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Why three minutes of vigorous movement may lower cancer risk

If you spend most of your working day seated at a desk, a few minutes of vigorous movement could be more useful than you think.

A new study suggests that replacing sedentary time with physical activity, particularly short bursts of vigorous movement, is associated with a lower risk of several cancers.

The study, published in July in BMC Medicine, analysed activity data from 59,218 men and women who were part of the UK Biobank. Participants wore activity trackers for a week, allowing researchers to measure how much time they spent sitting, standing and engaging in light, moderate or vigorous activity.

Researchers then examined their medical records over roughly eight years, looking at 13 cancers that have been associated with physical inactivity. They used statistical models to estimate what could happen if participants replaced some of their usual sitting time with different types and intensities of physical activity.

Standing was associated with lower cancer risk compared with remaining seated, but movement appeared to have a stronger association. Light activity was associated with greater benefits than standing, while vigorous movement showed the strongest association.

The study found that about three minutes of vigorous activity was associated with a similar reduction in cancer risk as about 90 minutes of light-intensity movement.

Vigorous activity in the study included movements that substantially increased breathing and heart rate, such as rushing up stairs or running to catch public transport.

For Riya Shah, a cancer specialist physiotherapist at Performance Medicine Kenya, the findings reinforce a broader message about the importance of movement throughout the day.

‘Regular movement is one of the most important modifiable lifestyle factors we can influence across the cancer continuum, from prevention, through treatment and recovery, and into survivorship,’ she says.

Shah says people often think of exercise as something that has to happen in a gym or as a structured workout, yet the body benefits from movement throughout the day. ‘Our bodies are designed to move throughout the day,’ she says.

There is already evidence linking higher levels of physical activity with a lower risk of several cancers, particularly breast and colorectal cancer, she said. Physical activity is also associated with better cardiovascular and metabolic health.

For someone who spends eight or more hours sitting at work, Shah says the focus should not be solely on finding time for a workout before or after work.

Instead, people should also look at how they can interrupt long periods of sitting. ‘Don’t wait until the end of the working day to ‘do your exercise’. Build movement into the working day itself,’ she says.

Her suggestions include standing up and walking around for a couple of minutes every 30 to 60 minutes, walking to speak to a colleague instead of sending a message where practical, taking the stairs, walking while making a phone call, getting up to refill a water bottle and having walking meetings where possible.

Standing, she says, is certainly better than remaining completely sedentary, but ideally people should move rather than simply switch from sitting to standing.

‘Even a short walking break can increase muscle activity, circulation and energy expenditure,’ she says.

The idea of vigorous movement can also be less complicated than it sounds.

It does not necessarily require a gym, running track or exercise equipment.

Shah says climbing several flights of stairs, walking quickly uphill, carrying heavy shopping, cycling quickly or running to catch a matatu can potentially qualify, depending on how hard the activity makes a person work.

‘Exercise doesn’t have to look like exercise,’ she says.

For one person, climbing several flights of stairs may constitute vigorous activity, while for someone who is fitter, the same activity may only be moderate.

A useful indicator, Shah says, is breathing. During vigorous activity, breathing and heart rate increase substantially and a person may only be able to say a few words before needing another breath.

However, she cautioned against interpreting the study as suggesting that three minutes of exercise a day is all a person needs.

The study was observational, meaning it identified an association between physical activity and cancer risk but did not prove that the short bursts of vigorous movement directly prevented cancer.

Shah says the finding should instead be viewed as an encouraging message for people who currently do little physical activity.

‘If you currently do very little activity, small amounts of purposeful movement can still matter,’ she says.

Those short bursts can be a starting point and can gradually be built upon, she adds.

There are also possible biological explanations for why physical activity may influence cancer risk. During vigorous movement, heart rate, blood flow, breathing and muscle glucose uptake increase. Exercise can also influence insulin sensitivity, metabolic health, inflammation, body composition and the immune system.

Shah says researchers are also studying how exercise mobilises immune cells, including natural killer cells, which are involved in identifying and responding to abnormal cells.

But cancer prevention cannot be reduced to physical activity alone.

‘Physical activity is important, but it doesn’t eliminate other established risk factors such as tobacco exposure, alcohol consumption, unhealthy body weight and diet,’ she says.

For people with sedentary jobs, her advice is therefore simple: move whenever there is an opportunity.

Walk during a phone call. Take the stairs. Walk part of the journey where practical. Break up long periods of sitting. Add some brisk walking to the day and incorporate strength exercises such as squats, calf raises, glute bridges or resistance exercises at least twice a week.

The broader message is not that everyone needs to find an extra hour in an already busy day.

Rather, movement can be accumulated throughout the day, from the journey to work and the office stairs to household tasks and short bursts of faster activity.

‘Don’t aim for perfection, aim to avoid sitting continuously for hours at a time,’ Shah says.

Unlicensed hotels closed

Five hotels in the province have been ordered to suspend operations temporarily after authorities found that they failed to obtain licences and meet improvement requirements.

Deputy Phuket Governor Romdon Haji Awae said on Saturday that the closures were imposed last week after hotel operators failed to make the necessary improvements, even after being given extra time.

The province had given unlicensed hotels or those with structural problems 30 days to address physical deficiencies, Mr Romdon said.

Meanwhile, another 40 hotels remain under consideration for licence renewals, with some lacking key documents such as environmental impact assessment reports or structural safety certificates, he said.

These hotels have different deadlines and are on completely separate regulatory tracks. The province expects operators to submit their documents by October.

Still on government neglect of our hospitals…

FEW days ago, a senior pastor of mine called and spoke fata-fata, as they say, about the state of our hospitals. His preambles were something else; it went something like this: Pastor Bolawole, I know you journalists are part of the problems of this country! You don’t tell our leaders the truth. Is it because of the brown envelopes you collect from them? That is why you are in cahoots with them.’ I had started wondering what was the matter before he hit the nail on the head: Someone dear to him was ill and they needed him or her (I can’t remember which one) to undergo MRI scanning but no MRI machine was available ‘in the whole of Ogun State’, he said. Eventually, they had to hire a vehicle for N50,000:00 to convey the sick person to the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) medical facility at the Redemption City (formerly Redemption Camp) along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Mowe, for the MRI to be done. ‘And they will say Redeemed (RCCG) is not doing anything!’ As I made to speak, he rounded up with ‘I just felt I should let you know about this’ and hung up.

Not a single MRI machine in the whole of Ogun State? It appears unbelievable. But come to think about it, is Redemption City, where they eventually found one, not in Ogun State? Syllogism, which I learnt in Philosophy 101, taught at the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Ile-Ife, by Dr. Dipo Fashina (aka Jingo), as he then was, is instructive here. According to Google, a syllogism is a form of logical reasoning that uses deductive logic to combine two statements and arrive at a new conclusion. A standard syllogism has three parts: The first part is the major premise, which is a general statement or rule that is assumed to be true. The second part is a minor premise, specific fact or case that relates to the major premise. The third part is the conclusion, which is the logical result that follows from the two premises.

A classic example is: All humans are mortal/Socrates is a human/Therefore, Socrates is mortal. Another example is: All mammals are warm-blooded/All dogs are mammals/Therefore, all dogs are warm-blooded.’ Arising from the above, we can construct our own syllogism thus: Redemption City is in Ogun State/MRI machine was found at Redemption City/Therefore, there is an MRI machine in Ogun State! QED!

The curiosity of a journalist still pushed me to ask questions about MRI machines. What exactly are they and their use? I got the following answer: ‘An MRI machine is a medical imaging device that uses powerful magnets and radio waves to create highly detailed, cross-sectional pictures of the inside of the body. Healthcare providers use MRI scans to evaluate, diagnose, and monitor a wide variety of medical conditions without using harmful radiation. It is especially effective for viewing soft tissues. Common uses include examining the brain and spinal cord; diagnosing strokes, multiple sclerosis (MS), brain tumours, aneurysms, and spinal cord injuries.

It is also useful in detecting ‘tears in ligaments, tendons, and cartilage (such as in the knee or shoulder), as well as bone infections, evaluating heart damage from heart attacks, congenital heart disease, heart structure, and blood flow abnormalities. MRI machines are also used in checking organs in the chest, abdomen, and pelvis-including the liver, kidneys, pancreas, prostate, and uterus-for tumours, inflammation, or disease.

Waooh! If MRI machines are this useful, nay, indispensable, how come they are not commonplace in our hospitals? Are their costs prohibitive? I got the following response: ‘New clinical MRI machines typically cost between $1 million and $3 million while advanced 7T research systems can reach $7 million. Purchase Price Breakdown: New Systems: A standard 1.5T or 3T MRI scanner costs $900,000 to over $3.7 million for the hardware alone. Refurbished or Pre-Owned Systems: Used or refurbished units range from $100,000 to $700,000, depending on field strength (Tesla rating), bore size, and condition. Budget/Low-Field Open MRIs: Basic or low-field models (0.25T-0.5T) cost between $130,000 and $300,000. Additional Ownership and Operating Expenses: The sticker price is only part of the investment; total cost of ownership involves heavy infrastructure and maintenance outlays: Installation and Site Preparation: Specialized room construction, radiofrequency (RF) shielding, cryogen venting, and structural reinforcement typically add $75,000 or more. Maintenance and Cooling: Annual service contracts and maintenance range from $10,000 to $100,000 per year, driven heavily by liquid helium consumption used to keep superconducting magnets cold (though newer low-helium or helium-free technologies are emerging).

These are not costs that even a local government cannot afford in today’s Nigeria, especially with the quantum of money the Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration is heaping on the two tiers of government – state and local governments. But to make assurance doubly sure, as they say, I asked Google if it has any information on the availability of MRI machines in Ogun State. This is the answer I got: ‘Yes, an advanced MRI machine is available in Ogun State at the private specialist facility – Redeemer’s Health Village located in Redemption City, Mowe.’

It goes further to say: ‘Redeemer’s Health Village (RHV) houses a 1.5 Tesla MRI system featuring a wide 70 cm bore capable of accommodating plus-sized patients weighing over 300 kg. They also offer subsidized scan slots for low-income and indigent patients.’ Thumbs up for RCCG, but thumbs down for Ogun State because ‘major public healthcare facilities in the state – such as the Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital (OOUTH) in Sagamu and the State Hospital in Ijaiye have lacked functional on-site MRI equipment, with the State House of Assembly actively pushing for their procurement.’

It is common knowledge that our leaders at all levels devote scanty attention to the state of our hospitals, primarily because they don’t patronize them. They always fly abroad for medical treatment – and can also afford the charges in the best private hospitals available locally. These days, we are inundated with stories of ‘lack of bed space’ in virtually all our hospitals. The father of one of my choristers spent hours on his wife’s wrapper spread on the bare floor along the corridors of LUTH before he was attended to because there was no bed space. He died. My panel-beater’s 14-year-old girl was rejected in one government hospital after another because of lack of bed space. She died.

The unprofessional conduct of health workers is another worrisome experience that anyone unfortunate enough to approach government hospitals has had to tell ad nauseam, ad infinitum. My treasured niece, Abosede Oluwayemi Edema, aged 54, died last June at the Federal Medical Centre, Ebute-Metta, Lagos, after being left unattended from 2.00am until she fell into a coma at 4.00pm. Her blood infection, which should not have killed her if she had been adequately and promptly attended to, was left untreated till she died. Doctors’ negligence, nonchalance, unprofessional conduct, and the complicity and duplicity of her husband sent her to an untimely grave. We can go on and on!

One story that made headline news last week was the death of one Mr. Olatunde John Kolawole, which reportedly occurred at the Lagos State Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja. Kolawole had an accident while trying to avoid an errant tricycle rider; he promptly got to the hospital but reportedly was left unattended for many hours that eventually proved fatal. One of the dead man’s siblings had this to say: ‘Your death was not just an accident… It was a failure of duty. The people sworn to protect life let you slip away. An accident didn’t kill you, but (the) negligence of LASUTH (did).’

I could feel her pain because I have been through that valley lately. It was not the cancer that my niece, Bose, bravely fought that eventually killed her; the concoctions applied on her by her husband and his family caused the blood infection that took her to the hospital. The nonchalance of doctors at the FMC, Ebute-Metta, was the last straw that broke the camel’s back.

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Issues arising from these incidents include the dearth of qualified and experienced health workers in our medical facilities. JAPA has turned our hospitals into ghosts of their former selves – and our governments appear to be doing nothing about it. They don’t patronise our hospitals anyway. The remaining medical personnel are criminally over-worked and stretched beyond elasticity level; with many collapsing and dying on duty. Little wonder, then, that they have become somewhat nonchalant and cavalier while on duty. ‘Do your best and take a rest or leave the rest’ now appears the mantra. In addition to shortage of hands, available facilities have not grown in tandem with population explosion, leaving gaps that cannot be filled overnight. Factor in the widespread corruption cankerworm and you begin to see how deplorable, to say the least, the situation has become in our hospitals.

There also is the question of the free rein given to Okada and Keke riders in many South-west states. It was the mercy of God that saved my family from mourning two years back when an Okada rider suddenly made a U-turn into the lane of my son’s power bike. All they need to hear is a shout of ‘okada’! Pronto, they stop! They turn! Anything! Something has got to be done about these pests.

But until citizens become more proactive and begin to hold the feet of our leaders to the fire, nothing will change. Fela said it all in his song, ‘Suffering and Smiling’: For as long as we keep smiling back at them, they won’t see our pains; but the moment we begin to bare our fangs, they will feel our pains – and act appropriately!

LIMCAF and the long game of investing in young artists

More than N60 million will be at stake when 100 artists converge on Enugu for the grand finale of the 19th edition of Life in My City Art Festival (LIMCAF). This year’s edition, themed ‘Open Letter’, concludes in the final week of October at the International Conference Centre of the Institute of Management and Technology, Enugu.

Six art professionals have been appointed to the 2026 National Jury Panel. They include: Chike Obeagu as chairman, Adiwu Talatu Onkala, Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi, Bella Anne C. Ndubuisi, Dotun Popoola and Frank Omoh Agbiyoa Ugiomoh, while Jerry Buhari, a professor, will curate the exhibition.

Their task is to sift through the works that have survived the selection process in LIMCAF’s regional centres. The 100 artists who emerged from the different parts of the country now face the final selection.

Chike Obeagu, who chairs the panel, is a contemporary artist, scholar, curator and an associate professor at the Federal University of Lafia. He has curated LIMCAF three times.

Adiwu Talatu Onkala, an artist and associate professor of Painting at the University of Maiduguri, has engaged with gender, identity and the social realities of contemporary Nigeria, particularly the experiences of women in the Northeast.

Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi, an artist and art historian, is the Steven and Lisa Tananbaum Curator at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. He previously held curatorial positions at the Cleveland Museum of Art and Dartmouth’s Hood Museum.

Bella Anne C. Ndubuisi, a cultural affairs specialist, has worked in culture, community development and international development. She has also been involved with LIMCAF in Taraba.

Dotun Popoola is a contemporary sculptor known for making works from discarded scrap metal.

Frank Omoh Agbiyoa Ugiomoh, an artist, art historian, critic and educator, has more than four decades of experience. African art history and historiography are central to his scholarship.

Buhari, the exhibition’s curator, has been a professor of Fine Art at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, since 1982. His career has included studio practice, teaching and curating exhibitions in Nigeria and abroad.

The prize money is only part of what the festival has built up since Robert Orji, founder of Rocana Nigeria Limited, started the competition for young artists in 2007. Over the years, LIMCAF has spread its selection process across different parts of the country, while some of its past winners have gone on to establish themselves on the Nigerian visual arts scene.

At the top of the pile is the Elder Kalu Young Artist of the Year Prize, formerly the festival’s overall winner’s prize. It was rechristened last year and is now worth the naira equivalent of $2,000. The prize is sponsored by the family of the late Elder Kalu Uke Kalu, a former LIMCAF chairman and visual arts aficionado.

The category prizes cover photography, painting, sculpture, drawing, ceramics and digital art, ranging from ?500,000 to ?1 million. The Chinelo Chime Prize for Best in Photography carries ?1 million, while the prizes for painting, sculpture, drawing and ceramics are worth ?500,000 each.

There are also prizes with more specific briefs. The Armstrong Agoreyo Prize is for the best artwork made from waste paper, while the Kanyeyachukwu Tagbo Prize recognises an outstanding work by an artist living with a disability.

Individuals, families and organisations have established other prizes. They include the Justice Anthony Aniagolu Prize for Originality and the Dr Pius Okigbo Prize for Technical Proficiency. Regional prizes include the Mfon Usoro Prize for Best Entry from the Uyo Centre and the VinMartins Ilo Prize for Best Entry from Enugu.

The festival’s rewards do not stop at the prize money. One of them is a two-week, all-expenses-paid trip to Dakar, Senegal, for the Dakar Art Biennale, or Dak’Art. There are also residencies and boot camps.

There are special prize categories for female artists, while LIMCAF’s workshops take its activities to primary and secondary school children, with particular attention to those living with disabilities. Abuja and Enugu have hosted some of these workshops in recent years.

Behind the prizes and programmes is a list of supporters that has grown over the years. They include the Alliance Française network in Nigeria, the Institut Français and the French Embassy, as well as Clam Lab, Paris; Rocana Nigeria Limited; the Pan African Circle of Artists; Honeywell Group; FBN Holdings; the Enugu State Council for Art and Culture; the Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos; and Thought Pyramid Art Centre, Abuja.

The prizes themselves have attracted endowments and special donations from the Justice Anthony Aniagolu family, Vin Martin Ilo, Thought Pyramid Art Centre, Mfon Usoro, the Pius Okigbo family, Art Is Everywhere, the Centre for Contemporary Art, Professor El Anatsui and Engr. Gesi Asamaowei, among others.

Robert Orji started LIMCAF in 2007 as a competition for young artists. Since then, artists from different parts of the country have entered each year, while several past overall and category prize winners have gone on to establish themselves on the Nigerian visual arts scene.

This year’s finalists will meet in Enugu in October, as LIMCAF looks forward to its 20th edition next year.

Kenya’s fintech sector faces an open finance era

When a customer walks into a shop in Kenya, whether they pay through M-Pesa, Airtel Money, a bank app, or another digital wallet determines which payment route they and the merchant use.

But a new proposed law could make these distinctions less important by pushing Kenya’s digital financial sector toward systems that can communicate with each other and allowing customers to share their financial data with other service providers.

The National Payment System Bill, 2026, introduces mandatory interoperability and open finance, which would reshape how fintechs build their products.

The proposed law requires payment service providers and payment system operators to use systems that can connect with those of other providers, operators and their agents.

Payment service providers handle customer-facing transactions, such as M-Pesa and Airtel Money, while payment system operators such as Pesalink own the underlying infrastructure for settling funds between financial institutions.

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) would also have the power to require providers to enter into interoperability arrangements.

This means fintechs would have less room to operate entirely closed payment systems. Different networks would connect, allowing money and payment instructions to move more easily between providers.

Kenya has already moved toward this model through mobile money interoperability and bank-to-mobile-money connections. For example, customers using Airtel Money can pay for goods at stores that use Safaricom’s M-Pesa till numbers.

The Bill seeks to make interoperability a broader feature of the national payment infrastructure rather than something individual providers choose to offer.

‘Each payment service provider or payment system operator shall use systems that are interoperable with the systems used by other payment service providers and payment system operators, and their agents,’ the Bill says.

For fintechs, this could change how they design their products. Instead of building around a single bank, wallet or payment network, a startup could build services that connect to several providers.

The bill defines open finance as allowing a third party, with a customer’s permission, to access and use data held by a payment service provider to offer new or improved services or develop new business models.

It also creates the concept of an account information service, which could allow information from accounts held with different providers to be brought together.

For instance, a Kenyan can have a salary account at one bank, a savings account at another, M-Pesa for everyday spending and a digital loan elsewhere.

Today, each institution largely sees only part of that person’s finances and the customer has to move between different apps, while the institutions have limited visibility of accounts held elsewhere.

Under open finance, the customer could authorise third-party applications to access information from several accounts and present it in one place.

This information could support other financial services: a personal-finance app could analyse spending across accounts, and a lender could, with permission, assess a customer’s financial activity across several providers instead of relying only on its own records.

Similarly, a small business seeking working capital could allow a lender to examine its transaction history across different payment channels.

The proposed law also introduces payment initiation services, enabling users to initiate online payments without directly interacting with their bank or financial service provider. This could allow fintechs to build new payment services on top of existing financial infrastructure.

This model is already more developed in markets such as the UK, where regulated third-party providers can access account information and initiate payments with customer permission.

For Kenya’s fintech sector, this could create room for startups built around the data and infrastructure of established financial institutions.

However, the financial system also creates new risks.

Because transaction histories can reveal income, spending habits, regular payments, relationships and financial difficulties, giving more third parties access to this information makes cybersecurity, data protection and clear customer consent critical.

Recent research by UK law firm TLT Solicitors found that half of financial services companies are concerned about the increased fraud risk as a result of the larger ‘attack surface’ open banking can give hackers.

Two thirds of respondents raised concerns about data loss or misuse through third-party providers.

The technology also raises the question of fraud and liability. If a customer authorises a payment through a third-party fintech and the transaction turns out to be fraudulent, the industry will need clear rules on who is responsible – the bank, fintech, payment system or customer.

As such, regulators globally have had to develop rules covering authentication, consent, data security, liability, complaints and the responsibilities of third-party providers.

Kenya’s bill does not specify how access would work and says the CBK ‘shall make regulations to give effect to this section.’

Details on what data can be accessed, under what conditions, and at what cost would be left to subsequent CBK regulations.

Opening access to financial infrastructure could also make it easier for smaller fintechs to compete with established institutions.

However, experts have warned that this may give large financial and technology companies room to exploit their customer bases and datasets, meaning open finance does not automatically produce a more competitive market.

French President calls for AI safeguards to protect children

French President Emmanuel Macron has called for artificial intelligence systems to be tested and evaluated before being made available to children, citing the need to protect them from potential risks associated with the technology.

Macron made the remarks in New York during a high-level meeting on protecting children’s rights and safety in the age of artificial intelligence, held on the sidelines of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly. The meeting was organized as part of the Coalition for Children’s Rights and Protection in the Age of AI.

The French president noted that children are increasingly interacting with technologies capable of speaking to them, answering questions, imitating friendship and responding to their anxieties. He said artificial intelligence was already becoming part of children’s daily lives and warned against repeating mistakes made with social media.

Macron also referred to the growing role of social media in the lives of children and teenagers over the past decade. He welcomed efforts to strengthen protections for children online and stressed the need to apply similar safeguards to artificial intelligence.

According to Macron, AI models should undergo testing and evaluation before being placed in children’s hands. He said that no AI model should be made available to children by default before it has been tested, evaluated and authorized.

He also stressed the importance of independent research into AI systems, taking into account different languages, cultures and educational environments. Such assessments, he said, should examine both the potential benefits claimed by developers and the risks associated with children’s age, the way the technology is used and the specific circumstances of its use.

Macron said the coalition would continue its work on the issue, with the next step expected at the Paris Peace Forum in November.

More rain in Central Plains, will ease off in Bangkok

It will rain heavily in the western part of the Central Plains while rain will continue and then start to decline in Greater Bangkok and the East on Sunday, according to the Meteorological Department.

Director-general Sugunyanee Yavinchan said a low-pressure cell remains over the western part of the Central Plains and the rather strong southwest monsoon reigns over the Andaman Sea, the South and the Gulf of Thailand.

She warned people to avoid low-lying areas and flood-prone roads, which could be inundated temporarily.

Small boats should remain ashore in the upper part of the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea until Monday.

From Monday to Friday, rainfall will decline in Thailand. However, there will be isolated heavy rain in the western part of the North and the Central Plains as the active low-pressure cell moves to Myanmar.

Govt prepares for IMF showcase opportunity

Thailand will showcase its products and tourism opportunities during the 2026 IMF-World Bank Group Annual Meetings in Bangkok next month.

The Oct 12-18 meetings will bring more than 15,000 policymakers, economists, public- and private-sector representatives and media personnel from 191 countries, according to the Bank of Thailand.

Finance Minister Ekniti Nitithanprapas described the event as the “Olympics of finance”.

The theme, “Thailand’s New Horizons: Empowering People, Building Resilience”, focuses on expanding opportunities for people and businesses while strengthening the economy and society against global volatility.

Thailand last hosted the annual meetings in 1991.

Mr Ekniti said the Finance Ministry and central bank would showcase products from across the country to delegates, particularly those with high purchasing power, to help businesses expand their markets.

The government expects the event to boost tourism by encouraging delegates to travel in Thailand during and after the meetings.

Business-matching sessions, seminars and financial-sector activities will give businesses opportunities to meet foreign investors and entrepreneurs. Textiles, culture and muay Thai will feature among the activities promoting the country.

A Royal Pavilion will be featured on Oct 13, the anniversary of the death of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej The Great. It will showcase initiatives inspired by his royal development principles, including approaches centred on empowering people, and projects continued under the current reign.

Mr Ekniti said the pavilion would introduce delegates to Thailand’s development experience and show how the principles could help communities build resilience and adapt to global changes.

Slovakia honours Azerbaijani martyrs on Remembrance Day

Slovakia has expressed its respect and solidarity with Azerbaijan on Remembrance Day, honouring those who lost their lives defending the country’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Slovak Ambassador to Azerbaijan Elcin Gasymov shared the message on social media on September 27, marking Remembrance Day in Azerbaijan.

‘Today, on #RemembranceDay, we honour the memory of all those who gave their lives for [Azerbaijan’s] territorial integrity and sovereignty,’ Gasymov wrote.

He added that Slovakia ‘expresses deep respect for their sacrifice and solidarity with the people of Azerbaijan’.

The ambassador accompanied his message with the flags of Slovakia and Azerbaijan and tagged the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry.

September 27 is observed annually in Azerbaijan as Remembrance Day to honour servicemen and civilians who lost their lives in the country’s wars and conflicts, particularly those who died during the 44-day Second Karabakh War in 2020.

Gasymov has served as Slovakia’s ambassador to Azerbaijan since August 2025. Slovakia and Azerbaijan have also been expanding bilateral cooperation, including in energy, investment and economic projects.

In recent months, Ambassador Gasymov has highlighted Slovakia’s interest in projects in Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region, including cooperation in agriculture and a planned Park Forest project in Aghdam.

The ambassador’s Remembrance Day message comes as Azerbaijan and Slovakia continue to deepen bilateral ties, with energy cooperation, including potential Azerbaijani gas supplies to Slovakia, remaining an important area of the relationship.

Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the art of political engineering

WHAT does it mean to be a good political leader? This is one fundamental question that straddles political philosophy and political science. Political theorists have always been concerned with the idea of the political community and how its leadership can facilitate social harmony for further socioeconomic development. This makes the question of leadership a very critical one for democratic theory, and the determination of the essence of democracy and good governance. All across the world, there are series of indices by which the characteristic features of good leadership are determined. For instance, the human development index references a composite achievement of political leadership in terms of the living standards of the citizens. For many years, the top positions have always been the preserves of the Scandinavian and European countries, from Finland and Norway to the Netherlands and Germany. The highest-performing African countries are not only interspersed within the index, they also constitute the bulk of the countries that make up the bottom rung of the list.

Such indices and indicators of poverty and prosperity make the determination of leadership even all the more interesting and sometimes confounding, especially in a country like Nigeria that carries the burden of geopolitical, regional and continental possibilities and challenges. Since her return to democratic experimentation in 1999, Nigeria’s search for a good political leader has become redoubled, especially given that Nigeria’s postcolonial and post-independence predicaments have become even more grinding for millions of average Nigerians. As we drive slowly and steadily towards another general election in 2027, the discourse around leadership and the future of Nigeria has become even more accentuated. The apprehension about the impending democratic decision process is not only palpable but also fundamentally existential. Millions are asking whether their political and electoral choices this time around would be defining enough to swing Nigeria’s political, and hence economic, fortunes.

And at the very heart of that democratic apprehension is the possibility that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will return to political power for another four years. Or that the opposition will be able to wrest power from him either jointly in strategic concert or singly through individual political and charismatic appeal. We must concede: within the force-field of the typical gains and pains that necessarily attend a root-and-branch brand of structural adjustment-grounded reforms, things are very difficult in Nigeria. The indices for multidimensional poverty are depressing. Millions have also been traumatised by insecurity from banditry and insurgency. Then there are the severe macroeconomic expressions of a governance system that is struggling to make sense of Nigeria’s oscillating fortunes. No one can envy any political leader who makes the decision to take on the heavy burden of shouldering Nigeria’s predicament at this moment in time. I do not envy such a leader given my background in governance, policy, and institutional reform. While I have been trying to make sense of the Nigerian civil service system, the President of Nigeria is trying to make sense of the political and economic dynamics of making Nigeria work. That is enormous. But then, people can argue that those who present themselves for leadership positions cannot be pitied because they had a sense of what it would entail, and they presumed that they had what it takes to steer the nation out of her challenges. This is a good argument that must be put in proper context.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu knew the task involved in managing the affairs of Nigeria. He has been involved at several political levels of Nigeria’s unfolding for decades; from being in the trenches of the pro-democracy movement, locally and in exile, to being in the legislative arm as a senator, to governing a state, and in the management of party politics and its combustible dynamics at challenging times, and participating as a core stakeholder in geopolitical policymaking at the highest levels through numerous but disruptive transitions. When he brazenly insisted that it was his turn to get to that highest level of overseeing Nigeria’s fate-when he served the notice to all political agents that ‘Èmi lókàn’ (it’s now my turn)-we have all missed the courage embedded in that political decision. And this for me is where we must start in our reflection on President Tinubu’s performance after four years in office, and whether or not his administration deserves a second term.

Given the heat of Nigeria’s pressing situation, we often gloss over the provenance and complexity of current predicaments. Nigeria did not become the way it is under Tinubu. In other words, Nigeria under the Tinubu administration is already a composite of complex and complicated dysfunction and debilitation. From independence to date, the political and developmental circumstances of the Nigerian state have kept fluctuating so much so that millions of Nigerians have been the worse for it. The commencement of the democratic experiment has not brought much relief. The issue is not to therefore articulate platitudes and excuses on why the Tinubu administration could not be considered to be magicians who are expected to transform Nigeria overnight. On the contrary, the critical analysis lies elsewhere.

This is where my interest in political philosophy enables an analysis that deepens the understanding of Bola Ahmed Tinubu beyond the usual political commentaries that often dissolve into petty and abusive vitriols. How does political philosophy enable us to figure the political style and leadership dexterity of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the president of the Nigerian state at this moment in time? One critical lens derives from the trajectory of his political evolution from a pro-democracy agitator to the sitting president of Nigeria. This alone is sufficient to necessitate an astute study of his political tenacity. In this regard, he has earned a space among the political avatars that have bestraddled the Nigerian space. Only a few leaders ever could survive Nigeria’s chaotic and violent political space, not to talk of ascending to the zenith of its governance structure. My interest, however, is not just taking on a measure of his political unravelling. Rather, I am intrigued by what his over three decades of political actions could reveal to us in terms of a distinct framework of political leadership, a schema of political power and the dynamics of nation-building.

It is very clear to me that, as a Tinubu acolyte, Western political understanding and global parameters of leadership will sit uneasily on Tinubu. This is not something to be lamented, because a leader is a function of the confluence of context, ideology, temperament and temporal situatedness. There is a level of unfairness in judging a postcolonial leadership by the parameters of Western political theory or democratic institutionalism. I will hazard the hypothesis further that, compared to Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Tinubu will still not be able to measure up in terms of a leadership grounded in value credentials. This is because Tinubu is already bedevilled by serious reputational negatives that derive from his political rising. However, the crucial difference between Awolowo and Tinubu is simply that the latter is at the helm of affairs of the Nigerian state at a time when it is most difficult to be a president. And this is doubly so for him because he has not only a running knowledge of the dynamics of the Nigerian predicaments; he also specifically asked to be president.

And yet, Tinubu has converted his political position into a stance of strength. His enigma persona, I insist, derives from his capacity for political engineering. This is an amorphous term that I need to unravel to capture my measure of respect for someone I consider to be a typology of a good leader. The rise of Tinubu from pro-democracy activist to governor of LAGOS State to political kingmaker and ultimately to president reveals a Machiavellian streak that speaks to his capacity to balance shifting alliances, strategically navigate complex and fragmented ethno-regional landscapes, and preside over an immense political machinery that manoeuvres between loyalists and rivals. He has become the ultimate Machiavellian strategist who is not just passively deft in deflecting oppositions, allegations and controversies. On the contrary, his strategic competences and alliances are meant to forge a pathway for rethinking Nigeria’s future.

This is a political persona that defies easy location in existing populist or bureaucratic leadership typology. We have a leader who has to ride through the rough and tough waters of the Nigerian political terrain and democratic context to be able to lay the foundation of a new Nigeria. This demands not just a visionary and ideological framework but also a transactional realism that demands systematic patronage structures which leverage the assistance of loyalists and experts around whom nation-building and political engineering can be facilitated. In the political discourse literature, the apt term for this patronage is political gardening-a framework of harnessing competences, expertise and alliances that could be deployed for political and non-political objectives. What makes Tinubu’s political rising fascinating and formidable is the emergence of a political machinery founded on political gardening, his capacity to headhunt political, economic and technocratic capacities that transcend generational and regional limitations.

This political machinery has not been founded for the sake of merely obtaining power for the sake of power. This is a difficult argument to sell given the generations of political powerbrokers who have passed through Aso Rock and left Nigeria worse than they met it. But then, why headhunt a critical mass of technocratic brainpowers if the endgame was simply to seize and exploit political power? If this harnessing of technocratic competence worked in his grand modernising plan for Lagos State, why would Nigeria be any different with the same strategy? This is where the Machiavellian label deserts our characterisation of Tinubu. This is because Machiavelli’s understanding of political power was for the maintenance of the state’s boundaries; Tinubu’s understanding of political power dwells at the very tight juncture where institutional patronage and strategic resilience must meet visionary policymaking, and power consolidation must be balanced by political engineering.

Four years are not sufficient for balancing power play while trying to inject structural reform into the Nigerian system. But what is more, for a nation-state that has been run into a complicated national dysfunction, there is no gainsaying the urgent necessity of swallowing hard pills of stringent policies like the fuel subsidy removal, the unification of the foreign exchange rates and the tightening of the monetary policy in ways that seek to eliminate price instability as an act in economic stabilisation that has crystallised. These are a few of the policies already put in place to alleviate the policy errors of the past and achieve fiscal growth and accountability.

Let us return to the critical comparison between Awolowo and Tinubu. We are all apprised of the legacy of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, especially in terms of human and infrastructural development. Tinubu’s legacy is still in the making, and the quest for a second term in office will go a long way not only to douse the immediate threat of political opposition (directed towards reputational damage) but to also allow freer avenue for the consolidation of the foundations of transformational policies. To secure a spot in the annals of political leadership in Nigeria, Tinubu is faced with the challenge of converting his political strategies and pragmatic orientation towards not just stabilising the fractured Nigerian state but also laying a policy architecture of economic recovery and growth.