From Ighomuaye Lucky, in Benin
Forum Of Mobile Advert Practitioners Of Nigeria in collaboration with Abia State government organized a two day training workshop for its members and the general public in Benin City, the Edo State capital.
The theme of the maiden edition, “Capacity building initiative for individual sustainability in a fast changing world” which started on Tuesday, 9th August 2022 to Wednesday the 10th August, 2022, attracted participants from Osun State, Ogun, Ondo, Delta, Lagos, Kwara and Edo, the host state.
In his opening remarks, the National President of the Organization, Otunba Mike Osimen declared that the maiden edition of the workshop was long overdue considering the general economic situation in Nigeria and the nature of their business, taxation, which he described as a seasonal job.
He described the job of mobile advert revenue collector as a seasonal job saying that the operators of the industry need other means of generating income for self sustainability when the season is over.
He said he decided to organize this workshop because of his members who face financial constraints the moment their season of operation was over.
He said the urge was further reinforced when he saw on television where one of his members, Muyiwa Adeyemon, an animal husbandry expert gave lectures in Kano.
He said he felt it worthwhile to equip the members with individual skills to survive, adapt and thrive in the fast changing economic situation in Nigeria.
According to Otunba Mike Osimen, “today is yet another good day in the annals of our history as an organization.
“This is a day we have set aside to bring to an end the incessant cash constraints our people have experienced in the past because of the fact that our job is a seasonal job which is, helping local government councils to generate revenue and the moment the season is over, our people are often faced with economic hardship because of the fact that they only have one source of income.
“So we have decided to come up with this workshop with experts in capacity building to teach our members to create diverse sources of income through agriculture”.
He said,” we create revenue for government, we should be able to also create other sources of income for ourselves so as to ensure that every season is a good season”
He said the workshop became necessary also for all the practitioners to come together as a body to hear first hand the recent development from the Abia State government who, through the state governor, His Excellency, Okezie Ikpeazu, who has commissioned Forum of Advertisement Practitioners of Nigeria to be responsible for generating revenue for the state through mobile advertisement.
He said, “the governor invited me to the government house and during our interaction the governor told me that the state government has terminated the appointment of Mopol Azubuike who was in charge of revenue generation through mobile advertisement.
The governor said he has heard so much about Forum of Mobile Advert Practitioners of Nigeria and has therefore decided that henceforth that FORUM of Mobile Advert Practitioners of Nigeria should take over mobile advert revenue generation for Abia state.”
Speaking to the Press during the workshop, Otunba Mike Osimen declared that he decided to use Edo State for the event because according to him, ” Benin is centralized as this will allow participants from other parts of the country to easily access the venue so that all mobile advert practitioners can converge to ventilate on the Abia State offer and for the officials of the Board of Internal Revenue to interact with our members on ways to harmonize operations with a view to mitigating double taxation.”
The representative of Abia State governor, Mr Agu Ndubuisi, of the Abia State Board of Internal Revenue pointed out that Abia State has graduated from manual documentation of payment but has embraced digital documentation and look forward to a robust working relationship with the members of FORUM of Mobile Advert Practitioners of Nigeria. He said Abia State has gotten an app to generate and emblem to discontinue the manually generated emblems and stickers through paperwork.
Also Speaking, the Chairman, Board of Trustee, Chief Dr. Gabriel O. Ojioba, said the workshop has become imperative as it would equip the members with the necessary training for self reliance since revenue collectors collect revenue once in a year and after that the revenue collector is idle until the next season. According to him, “this training will enable our members to be equipped with relevant skills to enable them to have access to multiple sources of income”
One of the key speakers at the event, Mr Muyiwa Adeyemon, an animal husbandry expert, said that global food shortage is looming but that Africa has the solution through farming.