Africa’s Global Bank, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, has collaborated with Mastercard to launch a commemorative debit card in celebration of UBA’s 75th anniversary.

This collaboration aims to honor UBA’s long-standing customer relationships and enhance their banking experience with a range of offers and discounts across multiple platforms.

UBA’s Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Oliver Alawuba, who spoke at the unveiling, highlighted that the card comes loaded with certain benefits aimed at rewarding customers, including limited 25% off purchases on Jumia and USD75 cashback on transactions made through AliExpress.

He added that this initiative symbolizes the shared vision between UBA and Mastercard towards empowering Africans by enhancing customer experience through secure and convenient transactions.

“This new card represents the deepening of our relationship and our shared mission to empower millions of Nigerians and Africans, by providing them with access to secure transactions and new opportunities across the continent,” Alawuba said.

The GMD also disclosed the bank’s plans to unveil similar products across all its subsidiaries. “We are proud of this collaboration, and we are confident that Mastercard’s role in Africa will only grow stronger in the coming years,” he added.

Mark Elliott, Division President for Africa, Mastercard, expressed his appreciation for the UBA collaboration, emphasising its significance in supporting Africa’s digital economy. “We are excited to collaborate with UBA to celebrate this milestone and bring more value to customers across Africa. This commemorative card is more than just a product; it reflects our commitment to advancing financial inclusion and supporting Africans in accessing secure, convenient and impactful financial solutions.”

Elliott highlighted the immense opportunities within the African payment ecosystem and shared that Mastercard is eager to explore new opportunities with UBA. “Together with UBA, we are focused on delivering innovation that meet the evolving needs of the region, empowering individuals, and promoting digital growth across the continent,” he stated.

The launch of the commemorative debit card represents a significant step in UBA and Mastercard’s shared journey towards financial empowerment and innovation across Africa.

The phenomenon of leadership at theoretical and conceptual stage differ but in the world of Charles Handy (1985), good leader possesses traits that lead to success.

Abraham Lincoln defined democracy as the government of the people, by the people and for the people. This suffice that leadership, in a democratic process, must be centred around the people, doing the will of the people and acting on behalf of the people. Leadership in democracy confesses acceptability (consensus) compatibility, participation and representation.

This brings me to the personality of Rep. Abass Adigun, popularly known as Agboworin, who is the lawmaker representing Ibadan South East/North East federal constituency. He is someone who has been adjudged to have demonstrated practical leadership in the political space. Very many times, he has proven to be a man of the people in his constituency and beyond.

Agboworin is a leader with empathy, one who shows the light of selfless service, raising the psyche of the people, executing physical projects that lift the poor and underprivileged from oppression. He is a leader who is popularly acclaimed as ‘representative of the people’ because of his desire to eliminate backwardness and poverty in his constituency.

His ability to innovate and pioneer different ways of doing things in government is what really sets him apart. Like an electric light, he sparked off the magic wand to show that leadership is not merely in occupying office, but in leading by setting examples. Without gainsaying, Agboworin has a lot of example to show for his wonderful works and achievements.

Is Agboworin a leader of his people, a leader of his party, a leader in his constituency, a leader with vision? These are the issues before us to justify whether his principle of leadership qualifies to be regarded as an extensive theory and practice of government and public administration, to be known as Agboworinomics just as we have Awoism, Marxism etc.

The style, action and activities of a leader determine whether he had generated enough momentum, ability and ideas to facilitate a study of his leadership potential and characteristics.

The mission of Agboworin as a philanthropist, humanist or a leader is to alleviate the suffering of his people and provide them with basic social amenities of life, most in provision of better life. Reason he left the U.S Army to join politics in his fatherland to right some wrongs.

Agboworin knew that it was impracticable for the government to be responsive, accountable, responsible and effective in performing its role if the leader performing is far away from his people and communities. He was, therefore, not ready to be confined to unnecessary protocol and security arrangements that would cage him from coming closer to the masses and walking freely in their midst.

He is not a Representative who will play god or lose his face in the public. He was not ready to be gagged or put in cage. He knows that leadership must have followership and followership can only be sustained when the leader lives comfortably among the people.

The Ibadan born energetic and hardworking Representative remains a mystery to his constituents and a lot of political leaders in the state while some even call him ‘magician’ even though he knows nothing about the art of magic.

And like Moses rescued the Israelites out of Egypt, Agboworin came with his staff, struck the red sea that had been blocking the progress of his constituency and the sea was divided into two for them to pass through to the promised land.

Since the inception of his representation at the House of Representatives, Agboworin has been tactful and calculative in his approach of delivering dividends of democracy to his constituents.

In order to know whether he has performed well or otherwise, it is necessary to go into the records and see what the amiable two-term lawmaker and Chairman of the House Committee on Narcotic Drugs promised his people at the inception of his administration and how well he has fulfilled those promises.

*Some of the lawmaker’s major and recent achievements include:*

•Second phase installation of over 400 solar-powered streetlights in both South East and North East local government areas under his constituency, adding to the over 700 units installed during his first term in 9th Assembly. So far, Agboworin has installed over 1,100 units of streetlights in major spots in his constituency.

•Adding to that, all the Primary Health Centres PHCs in the constituency will be lightened up with over 150 solar lights and they would become part of the beneficiaries of the lawmaker’s constituency project soon. This is a great achievement.

•Another valuable achievement is the completion of 1.3km road in the 9th Assembly and the recently-constructed 1.6km Kajola-Irede-Odinjo-Alake-Academy road project in 10th Assembly, in Ibadan, a project worth N1bn.

•Distribution of educational materials including bags, textbooks, exercise books and others to 40 different secondary schools in the constituency.

•Completion of a newly-constructed Block of six classrooms at Saint Joseph Primary School in Ile-Aperin, Ward 4 of Ibadan North East area.

•Empowerment of over 600 market men and women as well as artisans in his constituency.

•Installation of additional solar-powered boreholes in his constituency.

•Installation of gates in crime-prone communities including Gbelekale (Bembo), Ward 4, Ibadan North East LG;

Gbelekale (Kosodo) Ward 4, Ibadan

North East LG; E3/E4, Oba Ogundipe Street, Ward 3, Ibadan North East LG and Mogaji Fajemi Kobiowu Road, Ward 3 of Ibadan South East.

•Soon-to-be-constructed public toilets.

•Free tutorials for SS2 and SS3 students in the constituency, since 2019 up to the present moment, a gesture which has continued to attract positive comments from stakeholders.

Apart from the assignment of law-making, some of these, among the innumerable ones, are what Rep. Agboworin has achieved for the development of his constituency and the progress of the State at large.

Without sounding ‘politically correct’, it is very modest to say his dear constituency is progressing on the right track and I, once again, assure his constituents that the step to the much-anticipated Eldorado has been made.

Nineteen Directors have failed the Permanent Secretary written examinations conducted in Abuja on Monday.

They were among the 38 eligible candidates that sat for the three- stage selection process to fill the vacancies for the retiring permanent secretaries from Abia, Bayelsa, Ebonyi, Enugu, Gombe, Kaduna, Kebbi and Rivers States.

The Head, Information and Public Relations, Office of Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs Eno Olotu, said in a statement Tuesday that the 19 candidates still in the race will on Wednesday proceed for the second stage of the exercise that will test their competence in the use of Information Communication and Technology (ICT) in conducting government business.

The Office of the Head of Service of the Federation usually follows an established tradition of carrying out a rigorous three-stage exercise that ensures that only the very best among the directors on Grade Level 17 are appointed permanent secretaries and equipped with appropriate and relevant skills to improve and sustain effective delivery of services.

The statement further stated that the successful candidates would then proceed to the final stage, where they would be grilled by a carefully constituted panel of top bureaucrats and representatives of the organised private sector, on Friday, November, 15.

Olotu extended the goodwill of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs Esther Didi Walson-Jack to all the 38 candidates and appreciated the continued support of the Nigerian public in entrenching meritocracy in career progression in the Civil Service.