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When Rank Took a Seat, and Character Walked In Some meetings announce themselves with sirens. This one began without them — and ended, on the same day, with me trying to follow a line of Generals toward Victoria Island. Years ago, near Bonny Camp, Victoria Island, a man stepped out in mufti. No stars showing. No aides clearing a path. He saw two civilians sitting, and he simply connected. Warm. Unhurried. Human. I did not know who he was. Today he is Major General Nansak Danjuma Shagaya, eighteenth Commander of the Nigerian Army Corps of Supply & Transport. Then, he was a gentleman who did not need a uniform to prove his stature. That first impression has never left me. Neither has the day he opened a cantonment door and, later that same evening, the road taught me my place. The Honour Due a Serving General On 3 November 2025, at Corps Headquarters, Bonny Cantonment, Lagos, Major General Shagaya assumed command of NACST. The appointment came from the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Waidi Shaibu. He succeeded Major General Emmanuel Anaryu as the Corps’ eighteenth Commander. Before that command, he served as Deputy Chief of Operations (Peace Support Operations) at Army Headquarters. He is an alumnus of the Nigerian Military School, Zaria. In January 2026, he returned there on an operational visit, commended the school’s transformation, and spoke to the boys as one who had once sat where they sit. That is a man who remembers the road. Since taking command he has been where the Army’s engine actually lives: 81 Division in Lagos, 4 Special Forces Command in Doma, 6 Division in Port Harcourt, barracks works at Ashanti Barracks, Apapa & Corps conference in Benin City in March 2026 — “Optimising ST Capabilities Towards Providing Effective Service Delivery to Nigerian Army Operations in All Missions.” His doctrine is plain: “Operational success is sustained not only by combat power but by the reliability, responsiveness and resilience of the logistics system that supports the force.” Glory is loud. Sustainment is quiet. He chose the quiet work — and he is doing it well. The Invisible Front Line People cheer the charge. Few clap for the convoy that made the charge possible. The Corps of Supply & Transport feeds the force, moves the force, fuels the force & keeps the force on the road. It is among the most thankless assignments in uniform — until a theatre runs dry & everyone suddenly remembers logistics. Major General Shagaya has made that work visible again: training, welfare, technology & the insistence that combat service support is not an afterthought. When formations thank NACST for drivers, catering & lift, it is not ceremony. It is an operational thank-you. We celebrate our men & women in uniform for the battles we can see. We should also honour the ones who make those battles possible. Rank them still. Remember them still. Langtang: Home of Generals — and a Father’s Long Shadow The name Shagaya did not arrive in the Nigerian Army yesterday. Major General Nansak is the son of the late Brigadier General John Nanzip Shagaya, Danburam Langtang II (2 September 1942 – 11 February 2018): Nigerian Military School, Zaria; Civil War service with the 3 Marine Commando; later GOC 1 Mechanised Infantry Division; Military Secretary; Minister of Internal Affairs; Field Commander of ECOMOG in Liberia in 1993; & Senator for Plateau South. He died on the Jos–Langtang highway & was buried in Langtang with full military honours. His legacies did not end at the graveside. They put on another uniform. Langtang North is often called the Home of Generals. In April 2025, while Major General Shagaya was still Deputy Chief of Operations, the Army renovated & equipped the male & female wards of General Hospital, Langtang as a special civil-military intervention in his honour — funded from Army Headquarters, commissioned on behalf of the then Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Olufemi Oluyede.👇🏻

My X Leading Light for today is none other than the delectable and charming Cindy. Oneyka Cindy Ojogbo. A name that lands like velvet and steel. Born in Lagos and raised in the ancient city of Benin, she has always been a star student. I first met her in one of Nigeria’s oldest cities, Bodija’s quiet corridors still humming with the dust of ambition. She had just finished at the Educational Advancement Centre [EAC], A-Level class complete, distinctions gleaming like fresh gold. She stepped into Year 2 as if the world had already made space for her. And the world did. At Nigeria’s Premier University, the University of Ibadan, she graduated with a First Class. Then she walked into the Nigerian Law School and repeated the miracle, earning another First Class among the rarest of the rare. Excellence was not her pursuit. It was her native tongue. She began her legal life in the famous Banana Island chambers of Olaniwun Ajayi LP, that legacy firm founded in the 1960s by Sir Olaniwun Ajayi KJW of blessed memory, former Commissioner of Education under Awolowo, father to the Harvard and Cambridge trained Very Rev. Prof. Koyinsola Ajayi SAN. There, under the direct supervision of the learned silk Mr. Wolemi Esan SAN, MBA (now Deputy Managing Partner) and the Oxford-trained Mrs. Ibi Ogunbiyi with her Master in Law and Finance from the University of Oxford, Cindy sharpened her blade in Power and Energy. The rooms that once shaped Nigerian law now shaped her. Columbia Law School came next. She returned with an LL.M. focused on Finance and Projects and a quiet fire. She rose. Partner. Then Deputy Managing Partner. And now, Managing Partner and CEO of CLG, the pan-African law and business advisory firm spanning more than fifty countries. The youngest partner in the firm’s history, and one of the rare women who sit at the very apex of a leading continental firm, raising the bar while the rest of the room is still measuring the height. Her excellence has been publicly crowned: the Private Practice Rising Star Award at the African Legal Awards in 2020; selection as an Advisory Board Member of the African Energy Chamber’s Regulatory Affairs Committee; and recognition among Africa’s 25 Under 40 Energy Women Rising Stars. These are not ornaments. They are the natural fruit of a life lived at the highest standard. I have had the privilege of knowing Cindy closely, as a sound, awesome colleague who carries both brilliance and grace in the same breath. She has my respect always. Cindy of the good life. I still recall nights of clubbing with a small circle of friends, laughter spilling into the early hours. And that long-ago evening at the Lagos Ikoyi Polo Club and later Sip Club late hours - where we found ourselves in the same room as Seyi Tinubu and a true-blooded Yoruba prince of the Imperial College London and University of Buckingham-trained lawyer who now serves as one of the Principal Private Secretaries to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The air that night was thick with possibility and the soft clink of glasses. Those moments stay with me, small windows into the woman behind the silk and the strategy. Cindy is energy and infrastructure and project finance written in flesh. She advises governments, financiers, and sponsors across thirty-plus African countries. She leads with clarity in a sector still learning how to breathe without shortage. She is the new face of African legal leadership in power and energy, young, precise, and unapologetically excellent. From Bodija’s classrooms to Columbia’s halls, from Banana Island’s polished corridors to the helm of a firm that touches half a continent, Cindy Ojogbo has walked a path few women have walked so far, so fast, so well. She is not just rising. She is the light that makes the path visible. Cindy of the good life. Cindy who finishes first. Cindy who leads. My Leading Light for today. And for many days still to come.