Yali Network Kwara Blog

Interviewer: Ogbonlaiye Oluwaseyi (Director of Programs, YALI Network, Kwara) Interviewee: Oluwaseyi Dara (Past (and first) State Coordinator, YALI Network, Kwara) __________________________________________ INTERVIEWER: We have been hearing about YALI? Can you tell us what YALI is all about?  SEYI DARA: As the name implies, YALI is Young African Leaders Initiative. It is a U.S. programme meant to spur growth amongst African youths in the area of business, civic leadership, and public leadership. So over the years, I think YALI started around 2010. They did a pilot phase of it, and then the fellowship kick-started in 2014. That is the Mandela Washington fellowship. So YALI has 3 umbrellas. The Mandela Washington Fellowship is an exchange program where you travel out of the country for those that are selected. Then, the Regional Leadership Center. Each zone, each region, has that. The West region is in Accra, Ghana. Then, is southern, which is in South Africa. Then another one in the nor

God in HIS infinite grace ingeniously created a loving and serendipitous being from the ribcages of man [as it is written in the scriptures], the one who could serves as a breastplate for her family, the one who channels nothing but unconditional love for her family; THE MOTHER.  During my days in islamiyya, my clerics always quoted some words and he made sure we got it deep rooted in our hearts. He said in one of his lectures " During childbirth, women(our mothers) is placed at the brink of death, both her legs placed diagonally at the realms of life and death. He said researchers has proven that, if a pregnant woman has an organ damage, the baby in her womb sends a stem cell to help in repairing the organ. The bond that exist between the mother and the child is truly intriguing, not to mention the pain she passes through during the entire gestation period and childbirth. But today advancement in science and technology has engineered its way into the way women give birth. In a s

Article by: Muhammed Labeeb Some ppl are not worth the regards, this is because when you rate them on a scale of respect which is reciprocation, they don't do it, they believe in being superior to everyone. First I asked myself what is maturity, no one wants to say I am immature, but everybody don't still tend to understand what maturity entails we just claim it. Maturity doesn't involve you being strict, maturity doesn't involve you to class yourself and not talk to people because you feel they will disrespect you, maturity isn't being a superior of other. Let me enlighten you about maturity. Maturity deals with alot of things which only little have, amongst is patience which isn't common, people think acting fast is always the answer, but patience entails you to wait and pick a better option to act on, most times when we lay down and think of our actions we then always realize some steps we felt we should never have taken which would have been bet

Plutocracy is the type of government run by the wealthy or a government controlled by the wealthy class. It is no longer news as to the amount needed to purchase nomination forms in the All Progressives Congress (APC), one of the major if not leading party in Nigeria.  The nomination forms for the positions of senator, governor and president cost nothing less than 170, 000, 000 naira which is about 310, 000 US dollars with the present naira to dollar exchange rate.  We should also note that purchasing of nomination forms is only the beginning of monetary expenses for political aspirants. Money spent on campaigns, which involves logistics, printing of banner, renting of billboards, television campaigns, and involvement of celebrities to help in the campaign process.  In the peculiar case of Nigeria, money is spent on ‘relief materials’ for possible voters who are enticed by these, thereby compelling the voters to vote the aspirant who is perceived as the highest bidder or sends more ‘re

If you are familiar with the Nigerian media space, listen to the news, listen to press statements from government officials and politically elected officials, watch public hearings and press conferences. The words “Inherited” or “global” is cliché as the words are common ground for irresponsible government officials to leverage on. You may ask where the use of these words or the situation or the reason for the use of these words stem from! This is somewhat a very good question as these words are used by irresponsible government officials in Nigeria for their flagrant indisposition to responsibilities duly expected of them to fulfill.  Also the idea of politically elected officials using these words is not peculiar to them alone as these words can apply to person or persons who are responsible for certain things in an organization or society at large. Let me also state that these words can be used by any person or persons as they have different meanings as seen in differen

 Written by Alamu Azeez "I Have a Dream" is a public speech that was delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, in which he called for civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States. Delivered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., the speech was a defining moment of the civil rights movement and among the most iconic speeches in American history. But in the context of my presentation, I HAVE A DREAM AND MY DREAM IS NIGERIA. A BETTER NIGERIA💥 or we say A NIGERIA OF OUR OWN LIKING💥 A Nigeria where things will be different from what we see today. A Nigeria that's devoid of hatred, inequality, elite conflict, opposition enmity, culminating corruption, mass defection and cross carpeting, abduction and assassination, interrupted power supply, mass unemployment, internal insurgency, administrative def