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Regular readers will notice a shift in this week’s column. It steps away from commercial property and infrastructure to attend to a personal matter. Sometimes a column must leave its usual ground to settle a debt. In the coming days, a man I consider one of the finest minds Nigerian journalism has produced will present his memoir. Before that happens, I want to say in print what I am not certain I have ever said to him directly.

There was a season in Nigeria when a newspaper column could summon a head of state. Dr Chidi Amuta once wrote a piece titled ‘Ibrahim Gorbachev,’ drawing a comparison between Nigeria’s military leader, Ibrahim Babangida, and Mikhail Gorbachev, then undertaking sweeping reforms in the Soviet Union. In another article, ‘Thesis on Liberia,’ he argued that Nigeria should use its influence in West Africa to prevent Liberia from descending into civil war. Both pieces found their way to Dodan Barracks. The president read them and wanted to meet their author.

That episode may seem like a footnote in a long career, but it has stayed with me because it captures what serious writing once represented in this country, and what it can still represent. A column was not decoration placed between advertisements. It was an instrument of public thought. It could clarify a national problem, disturb official comfort and travel all the way to the highest office in the land.

That power has not entirely disappeared. More recently, Amuta’s commentary on the state of the nation drew a sharp response from the presidency. The setting may be different from the days of Dodan Barracks, but the central point remains: those in authority still read him, still answer him and, occasionally, still seem unsettled by what he writes. Decades later, the Amuta pen continues to command attention.

Regular readers will notice a shift in this week’s column. It steps away from commercial property and infrastructure to attend to a personal matter. Sometimes a column must leave its usual ground to settle a debt. In the coming days, a man I consider one of the finest minds Nigerian journalism has produced will present his memoir. Before that happens, I want to say in print what I am not certain I have ever said to him directly.

There was a season in Nigeria when a newspaper column could summon a head of state. Dr Chidi Amuta once wrote a piece titled ‘Ibrahim Gorbachev,’ drawing a comparison between Nigeria’s military leader, Ibrahim Babangida, and Mikhail Gorbachev, then undertaking sweeping reforms in the Soviet Union. In another article, ‘Thesis on Liberia,’ he argued that Nigeria should use its influence in West Africa to prevent Liberia from descending into civil war. Both pieces found their way to Dodan Barracks. The president read them and wanted to meet their author.

That episode may seem like a footnote in a long career, but it has stayed with me because it captures what serious writing once represented in this country, and what it can still represent. A column was not decoration placed between advertisements. It was an instrument of public thought. It could clarify a national problem, disturb official comfort and travel all the way to the highest office in the land.

That power has not entirely disappeared. More recently, Amuta’s commentary on the state of the nation drew a sharp response from the presidency. The setting may be different from the days of Dodan Barracks, but the central point remains: those in authority still read him, still answer him and, occasionally, still seem unsettled by what he writes. Decades later, the Amuta pen continues to command attention.

Here I must make a small confession. Although I had read and admired his articles for some time, providence later brought me much closer to him. The writer I had known from a distance gradually became someone whose character, habits, and discipline I could observe up close. I will leave the precise circumstances of that closeness unstated; they belong to the private part of life. What matters here is that proximity did not diminish the admiration formed from afar. It deepened it. I discovered that the discipline visible on the page was not a pose adopted for publication. It was part of the man.

I began to notice the behind-the-scenes effort: reading, curiosity, and a refusal to become intellectually lazy. While many can produce a single memorable article, few manage to remain relevant across various political eras and shifting editorial standards. Amuta has accomplished this without allowing longevity to become an excuse for repetition. His consistency extends beyond weekly content submissions; it includes a sustained discipline of continuous thinking.

I now write a weekly column on commercial property and infrastructure in the Perspective section of BusinessDay Sunday, drawing from more than two decades of professional practice. The challenge is not finding opinions. It is translating experience into a clear argument, meeting the weekly deadline and returning with something else worth a reader’s time. My journey bears no comparison with Amuta’s. Yet his example has made me understand that influence is built quietly: through preparation, careful reasoning, consistency and the humility to keep improving after publication.

His career has been as varied as it has been consequential. Over the decades, he has worked as an academic, literary theorist, newspaper editor, editorial adviser, chief executive and columnist. He was an early member of The Guardian’s Editorial Board, served as Group Editorial Adviser and Chairman of the Daily Times Editorial Board, and later became Chief Executive of The Post Express. He remains associated with the THISDAY Editorial Board and continues to write his weekly column, Engagements.

What strikes me is that he has never truly stopped. Decades into a career that would have given most people sufficient reason to rest on past achievement, he continues to turn up with something worth saying. He has therefore become a model to me beyond writing: a lesson in how a career is built, repaired and sustained, and in how one continues to work with integrity long after there is anything left to prove.

Even now, he often sends me a simple message: ‘Keep going.’ From someone who has lived those words throughout his career, they carry heavy weight. They are encouragement, certainly, but also a rule: do the work, survive the disappointment, resist self-pity and return to the page. I have come to treasure those two words because the life behind them gives them authority.

If I have one quarrel with the way his career has been received, it is this: a man whose columns once travelled through the corridors of power, whose academic work contributed to the study of African literature, and whose public commentary has interpreted Nigeria over several decades deserves a wider and younger audience than he has been given. Nigeria too often celebrates its elders quietly, among those who already know, instead of introducing them loudly to those who need to know.

Those of us who grew up reading writers like Amuta deserve to acknowledge them more publicly. This piece is a modest attempt at that recognition, written before the presentation rather than after, because delayed gratitude can start to seem more like an obituary than a tribute. The best time to honor intellectual work is while its creator can appreciate the words.

HOMAGE: Return to Familiar Places appears to be a fitting vessel for that conversation: a life recalled with enough honesty and range to become, at the same time, a record of the country’s passage through journalism, scholarship, politics and public life. A memoir by someone who has spent decades interpreting Nigeria cannot be merely personal. The country inevitably enters the story, with its promises, ruptures, characters and recurring disappointments.

The memoir is only one part of a much larger body of work. Years ago, Amuta demonstrated its scale with Writing the Wrong, a collection of more than a thousand pages drawn from decades of newspaper columns. Taken together with his later writings, the work approaches an unbroken record of Nigeria’s condition: its politics, crises and stubborn hopes, recorded in real time by a writer equipped with the history and language to explain events as they unfolded.

There are university departments teaching Nigerian political history from material far thinner than what sits in his back catalogue. I expect to read HOMAGE as I read his columns years ago: slowly, attentively and with a pencil nearby. But I will now read it with an added privilege, the knowledge of the man behind the sentences and with greater appreciation for the discipline required to turn a lifetime of observation into a body of work.

This column will return to its usual ground soon enough. But some debts are worth interrupting the schedule for. This is one of them.

Five young Nigerian filmmakers have been shortlisted for the inaugural Nigeria Prize for Creative Arts (NPCA), established by NLNG in 2025 to celebrate creative excellence among the nation’s youth.

The prize, which attracted 98 entries, challenges participants to interpret the theme of ‘Identity’ through documentary filmmaking. The shortlisted documentaries will be reviewed in a series of posts examining how each entry aligns with NLNG’s vision for the award.

Feranmi Abiola’s documentary, ‘Mara Mania,’ explores the evolving sound, dance, and street culture shaped largely by young Nigerians. The film presents identity not as something inherited and fixed, but as something a new generation is actively creating.

One participant in the documentary captures the spirit of the initiative, stating: ‘We are cultural architects. It’s our job to document the times.’

The NPCA extends NLNG’s two-decade tradition of recognising exceptional Nigerian talent, which includes The Nigeria Prize for Literature and The Nigeria Prize for Science and Innovation. The winner will receive US$20,000.

‘Nigeria is constantly evolving,’ notes Anne-Marie Palmer Ikuku, Corporate Communications Manager of NLNG. ‘New expressions of our culture are emerging alongside the traditions we have inherited. If we do not encourage people to document these moments, important parts of the story of who we are and who we are becoming may simply pass undocumented.’

The prize’s Advisory Board comprises Prof. Adimora-Ezeigbo, Prof Ahmed Yerima, and Prof Olu Obafemi, with technical guidance from Joel ‘Kachi Benson and Femi Odugbemi.

The remaining four shortlisted documentaries will be featured in subsequent posts.

Appreciating the finalists for NLNG’s The Nigeria Prize for Creative Arts (NPCA)

1. Mara Mania by Feranmi Abiola.

By Anne_Marie Palmer Ikuku

Five young Nigerian filmmakers are on the shortlist for the inaugural The Nigeria Prize for Creative Arts (NPCA), established by NLNG in 2025.

Their challenge? To interpret one powerful theme: IDENTITY.

The Prize attracted 98 entries from remarkably talented and creative young Nigerians. Having had the opportunity to watch the entries, I was struck by the range of stories, perspectives, and expressions of Nigeria they captured.

Over the next few posts, I will focus on the five shortlisted documentaries, not simply to review them, but to reflect on how each speaks to NLNG’s purpose in establishing the Prize.

I begin with Mara Mania by Feranmi Abiola.

The documentary takes us into Mara, an evolving sound, dance and street culture shaped largely by young Nigerians. Through the voices of those creating it, we see identity not as something inherited and fixed, but as something a new generation is actively creating.

One comment particularly captures this: ‘We are cultural architects. It’s our job to document the times.’

That thought resonates strongly with the purpose of the NPCA.

Nigeria is constantly evolving. New expressions of our culture are emerging alongside the traditions we have inherited. If we do not encourage people to document these moments, important parts of the story of who we are and who we are becoming may simply pass undocumented.

That is part of what NLNG hopes to achieve with the Nigeria Prize for Creative Arts. Provide a platform that challenges young Nigerian creatives to look closely at their society, interrogate it, document it and tell its stories with excellence.

It is one of our core values at NLNG and a principle that has underpinned The Nigeria Prizes for more than two decades: the belief that exceptional Nigerian talent should be identified, encouraged and rewarded.

We have pursued that conviction through The Nigeria Prize for Literature and The Nigeria Prize for Science and Innovation. The NPCA extends it to a new generation, using creative expression to help us understand ourselves and preserve something of our times for those who come after us.

The winner receives US$20,000 – a deliberate recognition that creative excellence and the work of telling our stories have value.

As another voice in Mara Mania puts it, ‘For me, Mara means freedom. Freedom to express.’

Perhaps that is also part of the opportunity the NPCA represents. An opportunity for young Nigerians to express, interpret and document Nigeria through their own eyes.

Mara Mania is one such interpretation of IDENTITY, the theme for 2026, as defined by the Advisory Board – Prof. Adimora-Ezeigbo, Prof Ahmed Yerima, Prof Olu Obafemi, with the technical guidance of Joel ‘Kachi Benson and Femi Odugbemi.

The literary community, bibliophiles and the wider public will gather on Saturday, 12 September, at the Mövenpick Hotel, Alfred Rewane Road, Ikoyi, for the formal presentation of a book of the moment: Dr Chidi Amuta’s Homage: Return to Familiar Places.

Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi – former Rivers State governor, former minister, and Dr Amuta’s former student – will be the Special Guest of Honour. Dr Yemi Ogunbiyi will chair the event, and ThisDay’s Segun Adeniyi will serve as the official book reviewer.

A memoir that refuses the usual apology

In his autobiography, Homage: Return to Familiar Places (2025), Dr Chidi Amuta does something rare in Nigerian memoirs: he treats journalism not as a vocation defined by hunger and compromise, but as the only arena large enough for a life of ideas. The book upends the familiar stereotype of the poorly paid reporter, the mortgaged editor, and the columnist who writes because there is nothing else to sell. For Amuta, the newsroom and the editorial board were places where intellect could move beyond the seminar room and enter public life.

It is one of a few that celebrates rather than laments the life of journalism and its financial and lifestyle benefits. Another is a prominent journalist, Aremo Olusegun Osoba’s Battlelines: Adventures in Journalism and Politics.

I return to Homage because of its many-sided contributions. A significant one is what Dr Amuta says about journalism.

His hunger for a wider audience began while he was still a university teacher. Within a few years, he had produced outstanding work, including the acclaimed Theory of African Literature: Implications for Practical Criticism. He realised that academic writing addressed only ‘a small cult of fellow specialists.’ He wanted something else.

‘I craved a larger audience in which my words and ideas would make a difference in people’s lives, or at least in the decisions that affect the lives of the people whose lot I was ideologically committed to improving.’

The Guardian, newly launched under Dr Stanley Macebuh, answered that craving. It ‘opened up Nigerian journalism to the force of intellect and depth.’ The Babangida years, whatever else they were, at least ‘showed commendable respect for ideas as tools for national development.’ Amuta envied the Lagos media elite and their proximity to power. He wanted to be among them – not as a petitioner, but as a participant in the national discourse.

The shop that paid the fees, and the work that fed the mind

That choice is tested when the university and a brief government posting both end. He returns to Lagos with a young family, a rented duplex, and no job. His friends at The Guardian are on their way out after a clash with the publisher.

The practical solution is Kiddies Arena, a children’s shop on Allen Avenue: toys, clothing, educational goods, and later imports from the United States. The shop pays the school fees. It does not feed the mind.

‘While I was occupied with the task of helping to run the new business, I felt unfulfilled. My mind was not busy. I was not part of the wider national discourse in the media. I was not meant to be a nondescript Lagos shopkeeper.

Something had to give. I waited and kept in touch with my friends in the media… I needed a credible and respectable forwarding address… I waited.’

The wait is not for any job. It is for a role in journalism and ideas. When Yemi Ogunbiyi is appointed Managing Director of the Daily Times, he invites Amuta to chair the Editorial Board and ‘steer the intellectual content and direction of the new Daily Times that we wanted to establish.’ That is the work he has been waiting for.

Loyalty as a professional principle

The same principle governs how he leaves. When Ogunbiyi is removed by radio announcement, Amuta does not wait to be redeployed by the incoming establishment editor. He tells the new managing director that his tenure ended the moment his friend’s did. He packs his files and drives away.

‘I did not join The Daily Times as an independent job seeker. I was invited by Yemi to help realise his vision. When his employers no longer shared that vision or valued it for what it was, it was time to move on… Friends are forever.’

Later, after The Post Express, he walks away again – this time into a consultancy built on the same wager: that ideas, information and public affairs can be merchandise. An older cousin is sceptical that anyone can ‘earn a living and pay my bills by just marketing ideas.’ Amuta answers by founding Wilson and Weizmann Associates, and by titling the chapter ‘Words and Ideas into Merchandise.’

What the juice actually is

The through-line of Homage is therefore the plausible dignity of Nigerian journalism. Amuta insists that the written word, properly housed in a newspaper with intellectual ambition, is a form of power. He would rather sit idle, help run a toy shop on Allen Avenue, or walk out of a government-owned title than accept work that severed him from ideas. In a culture that often treats journalism as a last resort, that refusal is the book’s quiet argument: the juice of the trade is not the salary or the byline. It is the chance to put thought into the public square – and to live by it.

For Amuta, the juice of journalism and the life of ideas include:

1. Influence – the capacity of a well-made argument to travel beyond the page and alter how a public thinks.

2. Access to power, and a role in critical decisions in public life. Dr Amuta’s ideas contributed to the choice of Asaba as the capital of Delta State and to the creation of his home state, Abia.

3. Proximity to the powerful – not as a petitioner at the gate, but as a mind invited into the room where national questions are framed.

None of these, in Amuta’s account, is an accident of personality or a gift of patronage. They are the natural yield of a trade practised as intellectual work. That is the claim Homage makes on the reader and on the profession it remembers.

Chidi Amuta in capsule

Dr Chidi Amuta is a Nigerian scholar, literary critic, journalist, columnist, and public-affairs consultant. He is best known for his early theoretical work on African literature, senior roles at The Guardian, Daily Times, and The Post Express, a long-running column in ThisDay, and his 2025 memoir, Homage: Return to Familiar Places.

Education and academic career

He studied at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), earning a first-class B.A. in English (1979), then an M.A. and PhD. His work there focused on African literature, the sociology of culture, and communication.

He lectured at Ife (1979-81) and later served as a senior lecturer at the University of Port Harcourt (1981-86). His two most-cited academic books are Towards a Sociology of African Literature (1986) and The Theory of African Literature: Implications for Practical Criticism (1989).

Both argued that African writing should be read through the politics of decolonisation and Marxist/postcolonial theory rather than purely Western formalist criticism.

Journalism and public life

In 1986 he joined the editorial board of The Guardian. He later became Group Editorial Adviser and Chairman of the Editorial Board at Daily Times (appointed during the Babangida years) and Managing Director of The Post Express (1996-99). At Post Express, he pioneered digital publishing and established syndication links with titles such as The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times. He also edited Platform magazine.

He briefly served in government as director/chairman of Imo State’s rural-development directorate (DFRRI) under Ibrahim Babangida. He later wrote Prince of the Niger: The Babangida Years (1992). He has interviewed many heads of state, including Robert Mugabe, Yoweri Museveni, The Gambia’s Dauda Jawara and several Nigerian leaders.

He is Chairman/CEO of Wilson and Weizmann Associates, a Lagos-based media and public-policy firm.

Book presentation: Saturday, 12 September · Mövenpick Hotel, Alfred Rewane Road, Ikoyi, Lagos.

Stephen Oladeji, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Agodi Technologies, is building a technology group around a simple but ambitious idea: that some of the world’s most relevant digital solutions can be developed by solving real problems in Africa first.

Under Stephen’s leadership, Agodi Technologies has grown a portfolio of more than 20 live digital products spanning digital identity, education, healthcare, legal services, fintech and entertainment, with products and operations extending across Africa and Asia.

Rather than focusing on a single technology category, Stephen has pursued a multi-sector approach designed to address practical challenges affecting individuals, businesses and institutions.

Among Agodi’s products are AfriID, a digital identity network; IDVero, an identity-verification platform; SchoolID, a digital operating system for schools; Legal Buddy, a legal-access marketplace with AI-powered triage; and Sisi Nurse, a healthcare workforce network.

‘We built Agodi around the belief that technology should solve real problems,’ Stephen said. ‘The opportunity is not simply to create another application. It is to build products that make access, trust and participation easier for people and businesses.’

A central part of Oladeji’s philosophy is that Africa should not be viewed simply as a market for technology developed elsewhere. He sees the continent’s complexity, diversity and rapidly changing digital economy as an environment capable of producing solutions with global relevance.

‘Africa is not a test market – it is a proving ground,’ he said. ‘The products that succeed here, under real conditions, are the ones ready for the world.’

This philosophy has shaped Agodi’s approach to product development. The company seeks to understand the needs of African users, develop solutions to global standards and then explore opportunities to scale those solutions internationally.

Oladeji is also focused on building the infrastructure that can support greater digital trust across the continent. Agodi is currently raising a 2 million close, to accelerate product development, expand into additional African markets and strengthen its technology infrastructure and strategic partnerships.

‘We are building the infrastructure layer that will power Africa’s digital economy,’ Oladeji said. ‘Identity, trust and access are foundations for almost everything else, and those are areas where Africa has enormous room for innovation.’

Agodi’s growth has also included strategic partnerships, including its recent appointment as a Preferred Pan-African Partner for SynxDB cloud data infrastructure, while the company continues to expand its presence in Southern Africa.

For Oladeji, however, the long-term ambition extends beyond individual products or funding milestones.

‘We want to build a technology group from Africa that can compete on a global stage,’ he said. ‘Our African roots give us a deep understanding of the problems we are solving, but our standards and ambitions are global.’

As Agodi continues expanding its portfolio and partnerships through 2026 and into 2027, Oladeji remains focused on building technology that can move from local relevance to international impact.

‘Building from Africa does not mean thinking small,’ he said. ‘It means starting where the problems are most real and building solutions that can ultimately matter anywhere in the world.’

Prominent forex and commodities trader, Uche Paragon, has called on Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to slash its proposed retail forex leverage limit from 1:400 to a range of 1:10 to 1:30.

Reacting to the SEC’s draft framework for online retail forex trading, Paragon warned that high leverage exposes retail investors to extreme capital losses. He recommended adopting tighter limits aligned with global regulatory standards, while allowing experienced traders to apply for higher leverage through formal risk assessments.

Beyond leverage restrictions, Paragon raised critical concerns regarding the SEC’s proposed ?3bn minimum capital requirement for forex brokers. He cautioned that such a steep financial threshold risks fostering a market monopoly, stifling competition, and driving local traders towards unregulated offshore jurisdictions.

Because Nigeria’s retail market is primarily driven by youth and middle-income earners with average deposits of $100, Paragon argued that traditional domestic investors who generally lack deep familiarity with Contracts for Difference (CFDs) would be hesitant to commit N3bn to the sector.

To address capital constraints for market operators, Paragon proposed a scaled model for ‘B-Book’ brokers, who execute client trades internally rather than routing them to external liquidity pools. Rather than a flat multi-billion-naira requirement, he suggested pegging a broker’s operating capital to total client deposits at a 10:1 ratio.

Under this framework, a broker holding $10,000 in client funds would maintain $100,000 in operating capital, while one managing $100,000 would hold $1m. He emphasised that this approach ensures solvency while preserving market access.

Additionally, Paragon questioned the operational feasibility of requiring Straight-Through Processing (STP) and Electronic Communication Network (ECN) brokers to hold client trading funds strictly in local bank accounts. Because these brokers route orders and margins to international liquidity providers, he urged the SEC to clarify how funds will move across borders without disrupting trade execution.

He also advocated lower entry barriers for Introducing Brokers (IBs), many of whom are young entrepreneurs operating on referral commissions, to prevent severe industry exclusion.

While describing the SEC’s move to regulate the online forex market as a welcome development, Paragon urged the Commission to refine its proposal to balance investor protection with market accessibility, competitive fairness, and financial inclusion.