Nigeria, May 25 -- For me, Africa Day-celebrated annually on 25 May-readily brings to mind one remarkable individual and one pivotal institution. The individual is Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, a respected scholar and passionate pan-Africanist, whose life was tragically cut short on Africa Day in 2009, at just 48 years old.

The institution is the UBA Group, in part because of an invitation I received from them, in 2020, to be on a panel, themed "Domestic Policies, Regional Development and a Global Agenda: SDGs and African Development at a Crossroad", organised to commemorate Africa Day that year.

The email invitation included this paragraph: "As a leading pan African Bank with subsidiaries in 20 African countries and operations in the UK, USA ...