It is a mystery: you can write JAMB (yes, Unified Tertiary Matriculations Examination, UTME) at any age. But the public universities have age restrictions. The implication is that you can pass JAMB and the universities will reject you because you are underage. Why will JAMB allow you to even write when it knows you are underage? Confusion everyone – very unfortunate.
The cases of Ekele Franklin, a 15-year boy who emerged as the overall best candidate in JAMB exam, and Emmanuel Chidebube, 16-year old 3rd overall best, should worry Nigerians. Ekele and Emmaneul are among the most academically talented kids in their generation. But there will not be going to federal schools of their choices because those schools have rejected them over age restrictions. University of Lagos has told Ekele that he is too young to come to campus even though he is academically matured than anyone coming to UNILAG this year!
If Ekele Franklin, the 15-year-old boy who emerged the overall best candidate in the 2019 Unified Tertiary Matriculations Examination (UTME), is denied admission into his university of choice – University of Lagos – because of age, he could very well walk into another school to start his studies.
That is because a private school, Gregory University, Uturu, in Abia State, has offered the Nigerian teenager a straight admission.
Franklin scored 347 in the UTME.
Ishaq Oloyede, the registrar of the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB), who mentioned Franklin’s score while announcing the release of this year’s UTME results, said the teenager, who is from Imo State, may not be offered admission because of age.
The Chancellor of Gregory University, Gregory Ibe, has directed the university to offer “immediate” admission, as well as tuition-free scholarship to Franklin, the university spokesperson, Ogbonnaya Ogwo, said in a statement made available to PREMIUM TIMES, Sunday afternoon.
Gregory University has also offered admission and scholarship to Emmanuel Chidebube, a 16-year-old boy from Abia, who came second with a score of 346 in the UTME.
But there is hope: a private university, Gregory University Uturu, has offered admissions with full scholarships to both. At least, private schools do not have underage restrictions. The National Universities Commission needs to ensure age restrictions are also removed in public universities. I did not know public and private schools have different admission charters though! The age element has to be harmonized.
FC Barcelona star defender Gerard Pique earns an annual salary of $14.7million from his club and $3million from endorsements, but his recent investments might make him the first footballer to become a billionaire.
In 2011, Pique launched a social networking video game designing startup Kerad Games which produced the successful online football game ‘’Golden Manager’’ which has six million users, an E-Sports Company in 2016 and partnered Pro Evolution Soccer maker Konami two years later.
He launched the Kosmos Group which has interests in sports and entertainment content creation and tennis management with Hiroshi Mikitani, the Japanese billionaire founder of Rakuten, Mike Evans, Nullah Sarker and Edmund Chu.
Kosmos Studios is a media and content company which creates premium sports and entertainment content. It produced the first ever documentary on French and Atletico Madrid star forward, Antoinne Griezmann, where he stated his decision to remain at his club when an impending transfer to rivals FC Barcelona seemed likely. Other projects scheduled are Pique plus series with several football stars. Kosmos might likely produce the first all access FC Barcelona documentary for the club and all its players.
Gerard Pique
Kosmos Tennis is focused on the development and management of global tennis events. It is run by Javier Alonso, former director of Dorna, and Fernando Soler, former head of IMG Tennis. Kosmos Tennis will invest $3 billion over 25 years in the highly rated Davis Cup by BNP Paribas. It will partner with the International Tennis Federation to transform the tournament.
In December 2018, Kosmos Group announced a controlling stake in Andorra FC.
With an MBA in Business of Entertainment, Media and Sports from Harvard University and an ambition to become the President of FC Barcelona after his retirement from playing the round leather game on the field, he seems prepared for a career redesign to the boardroom.
According to Moody’s, a global advisory services company, Diamond Bank failed because of three factors: bad leadership, ineffective risk management, and Board problems. For the Board, it cited lack of independence and high turnover in the Board. Pulse first reported this though it did not provide the direct link to Moody’s report.Typically, such reports require subscriptions.
Diamond Bank had been acquired by Access Bank. Before the bank lost N9 billion in 2017, it made N28.5 billion in profit in 2013. That was a very fast deterioration in the bank.
Few weeks ago, I received a Notice that a court had ordered a meeting for Access Bank shareholders. In that meeting, we would vote for the “merger” of Access Bank and Diamond Bank. Of course, there is nothing really a “merger” in this: Diamond Bank logo will exit, forever. That vote had come and gone – the shareholders approved the merger of Access Bank Plc and Diamond Bank Plc, both Nigerian banks.
Profit trajectory of Diamond Bank
The letter by SEYI BICKERSTHETH which was made public by Proshare basically explained all before this Moody’s work. If you have time, read that letter, available here.
Specifically, we became aware of and validated the existence of a November 15, 2018 letter from the Chairman of Diamond Bank Plc to The Committee of Governors, Central Bank of Nigeria which shed more light on the information already in the public space and provided background information (context) on what truly transpired in the bank’s board sessions.
When the Arab nation is being mentioned in mainstream global media, terrorism, warfare, and other negatives are identified with this race of over 420 million people spanning the continent of Africa and Asia. Yet, the Arabs were people who contributed immensely to global knowledge with Algebra, Sociological Thought and other areas that impacted human civilization.
A couple of startups are rewriting the Arabian narrative from a mineral-dependent people to an Innovation Race. Ahlan Wasalan. Welcome to the future of the Arab world as you read about the following startups.
Biofire is a Tunisian startup which collects and transforms agroforestry waste into solid biofuels such as wood briquettes, ecofriendly coal and bio char that are efficiently cheap and healthy for cooking and heating needs. Biofire aims to give people access to more affordable energy solutions and save forests that continue to dwindle due to inefficient use of wood fuel.
360 Vuz is a Jordanian startup that helps teleport people in time to events around the world, using their live-360-degree on-demand teleporter video streaming app.
Amal Glass is a device founded by Adel Bosseli and Mohammed Islam, two Emiratis. The device enables the blind and visually impaired to live their lives normally. The glass has more than 20 functions from simple functions like telling the time and weather to more sophisticated ones such as colour detection, GPS location and cool functions like optical card reader in Arabic and English. Plans are on the way to make it accessible in 14 global languages.
Cognitev is an Egyptian AI startup which is focused on marketing and advertising automation. It created the world’s first ‘’traffic as a service’’ platform with a mission to democratize marketing for the world.
Derq is a UAE based startup which spun off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that wants to eliminate road accidents for conventional and autonomous vehicles using proprietary AI and connected vehicle technology.
DUBAI. UNITED ARAB EMIRATES, 20 June 2017. DERQ Co-Founder and CEO Dr Georges Aoude and partners who’s start-up has raised $1Million in Middle East Investment. (Photo: Antonie Robertson) Journalist: Nick Webster. Section: National.
Desert Control is an Emirati green and agrotech startup with a patented innovation, Liquid Nanoclay, which increases water retention in the soil by 65 percent and turns desert and dry land into fertile soil. Its mission and vision are respectively ‘’Making The Earth Green Again’’ and ‘’Liquid NanoClay for the Earth’s Welfare’’.
Epilert is a Tunisian startup which has developed a wearable bracelet that detects an epilepsy seizure and sends an alert immediately to the care givers such as family, friends and doctors.
Falcon Viz is a Saudi Arabian spinout from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Jeddah which designs and produces drones for the construction industry. Its services are useful in construction and real estate, topographical surveys, corridor survey, urban planning, etc. Its clients include Saudi Aramco, AECOM, Hyder and Jeddah Municipality.
Fetchr is an Emirati logistics technology company disrupting the traditional logistics sector through the use of smart technology. It wants to redesign the logistics space in the Middle East and Northern African region with next generation technology.
Jo Vision is a Jordanian startup which aims to use global computational power, AI and pathology expertise to redesign the delivery of personalized cancer care by involving stakeholders, including the expertise in cancer diagnosis and management, global communities and patient groups.
Monojo is a biotech company founded by a Jordanian lady Penelope Shihab which develops and sells naturally sourced and technologically advanced products for the health and well being industry. It targets disease conditions which have a large global target market, an unmet patient need, and which can be delivered using non-clinical and commercialization models.
Proximie is a Lebanese augmented reality enabled telesurgery platform founded by Dr Nadine Hachach Haram that connects surgeons in developed countries and those operating under harsh conditions. Proximie is designed by doctors for doctors and aims to transform the delivery and education of healthcare by reducing the cost of that delivery while providing improved quality to the end patient for better outcomes.
Receet is a mobile app developed by Palestinians which provides digital receipts in any business transaction where receipts are needed with Bluetooth and Near Field Communication technology. Using the Receet app, consumers can easily find receipts to make returns and file taxes or fill in the expenses report by searching for the receipt through their smartphones. They can also categorize receipts and will have the ability to upload their data to personal accounting software and business expenses tracking software and apps.
Webville is an Egyptian startup focused on digital content discovery and has built a deep learning system which generates realistic videos that were never shot in real life. Its technology helps content providers shrink their value chain and save lots of costs that are usually associated with the traditional processes of media production.
Whyise is a Jordanian impact analysis software solution that allows organizations to aggregate their data and analyze it for exponential impact as well as map their operations against international frameworks such as the UN SDG’s and comply with frameworks such as IFC ESG(Environment, Social and Governance) standards and GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) among others.
Wikaya is a Palestinian digital health platform that helps improve the prevention of chronic diseases using AI & IOT.
Elkrem is an Egyptian startup founded by Amr Saleh and Islam Mostafa which provides hardware and software tools for developers to build blockchain connected IOT products. The software and hardware tools allow anyone with minimal technical background to build internet connected products that accept cryptocurrencies and communicate with different blockchain and decentralized products including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Swarm, Whisper, IPFS, IOTA etc.
Niotek is an Egyptian AI platform which enables implementation of smart factories, smart products and services.
Casky from Morocco is the world’s first blockchain based AI platform which offers users a chance to earn an appreciative asset and income by driving safely via a rewards based system.
The suggestion for people to connect offline, via LinkedIn Local, does not mean I have to attend. I appreciate the invitations but I want to assure you that there are better people in your city. I will post my talk when it is available.
Thank you all for coming over at LinkedIn Local Lagos. Let us take it to more cities across Nigeria – Kano, Owerri, Warri, etc besides just Lagos. I made connections yesterday.
The Lagos team, you need to scale your template which made it possible to pull many people within just 2 weeks. Just scanning my InMails, it seems you ran out of space after upgrading from an old one. People could not get tickets! Maybe, next time, get a bigger venue.
If anyone plans to organize in Owerri and Kano under the Linkedin Local umbrella, my company will be happy to support with funding.
The Lagos team members have templates – reach out to them.
Nigerian universities are yet to create career placement units. The implication is that graduates are not prepared on basic things on how to navigate careers. We just graduate without simple ideas on what to expect because none prepared us. You can see the components from the Johns Hopkins University Career Center.
Welcome! The Homewood Career Center supports and serves all Krieger and Whiting undergraduates, masters, PhD and postdoc students, regardless of post-graduate plans.
The HR network in Nigeria has opportunities: have schools create career development and placement centers in our schools. Huge business opportunities therein if you ask me.
The HR consultants in the nation – that is a big opportunity for you. Help create a framework to help the schools prepare students better as they graduate. It may be something National Universities Commission may offer grants. I have seen extremely brilliant people looking for insights. In decent foreign schools, they will feed you those without asking. (Linkedin)
