Frugal Habits of 8 Extremely Wealthy People

Read the full text of Aisha Buhari's interview with BBC Hausa

Below is the full text from Aisha Buhari's controversial interview with BBC Hausa Service. 

BBC Hausa: It has been One and a half years since President Muhammadu Buhari came into power, a lot of people are expressing their unhappiness over the way few acquaintance of the President have hijacked power while neglecting people that work for his success. Like we have promised, here is how the interview with Aisha Buhari and Naziru Maka’ilu from Abuja goes. 

BBC Hausa: People have goodwill towards President Muhammadu Buhari, especially looking at the things he did before, but since coming into power things have not been working the way they should, what do you thing is the cause?

Aisha Buhari:  I am not a government official, but in my opinion as a woman, a mother, what I think is it is well known that the first 4 years are not going to be easy. Firstly, it was people that brought the government into power. More than half of those people are not appointed into the government. Some people that are not politicians, not professionals were brought into the government. They don’t even know what we said we want and what we don’t during the campaign.  They even come out and say to people we are not politicians, but they are occupying the offices meant for politicians. Some have parted with their wives, some lost their children lost, some women too have parted with their husbands because of politics, a lot happened during the time. The way things are going I too I am not happy. We are just starting, we have not finished. Some people that worked for the government have been appointed. But those heading government agencies you can find one fighting his state governor, they contested together during election one in APC while in PDP.
 

The story of Lekan Babalola, Nigeria’s 1st Grammy Award winner

 
When most Nigerians think of the Grammy Awards, we think of Femi Kuti‘s four nominations and King Sunny Ade‘s two. Sometimes we go as far as claiming the four won by Sade Adu and Seal respectively as ours.

But we do have a bonafide winner, a Nigerian who has won the Grammy Award not once, but twice. His name is Lekan Babalola, a jazz musician and percussionist.
His first Grammy came in 2006 for his work on the album In the heart of the moon by legendary Malian guitarist, Ali Farka Toure. And Babalola got his second Grammy Award in 2009 for being on Cassandra Wilson‘s album Loverly.
Growing up in Lagos, Nigeria as a choirmaster’s son, he started his foray into music by playing cowbells and drums in the church. By the age of six, he formed a ragtag band with his peers. ‘All we were playing were tins and plastic – and I would be imitating my father. That was my first band and I paid my fellow musicians- my friends- with sweets that I bought with the money my mother gave me,’ he said in a documentary.
Even though music came to him easily and he quickly developed a knack for leading a band, he had a different dream- he wanted to be a pilot so at the age of 20, he got a scholarship to study automobile engineering at Chelsea College of Automobile and Aeronautical Engineering, London. But like his idol Fela Kuti had done some twenty years before, he soon found that his calling was not aviation but music.

How To Discover Your Individual Communication Style

 
We all have our own communication style, and most of us have strength in more than one area.
Knowing how your strengths—and challenges—stack up gives you insight and an awareness to guide you in having more successful conversations.
When those who work together understand their own and each others' strengths, they bring out the best in each other and take more risks, respecting individual differences and developing a stronger team where innovation and productivity flourish.
There is a deep connection between learning styles and communication styles; use this inventory to gain insight into the processing strengths that drive your own personal communication style:

1. Interpersonal

Your preferred learning style is interpersonal if you agree with the following:

• It is important for me to get my thoughts and feelings out in the open.
• Others seek me out for counsel or advice.
• I am intrigued by emotional dynamics in interpersonal relationships.

A coworker communicating with you might ask you, "What do you know about our customer in terms of what really matters to them?"
If you are interpersonally driven, then you are tuned into human relationships. You intuitively understand the feelings, motivations, and goals of others. Your understanding of the customer is rooted in the emotional connections you develop.

Listen, Speak & be Heard

 
Communication is both an art and a science. It often involves acts of speaking and listening, reading and writing, but it also goes beyond these and incorporates the transmission of non-verbal language, sign language, codes transmitted electronically (e.g., Morse code), and physically (touch; hormones; muscles, tendons, nerves), and messages communicated through music, and by other means.
Although you communicate simply by being in the world, developing good verbal and body language skills involves learning and consciously using your skills to improve.
The act of communicating verbally serves to convey how we feel and how we think to others. It is also the basis of how we relate with others, using language as its medium. Increasing knowledge and awareness of some of the components involved in effective communication can serve to improve how we use those components personally.
To explain all the features required of good communicators, you need to delve into the nature of verbal communication in its various modes. Basic questions are: How can you put yourself on a path that would make you into a better communicator? How can you develop skills to overcome some fears or limitations?

Effective communication may be said to involve the transfer of values, beliefs and thoughts from one person to another.

• To transfer a spoken message, it is obvious that speakers and listeners are involved, with timing used for speedy transmission. Speakers use verbal and body language to convey messages, looking towards listeners. Listeners respond by glancing towards speakers, with words and movements and attention to timing and turn-taking.
• What can you do to become a more effective speaker? Look around and observe some good exchanges between people and check out their body language. It's good to start with body language, because it is powerful, and often the beginning of good exchanges.
• It may be useful to know more about what your attitudes are regarding communicating and your communication skills. To find out more about this Click here

UPDATED: 21 Missing Chibok Girls Released - Presidency

Twenty-one of the more than 200 Nigerian girls kidnapped from a school in Chibok by Boko Haram fighters in 2014 have been released. This is according to Shehu Garba.

The release followed negotiations between Nigeria's government and Boko Haram brokered by Red Cross and Swiss government.

It is confirmed that 21 of the missing Chibok Girls have been released and are in the custody of the Department of State Services, DSS.
"It is confirmed that 21 of the missing Chibok girls have been released and are in the custody of the department of state services," presidential spokesman Garba Shehu said in a statement.

"The release of the girls ... is an outcome of negotiations between the administration and the Boko Haram brokered by the International Red Cross and the Swiss government," Shehu said.

PRESS RELEASE :EFCC arrests of Uche Ogah, "NO Speck Of Truth"

Our attention has been drawn to the fake news making ground that Operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission this morning picked up the President of Masters Energy Oil and Gas Limited, Mr. Uche Ogah, on the premises of a Lagos State Magistrates’ Court in Tinubu, Lagos Island.
There's no iota of truth whatsoever in this poor imaginary concussion that was intentionally put together by those who want to run away from the shame of their lies.

The truth of the matter is that the forgery charges filed against him by the Police were withdrawn today for lack of evidence.
Since Ogah  was declared winner of the last governorship election in Abia State by Justice Okon Abang of a Federal High Court in Abuja on June 27 was, there's no amount of funds meant to be used in paying Civil Servants in Abia that has been speared in tarnishing his image. And, as usual, they always fail.
Being smart criminals who have worked wonders on social media and Abia Broadcasting Radio while the streets are in ruins, instead allowing the news that the police on Monday morning withdrew all the charges against Ogah for lack of evidence. They came out with the news of his arrest by EFCC. Even if politics, wickedness, lies and desperation should have a limit.
Rather, when the case was called, the Police prosecutor, Henry Obiazi, told the presiding magistrate, Mrs. Kikelomo Ayeye, that he had the instruction of the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to withdraw the charges against Ogah and his co-defendants for lack of evidence.
“I am instructed by the IGP to withdraw this case, as the issue is pending with the SFU,” Obiazi said.
The charges were consequently struck out by the court.
Abians Must Rejoice! This is God's Project.
Sign
Peter Agba Kalu
Media Aide to
Uche Ogah

For the the interview in his Office today  CLICK HERE

The Platform 2016: Peter Obi Speaks On Developing Nigeria

What Is Leadership?

Leaders are people who do the right thing; managers are people who do things right. – Professor Warren G. Bennis

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. – Dwight D. Eisenhower

The word "leadership" can bring to mind a variety of images. For example:

• A political leader, pursuing a passionate, personal cause.
• An explorer, cutting a path through the jungle for the rest of his group to follow.
• An executive, developing her company's strategy to beat the competition.

Leaders help themselves and others to do the right things. They set direction, build an inspiring vision, and create something new. Leadership is about mapping out where you need to go to "win" as a team or an organization; and it is dynamic, exciting, and inspiring. 

Yet, while leaders set the direction, they must also use management skills to guide their people to the right destination, in a smooth and efficient way.

In this article, we'll focus on the process of leadership. In particular, we'll discuss the "transformational leadership" model, first proposed by James MacGregor Burns and then developed by Bernard Bass. This model highlights visionary thinking and bringing about change, instead of management processes that are designed to maintain and steadily improve current performance.

Leadership: A Definition

According to the idea of transformational leadership, an effective leader is a person who does the following:

1. Creates an inspiring vision of the future.
2. Motivates and inspires people to engage with that vision.
3. Manages delivery of the vision.
4. Coaches and builds a team, so that it is more effective at achieving the vision.

Leadership brings together the skills needed to do these things. We'll look at each element in more detail.

1. Creating an Inspiring Vision of the Future

In business, a vision is a realistic, convincing and attractive depiction of where you want to be in the future. Vision provides direction, sets priorities, and provides a marker, so that you can tell that you've achieved what you wanted to achieve.
To create a vision, leaders focus on an organization's strengths by using tools such as Porter's Five Forces , PEST Analysis , USP Analysis , Core Competence Analysis and SWOT Analysis to analyze their current situation. They think about how their industry is likely to evolve, and how their competitors are likely to behave. They look at how they can innovate successfully , and shape their businesses and their strategies to succeed in future marketplaces. And they test their visions with appropriate market research, and by assessing key risks using techniques such as Scenario Analysis .
Therefore, leadership is proactive – problem solving, looking ahead, and not being satisfied with things as they are.
Once they have developed their visions, leaders must make them compelling and convincing. A compelling vision is one that people can see, feel, understand, and embrace. Effective leaders provide a rich picture of what the future will look like when their visions have been realized. They tell inspiring stories, and explain their visions in ways that everyone can relate to.
Here, leadership combines the analytical side of vision creation with the passion of shared values, creating something really meaningful to the people being led.

2. Motivating and Inspiring People

A compelling vision provides the foundation for leadership. But it's leaders' ability to motivate and inspire people that helps them deliver that vision.
For example, when you start a new project, you will probably have lots of enthusiasm for it, so it's often easy to win support for the project at the beginning. However, it can be difficult to find ways to keep your vision inspiring after the initial enthusiasm fades, especially if the team or organization needs to make significant changes in the way that they do things. Leaders recognize this, and they work hard throughout the project to connect their vision with people's individual needs, goals, and aspirations.
One of the key ways they do this is through Expectancy Theory. Effective leaders link together two different expectations:

1. The expectation that hard work leads to good results.
2. The expectation that good results lead to attractive rewards or incentives.

This motivates people to work hard to achieve success, because they expect to enjoy rewards – both intrinsic and extrinsic – as a result.
Other approaches include restating the vision in terms of the benefits it will bring to the team's customers, and taking frequent opportunities to communicate the vision in an attractive and engaging way.
What's particularly helpful here is where leaders have expert power. People admire and believe in these leaders because they are expert in what they do. They have credibility, and they've earned the right to ask people to listen to them and follow them. This makes it much easier for these leaders to motivate and inspire the people they lead.
Leaders can also motivate and influence people through their natural charisma and appeal, and through other sources of power, such as the power to pay bonuses or assign tasks to people. However, good leaders don't rely too much on these types of power to motivate and inspire others.

3. Managing Delivery of the Vision

This is the area of leadership that relates to management.
Leaders must ensure that the work needed to deliver the vision is properly managed – either by themselves, or by a dedicated manager or team of managers to whom the leader delegates this responsibility – and they need to ensure that their vision is delivered successfully.
Leaders also need to make sure they manage change effectively. This helps to ensure that the changes needed to deliver the vision are implemented smoothly and thoroughly, with the support and backing of the people affected.

4. Coaching and Building a Team to Achieve the Vision

Individual and team development are important activities carried out by transformational leaders. To develop a team, leaders must first understand team dynamics. Several well-established and popular models describe this, such as Belbin's Team Roles approach, and Bruce Tuckman's Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing theory.
A leader will then ensure that team members have the necessary skills and abilities to do their job and achieve the vision. They do this by giving and receiving feedback regularly, and by training and coaching people to improve individual and team performance.
Leadership also includes looking for leadership potential in others. By developing leadership skills within your team, you create an environment where you can continue success in the long term. And that's a true measure of great leadership.