User:Dele4you

www.focus-inside.org

Dele A. Sónúbi was born in Mushin, Lagos State of Nigeria. He grew up in Lagos until he moved to Ibadan in Oyo State for a short while. It was from Ibadan that he went off to Ìkénné Home Town to re-start elementary and secondary schools. Dele hails from Ìkénné City in Remo-land (near Shagamu). Ìkénné is a city famous for its nationalist politicians who were revere for their political and managerial greatness. Such great nationalist that were natives of Ìkénné were folks like Chief Obafemi Oyeniyi Awolowo- (former Premier of Western Region and leader of opposition at the national house of parliament); Chief Kehinde Sofola- (former Minister for justice). Ìkénné was similarly famous for being the birthplace of the famous social critics Dr. Tai Solarin, with many great and notable philanthropies like Idow Sofola, SAN, Simbo Sofola-(highly successful business entrepreneur, etc.). Ìkénné is one of the many cities of Ogun State, in the south-western part of Nigeria and has recently been made the headquarter of the local government of the region. Dele’s formative years commenced when he won the admission to study at Mayflower School which was founded by the great educationist and social critic, Dr. Tai Solarin. Admission into Mayflower School then was highly competitive because most parents would like their children and wards to gain admission and study there. Parents what Mayflower for their wards partly because the school had a great academic reputation which is insensitively combined with regimented, strict and agrarian life focused on becoming great member of Nigerian society and also partly because parents admired Dr. Tai Solarin and would like their wards to study under him and or learn to become like him. The major preoccupations of Mayflowers (students of Mayflower School) was excellence in what they did. The competition to be the best was fierce and the opportunity to score the highest in grades were much opened too. Gaining an admission into Mayflower School therefore became a significant spring for Dele Sonubi to launch at life and obtain a healthy orientation to the challenges of life. Mayflower school was a boarding house system and living in the dormitory life became a major wake up call for Dele Sonubi to take life more seriously and concentrate on making a sense out of his own existence in terms of successes and great social relevance. After his studies at Mayflower, Dele A. Sonubi went to study Philosophy at the Ogun State University with additional research period at the University of Lagos focusing on African Philosophy and Feministic Studies. He then went to European University Center for Peace Studies to conduct two Master’s Degree and two post graduate studies in peace and development studies as well as in peace keeping and peace building. Upon his graduation, Dele returned to Nigerian and had since been engaged with local and international NGOs to bring changes into Nigerian lives. Dele Sonubi has published two books and working hard to put out his third books. The Armed Robbers debuted in Nigeria in 2000 and was followed by The Grandfather’s Mandate. The Armed Robber 2 is ready to go into the prints.

Dele Akeem Sonubi is an international development expert and has worked with many international development agencies in Nigeria and abroad. Akeem (Dele A. Sonubi, has he later became famously known as) has travelled far around the world and continues to be a shining example of a good son of Ikenne from a good home with good moral upbringing. He is a writer and has published such books as The Armed Robbers and The Grandfather’s Mandate.

Presently, he works with German Society for International Corporation-GiZ-ECOWAS as a consultant to help ECOWAS turn its Medium Term Evaluation Plan (MTAP) into operationalised log frame that will be use to appreciate different activities of different directorates in ECOWAS.

Before his engagement with GIZ-ECOWAS, he was similarly engaged as an evaluation consultant with USAID/MEMS-Nigeria to conduct an evaluation of its Focus State Strategic.

Dele A. Sonubi is also working with a nonprofit organization: Institutional Strengthening and Individual Development Expertise. It is a capacity building organization for non state actors around Nigeria; helping with organizational capacity building, strategic planning, staff assessment plans, proposal writing and grant management, organizational profiling and fundraising plans. he also assist with impact assessments of their projects.

Until recently, he completed a 30 months consultancy work with a European Union funded project (EU-INSIDE) which is a direct capacity building for non state actors (NSAs) and mentoring of weak NSAs in Nigeria. he was the south west regional mentor in charge of the 6 states of South Western Nigeria. The project which aimed at Increasing Non State Actors’ Implementation and Development Expertise (INSIDE) targeted institutional capacity building for NSAs who are weak, and declining in operational capacities owing to years of donor fatigues in Nigeria. Our project emphasized intense mentoring of organisations, fundraising, leadership strengthening, networking, programmatic assistance and direct capacity building for the assessed and selected NSAs. The thematic focus for INSIDE’s Call for Proposals included Peace and Conflict Mitigation as well as environment and climate change. As the regional coordinator and mentor, he was in charge of both programmatic and administrative structure of our project base office. Thus he have extensive experiences in managing office staff, financial prudence, monitoring and evaluation reports as well as formulating and implementing programs and projects.

Until January 2009, he was engaged with NDI Washington as a long term election observer to Bangladesh in the country’s 2008/2009 parliamentary election which was successfully conducted. While there, he held the leadership role of the team leader of his  team a function that he performed creditably.

Before leaving for Bangladesh, he worked with West African Civil Society Forum (WACSOF) which is an umbrella body for civil society organizations in West African particularly those working on ECOWAS thematic areas. WACSOF brought civil society initiatives and policy suggestions into ECOWAS policy formations. As the Senior Program Officer Conflict Resolution and Civilian Transformations, he was responsible for the programs of WACSOF on conflict and security issues. Aside from being extensively engaged in ECOWAS’ Conflict Prevention Mechanisms and Early Warning- Early Response projects all over West Africa (see attached CV), he had organized series of consultative forum meetings with CSOs in West Africa sourcing for civil society input and suggestions for sub regional transformations.

Before WACSOF, he had been engaged as a Senior Program Officer Conflict Resolution and Mitigation at the Mississippi Consortium for International Development, Nigeria; a US based NGO and an Implementing Partner for USAID supports for Democracy and Good Governance in Nigeria. MCID facilitated training and technical assistance to strengthen the institutional capacity of targeted state legislatures under the USAID funding. Some of the core areas of the program that have improved democratic governance in the targeted states include policy analysis and reform, increasing citizen participation through opening up the legislative process for continuous dialogue with civil society organizations, and improving citizen participation in the budget and appropriations processes in target states. As a key player in the successes of MCID in these projects, he believe that he possess the requisite knowledge, skills, commitment and enthusiasm to be a reliable player in the Nigeria program team.

I also worked with Friedrich Naumann Stiftung (Foundation)-FNF from Germany at a senior level Grant and Sub-Grant Manager FNF was a donor agency working in the areas of free market and democracy. he combined the role of the Grant Management with, verifying, approving and reporting on financial activities to our home office in Germany through the South African Regional office as well as writing reports on program events.

In all places where he worked, he was responsible for conceiving programs, designing them and liaising with both civil society organizations and their leaderships. Consequently, he have a rich core experiences in the operations and dynamism of grant-making/donor organization as well as networking and project/grant management and sub-granting. he relate well with partners organization who received grants from the organizations he worked with. he am a trained trainer, a workshop moderator, a conference facilitator and experienced in conflict management and mitigation. Most recently he has transformed his  years of core experiences in this sector into mentoring organizations and helping them develop and implement strategic plans. He is very skillful at helping multiple organization conduct and implement Strategic Plans.