BRANDS And BRAINS - showcasing entrepreneurs, creatives, fashion, events and places!: "We set up Tap Initiative because of failed governance"

"Bad governance" he says is a major inspiration that led to the birth of Tap initiative- a non-governmental organisation founded by a patriotic lawyer Mr Martin Mbasekei Obono. The organisation seeks to enhance the potentials of Nigerians in terms of the human capital in Nigeria through three thematic areas; Governance and Democracy, Human rights and Justice as well as Transparency and accountability.

it was indeed an educative and interactive time spent- one that will make realise and understand how powerful you are as a young Nigerian.

How did you start Tap initiative?

First of all, Tap was initiated because of the idea of trying to restructure the country so we thought that we need to do a lot of advocacy in terms of moving and changing the constitution to accommodate local government autonomy, state autonomy, fiscal federalism and the rest of that so we thought the best thing to do is to carry out a campaign for a constitutional amendment which would make us have a structured economy.

" The thought of having a peaceful country." At the point when there was crisis between the North and South was when Tap actually had its first project called STATE OF NG and what we did with that project was to partner with a organisations like Global Shapers, Play Network, Yali Network, etc to then have a kind of symposium where we brought in youth ethnic groups - Ohaneze Youth forum, Arewa Youths Consultative forum, Oduduwa Nationalistic Coalition as well as Ijaw Youths Council. We deliberated over the issues and decided that the best thing for us is to stay together as ONE NIGERIA."

What is your major inspiration?

Failed governance! if you look around you, you would notice that the government has in one or the other failed us that is why Tap initiative came to life. I can rightly say that bad government is my major inspiration.

Any challenge/s?

Funding is a major challenge.

How do you face your challenges?

We get individuals and organisations to partner with us.

You can catch Mr Obono on any Nigerian TV Station- trust me, his boldness and level of patriotism is one that needs to be showcased. See more photos of him after the cut;

Recently, Tap Initiative had a project called PVC Football which was a voters' education project - they brought together Nigerian Football Legends like Kanu Nwankwo, Victor Ikpeba, Samson Siasia, Uche Okechukwu, Daniel Amokachi, Taribo West and a host of others ( they made up the Nigerian National Team that won the African Cup of Nations against Zambia in 1994) to play against the Nigerian National Team that won the African Cup of Nations against Burkina-Faso in 2013 - the likes of Joseph Yobo and a host of others.

The event was held at Yaba Tech sport complex Lagos on the 9th of February, 2019 and the only thing people needed to get in to watch the match is their PVCs....... Interesting!

See photos of the event below;