Globaltimes +Why He Doesn’t Joke With ALAKE & AWUJALE
Do you know that Ogun State has 3 Ministers in Pres. Bola Tinubu’s cabinet? Yes. This is authoritative.
They are Mr. Wale Edun, Minister for Finance & Co-ordinating Minister for the Economy (from Ogun Central), (2) Dr. Bosun Tijani, Minister for Communication, Innovation and Digital Economy (from Ogun Central) and (3) Dr. Ishak Salako, Minister of State for Environment (from Ogun West).
Why did Asiwaju decide to give Ogun State 3 slots, whilst other states simply got a slot or 2?
We can tell you the reason. It was to help pacify all the contending political interests in the state.
It was also to help Asiwaju Tinubu resolve the dilemma he was faced with months back. What happened is that one of those he badly wanted as Ministers was Mr. Wale Edun from Abeokuta, in Ogun State. Tinubu believes so much in this perfect gentleman who has been with him, way back. Edun is not a politician. He is a damn good Technocrat from Abeokuta in Ogun State. Asiwaju realised that since Edun was not a grassroot politician his choice as a Minister representing Ogun State could be criticised, by the local politicians who were already eyeing the slot.
So what the President did was to get the buy-in of his 2 closest royal fathers in the State, the Awujale and the Alake of Egbaland.
He also had to carry other political leaders along. Gov. Dapo Abiodun had his own list. Chief Olusegun Osoba had made recommendation. Senator Ibikunle Amosun had his own input, just like many other party leaders. Of course, OGD also had his own views. But he connected to Tinubu. He supported Wale Edun. And he was obviously happy with the choice of Edun who is Asiwaju’s person. Of course, other vested interests came to play and some stakeholders simply took advantage of the division.
It was in a bid for Asiwaju to accommodate all the contending views that made him bring in the 3 Ogun indigenes who are now Ministers. Many also say it is because of the bias Pres. Tinubu has for the state. Explained an observer, “I think Ogun State is dear to Asiwaju in some curious ways. His 2 major affirmative pronouncements on the way to the Presidency (Emi Lo Kan, E Gbe Kini Yi Wa – before the APC primaries and B’o wun yin ki e gbe epo pamo, a maa di bo, a si ma wo’le days to the general elections) were both made in Ogun State”.
Even the lady Minister from Lagos State is also from Ijebu, while Keyamo from his maternal side is also from Ilaro.
Insiders say Pres. Tinubu picked Wale Edun, while Senator Yayi and Senator Gbenga Daniel picked the other 2.
What many don’t know is that Pres. Tinubu has strong links with Ogun State and with 2 frontline traditional rulers-the Awujale of Ijebuland who Tinubu often calls his father and the Alake of Egbaland who has been a long standing friend of Tinubu.
Pres. Tinubu & Wale Edun have come a long way. Edun is a seasoned financial expert with extensive experience in the banking sector. He was first appointed Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Monetary Policies before he was nominated and appointed as Minister.
Wale Edun possesses a strong background in economics, public finance, international finance, merchant banking, and corporate finance at national and international levels.
Notably, he served as the Commissioner for Finance in Lagos State for 2 unprecedented terms (1999-2007) during Tinubu’s tenure.
As the founder of Denham Management Limited and Chairman of Livewell Initiative, a health sector Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), Wale Edun actively contributes to the welfare of society.
He is also a Trustee of Sisters Unite for Children, an NGO dedicated to assisting children in need.
Furthermore, he holds positions on the boards of various companies.
Edun completed his Bachelor’s Degree in Economics at the University of London and earned a Master’s Degree in Economics from the University of Sussex, England. Although specific details about his early life and education are not publicly available, his expertise and accomplishments speak for themselves.
Throughout his career, Wale Edun has achieved remarkable success in the financial sector, both nationally and internationally.
He held key positions such as Head of Treasury and Deputy Head of Corporate Finance at Chase Merchant Bank, where he oversaw Treasury and Money Market activities and played a major role in Capital Market and Financial Advisory operations for local subsidiaries and affiliates of multinational corporations.
He gained valuable international experience during his time at Wall Street firms Lehman Brothers and Chase Manhattan Capital Markets Corporation in New York, USA.
With over twenty-five years of experience in merchant banking, corporate finance, economics, and international finance, his expertise is highly regarded.
In 1986, Wale Edun joined the World Bank/IFC in Washington DC, USA, through the prestigious Young Professionals program.
At the World Bank, he worked on economic and financial packages for several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, including the Dominican Republic, Trinidad, as well as Indonesia and India in the Far East.
Since March 2008, Wale Edun has served as the Chairman of Chapel Hill Denham Group. He co-founded and served as the Executive Director of Stanbic IBTC Plc (formerly Investment Banking & Trust Company Limited) upon his return to Nigeria in 1989.
In 1994, he established Denham Management Limited. Alongside these roles, he actively participates as a director in various private businesses.
Wale Edun holds the position of Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Ogoni Trust Fund, which focuses on the environmental cleanup of Ogoniland in the Niger Delta of Nigeria.
He is married to Amy Adwoa Edun (née Appiah), a Ghanaian.
How about Olatunbosun Tijani?
Born 20 July 1977 he is the Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy Republic of Nigeria. He was appointed by President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, on August 16, 2023.
Tijani is a Nigerian-British entrepreneur and co-founder of Co-Creation Hub (CcHUB), the leading Pan-African innovation and technology centre. Co-Creation Hub works at the forefront of accelerating the application of innovation and social capital for a better society.
He is widely acknowledged as a pioneer and industry leader in the African technology ecosystem and was named as one of the 100 Most Influential People on the continent by New Africa Magazine. He initiated the first visit of Mark Zuckerberg to Nigeria in August 2016 as part of efforts to place Africa on the global technology map. He has also hosted other global technology leaders in Nigeria, including former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in 2019 and most recently in June, 2023, hosted a fireside chat with Microsoft founder and co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates. In 2019, under his leadership, CcHUB acquired Kenya’s iHub and launched the CcHUB Design Lab in Kigali, Rwanda in the same year. He has also expanded CcHUB’s Pan-African footprint into Southern Africa by opening CcHUB Namibia, the main tech hub in Windhoek, Namibia in 2023.
Tijani was also recently appointed as a visiting adjunct professor at the Wits School of Governance, effective September 2023 after spending time as an adjunct researcher with research interests in collaborative projects that inform practice through support to policymakers, inventors and entrepreneurs while advancing theories in innovation systems and governance.
Tijani was born in Agege, Lagos, and spent his formative years there before moving to Abeokuta, his secondary education. In 1996, he went on to Jos, to study at the University of Jos where he first started off studying for a diploma in Computer Science before going on to study Economics, graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in 2002. He later obtained an MSc in Information Systems and Management from the Warwick Business School, United Kingdom in 2007.
In 2023, Tijani earned a PhD in innovation and economic development from the School of Business, University of Leicester. His doctoral research focussed on contributing to a better understanding of how the network perspective to innovation capacity could provide a contextually relevant framework for explaining the adoption and adaptation of innovation in developing countries and specifically offer an alternative path to how African countries could effectively organise their innovation ecosystems.
Tijani has also been part of the Innovation for Economic Development Executive Programme at Harvard Kennedy School in 2013 as well as being a 2014 Draper Hills Fellow of the Centre for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University.
Before CcHUB, Tijani worked with the International Trade Centre, Geneva, Switzerland as a Fellow, researching on trade development with particular emphasis on enterprise management development. During this period, he successfully led the development and deployment of a web-marketing and information services programme in Ghana between March and September 2006 and subsequently in Uganda and Kenya which recorded positive outputs. The programme was deployed in Ethiopia and later extended to South Africa and Tanzania.
At Hewlett Packard, he successfully managed the deployment of the ODel learning centre at the Africa Virtual University in Kenya and completed the deployment of the HP, IEEE and University of Ibadan telecentre in Nigeria. He also initiated and completed the deployment of the HP Micro-enterprise Acceleration Programme learning centre at the Lagos Business School in Nigeria and provided recognizable support to its deployment in Egypt and Morocco.
Tijani would later move to Pera Innovation Network (PERA) in 2007 where he served as the European Innovation Manager. At PERA, he led the coordination of innovation agencies across Europe. In different capacities, he was responsible for managing the Pan-European Research Network of Universities participating in the Framework Programme 7 as well as the INNOTEX Project – Am European Commission funded project for the development of a cross cluster best practice platform for entrepreneurial innovation for the technical textile sector (United Kingdom, Spain, Estonia and Denmark).
In 2010, Tijani co-founded CcHUB, a technology innovation centre dedicated to accelerating the application of social capital and technological innovation for economic prosperity. In the early years, he led a number of social technology projects including Lagos Innovation Hotspots and the i-HQ concept (the umbrella initiative for Yaba – the fastest growing tech cluster in Africa), which involved working with MainOne Cable and the Lagos State Government to lay fibre optic cables in the Yaba area of Lagos accelerating the growth of the area into becoming the home of technology startups in Nigeria. Under his leadership, CcHUB has driven the growth of social innovation and influenced businesses and initiatives in different sectors including – environment (Wecyclers), fiscal transparency (BudgIT), e-commerce (Traclist), Healthcare (LifeBank), education (re-learn), wellness (Truppr) and transportation (GoMyWay), civic activity (GoVOTE), online and cybersecurity (SafeOnline) among others.
He has also driven the growth of social innovation using Technology, producing initiatives and businesses that have influenced; environment, fiscal transparency, e-commerce, Healthcare, education, wellness and transportation. His later work with CcHUB focussed on the company’s expansion into other parts of Africa and positioning the business as a vital catalyst for the African tech ecosystem promoting collaboration, knowledge sharing, and the development of groundbreaking solutions to local and global challenges. This has been done in collaboration with a number of global partners and founders who have backed his work extensively.
In addition to his ongoing work with CcHUB, Tijani is also actively involved in a number of initiatives within and outside the tech ecosystem.
He launched Truppr, a social platform that allows fitness enthusiasts organise events, or join in on, amateur sporting events within their locality.
In 2019, he founded STEM Cafe, a maker lab for kids and young adults aged 5–18 with operations in Lagos, Kigali and Nairobi.
Tijani served on the boards of several companies including Taeillo, an African e-commerce furniture and lifestyle brand and LifeBank, a healthcare platform dedicated to delivering critical medical supplies to hospitals, where he serves as Board Chair.
In 2021, Tijani was engaged as a member of a high level expert advisory group focused on advising the European Commission on how to mainstream research and innovation through Africa-Europe Cooperation.
He was selected in 2017 by the African Leadership Institute to be a part of the prestigious Desmond Tutu Leadership Fellowship. The fellowship recognises exceptional emerging African leaders for their contribution to development on the continent.
Tijani resides in Abuja, Nigeria and Leicester,United Kingdom with his wife, Moji Tijani and 3 children. He is an avid fitness enthusiast and football lover.
Who is Ishaq Kunle Salako popularly known as Ishak Salako? He is a medical practitioner. He currently serves as the Minister of State, Environment and Ecological Management.
He has served as a Commissioner for Health in Ogun State. He is also the Co-Ordinator of the Ogun West Stakeholders Forum.
Salako was born on July 23, 1959 to Alhaji and Alhaja Ibathllahi Lawal Salako of Oke Oyinbo Quarters, Ota, Ogun State.
Between 1968 and 1973, Prof. Salako attended Ansar-ud-deen Practicing School in Ota, and from 1973 to 1975, Ansar-ud-deen Secondary Modern School in Ota. From 1975 to 1977, he also studied at Ansar-ud-deen College Offa.
Salako studied fundamentally at the former Kwara State College of Technology in Ilorin from 1979 to 1981 before earning his MBBS from the University of Ibadan in 1986.
Between 1986 and 1987, Dr. Salako served as a House Physician for the Lagos State Health Management Board at Island Maternity Hospital, Mercy Street Hospital, and Lagos Island General Hospital.
He completed the one-year NYSC service requirement in Imo State’s Isiala-ngwa Local Government Area.
In order to complete his residency study in the Department of Medicine at UCH and get his Fellowship of the West African College of Physicians, the then-Dr. Salako joined the institution in April 1990.
Salako began his career as a Medical Practitioner and has served as a Commissioner for Health in Ogun State. During his services as a Commissioner, he contributed greatly toward community health services and programs. He is also the Co-Ordinator of the Ogun West Stakeholders Forum.
In March 1996, he was hired as a Lecturer and Consultant Nephrologist in the Department.
As a result of this appointment, he also gained an honorary position as a Consultant Physician & Nephrologist to the UCH.
In 1999, he was promoted to Senior Lecturer.
In 2003, he was made Reader, and in October 2006, he was made Professor. Professor Salako completed several management and certificate programs at the famed Lagos Business School in 2010, and in May 2016 he was named a Fellow of both the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and London.
Prof. Salako has significantly advanced knowledge in the areas of kidney disease and Hypertension.
In August 2023, Prof. Salako’s name was included in the ministerial nominees by President Bola Tinubu to serve as the Minister of State, Environment, and Ecological Management.
C) City People magazine
