Broadcasting
The Wind of Change Blowing in the South East
By Echika Ezuka
Change as a word has been appropriated by politicians who seek power either for themselves or for the interests they represent. Change is to alter, to take off (clothes) and put on different ones, to exchange (money) for the same amount in any other denomination, to abandon (one thing or person) for another, to denounce (one course) for another. You could change your accommodation, hair dresser, anything in life.
However this piece is about to talk of a fundamental change that involves many people at the same time. Recall the change that took place in the way Africans saw the white colonialists after the 1st and 2nd world wars. Africans returned from the wars to reveal that the white man was as weak or strong as any black man. They revealed that the white man, like other men, would cry or run in the face of fear and would bleed if cut by a sharp object. The white man is not a god. The change in the perception of the white man led to white spread demands for independence in Africa. The rest is history.
A more recent change was the change from military rule to democracy. The military seized power as disciplined patriots who were going to save Nigerians from the greed, corruption, thuggery, and nepotism. The citizenry were amazed that rather than cure the social ills the military added dictatorship and a new Nigerian variant called impunity. The people resisted military regime and a gruesome struggle followed leading to a return to democracy led by civilians. The change was so thorough that even strong men in the military who felt entitled to the President and Commander in Chief position were forced to transform to civilians in agbada before ascending to Aso Villa. That is the change from military to civilian regime.
There is another kind of change sweeping through the South East of Nigeria like a tornado. This change is cultural and concerns the fate of the girl child in terms of inheritance. The macho foundations of the Igbo society is under a serious threat of being redefined. The all-male Okonkwo society of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is about to give way to a challenge led by well-read Igbo women. These women are well read and have traveled nationally and internationally. They have also been exposed to other cultures through reading and academic interactions. Some of them are married to families from the North, West and the South-South. These women are asking questions and they want urgent answers.
They are quick to cite that in Lagos if a Yoruba man, who own an estate of six flats dies, his six flats are shared equally among his children – equally between boys and girls. It’s a different ball game in Igbo land. For the purpose of this paper, Mazi would be the name of a father or head of a household. Let’s start with a common scenario among the Igbo. The culture recognizes the boy child as the real birth that has consequence. Only the boy child can guarantee the survival of the lineage. The boy grows up, marries a wife and begins to procreate to continue the family name. The boy child is, therefore, a must for Mazi, who may have as many as 10 children searching for a boy. Sometimes, only the youngest the 10th is a boy child – a consolation from his Chi. When Mazi passes away the nine girls get nothing from his estate no matter how rich Mazi was in his lifetime. To rub pepper into the open wound, the Igbo tradition dictates that the Ada, the first daughter must buy the coffin of Mazi.
The hurt bites deeper because when Mazi is feeble, old and unable to sustain the living and lifestyle of his youth it’s often the girl child that provides food, clothing and medicines. The boys often are occupied with the herculean task of marriage and establishing a family. On the lighter side the boy child is more often consumed by the township culture of drinking, clubbing and fashion. This not generalizing that boys contribute nothing to the growth of the family but the girls are more helpful. Most times the girl child is given out in marriage. While the boy biserving a long apprenticeship or going through school. The girls bring in lump sums in cash or other valuables as dowries. The in-laws are an extension of Mazi’s family in terms of support at critical moments – village festivals, rites of passage and natural disasters.
The ladies are arguing, therefore, the girl child should have a stronger claim in matters of inheritance. She should not be treated as property already sold out to another owner another name of marriage. In recent years, tokenism has been used to try to melt down the anger of the girl child. While most of the pampered and ill mannered boys are shouting the Nigerian slogan –
“GO TO COURT”
The ladies did.
Today, there are scores of court cases, from the Customary Courts to the Supreme Court, involving Igbo families over inheritance. Siblings at each other’s throats or flexing muscles with their mothers, nwunye Mazi. Perhaps, the most popular of those cases is the fight for the estate of the popular transport magnate “Thank Jehova Motors”. Mazi, the magnate was a devout catholic and a Papal Knight. His sacramentally wedded wife gave birth to six baby girls in a row and Mazi was in despair. He defied the Pope and the Church and took a second wife. His Chi smiled and the second wife had three baby boys back to back. Mazi used his affluence to hold his polygamous-by-necessity together. He sent his children to the best schools in Nigeria and the United Kingdom. The girls from the first wife were older and had a head start. By the time Mazi passed away three decades later they were all graduates in those professions that the Igbo people adore – Medicine, Law, Engineering etc. The boys from the second wife were younger, also well-educated but were not as exposed as the girls from the first wife, a few were already married to high net worth individuals. His girls from the first wife spent a fortune to give Mazi a befitting burial.
There was a will and Mazi, expectedly gave almost everything to the second wife’s boys. The ladies convinced their mother and the will was challenged in court. Hush-hush, the Igbo hates the publicity of a police or court case. The Igbo man would pay an arm and a leg to avoid a police cell. Hush, it must not be heard that Mazi’s children were in court. A powerful representation and the case was withdrawn from the court for a settlement at home. A powerful arbitration, constituted by relatives, friends and the Church divided Mazi’s estate into two parts – Transport and Property. The boys chose the Transport business with numerous luxury buses, cars, and well-built terminals all over the nation. The girls settled for the Property section. As this piece is written, that Transport section, Thank Jehova Transport is dead, completely dead.
The hush-hush strategy doesn’t work all the time. Another popular Mazi, a big time trade in Enugu with his company Okoro and Sons unlimited, was not as Lucky. His first wife died during the birth of her second girl-child. Mazi married a second wife who bore him four boys. Okoro and Sons had five houses in Enugu and two in Owerri. At Mazi’s death, his sons seized the company and all its assets. They claimed the support of tradition. Anyway if Mazi had wanted his girls to inherit anything, they argued, he would have named the company Okoro and Children or Okoro and Daughters. In his wisdom he named it Okoro and Sons, so what a heck?
Again the ladies went to court and sued their step mother and her boys. The girls won the case at the Customary Court and the boys appealed to the Magistrate Court and got a reversal to the status quo. Again the Ladies appealed to the High Court that set aside the judgment of the Magistrate Court. Twenty years after Mazi’s death, the case was still at the Appeal’s Court where the Ladies were seeking justice. Meanwhile, the case has been abandoned and was most likely to be thrown out of court for lack of diligent prosecution. Both sides of Mazi’s family were completely exhausted. Mazi had seven houses and all seven were sold to fund litigation. Mazi’s sweat wasted and his family today lives in penury.
Let me not bore you with the scores of cases in court but there is one more pathetic case that would help you understand what’s happening in Igbo land. Mazi was the epitome of the Igbo workaholic business man. Mazi couldn’t read or write but he served an apprenticeship for seven years in Kaduna, made money doing street trading and linking buyers with sellers in the Kaduna Central Market now Abubakar Mahmud Gumi Market. Soon he had his own shop and had customers from the far North. By the time he ran home to escape from the killings in the North, he was a wealthy man. During the civil war he became a multi-millionaire supplying food to the Biafran Military. Mazi died forty years after the war he was multi billionaire with vast investments in Oil, Estate, and Tourism. I repeat Mazi couldn’t read and write, could hardly sign his signature but he incredibly established a Polytechnic.
This Mazi’s case was peculiar because at the height of his affluence, influence with multiple titles, his kindred insisted that he must take a second wife – a younger more polished Lolo befitting of his new status. Mazi refused because he had worked so hard and would not like to have two wives and their children waste his wealth litigating over his enormous wealth. Luckily his wife blessed him with eight children – four boys, four girls. The four girls are in court today contesting their father’s will. He loved them so much that he wouldn’t leave them without a share in his estate. Four girls versus their mother and four brothers. Raging waste of emotional and financial resources.
Igbo tradition and culture is complicit in the state of affairs because of the extra importance placed on the boy child. We don’t need to quote any authorities here other than to refer you to the image of the Igbo woman in the works of Achebe – beloved ornaments for child bearing and domestic chores. Recall the comic scene in Things Fall Apart – there was a rap on the door. Okonkwo opened the door and Ekwefi was standing there. Without a word Okonkwo lifted her to his shoulders and carried her into his inner room. Soon after his kinsmen paid her bride price and built a hut for her in his compound. One could argue that it is different today with majority of the women acquiring western education. In spite of all that the woman is still treated patronizingly as a partner, albeit a very weak one.
The Supreme Court has taken a position – condemning the Igbo customary practice of excluding women from inheriting their fathers’ estate, declaring the practice null and void. The judges stated that the practice was repugnant to natural justice, and it contradicted the S. 42 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The cases in the customary courts are many and may drag on for many more years because the Igbo traditional institutions that are benefiting from the second class citizen status are pretending that they can resist the judgment of the Supreme Court. We know that they cannot. The bailiffs are there to enforce compliance.
Justice delayed is justice denied. Institutions in Igbo including the Ohaneze, traditional rulers, the Town Unions, and religious organizations must take advantage of this judgment to modernize the Igbo society. The traditions and customs of the Igbo society in relation to the status of the girl child must change. The fact that not one of the many limited liability companies of Igbo men survive their deaths can be traceable to the practice that grooms only the boys for succession.
The litigations that follow the passing away of Mazi unknowingly wastes enormous resources required for personal and communal development. .The intra family feud is unnecessary bloodletting for siblings who lived as one until the moment of inheritance.
Without supporting divorce or more broken homes, I must point out that a major difference between the Yoruba and Igbo house wives is that the Yoruba woman, if abused in marriage, will return to her father’s house and occupy the rooms she inherited in the family house.
The Igbo wife tolerates abuse, sometimes dying of it, because she cannot return to her father’s house where she would be treated as an intruder, unless she has wads of relevant currency to spend continually. The Igbo society will produce more Dorothy Akunyili, Okonjo Iweala, and Oby Ezekwesili if this wind of change is allowed to impact on Igbo land. Perhaps, Social Clubs based in the South East must find their voices and issue statements immediately. Change must come now to save Ala Igbo.
In a landmark educational innovation, New Horizons Nigeria has become the first institution to integrate the Chinese (Mandarin) language into its ICT curricular as an elective, thereby positioning Nigerian students for relevance in the rapidly changing world order.
Mr. Tim Akano, Managing Director and CEO of New Horizons Systems Solutions Limited
New Horizons Nigeria is a leading ICT training and solutions provider committed to provide individuals and institutions with future-ready skills. Through innovative program, global partnerships, and strategic foresight, the organization continues to redefine education, workforce development, and global competitiveness.
With over 80% of global consumer products manufactured in China and China’s growing dominance in global supply chains and labour markets, New Horizons Nigeria recognizes the urgent need for the current generation to understand, speak, and engage with the Chinese language and culture. As global economic power dynamics evolve, the labour market is increasingly tilting towards China, making Mandarin proficiency a critical competitive advantage.
According to Mr. Tim Akano, Managing Director and CEO of New Horizons Systems Solutions Limited, Nigeria, the program represents far more than a language course.
He asserted that very soon, the global labour market is likely to increasingly reflect China’s influence rather than the predominantly western orientation it currently exhibits. Language will be a major differentiator and the first Chinese-speaking technology experts in Nigeria will have a significant advantage, especially in integration into Chinese companies operating locally and globally.
Therefore, New Horizons Nigeria has officially launched a Mandarin Scholarship Program with China Advancement Opportunity, selecting 100 outstanding students from five prominent Nigerian secondary schools. This initiative marks a major milestone in Nigeria–China educational cooperation and reflects a forward-thinking response to shifting global economic realities.
Furthermore, the scholarship program has commenced with an intensive three-month online Mandarin training and at the end of the program, the top-performing students will be selected strictly on merit. 20 outstanding students will receive an additional scholarship valued at $2,500 per students to participate in a one-year pre-degree Mandarin and cultural immersion program in China. From this group, the best candidates will progress to fully funded admission scholarships into top universities in China. This initiative is designed not only to build language proficiency but also to enhance global competence, international exposure, and cultural intelligence among Nigerian students.
Also, to maintain international academic standards, participating schools are required to comply with strict guidelines. They will be obligated to join the online classes ten minutes earlier, they must have a minimum of 85% attendance throughout the program, and must ensure they have a stable internet connectivity, reliable power supply and a conducive learning environment.
Therefore, School owners and administrators have been formally congratulated and strongly encouraged to nominate their most disciplined, and committed students, as advancement to the China program will be strictly merit-based.
However, apart from students, internation business men are equally encouraged to attend New Horizon’s Mandarin executive lessons which will equip them with basic Chinese language to enhance their business communications.
Additionally, while the pilot phase begins with selected secondary schools which includes Startrite School, Lightway School, British Nigerian Academy School, Honeyland Schools and Great Heights School, the Mandarin program will be available as an elective ICT course at all New Horizons retail centers.
This is done to extend access to students and learners beyond its partner schools and within one year, committed learners will be able to communicate effectively in Mandarin, which will open doors to global employment, trade, and cultural exchange.
In conclusion, a Mandarin Cultural Fiesta will be hosted, bringing together educators, students, institutional partners, and distinguished guests from China and Nigeria. The event will celebrate outstanding performance, cross-cultural exchange, and the strengthening of bilateral educational ties.
For enquiries and participation details, interested individuals are encouraged to contact New Horizons Nigeria via 08125541750
By Moliehi Molekoa, Managing Director of Magna Carta Reputation Management Consultants and PRISA Board Member
The start of a new year often brings optimism, new strategies, and renewed ambition. However, for the public relations and reputation management industry, the past year ended not only with optimism but also with hard-earned clarity.
Moliehi Molekoa
2025 was more than a challenging year. It was a reckoning and a stress test for operating models, procurement practices, and, most importantly, the foundation of client–agency partnerships. For the C-suite, this is not solely an agency issue.
The year revealed a more fundamental challenge: a partnership problem that, if left unaddressed, can easily erode the very reputations, trust, and resilience agencies are hired to protect. What has emerged is not disillusionment, but the need for a clearer understanding of where established ways of working no longer reflect the reality they are meant to support.
The uncomfortable truth we keep avoiding
Public relations agencies are businesses, not cost centres or expandable resources. They are not informal extensions of internal teams, lacking the protection, stability, or benefits those teams receive. They are businesses.
Yet, across markets, agencies are often expected to operate under conditions that would raise immediate concerns in any boardroom:
Unclear and constantly shifting scope
Short-term contracts paired with long-term expectations
Sixty-, ninety-, even 120-day payment terms
Procurement-led pricing pressure divorced from delivery realities
Pitch processes that consume months of senior talent time, often with no feedback, timelines, or accountability
If these conditions would concern you within your own organisation, they should also concern you regarding the partner responsible for your reputation.
Growth on paper, pressure in practice
On the surface, the industry appears healthy. Global market valuations continue to rise. Demand for reputation management, stakeholder engagement, crisis preparedness, and strategic counsel has never been higher.
However, beneath this top-line growth lies the uncomfortable reality: fewer than half of agencies expect meaningful profit growth, even as workloads increase and expectations rise.
This disconnect is significant. It indicates an industry being asked to deliver more across additional platforms, at greater speed, with deeper insight, and with higher risk exposure, all while absorbing increased commercial uncertainty.
For African agencies in particular, this pressure is intensified by factors such as volatile currencies, rising talent costs, fragile data infrastructure, and procurement models adopted from economies with fundamentally different conditions. This is not a complaint. It is reality.
This pressure is not one-sided. Many clients face constraints ranging from procurement mandates and short-term cost controls to internal capacity gaps, which increasingly shift responsibility outward. But pressure transfer is not the same as partnership, and left unmanaged, it creates long-term risk for both parties.
The pitching problem no one wants to own
Agencies are not anti-competition. Pitches sharpen thinking and drive excellence. What agencies increasingly challenge is how pitching is done.
Across markets, agencies participate in dozens of pitches each year, with success rates well below 20%. Senior leaders frequently invest unpaid hours, often with limited information, tight timelines, and evaluation criteria that prioritise cost over value.
And then, too often, dead silence, no feedback, no communication about delays, and a lack of decency in providing detailed feedback on the decision drivers.
In any other supplier relationship, this would not meet basic governance standards. In a profession built on intellectual capital, it suggests that expertise is undervalued.
This is also where independent pitch consultants become increasingly important and valuable if clients choose this route to help facilitate their pitch process. Their role in the process is not to advocate for agencies but to act as neutral custodians of fairness, realism, and governance. When used well, they help clients align ambition with timelines, scope, and budget, and ensure transparency and feedback that ultimately lead to better decision-making.
“More for less” is not a strategy
A particularly damaging expectation is the belief that agencies can sustainably deliver enterprise-level outcomes on limited budgets, often while dedicating nearly full-time senior resources. This is not efficiency. It is misalignment.
No executive would expect a business unit to thrive while under-resourced, overexposed, and cash-constrained. Yet agencies are often required to operate under these conditions while remaining accountable for outcomes that affect market confidence, stakeholder trust, and brand equity.
Here is a friendly reminder: reputation management is not a commodity. It is risk management.
It is value creation. It also requires investment that matches its significance.
A necessary reset
As leadership teams plan for growth, resilience, and relevance, there is both an opportunity and a responsibility to reset how agency partnerships are structured.
That reset looks like:
Contracts that balance flexibility and sustainability
Payment terms that reflect mutual dependency
Pitch processes that respect time, talent, and transparency for all parties
Scopes that align ambition with available budgets
Relationships based on professional parity rather than power imbalance
This reset also requires discipline on the agency side – clearer articulation of value, sharper scoping, and greater transparency about how senior expertise is deployed. Partnership is not protectionism; it is mutual accountability.
The Leadership Question That Matters
The question for the C-suite is quite simple:
If your agency mirrored your internal standards of governance, fairness, and accountability, would you still be comfortable with how the relationship is structured?
If the answer is no, then change is not only necessary but also strategic. Because strong brands are built on strong partnerships. Strong partnerships endure only when both sides are recognised, respected, and resourced as businesses in their own right.
The agencies that succeed and the brands that truly thrive will be those that recognise this early and act deliberately.
The Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa CCIE, has reaffirmed the agency’s commitment to deepening inter-agency collaboration as he received the Director General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Mr Charles Ebuebu, on a courtesy visit aimed at exploring strategic partnerships in digital transformation and regulatory frameworks across Nigeria’s media and technology sectors.
Speaking during the meeting, Inuwa stated that digital transformation and regulation are inseparable in Nigeria’s rapidly evolving digital ecosystem. He also emphasised that digital transformation is not a one-off project but a continuous journey that requires constant improvement, periodic target-setting, and organisational adaptability to emerging realities.
According to the NITDA boss, the agency deliberately embarked on a transformational journey to reposition itself from a traditional civil service structure to a high-velocity, smart public sector organisation. He noted that when the agency began its transformation drive, a significant percentage of its workforce came from the mainstream civil service, bringing with it entrenched bureaucratic mindsets and rigid operational practices. This, he said, necessitated a conscious decision to change the narrative.
“More than 70 or 80% of our staff came from the mainstream public service, and we know the mindset of public servants, so we started changing that narrative by focusing on people, resetting mindsets, building capacity, and fostering a culture that supports innovation and accountability,” he noted.
Inuwa explained that NITDA’s approach to digital transformation was anchored on three core pillars: people, processes, and technology. He stressed that no matter how advanced technology may be, it cannot deliver value without the right people and efficient processes in place.
He further disclosed that the agency undertook a comprehensive cultural reorientation programme, supported by cultural audits and initiatives aimed at creating psychological safety within the organisation.
“This was critical to enabling staff at all levels to freely contribute ideas, challenge existing processes constructively, and engage in horizontal and vertical collaboration without fear of reprisal,” he stated.
He noted that culture remains the foundation upon which any successful strategy must stand, adding that “no matter how good a strategy is, without the right culture, execution will fail.”
Providing further insight into the transformation journey, he explained that NITDA adopted an integrated framework encompassing people, process, culture, content, and technology. Through this framework, the agency identified and addressed deeply rooted bureaucratic tendencies such as command-and-control structures, risk aversion, and excessive dependence on directives from senior leadership.
According to the DG, “these reforms paved the way for trust-based delegation, inter-departmental collaboration, and process optimisation”.
He further revealed that NITDA documented over 396 internal processes and subsequently streamlined them to eliminate inefficiencies and repetitive executive approvals. He cited examples where routine operational tasks that previously required multiple approvals at the Director General’s level were redesigned to empower departments as gatekeepers, allowing leadership to focus on strategic priorities.
This process optimisation, he said, also created the foundation for automation and the integration of digital tools.
On capacity building, the DG disclosed that all NITDA staff underwent mandatory artificial intelligence (AI) training, reinforcing the agency’s position that AI is a tool for enhancing productivity rather than replacing human capital.
He noted that staff across departments are now leveraging AI to improve workflows, generate ideas, and transition from manual administrative roles to AI-enabled system administration.
Inuwa added that technology deployment at NITDA is deliberately driven by business value rather than trend adoption, stressing that technology must support clearly defined processes and organisational objectives.
He announced that the agency has developed a comprehensive digital transformation playbook, capturing lessons learned from its journey, which it is willing to share with NBC and other government institutions.
To advance collaboration with NBC, Inuwa proposed concrete areas of partnership, including sharing the agency’s digital transformation playbook, delivering tailored training and capacity-building programmes, enrolling NBC staff in digital literacy initiatives developed with global technology partners such as Cisco, and providing technical support for modernising regulatory frameworks to align with the evolving digital and media ecosystem.
Earlier in this remark, Mr Ebuebu called for deeper collaboration between the NBC and NITDA, describing the partnership as long overdue in the face of rapid media and technology convergence.
He noted that although he has had several insightful interactions with the DG NITDA in the past, it was important to institutionalise cooperation between both agencies to address emerging developments in media, technology, data governance, and Nigeria’s digital future.
While calling for closer ties between the two agencies, he emphasised that a strategic partnership between NBC and NITDA is critical to effectively regulate the evolving media ecosystem, harness technology for content creation and distribution, promote the growth of local media, facilitate knowledge transfer, and protect Nigeria’s cultural and national interests.
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