It takes a lot to be an inventor. It takes a lot more to manage innovations and innovators. From Nigeria’s bitter and unfortunate civil war, we were only able to keep some of the relics at the Umuahia war museum. Nigeria could not seek to harness the skills and resources of the team that was behind the innovations in the civil war for technological development. The Biafran enclave survived on various petroleum products that were not imported for 30 months before the collapse. For almost 30 years now Nigeria has been surviving on imported petroleum products and now shopping for downstream investors in roadshows across the world. The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, other G7 members and indeed other Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD countries are out of our refining palaver but may be interested in supplying Nigeria petroleum products. We are now left with Russia, China, India, Saudi Arabia and some others in the Organisation for the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC and OPEC+ for refining talks.

President Muhammadu Buhari last Monday in far away the United Kingdom gave accent to the long-awaited Deep Offshore and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contract Act 2004 (Amendment) Bill, 2019.

Russia is back into the fray for a second scramble for Africa’s economic soul. The motive is to accelerate the gains of superpower status it inherited from the defunct Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR that dismembered its alliance in 1991. It participated in the 1884/85 partition of Africa 134 years ago, but did not benefit because it barely had a colony. Russia is immensely endowed with natural resources; a country with the largest land mass in the world. Last week, the Russians met with a congregation of 54-member African Union leaders including 43 heads of state, in the southern city of Sochi from 23 to 24 October, 2019. The Russia-Africa Economic Forum was co-hosted by Russian President Putin and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The Sochi Summit appears to be very purposeful for the African ‘beautiful brides’ as the Russian leaders showcased concrete guides and plans to find African solutions to various African problems; from armaments, infrastructure, nuclear energy, to oil and gas.

Russia is back into the fray for a second scramble for Africa’s economic soul. The motive is to accelerate the gains of superpower status it inherited from the defunct Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR that dismembered its alliance in 1991

President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, JFK, one of the youngest to be elected president of the United States at 43, in a quote said that: “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.” The quote tells us that we should fix what is broken as soon as possible.