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Former Super Eagles Star Graduates At 69, Emerges Best Student

Published

1 year ago

May 20, 2023

Editor

Never say never– a time-tested aphorism reminiscent of an unyielding desire in one dying to achieve a target. Ben-Lutnaan Duamlong, former Nigeria international and one-time coach of the Super Eagles, had always nursed a dream. Like every sane individual with an ambition and a life goal, Duamlong never allowed his dream to die despite distractions and hiccups along the way.

After spending his childhood and adolescent years as a football player and coach, winning lots of laurels, honour and fame, Ben-Lutnaan Duamlong retraced his tracks and returned to the classroom; not as a teacher but as a student.

And at the end he excelled. Above all, he achieved his life target of becoming a fine artist. Duamlong graduated from the University of Jos at 69 and was the best graduating student of his set with a CGPA of 4.32.

“I have always loved the arts. Like I wrote in the handbook of my first and only exhibition, ‘football and arts, to me, are one and the same. While football is performing arts, what I am doing now… painting is abstract arts. They all form the creative. Art to me is everything. Art is life. ”

He wanted to read philosophy. On a second thought he said to himself, “I have a passion for arts and during my days in the Green Eagles in the 1970s, I enrolled for a course to study arts with a correspondent College in England.

“They were sending me tutorials and assignments on drawing and arts. I then said, why don’t I try my hands on this? Even as a kid I used to draw but I had never painted,” he said.

“It wasn’t easy at the beginning as my first painting was nothing to write home about. Gradually, I came into it. Now, thanks be to God, I can do it. In fact, I have held my first exhibition titled SWITCH”

Switch, a maiden solo exhibition by the new ‘kid on the block’ was well received and Duamlong attests to that.

“Encouraging. In this part of Nigeria, art is not much in peoples’ consciousness. I plan to have another exhibition before the end of this year or early next year.”

He retired in 2016 as coach of Kaduna United Football Club and was offered admission to read Arts in UNIJOS through direct entry. “My admission was made easy with the qualification I had from the National Institute for Sports and in Germany.” With no formal background in arts apart from the Correspondent College in England, Duamlong hit the ground running.

At school, he found himself in the midst of boys and girls about the ages of his children. Naturally, this would have evoked a feeling of discomfort in some old people. But not Duamlong. “They were not as old as my grandchildren but younger than my children. I didn’t look at that because all that was on my mind was how to become an artist.

“So, I enmeshed myself in that process and did everything I could to succeed. Like I told you, in the beginning I was on ground zero. Apart from those tutorials, books and assignments I never had a formal arts teacher until I got to the university. From time to time I used to do pencil work, drawing.”

But most students shy away from Fine and Applied Arts because of its complexities and intricate nature. Most Nigerians still cannot appreciate arts, particularly abstract arts. Why was Duamlong bent on making arts his major?

Duamlong’s typical day at the university was, in his words, hectic. “Although I sent myself to school, I must wake up early to beat the traffic. I would get to school before 8 am, because some classes start as early as 8. Thereafter, I would go to the first floor because our studios are on the 8th floor. In most cases when I go up, because I had a challenge with my leg – I needed to operate my knee and hip.

As soon as I dropped my last exam paper, I went for the operation for knee and hip replacement. Because of the stress, when I go up in the morning I don’t come down until it’s time to go in the evenings. The toilets are on the ground floor. But I had to endure till around 5 pm in the evening before I came down.

“It was hectic because I painted everyday, even on weekends I painted. I did that in order to cover lost grounds.”

Duamlong (l) with the VC, UNIJOS Professor Tanko Ishaya
But what are those lessons derivable from arts? What does it mean to Duamlong being an artist?

“I told you before, art is everything. Art is life. Art is also abstract. It is an abstraction of a whole. When you condense a story like an abstract picture – you may look at an abstract picture.

“When you go to some places and see an abstract picture that wouldn’t make sense and when the artist who painted it comes and explains all the strokes you will say wow…I did not look at it that way. In the arts there are so many perspectives for you to view life.”

Reading at an old age is not as simple as it seems. The distractions are numerous. For a man who had long left the classroom, reconnecting with the past calls for heavy adjustment. Domestic and family problems and even social pressures could provide numerous excuses for the uncommitted.

Determined Ben Duamlong had his challenges and was up to it as he surprisingly cleared his papers and made a CGPA of 4.3, the highest in his set, beating vibrant-looking younger students.

Deservedly, he emerged as the best-graduating student of his set. How was this possible?

“Hard work. Hard work. Hard work. There are some people that had graduated from the arts school before me that I went to beg to teach me at weekends. I go to church in the evenings, except there is an occasion that requires me to go in the morning. When I come out in the morning, I would paint till 2-3 pm. I really pushed myself very hard.”

For those who were responsible for his development to becoming one of the best artists at the university, Duamlong’s result did not come as a surprise.

In the foreword to the handbook of Duamlong’s first and only solo exhibition, John Oyedemi, PhD, Head of Department of Fine and Applied Arts, University of Jos, wrote thus: ‘SWITCH’ is a solo exhibition by one prolific individual/artist of his age. Ben-Lutnaan Duamlong was the oldest student and one of the best in the Fine and Applied Arts Department.

He was always in the studio, a motivation to the younger ones.

“I once wondered how he got such energy and mental strength to work. No wonder at graduation, he had the largest collection of paintings which was evidence of hard work.”

On his part, Jacob Enemona Onoja, PhD, Curator and Arts critic, Art history section, Department of Fine And Applied Arts, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, University of Jos said, “Duamlong’s themes of compositions range from human activities depicting culture of his people, football, markets, cityscapes and portraitures of important personalities, lecturers, among others.”

Continuing, Onoja said, “the tactility of the works using the palette-knife, the dexterity of the use of colours, space utilization and forms placement in the compositions, the use of unique subliminal and obvious symbolism and a myriad of stylistic tendencies are expressed in his paintings.

“The artist to me exemplifies tenacity, doggedness and the spirit of working hard to be able to achieve his set goals even at his age of 69, age is just a number.”

He hopes his exploits at UNIJOS at 69 will serve as a source of inspiration to not only the older people who think old age is a barrier to furthering one’s knowledge but to the youth. “Anyone who is ready to push, remain committed and go the extra mile is bound to succeed.”

Before he became an artist, Ben Duamlong was a football player and later coach. According to him, he began playing from the streets before going to primary school.

Duamlong was born in Pankshin, Plateau State, but life actually began in Maiduguri, (North Eastern State) now Borno State.

“The turning point was in my primary 3 in 1963 when I started showing my abilities as a goalkeeper. I went to Maiduguri on holidays with my father’s friend. At the end of the holidays in my Form 2 in1968, I thought we were returning but didn’t know he had made up his mind to keep me there.

“I was training with some town boys and one day something happened and our goalkeeper did not show up. I was asked to stand in his place. By the time I went back to train with the boys, they didn’t leave me with any choice in regard to where I wanted to play. They said they had got a goalkeeper.”

His father was a civil servant who was always on the move. That made little Duamlong live with different people at different times. But that did not, in any way, disrupt his steady rise in academics.

“Of course, but for football, my line would have been academics because many of my mates went on to Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. At least, I did my HSC but I decided to go to Sapele to take over from Peter Fregene who was the goalkeeper of Amukpe Lions that metamorphosed to New Nigerian Bank of Benin.

“I came in when NNB had just taken over. I came to Sapele in 1973 after the first National Sports Festival in Lagos. I represented the North Eastern State. I started keeping for the North Eastern state from my Form 2.”

He would not agree that football was a distraction. Could he have achieved his academic goal earlier than he did, if football did not stand in his way?

“Football did not disturb me. If I wanted, I would have gone to school of Basic studies and then straight to the university. But I wanted to play football. I didn’t go through Jos to Sapele. If I did, they would have stopped me.”

He played his way to the national team, the Green Eagles when the likes of Peter Fregene, Joe Erico and Eyo Essien were calling time with the national team.

“When we were going into camp was when the three great goalkeepers were being asked to go because time had caught up with them. They were all great goalkeepers that I loved to imitate. They were my idols and role models.”

VANGUARD

News

Minimum Wage: Why We May Not Accept N100,000 – Organised Labour

Published

3 hours ago

May 20, 2024

Editor

The organised labour has told the government to perish any idea of offering N100,000 as the new minimum wage.

The labour has also told the government to be serious with the negotiations on the issue of workers wages, insisting that it used the lowest minimum in arriving at the N615,000 as new minimum wage.

Recall that the organised labour comprising the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, TUC, pulled out of the negotiation meeting last week Wednesday when the government offered N48,000 as the new minimum wage.

However, Chairman of the Tripartite Committee on the National Minimum wage, Alhaji Bukar Goni in a letter to the organized labour for a meeting tomorrow indicated interest that the government will shift ground and asked the organised labour to also shift ground.

Speaking to Vanguard in Abuja, the NLC Head of Information and Public Affairs, Benson Upah, said that the organised labour would honour the invitation tomorrow but he advised the government to be serious.

He said, “Our expectations are that the government should be serious this time around. We expect them to take more seriously the issue of wages of workers.”

On whether labour would accept N100,000 as being insinuated, he said, “Well, it will not be fair and these are the reasons. The first reason is that when we demanded for N615,000, we broke that down. In fact, we used the barest minimum.

“For instance we put accommodation for N40,000, we also use for feeding N500, tell me where you are going to get food for N500 with a family of six. As I said, we used barest estimate but beyond that, government hiked electricity tariff by two hundred and fifty percent after we made our demand and that has introduced new cost and expenses. So if government is serious, it should not be thinking about a hundred thousand naira.

“You know that when you create poor citizens, you create a poorer county.” On his part, a member of the NLC delegation on the Tripartite Committee, Prof Theophilus Ndubuaku, said it would not be kind of the government to offer N100,000.

He said, “I don’t think one hundred thousand naira is a kind of thing we want because it’s far below expectation, we will accept something that can at least keep somebody alive. I don’t think a hundred thousand naira will keep a worker alive in this country a man with a family of six because our computation is based on the size of family.

“So, if they come up with that kind of amount, I don’t think we will appreciate it. In the private sector even artisans are not taking one hundred thousand a month. Whatever we accept we will look what is the income, what are they collecting, what is available to government because if government is collecting one trillion naira, we cannot ask them to pay two trillion.

“We are responsible people but the same government should know that people are suffering they will have to agree with us that there is crisis, that something needs to be done to create wealth, that something needs to be done for Nigeria to be a producing country and not a consuming nation.

“Something needs to be done to reduce the cost of governance. We are supposed to be partners in governance, after all we are the labourers.”

Asked to give reason why labour may not accept one hundred thousand, he said, “If we see that that hundred thousand is affordable, if we see that they can afford more, we will reject it. They have to tell us why they cannot pay N615,000, the onus is on them to tell us why, then we will sit down and say okay you don’t have the money but we will also know why you don’t have the money because Nigeria is a country that is naturally endowed but something is wrong, how do you make sure you get the money so that when we come again in two years time, you won’t tell us the same story?

“What are you doing to create wealth, how are you going to partner with us to create wealth instead of being wasteful, how are you going to partner with us to reduce cost of governance. If a father comes home and says the only money he has is one thousand naira and you know that the father is not wasting the money, you will manage but if it is when the father comes and he is eating food bought from the fast food joint and it cost N10,000 and he gives one thousand to the entire family to go and look for food and cook for themselves, he may be beaten up, the family may refuse it.

“The letter they wrote to us they said that both parties should shift ground, that means they will shift ground and they are expecting us to shift ground but the question is, what ground are they shifting, are they going to shift ground by two naira or two thousand naira to make it N50,000 or are they going to shift ground by N62,000 to make it N100,000 or by N150,000 or N200,000 to make it N300,000 plus.

“The point here is, this thing we are doing is not rocket science, the government should sit down and calculate how much it will cost, what is a befitting wage for an average Nigeria? They should breakdown what they are giving us because even in salaries, you break everything down. So when you break it down, they will tell us whether they are going to put one thousand naira per month for transport and two thousand naira per month for food.

“That N48,000 they are offering, they should have broken it down so if there are certain things they don’t want to make provision for, for instance health, if they say if any worker is sick they person should go and die or they don’t want to make provision for food, let them just put standard things.

“The problem here is that, you asked someone to tighten his belt, you said there is no money but you removed subsidy. Since they removed subsidy, FAAC has been collecting almost three times of what they were collecting before subsidy. That money you are collecting, what are you doing with it?

“You now said you want to build coastal highway when the existing roads to the same location are not passable, you are budgeting trillions of naira, you want to build Lagos-Sokoto brand new Highway, you want to put billions for hajj subsidy, you bought 200 vehicles for Customs and this is somebody that is complaining that naira is having issues but you now want to spend hundreds billions to import Toyota cars for Customs, why can’t you buy made-in Nigeria vehicles?

“This whole thing doesn’t make any meaning, we don’t even understand it. They are behaving as if they have money but they don’t know what to do with it like General Yakubu Gowon said in the 70s. You bought 200 Toyota Jeeps for Customs, it means you really do have the money but you don’t know what to do with it. But one thing you don’t want to do with the money is to feed Nigerians, feed your workers, make your workers comfortable.

“And as you can see, they are not even giving anybody hope. There is no programme for agriculture, government is not declaring emergency on power, food security, transportation.

“So what we are expecting is that, if they tell us they cannot pay N625,000, they should tell us why they cannot pay, this is negotiation. If we have told them to pay N615,000, what we expect government to calculate how many workers that are expected to receive this minimum wage.

“We did our research, you now say each state has this workforce, this is what they are now getting as revenue forget the fact that some of them are not doing anything to increase their IGR. Whatever they are getting now from the money coming from the federal revenue account, the federal government should say, this is the number of workers that we have, this is how much that you are asking, at the end of the day, this is how much we are expected to spend as salary and this is how much we have.

“So, NLC please look at it, we don’t want to spend this percent on salary, we will then sit down and ask, if you don’t want to spend it on salary, you want to spend it by importing vehicles for Customs when you have locally manufactured vehicles that won’t cost capital flight.”

He, however said that if the government comes out with something”relevant “, the organised labour will shift ground as asked.

“We must discuss with them that the figure presented is realistic and based on facts and statistics as the organised labour has done,” he said.

He said, “For provision of food for one person, we put N500 but there is a survey carried out by the National Bureau for Statistics covering all parts of the country, NBS is the custodian of statistics and it came out with that in today Nigeria, the average you can spend for a meal is N900.

“But we went low, we took the minimum. Their average is N900 but we took the minimum of N500, that is you cannot go below the N500. So you can see how realistic we are. So we will insist that government breakdown every item. Food, hospital, accommodation, transportation etc.

“We don’t want anyone to come and say that the NLC and the TUC presented arbitrary figure.”
VANGUARD

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BREAKING: CBN Withdraws Circular On Cyber Security Levy

Published

5 hours ago

May 19, 2024

Editor

The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN has withdrawn the circular directing banks and other financial institutions to implement the 0.5 per cent cyber security levy.

The withdrawal of the circular was announced via a statement signed by Haruna Mustafa, Director, Financial Policy and Regulation, Department and Chibuzo Efobi, Director, Payment System Management Department.

The circular stated: “The Central Bank of Nigeria circular dated May 6, 2024 (Ref. PSMD/DIR/PUB/LAB/017/004) on the above subject refers. ‘

“Further to this, please be advised that the above referenced circular is hereby withdrawn.”

News

JUST IN: Tinubu Appoints Spokesperson, Ngelale, As Special Envoy On Climate Action

Published

7 hours ago

May 19, 2024

Editor

President Bola Tinubu has appointed his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Ajuri Ngelale, as Nigeria’s Special Presidential Envoy on Climate Action.

This was as he established a 25-person committee to oversee the country’s green economic initiatives.

“Ngelale will serve in this role as part of a larger Presidential Committee, to be chaired by the President,” the office of the secretary to the government of the federation revealed in a statement signed Sunday by its Director of Information and Public Relations, Segun Imohiosen.

“Ngelale will retain his role as the Official Spokesperson of the President and Special Adviser to the President on Media & Publicity while serving on the committee,” it added.

The statement is titled, ‘President Tinubu establishes a committee to oversee green economic initiatives, appoints Chief Ajuri Ngelale as special envoy on climate action.’

Imohsien said the Presidential Committee on Climate Action and Green Economic Solutions will “coordinate and oversee all policies and programmes on climate action and green economic development.”

“This is to remove the constraints to coordination, foster a whole-of-government approach to climate-action programmes, provide an efficient governance architecture, and ensure that all relevant institutions in the sector are plugged into the President’s vision and are collectively implementing the Renewed Hope Agenda on climate action,” it further explained.

The new committee which has the President as its Chairman also includes the Minister of Environment, Mr. Balarabe Lawal as its Vice-Chairman, and Mr. Ajuri Ngelale as its Secretary/Special Presidential Envoy.

Members are the CEOs of, InfraCorp, Mr. Lazarus Angbazo; National Council on Climate Change, Mr. Salisu Dahiru; Infrastructure Council Regulatory Commission, Mr. Michael Ohiani, Nigeria Investment Promotion Council, Mrs. Aisha Rimi and National Social Investment Fund, Mr. Aminu Umar-Sadiq.

The committee also consists of the CEOs of the National Agency for the Great Green Wall, Mr Yusuf Maina-Bukar, Energy Commission of Nigeria, Mr Abdullahi Mustapha; Rural Electrification Agency, Abba Aliyu; CreditCorp, Uzoma Nwagba, the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure, Khalil Halilu Member, Solid Minerals Development Fund, Fatima Shinkafi; CBN Deputy Governor (Deputy Governor, Corporate Services Directorate) Mr Bala Bello; UN SE4ALL, Lolade Abiola; Member and an Adviser to the NCCC Adviser, Teni Majekodunmi.

Others are representatives of the Federal Ministries of FCT, Finance, Industry, Trade & Investment, Water Resources, and Agriculture & Food Security.

The committee also consists of representatives from the Federal Inland Revenue Service and the Nigeria Customs Service.

The OSGF outlined eight objectives of the Presidential Committee. They are to:

“Identify, develop, and implement innovative non-oil & non-gas climate action initiatives.

“Coordinate all activities of relevant federal institutions towards the attainment of all agreed climate action and green economic objectives and non-oil/non-gas ambitions of the federal government.

“Collaborate with all relevant government, subnational governments, non-government, and civil society entities towards the attainment of the climate action objectives and ambitions of the federal government.

“Collaborate with national governments and multilateral institutions towards the attainment of the climate action objectives and carbon market ambitions of the federal government.

“Monitor, evaluate, and guide the progress of all climate action and renewable energy projects and activities of the federal government.

“Track and guide the implementation of initiatives and developments conducted by the Energy Transition Working Group.

“Supervise the work of the Presidential Steering Committee on Project Evergreen and

“Prepare a half-yearly green ambitions update, covering all associated climate action achievements of the federal government.”