President Trump has been impeached on Wednesday by the House of Representatives, ending the speculations that have surrounded his future in office as the president of the United States since August.

Trump’s survival chances were hanging along party lines, with the Democrats pushing the inquiry and Republicans rallying their support for Trump.

The impeachment was based mainly on two articles: Abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The “abuse of power” article accused Trump of using his office influence corruptly to solicit election assistance from Ukraine in the form of investigations to discredit his Democratic political rivals.

The article passed for impeachment on 230 to 197 votes, with Republicans voting in support of the president.

On the second article, “obstruction of congress,” the vote went 229 to 198 in favor of impeachment, because a Democrat joined the Republicans in opposition, making it the third Democrat who has joined forces with the Republicans to rally around Trump.

The historic debate was spurred by many activities that have trailed Trump’s presidency since he assumed office over three years ago. The intelligence report that Russia meddled in the U.S election in favor of Trump instigated an inquiry that lasted for months, but didn’t provide substantial evidence that calls for impeachment, even though many Democrats were willing to give it a try. House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi in March, waved it off saying “he is just not worth it.”

Trump’s impeachment wasn’t considered a possibility until August, when a CIA whistleblower anonymously dropped a box of a recent activity emanating from the White House at the doorstep of the House, and that changed both Pelosi and the public stand on impeachment once more.

The whistleblower’s “box” contained an allegation of quid pro quo deal Trump tried to intimidate Ukraine into, pushing them with the words “do us a favor” to investigate the Democratic presidential hopeful, Joe Biden, or risk losing a supposed $400 million in military aids. The information prompted an audacious inquiry, and the House Intelligence Committee swung into action, summoning senior American diplomats and White House officials for questioning while requesting every document admissible to the matter.

It was upon further inquiries that more facts were established, leading to the impeachment debate. This time, Pelosi couldn’t hold back, and Trump’s fate was lying between the votes of the House members.

“Today, as speaker of the House, I solemnly and sadly open the debate on the impeachment of the president of the United States,” Pelosi stated. “If we do not act now, we would be derelict in our duty. It is tragic that the president’s reckless actions make impeachment necessary. He gave us no choice.”

That’s the fourth time such a debate would take place with a consequential result for the president in the United States. In 1868, Andrew Johnson became the first U.S president to be impeached by the House. In 1974, it was President Richard M Nixon who resigned rather than face such consequence. Bill Clinton joined the list in 1998. But Johnson survived in 1868 by a single vote while Clinton beat his charges with more than half of the Senate voting for him to remain in office.

But unlike his predecessors who got caught in impeachment debate, Trump was defiant and show no sign of remorse, repeatedly calling the inquiry “witch hunt” and a “hoax.” In his letter to the Speaker of the House, Pelosi, Trump called his impeachment inquiry “unconstitutional abuse of power by Democrat lawmakers,” he also asserted that he has done no wrong, citing the transcript of his conversation with president Zelesnky of Ukraine, though the transcript was said to have been edited before it was released to the House.

Trump’s further action that justified the congress obstruction article was the White House’s refusal to allow its summoned officials to testify, some of them are believed to have firsthand knowledge about the matter. But his efforts to halt the inquiry only inspired the left to push for impeachment.

The Intelligence Committee chairman, who led the impeachment inquiry, Adam B. Schiff said: “Over the course of the last three months, we have found incontrovertible evidence that president Trump abused his power by pressuring the newly elected president of Ukraine to announce an investigation into president Trump’s political rival. The president and his men plot on, the danger persists. The risk is real. Our democracy is at peril.”

The House speaker is hoping to delay the trial by not transmitting the article to the senate as soon as possible, until they get assurance that they will be a fair trial. Pelosi believe that slowing the process could serve as leverage in negotiating the terms of the trial with Republican senators.

It appears likely the trial will end in reinstatement. The right having majority of the senate, and having shown their unwavering support for Trump, is likely going to acquit him. This predetermination of the trial appears to be the lifeline that Trump is counting on.

“I’m not worried. You don’t do anything wrong and you get impeached. That may be a record that will last forever. But you know what they have done? They have cheapened the impeachment process. Senators are going to do the right thing,” Trump said.

Prof. Attahiru Jega, the former INEC chairman, revealed on Thursday, 12th December, 2019 that a survey conducted by a committee set up by Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has shown that Nigeria has low percentage of foreign students and foreign academic staff. According to him, out of 1,132,795 students involved in the survey, only 1,856 of them were foreign students. This also applied to academic staff, where only 437 out of 5,604 academic staff were foreigners.

This report truly showed that Nigerian policies on admission into Nigerian higher institutions and other related factors discourage foreign students from finding Nigerian higher institutions attractive.

I believe a lot of people will say that the Nigerian standard of education and the poor state of educational facilities are enough to discourage Nigerian and non-Nigerian students from considering Nigerian higher institutions. That is true, but there may be more to it than meets the eye. But even if Nigerian education system is nothing to write home about, how come we have a paltry number of foreign lecturers in our schools?

When I threw this question open to some of my friends, the answers I got ranged from foreign lecturers being too expensive to maintain to Nigerian jobs being for Nigerians first. This last opinion was what prompted this write-up. According to the people that said this, “Nigerians need to settle their people first before settling others”.

As much as it is necessary for Nigerians to be given priority in recruitment processes within the country, there is a need to understand the benefits of bringing in people from different cultures, backgrounds, religions and beliefs. You might also wish to know that even within Nigeria, employers are more comfortable recruiting and working with people they share the same cultural background with. A lot of people may term this nepotism but I see it herds-mentality. I’ll explain that soon.

Be it in the corporate or the business world, you would have realised that people that are not from the same religion, tribe or language as yours are more suspicious while dealing with you. Even you may be sceptical about someone that is “different” from you culturally – you prefer dealing with your kind because it is just easier that way. There are so many reasons for this, though a lot of them are quite unexplainable. But I’ll try my best to mention some of them here.

Communication Difficulty: I as a person have experienced this a lot. Different cultures have different means of communication, especially when it comes to signs and gestures. For example, it took me a long time to learn how to greet people “properly” when I was in Ibadan. I had fallouts with elders because I stand straight while sending out passive “good morning”. While in Zamfara, my challenges were looking elderly men straight in the eyes while addressing them. Now all these “rudeness” would have been enough for these people not to recruit that “Igbo girl that has no respect” because I failed to pick up their cultures on time.

Communication difficulties could also be found in manner of speech. For instance, someone told me that he was once arrested by men of the Nigerian Army because he unknowingly “insulted” their boss when he was anchoring an event in an officers’ mess (he cracked a joke they found offensive). This can apply to people from cultures that do not find jokes funny, or those that could not have female bosses, and things like that. As a result, it will be safer for some employers to work with those they won’t find communicating with difficult.

Fear of Conflict: If a team that is made up of culturally different members isn’t well managed, conflict is bound to arise. Most of the time, someone will feel that he is being relegated to the background. Another may believe the other members are being favoured. You will also find those that prejudice their team members because of their tribe and religion. In most cases, factions and break-ups come as a result of this.

Fear of Changes: Funny as it sounds, a lot of people fear changes because they don’t want what they can’t control. To these set of people, changes are challenges they can’t handle. So they prefer that things move the way they have planned it without someone from somewhere else coming to jeopardise it.

Herd-Mentality: This term was coined by Prof. Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo in her book Children of the Eagle when trying to explain why women love asoebi. According to her, women feel more comfortable when they move in groups because they believe that’s when they can command respect.

But her theory can also apply to the reason most employers go for workers that are like them. If you look at the situation critically, you will agree with me that these employers have this herd-mentality because they feel more comfortable, in control and in power when they are with their own kind. Bringing in “outsiders” could dis-organise and shatter their well-planned dynasty, which they would rather not have.

Understanding the benefits of having staff from different cultural backgrounds could be better fathomed if we see the disadvantages of having only those of the same kind. Here, I will just mention two out of the many.

1. Uniform Idea: Since these people have the same background, thoughts, opinions, values and belief system, they will continue to project the same idea over and over again; nothing new is ever going to come through them.

This may sound beneficial for short-sighted bosses because no one will see anything odd with their methods of running their organisations. But they will realise in the long run that they have been running around in circles. They will find out that they have been applying the same methods in solving problems and have been making the same mistakes. They will not have creative and diverse ideas that will bring in new products and services. Worst is, their growth rate will not be encouraging.

2. Market Penetration: Having a particular type of workers means that you will only be able to penetrate a particular type of market. For an employer that is okay with that, there is no need looking for people from the other side. But if an employer wishes to penetrate as many markets as possible, he needs to bring in as many culturally different persons as he could lay his hands on.

A good example is when a private school that is owned by a Christian, but has no Muslim staff, tries to penetrate a Muslim neighbourhood. I don’t see that school succeeding in getting any Muslim student. The major reason behind this is that a Muslim staff will be in a better position to understand how to win over these people. Besides, the parents will want to be sure that the school is “safe” for their children; and the only way they can do that is by seeing one of their kinds.

As we kick against favouritism, nepotism and tribalism in our system, let us ensure that we don’t allow the differences in culture, religion, gender, tribe, language and so on to affect the recruitment processes in our different organisations. Let the basis for recruitment be “what the person can deliver” and not “where the person comes from”.

Google, Microsoft and other key technology players have dominated the search engine ecosystem, but one search engine has emerged and it’s target is different from those of the tech giants. This article explains how an Aba based tech hub in Nigeria, is going head to head to make an innovation that will help aid trade and commerce

A web search engine or Internet search engine is a software system that is designed to carry out web search, which means to search the World Wide Web in a systematic way for particular information specified in a textual web search query.

To be more explicit, Search Engines are now part of our daily life, whether it be carrying out research for Xmas presents or where is the nearest coffee shop open before 7 AM or looking for the best suya joint in town. People are now becoming more and more dependent on search engines to get the answer for their everyday queries.

The relevance of search engine cannot be estimated, and that’s why the team at Rad5TechHub decided to create an all new innovative products that will provide a service for African trade and business. What is this innovative product you might wonder?

The Emergence of Chooya

The Chooya Group, an innovative e-commerce startup company from the Rad5TechHub, came up with the mission “to facilitate speedily, secured, and open trade in Africa by organizing and centralizing all trade data and activities in one single place for all levels of users and stakeholders.”

This is strategic because most of the local traders in Aba and the Southeastern Nigeria have issues with gaining traction for their product sales. Take for example, the Chooya group have to go meet traders in places like Ariaria, Shopping Center, etc to collect data from them so as to make sure their businesses are listed on the products platform.

The loss of internet use by older generation in such areas is a huge factor that made the team go head to head to activate this service. Now, many traders in Aba and beyond have their business listed on the platform and can get tons of calls and queries for their products before the buyers physically come to meet them.

The Launch

On the 13th day of December, stakeholders and fellows gathered at the Rad5TechHub Center where the official launch of the Chooya took place. Speaking at the launch, Chinenye Ibiam a Graphics Designer/Visual Communicator had this to say: “It has been an amazing and challenging experience to work on the Chooya project. As a designer, I was constantly pushed out of my comfort zone, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to learn.”

Igwe Uguru, the Co-Founder of Rad5TechHub made some powerful statements where he opined that “what we are launching is a revolution. Chooya is going to change trade and commerce as we know it across Africa. There has never been anything like it.”

What’s Next?

It’s of interest to know that the Chooya team is really accelerating things at their end, a few days after the launch the team pushed the mobile app version of Chooya on the Google Play Store!

Akwa Peter, an Expert Android Developer, during the Android Demo version of Chooya search engine, stated that they designed the Android App for Chooya bearing in mind that every user should find it easy and understandable to use not minding if they are techy or not. The focus has always been on creating engaging user experience.

Looking Beyond

The Chooya product is nice initiative, and it goes a long way to show the world what Aba a city looked down upon is really doing to accelerate the sustainable development goal especially in Social Entrepreneurship at a wide range. Chooya promises its users to expect more innovative features on the platform in the coming days.

Investors are also welcomed with open arms to help these young Nigerians compete at a global level.

You too can also Chooya when you visit here. And oh, did I tell you that Chooya is an Igbo word for ‘Find It’?

There you have it!