NIGERIA NEWS :: THE OPTIMIST VOICE

further denying Nigerians employment as many such industries continue to go underground. According to statistical records exposed in the book, 70% of Kano States’ industries have been wiped out within a decade from a combination of wrong governmental policies, implementation or lack thereof of such policies, inadequate electricity, smuggling in of competing and mostly fake products, and corruption which makes the nation’s written laws and their courts ineffective.

The book was The Optimist Voice’s maiden issue of annual publications which was promised its weekly readers. The weekly online publication The Optimist Voice announced at its inception in July 2009 that it will choose ten most topical, important, and pressing issues covered within the 52 weeks of the year, further research them and turn them into individual chapters, in the form of a book. By God’s grace the publication was able to fulfil that promise with the launched book which was actually published abroad in 2010.

The next book supposed to be published from 2011 articles, is already in the works and will be in print soon [within two to three months]. “This time around we are trying to find local printers to enable us go to print and distribute copies much earlier” the publisher Dr. Hadiza Isa Wada disclosed to the press, as she emerged from the Arewa House Auditorium. We want to avoid the hassles of importation and clearing, including other additional costs. That should make it more affordable and also shorten the product–to-market time, making availability more immediate.

Dr. Hadiza Isa Wada, the author and publisher has spent almost twenty years working for the United States Government as an International Radio Broadcaster before moving into the academia [lectures, research, and journal publications] after obtaining a doctorate degree. She has obtained various awards national and international including the Nigerian Federal Merit Award, Best Graduating Student Award from Mass Communication Department of Bayero University in 1982, and various broadcasting performance awards internationally including a U S Capitol Congressional award in 2003 as “Parents of the year” together with her husband for raising five well disciplined and performing students.

The eldest of the children Umar is a recipient of both Bill Clinton and George Bush Jr. Performance award. He graduated with a degree in Areospace Engineering from the leading Aerospace University [Embry Riddle Aeronautical University], while his bother who graduated with Honors in Electrical Engineering from Morgan State, and is about to graduate with a Masters degree from Cornell University in New York. Two others are in Pre-Med and Bio Informatics students, with the youngest a recipient of many other awards, one coming last year from the Obama Administration, signed by the President.

NIGERIA NEWS

Book Launch: Towards the Restoration of Nigeria

Hadiza Wada, DBA …September 24, 2011

The book “Towards the Restoration of Nigeria: Discussions and Analysis of Major Issues” was formally launched at Arewa House, Rabah Road Kaduna, former Northern Nigerian Regional Capital on Thursday September 22, 2011.

In his speech at the occasion, and in line with the theme of the book, Dr. Kabir Mato from the University of Abuja pointed at various developmental hindrances. He deplored the persistent practices by Nigerians, and most especially their leaders which have effectively tied developmental potentials down. One area he mentioned for example, was “statutory allocations from federal coffers to State governments” as well as other Ministries that run the institutions that the people and the nation depend on, which even as he spoke was making headlines from newspapers, saying some state governments have refused their allocations because of various monetary discrepancies. “Bauchi State with more population than Rivers State was allocated N2 billion Naira at a time when Rivers State was reported to have received N47 billion” Dr. Mato stated. “In what ways can that be ever justified?”

The book reviewer, who is the Dean Political Science from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria Dr. Saddique Muhammad commended the work immensely, most especially the topics chosen and their analysis. “As I read the book, it took me back to specific examples of some of the issues discussed that I have personally experienced, but have forgotten about them.” Most especially, he said “I literally could not put the book down after beginning to read it. I read it through the night until dawn.”

Some of the issues the book addressed include the nations (a) economic challenges, (b) political challenges (c) educational challenges, (d) Industrial challenges, (e) Security challenges (f) Niger Delta, (g) electrical challenges etc

The Chief Launcher, who has been an industrialist for decades Alhaji Sule Halilu who contested for CPC Senatorial Seat for Kano Central, also Executive Director for Gongoni Limited makers of various domestic brands of cosmetics as well as aerosol insecticides, including managerial duties at three other industries lamented the kind of industrial challenges they face daily.

Alhaji Suleiman Halilu commended the book for detailed exposition of some of those industrial challenges. He gave a practical example of the way his company tracked a foreign [Indian] importer of fake products sold as theirs [brand name and all]. Furthermore, laboratory analysis of the content of the fake insecticide shows that mosquitoes [the insects that incubate and spread Malaria] sprayed with it got up and flew away after their wings was dry from the sprayed fake “chemicals.”
But in a country like Nigeria, as we learn from the Chief Launcher’s personal experience, the Nigerian Courts acquitted the foreign importer, and he walked away from such practices that without any doubts whatsoever, contribute immensely in devastating the Nigerian economy,