The member representing the Akoko- Edo Federal Constituency in Edo State at the House of Representatives who also doubles as the Deputy Majority Leader of the House, Hon. Peter Ohiozojeh Akpatason is one of seven persons who were honoured with excellence awards by an Abuja based newsmagazine, Balance Magazine, on Saturday.
Others who made the Balance Magazine Excellence Awards (BMEA) honours list are Senator Barau Jibrin (Kano Central), Minister of State FCT, Dr.Mrs Ramatu Aliyu, Dr. Rislanudeen Muhammed of the Bank of Industry, popular economist and public analyst Dr.Tope Fasua, Abuja based legal practitioner and public analyst Barrister Casmir Chiwendu Igwe as well a Deputy Director in the Ministry of Transport, Mr. Shogo Omotayo.
Welcoming the guests and awardees to the event, the Publisher of the Magazine Mr. Dayo Omoogun, stressed the need for every right thinking person to deliberately look out for the good deeds within their environs with a view to recognising, rewarding and promoting them.
He emphasised that this is imperative if we are to set the right tone for the generations behind us, motivate and incentivise good deeds thereby making it more attractive and depopulating the camp of evil- doers.
In his speech titled “Promoting good in order to revive and restore positive values, which he made off the cuff, Omoogun said:
“Now we are here this moment because our organization, Interface Balance Publishing and Communications Ltd, publishers of Balance magazine and interfacenewshub.com, has decided to be part of the move to ensure that good deeds get promoted, in order to set the right tone, the right precedent for our young people to follow.”
” I’ve discovered that, part of the problem that we have in society is the fact that evil gets all the publicity and almost all the time good is ignored and taken for granted. It is taken as what we normally do, and for bad boys publicity is key. That’s what terrorists do, they love publicity, because when they get publicity they’re good, it means they are hitting hard.
” But on the other hand I expect that we should strike a balance between promoting and rewarding good and also recognising evil and punishing it. So there has to be a balance between penalty and reward, we must go beyond the point where constantly we fall into that thinking of Shakespeare when he made those famous lines in his play “Julius Ceasar” that the evil that men do lives after them, but the good is often interred with their bones. That’s very unfortunate and I don’t think that that should be the narrative, that shouldn’t continue in our generation.
“When, for instance crime gets all the publicity there’s hardly any hero our children can follow and imitate and use as a template, not because there are no people doing good but because it is not being promoted. I recall about 3 years back I took a cab and I forgot my phone in the cab and guess what, for about 5 days I was trying to trace the driver, I got on to him and my phone was intact in this same Abuja.
” These little things if we will not take them to heart, if we will not appreciate them, if we will not recognise them, if we will not make noise about them, if we do not reward them, then we set a wrong tone for the generations behind us. Because that’s the reason people think that the only way to get attention, to get some publicity, to get some clout, is by doing evil. I
“If we make sufficient noise about the good things that people are doing, which is the essence of what we’re doing tonight, we can collectively change the world in this regard.
“This is the only way by which people who do good will continue to do good. Let me open your eyes to something. Today, many do-gooders are beginning to get envious of some evildoers, they’re beginning to think evil looks better than good, evil seems to be more profitable, seems to be more popular, it’s more hip to do evil than good, so we must get to the point where that mentality and the narrative is reversed.
“Ladies and gentlemen I cannot overemphasize but that’s the cry in my heart, that everyone of us here must try to do good but beyond that must try to promote good. We want to get to the point where people can look and see that that if good can get this much recognition, applause and promotion, then I quit my evil doing.
In his own remarks while delivering the keynote address, the Chairman of the ocassion, Dr Sam Amadi criticised the high cost of nomination forms actoss the two major parties-APC and -PDP the coldness and insensitivity of the Buhari administration to the citizenry citing the aloofness of the government to the plight of citizens who were abducted from the Abuja- Kaduna train a few weeks back while urging the citizens to wake up from their foolishness.
“We’re in the time of politics and politicking it’s a time for a lot of grammar and a lot of talk, but it’s also a time for realization. It’s a time for a reawakening reflection from our own foolishness and errors. One of the events that we should focus on is the exorbitant fees for nomination forms” Amadi said.
“This is a period where income has drastically dwindled, food inflation is about 17.9%. It tells you that people are struggling. By the way, the drivers of this crisis is not just domestic, maybe not having the right policies or not implementing the ones we have, but also external factors such as the the pandemic, the war between Russia and Ukraine who are both the world’s largest suppliers of wheat. So prices of bread is going up.
” At this point leaders across the world are responding either by giving a lot of palliatives, increasing basic salaries, covering mortgages, giving like a year’s free rent, preventing foreclosure on mortgaged properties, etc. It is only in Nigeria that it is the reverse.
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