2003 Press Release

PROFESSOR WOLE SOYINKA TO DELIVER ANNIVERSARY LECTURE
Lagos Island, Lagos – July 18 2003

Nobel Laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka will on Thursday July 24, 2003 deliver a special anniversary lecture as part of activities commemorating the 10th Year Anniversary Celebration of Express Discount Limited, a key player in the country's financial services sector.

The lecture entitled "Wanted: A Voters' Discount" will hold inside the Shell Hall, Muson Centre Lagos by 10.00am under the distinguished chairmanship of Mr. Gamaliel Onosode with other top industry players in attendance.

Other activities lined up to mark the anniversary include a Charity Walk and a Dinner/Award Night. The charity walk, being organised by Express Discount in collaboration with the Sickle Cell Foundation Nigeria, is intended to raise funds towards the completion of the National Sickle Cell Centre building project under construction. The walk will hold on Sunday 20 July, 2003 beginning 9.00a.m from Marina, Lagos to the National Stadium.

Managing Director of Express Discount Limited, Mr. Kwesi Sagoe, who addressed a press conference in Lagos, Tuesday July 15, 2003 on his company's 10th Anniversary, also gave insight into how the Discount House services provider has performed in its past financial years.

According to him, the company which is registered by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to provide Discount House services to the financial community, has continued to improve on its performance in its area of business year after year.

He disclosed that the company's balance sheet grew from N23.76 billion in 2001 to N25.88 billion in the 2002 financial year, indicating a 9% increase, which is in line with the tight monetary policy of the CBN.

In the year under review, the company recorded a 69% growth in its pretax profit from N326.4 million (2001) to N551.3 million in 2002. Gross income for the year also improved by over 40% to stand at N3.39 billion. At the close of books in March 2002, the paid-up share capital of Express Discount Limited was N520 million out of its authorised share capital of N1 billion, made up of one billion ordinary shares of N1.00 each.

The Managing Director said Express Discount will continue to provide its clients with safe and secured short-term investment opportunities within the banking system, adding that the company will also seek to promote the development of an active secondary market in Government Securities and other prime debt instruments originating from the private sector.

About Professor Wole Soyinka Winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize for Literature

Wole Soyinka is perhaps Africa’s most versatile and eclectic intellectual: playwright, poet, novelist, literary and social critic, he has authored over 40 works. His plays—the core of Soyinka’s creative work—range from satirical political commentary in such works as Kongi’s Harvest, Madmen and Specialists and the Brother Jero plays, to the tragic cadences of Death and the King’s Horseman and The Strong Breed. In them he draws upon Yoruba myth and ceremonies, incantatory poetry, dance and music to connect the historical with the metaphysical, the timeless realm which unites the living, the dead, and the unborn. The problems of Africa, particularly the failures of authoritarian politicians and military dictators, have concerned Soyinka throughout his career. In two novels he examines the responsibilities of public intellectuals of his generation: The Interpreters and Season of Anomy. He was imprisoned in 1967-69 for allegedly conspiring to aid the attempted secession of Biafra from Nigeria. The Man Died recounts this experience, as does some of his poetry, including the important volume A Shuttle in the Crypt. In recent years Soyinka has been very active in the pro-democracy movement in Nigeria; his 1996 work Open Sore of a Continent provides a trenchant commentary on crises in leadership. Co-editor of Black Orpheus, author of the seminal Myth, Literature, and the African World, professor of English and drama at the University of Ibadan, Soyinka is Robert W. Woodruff Professor of the Arts at Emory University. For more information about Prof Wole Soyinka, please visit http://it.stlawu.edu/~art/aafestival/soyinka.html

For more information: (Media Only Please)
Jumoke Gbajabiamila
Tel: (234)-01-2641650-5
Email: corp_aff@expdisc.com