performance of Wole Soyinka’s Kongi’s Harvest, during a tour of Europe.

“He sang with Highlife music Legends like Roy Chicago, Eddy Okonta, and Chris Ajilo. He also worked with many global musicians, including Chubby Checker of Twist fame and Millicent Small of Rock Steady. He was with Ralph MacDonald, the lead voice in the chartbuster, Ona La, The Path,” the statement said.

Recalling Solanke’s sonorous voice, impressive gesticulations, near-perfect mimicry, and electrifying dances while reeling off folklores with ease, the statement added that the late poet would be greatly missed by all and sundry.

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Falola To Receive Honorary Doctor Of Laws From University Of Calgary

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Prof. Toyin Falola

The University of Calgary is set to honour Prof. Toyin Falola with an Honorary Doctor of Laws (Hon. LLD).

This was disclosed by Chancellor Jon Cornish and President Ed McCauley while announcing the Honorary Doctor of Laws (Hon. LLD) and Order of the University of Calgary recipients for the fall 2024 convocation ceremony.

The honorary degree is UCalgary’s highest academic honour, acknowledging individuals whose outstanding achievements and contributions to the community deserve special recognition. The recipients will address the graduating class, sharing insights and lessons from their distinguished careers and leadership experiences.

The Order of the University of Calgary is awarded to individuals with a significant history of service to the university. Recipients may include current or former members of the UCalgary community.

Prof Falola, a renowned Nigerian historian and professor, is internationally recognized for his work in African history, diaspora studies and cultural analysis, challenging Western perspectives on Africa.

He has authored more than 100 books and articles and lectured in more than 65 countries, his work making a significant impact on UCalgary through collaborative publications and major lectures.

Falola is an advocate, mentor, author, poet, leader and visionary. He has served on numerous editorial boards, led academic conferences and workshops, and engaged with UNESCO’s International Scientific Committee. Falola even inspired the Toyin Falola Annual Conference on Africa and the African Diaspora (TOFAC).

His contributions have earned him several prestigious awards, including the Distinguished Africanist Award, the Canadian African Studies Association’s Lifetime Career Award and several additional accolades from the University of Texas, where he teaches. Falola also holds African chieftaincy titles such as the Bobapitan of Ibadanland and the Bobapitan of Ondo Kingdom.

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Olaopa Decries Policy Research, Govt Disconnect

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Prof. Tunji Olaopa (left ) with the AAPSCOMMS EXCO members and core conference facilitators in Nairobi, Kenya from 6 to 8 November, 2024.

The Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission, Prof. Tunji Olaopa, has decried what he identified as a palpable poor state of policy research with a virtual disconnect between the objectives of the research industry and the concerns of policy makers in government.

The seasoned public administrator spoke during the 6th General Assembly and Conference of the Association of African Public Service Commissions (AAPSCOMS) held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 6 to 8 November.

Olaopa spoke on the topic “Defining Issues in Research And Policy Linkages In Country-level Development Management in Africa.” During the event, Olaopa emerged as the Vice President of AAPSCOMS for West Africa.

According to Olaopa, the disconnect is evident in the incredibly low level of research spend in Africa when compared to global total contributions. He added that the evidence that validates this is the fact that the bulk of usable development and administrative statistics generated in Africa are funded by foreign development agencies.

“This reality explains why African states cannot design their development agenda on their own terms. It also validates the reigning theory that African policy-makers do not as yet understand what development is all about”, he said.

In his recommendation, he said “Africa needs a corps of scholars-practitioners evangelists who will push for a significant shift from common sense praxis to a more rigorous scientific approaches to development management in Africa.”

Olaopa referenced President Bola Tinubu’s desire to institute a government of national competence as a policy framework capable of galvanizing a shift from the pervasive “know-who” nepotism to “know-how”. He enjoined political parties to emulate practices in advanced democracies where for example the Democratic Party in the USA is technically backstopped by the Brooking Institution and the Republican by the American Enterprise Institute. He went further to advocate the professionalisation of planning and policy analysis departments, investment in future research and scenario planning and creation of special cadre in public service into which experts from other sectors of the economy and from the diaspora can be desk officers on renewable performance contracts outside of career paths in the public administration system

He lamented that African states still focus on the hardware of development namely, how many roads, schools, hospitals, mass housing, etc. are built, in utter disregard for intangible assets that enable sustainable development such as the quality of country’s human capital and education; the strength of institutions, rule of law and constitutional order; the value of social capital of communities, efficient judicial system, property rights, timely and reliable statistics, reformed public service, R&D, data security and privacy, intellectual property, patents, copyright, culture of innovation, knowledge creation, to name just a few. Most African states have indeed not confronted a critical indicator of underdevelopment around the question regarding why talented African professionals or experts in Canada, Germany or Japan are ten times more productive than their counterparts who choose to remain in Africa. The answer is that once they walk into those development enabled places, they step into a capacity context provided by an intangible per capital wealth worth on average over $500,000 compared to those in Africa contending with a paltry of $2,748 per capital.

He referenced Prof. Wolgang Stolper, hired by the World Bank in 1962 as Technical Adviser to the Nigerian government in the design and implementation of the country’s First NDP (1962-68), who “delivered a prescient judgement that goes to the heart of African development problematic in a seminal reflection published in 1966.

“Prof, Stolper had published an article titled ‘Planning without Fact’ as an account of his experience working in Nigeria. His basic thesis was that Nigeria is a country that plans and manages her development programmes without the benefit of evidence-based practices, by merely shooting in the dark, in unscientific manner.”

To Olaopa, “this suggests that policy management practices in Africa are ridden in several countries, contexts and over time, with essential lack of statistical parameters by which implementable and sustainable development policies ought to be crafted. In other words, there is an unabating lack of a data culture and associated scientific parameters which makes it difficult to design and implement cogent policies that address strategically, poverty, unemployment, the youth bulge, climate change, induced flooding and all, terrorism and associated insecurities, and in managing critical macroeconomic challenges that the continent faces, within game-changing dynamic”.

For Olaopa, policy-engaged research is at a crossroads as research centres in African states are increasingly torn between their original calling to conduct research and publish, and pressure to justify and sustain their existence .

The research agenda of these centres and those of local experts are generally dominated by themes and topics of concern of external partners and the major funders of policy research.

Thus for him, although public policy researchers complain against their works not being used by government, research institutions and think-tanks in Africa need to be strengthened so that they could mobilise resources from external partners, the private sector and civil society organisation without losing their autonomy in formulating their research programmes as such capacity would determine their effectiveness .

 

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Olaopa Emerges AAPSCOMS’ Vice President As Nigeria Hosts Body In 2026

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How To Revive Public Schools - Tunji Olaopa
Prof.Tunji Olaopa

The Association of African Public Service Commissions (AAPSCOMS) at the weekend elected Prof. Tunji Olaopa its Vice President for the West African Region.

Olaopa, who is the Chairman of the Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC ) in Nigeria was elected during the 6th General Assembly and Conference of AAPSCOMS held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 6 to 8 November, 2024.

In his acceptance speech, Olaopa committed to not just deepening the repositioning plan already being implemented in the FCSC of Nigeria, but to take the Civil Service Commissions of the 36 states of the Nigerian federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on board, while at once “creating a sharing and learning benchmarking set of initiatives to extend the reform wave to the public service commissions across the West African sub-region.”

According to him, public service commissions across the continent are stuck in the old bureaucratic mode with its mostly outdated systems and processes.

“They have consequently not been able to take advantage of many frontier-shifting public management innovations and smart cum good practices, thus constrained in the discharge of their roles as gatekeepers for such essential and defining profession as the public administration vocation which professionalism and capability readiness is core critical to the African country’s different transformation journey.”

At the event, Olaopa’s counterpart in Kenya, Amb. Anthony Muchiri, was elected the new President of (AAPSCOMS).

In his inaugural address as the incoming AAPSCOMS President, Muchiri pledged to revamp the association, expand the membership, and make the association a formidable force for championing the transformation of public service across the continent.

“AAPSCOMS is now 16 years old, and there is a need to revitalise it to attain our objectives. I will strive to foster closer collaboration and stronger ties among our members through regular consultations and knowledge-sharing platforms,” said Amb. Muchiri.

He promised to lobby for more partnerships from private organisations, government, and non-governmental institutions to achieve the set AAPSCOMS goals.

Other members elected as AAPSCOMS Vice Presidents are the Chairperson of the Public Service Commission of Tanzania, Lady Justice (Rtd) Hamisa Kalombola, representing the Eastern Region; and the Chairperson of the Public Service Commission of South Africa, Prof. Samadoda Fikeni, representing the Southern Region.

The newly elected AAPSCOMS leaders will serve for a term of two years, after which an election will be held during the 7th AAPSCOMS General Assembly in Abuja, Nigeria, in the year 2026.

The delegates met to collaborate, share experiences, and best practices among public service commissions to promote good governance and improve service delivery in public services in Africa.

The delegates deliberations were focused on the conference theme that aimed to promote the use of technology in the provision of government services, grow the right people, skills, and culture in the service, build a culture of evidence-based decision-making in government, mainstream performance management in public service for accelerated economic growth, and embed ethics and integrity in public service management, among other issues.

The Association of African Public Service was established on 9th April, 2008 at Speke Resort and Conference Centre in Kampala, Uganda, where a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between 20 African public service commissions representing 15 countries in Africa.

 

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