Way forward Naija

WHY THE SUPER EAGLES WILL NOT PLAY WELL FOR YEARS TO COME

2011-10-08T21:09:00.001+02:00

In spite of the fact that I had vowed never to watch another of the Super Eagles matches again, the media hype before the Nigeria-Guinea match gave me a false sense of hope, that maybe, just maybe I might watch the Super Eagles play some decent football for a change. However, as you probably all know by now, I was obviously mistaken. The match ended 2-2. Unfortunately, this was a match we needed to win. As I write this I do not know if we have managed to qualify for the Nations Cup through the back door, the way we did for the World Cup, as not all the qualifiers have been wrapped up. What I do know is that Nigeria has just one possible place left as best runners up as 2 runners up already have better points than we do. Once again, the Super Eagles let down their teeming supporters (I am not one of them). They played for most of the match with no real urgency and as though not much was at stake and only the introduction of Ahmed Musa, Ik Uche and Ehigo Ekiosun mid way into the second half added a bit of bite up front. But while these lads were doing their best to re-energise the team in attack, the lads at the back were doing their best to frustrate it by their poor defending.

But how have we got to this stage in our football? I am sorry to say that the state of our football aptly mirrors the state of our nation…one in chaos and crisis! I have thought about it long and hard and the truth of the matter is that these players do not really care about playing for the National team and why should they? When most of them were kids, the Nigerian nation refused to send them to school, refused to pay any attention to them and could care less if they died on the streets. Many of them honed their skills under the bridges of Lagos and Onitsha probably desirous of an education, but forced to abandon their dreams, due to the poverty ravaging the land as a result of our incompetent leaders. Fortunately, a number of them were able to develop their skills to a level where they were able to travel abroad, find a club and earn a decent living. Suddenly, the same nation that abandoned them needs their skills…but so do the clubs where they earn their living. Now to whom do they owe their loyalties? Perhaps I hear you say that the country and club dichotomy is one every player faces. This is true. But few countries have been ravaged by its leaders the way Nigeria has. Other countries do the best within their available resources for their citizens...Nigeria does not! Many countries take care of their players on and off the field…Nigeria does not! Nigeria simply uses its players and dumps them. Does Samuel Okawaraji come to mind? Rashidi Yekini, Kanu Nwankwo and Austin Okocha are the greatest Nigerian players of the last 2 decades, yet when their playing careers came to an end, the Nigerian football authorities could not even arrange a befitting testimonial for them. Many a Nigerian player has been injured while on national duty and has been left to sort himself out. Many a time, money has been voted to help the players recover their medical bills, but was never released owing to the bureaucracy of the Nigerian football authorities. Despite risking their careers, lives and goodness knows what else to play for Nigeria, at the twilight of their careers, they were all largely left to their own devices, like many others before and after them.

The same holds true for the average Nigerian on the streets. It is difficult to find a nationalistic Nigerian. The hearts of most Nigerians is devoid of any sort of Nationalistic tendency. Hardly anyone truly really cares about this country anymore. We all just try to eke out our daily existence and get by in the knowledge that the Nigerian nation does not really give a hoot about us. It claims to, but how could it possibly when Nigerian’s are killed and kidnapped on a daily basis? When the average Nigerian is brutalized on the roads constantly by the Nigerian police and their colleagues in the military? When our roads are left so bad that they have become death traps? When after years of the knowledge that our education is in shambles, nothing is still being done about it? When poverty pervades the land, but political office holders and their hanger’s on live in opulence? It is pretty obvious that the players know this and they are not swindled by the sweet talk of the NFF officials. A few days before the match the Minister of Sports showed up at a training session, as they normally do, trying to drum it into the ears of the players how important this match was to the nation…..for where!! The players looked bland and uninterested!! They have been hoodwinked too many times. I am sure that the singular thought at the back of their minds is to just manage to get though the match without any serious injury that would impair their performance at their clubs. Clubs where people genuinely care about them, take care of them and where they earn a living they could never have dreamt of while playing under the bridges in Nigeria.

Unfortunately, the current crops of players seem to be the only ones we can call upon. The home based players, though much more hungry for success than their foreign counterparts, are not quite as good. They may eventually be developed to deliver the goods, but that will take many years and we are all too much in a hurry for the next team that will win something. So we are stuck with the current Super Eagles for a few more years and we are therefore destined to continue to witness the same lackluster performances from them.

It is easy to say that our Super Eagles should play with pride and put the nation first, but truthfully, if you were in their shoes would you? I ask myself the same question and honestly, given what I know about Nigeria, I am not sure that I would.

LAGOS STATE TENANCY LAW: HOW POSSIBLE?

2011-06-29T11:12:00.000+02:00

Recent media reports suggested that the Lagos State Government has just signed into law, a bill that amongst other things, seeks to stipulate the minimum amount of rent payable on a residential property to one year, after which rent will then be paid monthly. No doubt, a lot of Lagosians are already hailing the government of Fashola in this regard. However, pertinent questions still remain! Does this law make sense? Is this law implementable? Does the Lagos State government have the moral right to enforce such a law on landlords?

Ordinarily, this law might make some sense. Unfortunately, Nigeria is a country that has never fallen short in lawmaking. The challenge has always been implementation of the various laws at our disposal. Another stumbling block, which usually goes unmentioned, is the massive level of illiteracy and lack of access to information in Nigeria – especially as it relates to the public sector. This usually means that the citizenry is usually unaware as to his or her rights and the available laws with which to seek redress! Who on earth is going to implement this law? A quick fix will be to set up another agency (we have too many already) with the mandate of ensuring that the law is followed to the letter. You and I however know that more often than not, such agencies start of well, but in a matter of months…at best a year or two, the civil service bug bites them and they fade away into obscurity, content to come to work, do little or nothing and collect their salary at the end of the month.

The laws of economics even suggest that such a law may be counterproductive. Without a doubt, the design of such a law is to protect the citizenry by reducing the amount of money paid as rent as a lump sum, seeking rather to stretch the payment of such sums over the life of the tenancy. The possibility however remains that while it seeks to reduce the amount paid in the short term, it may likely increase the amount paid in the long term. How do I mean? Well, a landlord who is content to collect N500,000 per annum for a flat, may not necessarily be willing to collect N60,000 per month, which is N500,000 divided by 12 months. Forcing such a landlord to collect his rent per month and thereby taking away the opportunity to utilize the bulk sum and enjoy economies of scale may mean that he may now increase his rent to say N80,000 per month to compensate for the loss of the benefits accruable from bulk money. This translates to N720,000 a year. In this scenario, has the law improved the finances of the man on the street or has it worsened it?

This law also begs the question of whether the Lagos State government has done all it can for the housing sector? The genesis of the insistence one 1 year, 2 years and even in some cases 3 year rent is borne from many factors. One is the attitude of tenants who are often unwilling to pay up on time – no doubt exacerbated by the poor economic situation in the country. Not to mention the difficulty in evicting them once it has become established that they cannot pay up! Another is the high rate of inflation, which makes monthly rental income pretty useless, while the last, but by no means the least is the law of demand and supply. In this case, the demand for housing in Lagos far exceeds the supply. But what has government done about all this? Not all of these circumstances are within the purview of the LASG to correct. Inflation and general economic growth and development rest largely on the shoulders of the Federal Government. However in terms of balancing out the demand and supply dynamics, has the LASG done anywhere near enough? My answer to this is a capital NO!!

I believe that there are thousands of professionals and other middle class individuals who work in Lagos who would be willing to build their own houses if only they could have access to land. Although, the attitude of many of our people is often to seek to build what they cannot really afford, as they try to measure themselves against the size of house that their friend, neighbors etc occupy, there are still many who would be satisfied with building a nice bungalow, rather than overstretching themselves to build a duplex in order to fit in!! But this can only be done if land is available upon which to build!! In this regard, the LASG is lacking. Although there is a lot of estate developments in the Lekki/Ajah axis, these are private sector driven and are designed for the high and mighty and at cut throat prices. Or how else can you explain someone trying to sell a 3 bedroom “serviced” flat for N50mln!! A model I would like to see the LASG adopt is the FCT style, where land is compartmentalized into districts and developed one after the other as detailed below:

• LASG should acquire most of the land in Lekki/Lasu-Iba axis and segment into specific districts the way it is in Abuja (see attached), with plots clearly laid out and land use clearly defined. i.e. based on a number of residential plots in a district, areas that can be used for churches, mosques, schools, commercial activity etc should be defined in a manner and quantity that makes them easily accessible to and sufficient for the residents.

• Infrastructure should then be provided for each district (roads, drainage, water, electricity poles and wiring) and the plots sold. The sales of the plots should cover for the cost of infrastructural development. A friend in Abuja told me that it costs about N20-25bln to develop a district in Abuja - and that is with JB doing the infrastructure! If a competent local firm handled the infrastructure, perhaps it might cost say N15bln. Besides, I don't think the average resident needs infrastructure to the very high quality that JB provides in Abuja. Let me put it this way, if JB quality of infrastructure is rated at 100%, I'm sure that most people would be happy with infrastructure levels of say 65-70%- once the road is one that will last and the drainage actually discharges water. Therefore, if a district were developed with N15bln and is 1000 residential plots, then a plot could be sold at N15mln. It could even be cheaper at say N10mln or less, because some plots within each district could be sold to developers at a higher price with the licence to build terraced or semi high rise building from which a developer would recover the extra cost (while 1 plot may sufficiently house 1 family, 3 plots sold together to a developer and used to build a set of 2 blocks of 4 terraced duplexes can house 8 families), whereas the extra income from combined plot sales to developers (at a higher price per plot, since the same space would yield a developer more income) could be used to subsidise for those buying individual plots.

• Once a district is developed and sold out, the money should be used to develop the next district. It would therefore become some sort of a revolving fund.

• In order to avoid undue speculation, the purchase of plots in these district schemes should be limited to 1 plot per family i.e if a husband has bought a plot, the wife cannot buy one. Only developer’s building blocks of flats/terraces etc would be allowed to by multiple times based on evidence of delivery on past plots sold. This would be fairly easy to do in this modern age of technology. Simply take the bio data (picture, finger print, retina scan) of both husband and wife, perhaps with their marriage certificate, before processing the sales documentation and cross reference future purchase applications against a data base of those who have bought before.

• In order to ensure quick development of each district, purchasers and developers could be given a time limit of 5 years to finish construction, failure of which would result in a revocation of the title with 75% of initial purchase price refunded. The land would then be sold at the current market rate to any other interested party who has not purchased before, providing some income for the govt (however, in a scheme such as this, income should not be the primary concern of the govt).

I think with a determined, focused government, the points enunciated above are easily doable and would resolve many of the frustrations that people have with purchasing land in Lagos. The problem with Nigeria is that our government is full of people with little plans, focus, creativity, and competence. Such a model would even help to control prices, because if people know that every year government develops and sells a scheme of 1000 plots, people could tell private speculators to go to hell and when those peddling land at N30mln a plot see that govt is selling comparable land for N7.5mln, they will have no choice but to adjust their prices.

As it is, rather than be proactive and creative in solving the housing problems in Lagos for the benefit of the people, the LASG is more interested in deriving maximum benefit for itself from development of a few GRA (in name only) type estates at exorbitant prices. Yet, the LASG, having failed in its own responsibility of developing reasonably priced estates, making land available and reducing the difficulties in accessing the available land, is trying to “control” the housing market! All said and done, the most logical conclusion I can draw from the facts available is that as in the past, this latest effort will not succeed.

NLC AND LABOUR UNIONS: ALWAYS IN OUR OVERALL BEST INTEREST?

2010-07-23T11:17:00.002+02:00

Labour unionism in Nigeria is not a recent development. However, over the past 2 decades or so, the various labour unions in Nigeria have been in the news as at no other time in our history. The popularity of the unions came to a crescendo in the late 80’s, during the regime of Ibrahim Babangida. The SAP strike and riots of 1989 was one of the most coordinated strike actions in the nation’s history. The strike of 1993, over the annulment of the June 12 elections was another strike action that literally brought the nation to its knees. Since then, the labour unions have engaged in one strike action or the other with increasing regularity. Perhaps this has been buoyed by the successes of the strike actions of the SAP and June 12 saga. From the University lecturers to the medical doctors to nurses, Nitel staff, PHCN staff, NLC etc, all of these and more have gone on strike at one time or the other to press home their various demands. Whilst most of these actions have been localized and restricted to the specific sectors and issues involved, in recent times the NLC in particular have been directed at changing the direction of general economic policy and herein lay my interest.

It is a known fact that the Nigerian economy is grossly underperforming. There are many causes for this, but a significant reason is the fact that Federal and State governments control a huge chunk of the country’s economic activity. Unfortunately, this huge chunk has been mismanaged over the years, thereby leaving the economy in the doldrums. In an attempt to correct the imbalances to the economy caused by inefficient government departments and companies, efforts have been made to privatize many companies hitherto managed and operated by the government. However, in many cases, these attempts have been met with stiff resistance from the NLC. In particular, issues relating to privatization of the nations refineries, its electricity infrastructure, roads, telecoms and airports have been met with unusually strong opposition. The position of the labour unions has usually been that some of these sectors are so interlinked with the common man that putting them in private hands to be run for profit motives would result in suffering for the masses. In other cases, it has been argued that putting them in private hands would result in “national security issues” as in the case of telecoms and airports; however I find these arguments, especially the latter one, to be outdated, given that no country operates in isolation anymore.

I have reason to call into question the competence of the NLC to make such assertions. From experience, I have concluded that in everyday discourse, only a minute proportion of the discussants are really competent to speak on any subject matter. A classical example would be in matters concerning the Super Eagles. When they perform badly, everyone is suddenly a coach and prescribes a “better” option for the way forward. “Oh, Okocha should not have started”, “Why didn’t he bring on Kanu?” people say, forgetting that the same Kanu had been touted by the majority of Nigerian’s as being too old and slow to make the world cup team of any serious nation! Another good example is the typical newspaper stand. They are usually flocked by all manner of people, most of who have not had a decent education or specialized in any field. Yet, just listen to them talk! They usually have an opinion and solution to every headline on every newspaper on any matter under the sun. I find that the NLC most times falls into the same category.

As someone schooled in Accounting, macro and micro economics, corporate finance and international finance, and given the social situation we find ourselves in, I find that privatization is one of the best things that can happen to most of our state owned enterprise. First the change of ownership to private hands will reduce the corruption which these enterprises are used to perpetrate. NNPC and PHCN are a case in point. Secondly, the improved efficiency will mean that the services will be provided faster, and in some cases cheaper and thirdly, the privatized industries are likely to provide far more jobs for the teeming unemployed than if they were left in public hands. The telecoms industry is always my favorite case study. In over 3 decades, Nitel provided us with a paltry 500,000 lines, but the GSM companies have provided us with over 40 million lines in 10 years. It took about 6months (if you didn’t know anyone and were also lucky) to apply for and receive a Nitel line back in the day. Today, you can get a GSM line in minutes. Nitel as far as I know never made any dividend payment to its owner, the Federal Government, but the GSM and CDMA companies pay taxes to government running into hundreds of billions of Naira. At best Nitel provided 10,000 direct jobs and very little indirect jobs. Today, I would expect that direct jobs provided by the telecoms companies at the very least matches the 10,000, but the indirect jobs probably runs into the hundreds of thousands, from those hawking recharge cards, to those operating call centers, to advertising agencies, builders of masts, those who lease out generating sets, provide security services etc. With these obvious benefits, why on earth would an NLC be so against the final sale of Nitel? Any student of economics should be able to conclude rather easily that the overall benefits of the privatized telecoms industry far outweighs the burden of keeping the staff at Nitel unproductively employed.

My take on this is that the NLC continues to struggle with government simply to remain relevant and not necessarily to make your life or my life better. In a nation as corrupt as Nigeria, I rather doubt that corruption has not also found its way into the various unions who are supposedly fighting on our behalf, oblivious that in many cases their actions actually cause more long term suffering to Nigerians.

Another interesting case study is the brouhaha surrounding the privatization of PHCN, which the unions seem to be against. It is common knowledge that PHCN is corrupt and inefficient. It is also common knowledge that stable electricity will do wonders for the Nigerian economy by boosting its productive capacity and by opening a new vista of opportunities for provision of services. It is also common knowledge that all companies, big and small, and a large amount of private residences use private generating sets for varying lengths of time on a daily basis. It is also common knowledge that self generated power is about 10 times more expensive than the current national tariff. I therefore find it puzzling that whenever the issue of PHCN’s privatization comes up in public discourse, the electricity union’s rise up to say that all they require is more funding and that are capable of managing the company. A company they have failed to manage properly for the last 30years!!?? One does not need a soothsayer to tell that the current staff of PHCN cannot turn around the fortunes of that company. Discussion with their staff whenever I go to pay my bills indicate that they do not possess simple logic, lack integrity, proper work ethic and honesty, are ages behind in current technological advances in the sector, are not proactive, do not have the capacity to design and implement processes and procedures that will ensure the system works properly and are generally un-trainable.

If this is the case though and we all know it, why then is there so much resistance to handing PHCN and its successor companies over to private companies who will have the capacity to manage them effectively and far more efficiently and import far better technology and deploy current best practices? One would have thought the overriding interest would be to make electricity available to the nation and by so doing oil the nation’s path to economic recovery. If electricity is really the opium for our economy that many people are saying it is, then it is likely that the increased economic activity it will create will bring about many more jobs than could ever be lost by privatizing PHCN. This is simple economics, and has already been proven to be true as described in the telecoms sector. This does not even take into account the improved incomes people in other sectors will generate as a result of regular electricity, more expensive or not. And I see no reason why this cannot apply in other sectors as well - even downstream petroleum!

It seems that in fighting to keep a “few” employed at some of these state owned companies, the overall impact of these labor agitations as regards privatization is actually worsening the lot of most other Nigerians. The intention is not to make it appear that the unions are not useful. They certainly are, especially when it comes to smaller localized issues their workers may be having with their employers, but when it comes to trying to get involved in directing national economic policy, I really do not think the NLC is doing us any favors.

SOUTH AFRICA- THE NEW GIANT OF AFRICA

2010-06-18T15:50:00.004+02:00

Growing up, we were all constantly fed with the rhetoric of Nigeria being the “Giant of Africa” and a “Nation with great potential”! However, the more I grow older and wiser and continued to analyze this country, the more I realized that Nigeria is far from being a great country. The definition of a great country may vary slightly from one person to the other, but I expect all the definitions to contain some of the same ingredients. I expect to hear that a great country is one that protects its citizens, where the political system is relatively stable, one that provides quality education and healthcare to its people, one where basic infrastructure such as water supply, electricity and an efficient transport system are available and work efficiently regardless whether or not they are provided by the private or public sector and one where the rule of law reigns and citizens can find redress in the law courts.

Unfortunately, all of these things are currently not ingredients of the Nigerian state. Roads, water, healthcare, education, security, access to justice and electricity (to mention a few) are not readily available to the majority of Nigerians. Maybe they once were, but no more!

Not too long ago, Nigeria was shunned by the President of the United States of America, who chose to visit Ghana over Nigeria, despite the fact that Nigeria is supposedly pivotal to its energy needs and at the forefront of peacekeeping around the world and more importantly on the African continent. Following this was the scathing remarks of the US Secretary of State on her visit to Nigeria, showing just how far down the rungs of greatness Nigeria has fallen. The sad part of all of this is that those in government have not realized that Nigeria is longer great, if it ever really was. Nigeria was certainly once rich, but great!? Of that I am not so convinced.

We continue to beat our chests and boast of the being the 9th largest producer of crude oil in the world, 6th largest exporter of the product and the largest in Africa. We even boast of having the largest TV Network in Africa, as well as the largest political party. But in the 21st century are these supposed to be claims to fame? How about having a vibrant, robust and diversified economy that creates jobs for its people? What about having a functional political system? Is having a functional educational and healthcare system a bad thing? Is it impossible to be able to expect that our roads be smooth and motor able without fear of where the next pothole will be? Should a nation with the kind of coal, hydro and thermal resources that Nigeria possesses not expect that it will be able to enjoy 24 hour electricity? Is it out of place that almost 40years after the first bridge was built across the river Niger at Onitsha, that we should have a second one, regardless of who builds it? Many other examples of the failure of the Nigerian nation abound – Nigerian Airways, Nigerian Railway, National Stadium Lagos, National Theatre Lagos, Power Holding Company of Nigeria, Nigerian Telecommunications Plc, Nigerian National Shipping Line, Aluminum Smelter Company of Nigeria, Nigerian Coal Corporation, National refineries, Nigeria House in New York, Nigerian Mining Corporation and many more. It seems everything “Nigerian” is bound to end up in gloom and doom.

However, even if the Nigerian story does not inspire much hope in the heart of the average African, another country is at least making up the gap and standing up strong on behalf of the continent. South Africa is currently hosting the world and my word, what a showpiece!! The stadia were built in many cases ahead of schedule and below budget. Just to put it in some perspective, The Durban stadium (the one with the arc) cost $200mln, about N30bln. Yet, we built the Abuja stadium, in 2003, for about N50bln! Hmmm! I thought inflation made things more expensive!! And whilst the Durban stadium is state of the art and visually breathtaking, the Abuja Stadium, whilst still being a good stadium, is rather basic in its aesthetic design. Bottom line, South Africa has made the whole continent proud and FIFA had from the turn of 2010 been telling the whole world that South Africa was ready to host the world. This is in stark contrast to when Nigeria hosted the U-17 tournament a few months ago. Although the scale of that tournament was much, much less than the world cup, FIFA had palpitations from the build up right through to the end of the tournament, fretting about minor things from the state of dressing rooms and media offices to more serious issues of the possibility of floodlights going out (which eventually did occur) and rain literally carrying the playing turf away.

This is just symptomatic of the differences between South Africa and Nigeria. I struggle to find any parameter where Nigeria leads South Africa. Electricity supply, political stability/maturity, educational standards, quality of healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, mining, transportation, tourism, broadcasting, urban development, intellectual capacity, police capability just to mention a few, are some of the areas where it is obvious to any onlooker that we are nowhere near South Africa. Indeed our economy is gradually being taken over by South African corporate imports. Shoprite, MTN, Dstv, Stanbic IBTC, Alexander Forbes and Protea Hotels are examples of South African corporate bodies that are operating successfully within the Nigerian space. South Africa is the largest economy in Africa. It is a world leader in coal, diamond and gold production. The country has just launched a high speed train service in Johannesburg. The country has the most developed financial services industry on the continent. Its educational facilities are world class. The country boasts of 4million tourists every year. Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Most of us who can afford it watch South Africa’s Dstv. If we do not lead in any of these areas, how on earth do we manage to justify our stake to the claim of being the Giant of Africa. Perhaps it is by our leadership in police brutality, political assassination, illiterate and incompetent political class, advanced free fraud, death traps called roads, failing banking system, comatose economy and absence of electricity despite huge volumes of gas!! Certainly not! The world is not interested in all of these things!

As usual we have managed to pull a veil over our eyes in this country. Rather than our leadership taking the steps to really put Nigeria in a position to begin to compete for that title, we put our heads in the sand and mindlessly proclaim our greatness. Instead of sitting down to work on the Electoral Reform bill, the Freedom of Information bill and the Forfeiture of Assets bill, 65 of our Senators have flown to South Africa to watch the world cup at taxpayers’ expense. Unfortunately for them, it seems that Nigeria will be coming home early. I say unfortunately because I figure most of them would have made plans till the 2nd round of the competition, on the assumption that we would get that far. However, knowing them, it would not be out of place for them to find some other excuse to stay behind even after the “Super” eagles have returned home. A popular one is likely to be that “we are staying back to understudy the organization of the world cup in order to enable us host big events in the future”. What a bunch of clowns!! And to rub salt into the wound, they do not bloody care!! And with the caliber of our political class, it is not surprising that we are where we are as a nation? Take a sample of the members of the Senate or House of reps of more serious countries. They are mostly occupied with men of timbre and caliber-people whose intellectual capabilities are not in doubt. Just listen to the typical member of the American Senate speak. Or a member of the British House of Commons! The quality of speech or debate that goes on in our National Assembly is of such a low quality that it is no surprise they have not been able to pass more than a few bills in the last couple of years. Just a few days ago, I was listening to BBC radio and they were speaking to the Nigerian Ambassador to Venezuela, trying to discuss the cultural linkages between the people of Africa and South America. My word!! The poor quality of speech, logic, general knowledge and awareness of this gentleman was shocking! I was so embarrassed for Nigeria that I had to turn off the radio.

We are constantly fooled by our supposed oil riches, yet Nigeria with all its 2.3mln barrels of oil per day has a per capita GDP of about $2,400. South Africa on the other hand, that produces NO oil, has a per capita GDP of over $10,100. To put it in further perspective, Algeria with less oil production than Nigeria has a per capita GDP of $7,000. This amplifies the point that rather than deceive ourselves, our leaders need to appreciate that the country is not anywhere as rich as it seems to be and as such, should be doing so much more than they are currently doing to develop a viable and robust economy.

So in your mind is Nigeria the Giant of Africa? All things considered, my answer to that is far from it! South Africa, the real Giant of Africa should please stand up and be counted. And the sooner those in Aso rock and Abuja realize that we have long been displaced from that position and begin to take urgent steps to remedy the situation, the better!!

AND A WOMAN SHALL RISE TO DELIVER NIGERIA…!

2010-02-10T12:19:00.001+01:00

I have often wondered at who would make a better President for Nigeria between a man and a woman. The closest this country has ever come to having a woman be at the forefront of political leadership was when Mrs Patricia Etteh held the position of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, effectively making her the number 4 citizen of the nation. However, being the number 4 citizen is all well and good, but is a certainly a long way off from being the number 1 citizen, on whose shoulders lie the full weight of the nation.

Even though Patricia Etteh is widely regarded to have failed in her time as the speaker, as well as doing the cause of further advancement of women in politics and nation building no justice, there are still compelling reasons to believe that a woman may perhaps be the one to put this country on the path that it truly deserves to be.

Women rose to unusual prominence during the second tenure of President Obasanjo. Never before in Nigerian political history had so many women served in government at such a high level. And not only did they serve, but their performances during that period remain as some of the best we have seen of any of our public officials since the return to democracy. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala brought a fresh and well-educated perspective to the job of Finance Minister, which her experience at the World Bank, garnered over many years, had no doubt prepared her for. The woman hit the ground running and through her extensive contacts was very instrumental to getting an unlikely debt relief for Nigeria, despite the view in the western world and media that Nigeria did not deserve any form of debt relief. Although this act was well lauded at the time, it may go down as one of the most unappreciated and fundamental things Nigeria as a whole has benefited from democracy in 11years. Following the debt relief, Nigeria’s credit ratings improved, more foreign investment came in and Nigeria’s foreign reserves were able to rise, thus significantly improving the value of the Naira for the first time since the early eighties.

Likewise, Oby Ezekwesili came in and shook up the procurement process of the country, arguably a source of large-scale corruption, via the Bureau of Public Procurement. Despite the fact that the BPP was widely labeled as the reason for delay in many projects taking off, Oby stuck to her guns so much so that many reviled her. Of course many of us now know that the reasons for project delays had little to do with Oby’s BPP and more to do with the incompetence of the various ministry staffers, who never thought to plan on time. Oby’s efforts at the BPP undoubtedly saved the country a huge amount of money. Who is the head of the BPP now? I cannot readily recall who it is, although I’m aware that the individual is male, a possible indication that the incumbent is either not pulling his weight on the job or at the very least is not as passionate about fighting the cause.

Another success story was Dora Akunyili. Though not in the executive arm of government, her activities at NAFDAC endeared her to many. Despite the fact that she was very vocal and for many, excessively so, the results of her efforts were much more vocal and louder than anything she might have said. She was so efficient at her job that assassination attempts were made on her life and the offices of the agency were attacked and burned down on more than one occasion, obviously by those whose ox had been gored by her crackdown on fake and adulterated drugs. So trusted were NAFDAC’s laboratory analysis on foods and drugs, that reports suggested that some other West African countries, devoid of the quality equipment at NAFDAC’s disposal, made a seal of approval from NAFDAC a pre-qualification for import into their own territories! In effect, NAFDAC had become the de facto NAFDAC of those other countries as well!!

And what were the men up to in that administration? Well, really…. nothing to write about!

It would appear that these three women alone have actually delivered better performances than all the men before and after them and that is really shocking! My theory as to why that is suggests that women are more motherly and thus appreciate the sufferings of others and take the necessary steps to do things right, are less prone to corruption, especially when their husbands are able to take care of them and therefore do not see the need to amass huge amounts of money for themselves. Also they possess more attention to detail and as such are able to fine tune processes and procedures that result in leakages. The men on the other hand spend too much time politicking, are always trying to amass money for their families and generations unborn as their “breadwinner” role would have them do and could care less about the fine print and therefore do not spot the many ways that leakages occur, other than the ones they cause for their own benefit.

And of course, if the above fails to provide enough evidence, Dora’s recent submission of a memo to ask the Federal Executive Council (FEC) to request our ailing President to transmit a vacation letter, which would enable Goodluck Jonathan to act as President, something all the other male members of the FEC did not have the pants nor the balls to do, drives home the point that women are more likely to be able to lead this country out of the darkness and into the light.

THE TYPE OF PRESIDENT WE WANT AND THE TYPE THAT WE DESERVE.

2009-11-12T16:34:00.000+01:00

For so many years now, Nigerians have been clamoring for a certain type of leader. A leader that will submit himself to the yearnings of the Nigerian people and devote himself to taking us from our current precarious situation, where an entire country is on the brink, to a land flowing with milk and honey; a land where its many resources will be used to grow the economy and benefit its people.

A quick look at our past however indicates that Nigeria has had these types of leaders before!! Although I was too young to fully appreciate it, but my history lessons point to certain leaders of yesteryears such as Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo and a few others. The legacies of these men as leaders of the Western and Eastern regions still exist for all to see. Most of the roads, schools, universities and some industries that we are proud of in the West came about during the tenure of the late sage. The same goes for the Eastern region during the time of Zik. And all of these giant strides in development came about at a time when Nigeria had no crude oil, making the feats achieved all the more impressive.

These are the types of leaders that Nigerian’s want, but the question should be also be asked as to whether we deserve these kinds of leaders? I ask this question because I read somewhere once that “a country gets the kind of leaders its people deserve”. This statement got me thinking!

Arguably, the greatest problem of the country today is corruption. This cankerworm has cost our nation an estimated $600bln over the last 40 years, if newspaper reports are anything to go by. I wonder if this figure is simply hard cash or has been calculated to also include the amount of economic value that the money could have generated. As some of us may know, N1 can generate as much as N5 of economic value, depending on the national bank reserve rate. Therefore, if the $600bln is simply in hard cash, then Nigeria may have lost as much as $3trillion in economic value over the last 40 years.

However, while Nigerians cry out daily for an all out war on corruption, deep down, are we really ready and willing to kick the habit? The soul of the Nigerian has been consumed by corruption so much so that it is no longer a “big man” thing. It has eaten into our very fabric and has now become a part of us.

We all say that we want an end to corrupt practices, yet how many of us, working in a position with access to the necessary documents evidencing corruption in our civil service, banks, school, universities etc have ever made these known to the EFCC? How can we hate corruption as a people and yet process the documents that make so much of it possible on a daily basis?

An interesting scene played out during the trial and conviction of the Bode George. I watched a couple of the proceedings on television and I observed that at every court appearance, there were always a band of men and women, gaily dressed in Aso-ebi, a new one for every court appearance, singing his praise! A time was in this country, that just the charging of someone to court would have made one’s supporters to fade away, lest they themselves be seen as supporting corruption. I agree that a man is innocent until proven guilty, but now that he has been proven guilty, we still hear reports of daily visits to his prison by PDP stalwarts and his ever loyal supporters. The same PDP that claims to be fighting corruption!! And what of his supporters? Can they be said to be interested in a corrupt free Nigeria?

Away from Bode George, I see and hear on a daily basis; things that make me believe that Nigerians are only paying lip service to the issues that confront us as a nation. It seems we openly criticize, but in our respective closets, we pray and wait for the time it will be our turn to occupy the exalted position.

Even down to mundane issues, we curse as to why there is so much traffic, when so many of us are guilty of driving against traffic, refusing to obey traffic lights cum wardens and clogging up street junctions; how won’t there be traffic? We blame the government for the filth on the streets, but yet everyone eats gala and pure water and throws the wrappers out of their cars as they drive; for whom to come and pick up? Some even come out of their houses to place their rubbish on street medians in the middle of the night; for whom to get rid off? I have equally seen shop owners sweeping the frontage of their shops, readying themselves for another day’s business, only to drop the waste into the gutter lining the front of their shop, but we wonder how come flooding seems to occur so frequently?

It seems Nigeria is one huge paradox. We want certain things as a people, but funny enough, we live our lives in the exact opposite way. And if this is the case as a people, can we expect the government to do any better? Especially if one considers that the government is meant to be a representation of the people?

Nigerians it would seem want a certain type of leader, but it would seem that we also deserve the kind of leaders that we have!!

THE NIGERIAN UNIVERSITY SYSTEM: WHICH WAY FORWARD?

2009-10-28T09:45:00.001+01:00

The Nigerian educational sector and our university system in particular, have been in the doldrums for a few decades now. The most popular phrase emanating out of our education system of recent has been “…ASUU has decided to embark on a strike action to press home its demand for…” rather than news of any scientific or research break through! Education in Nigeria is really at its lowest ebb!!

But is there no solution? Are we forever constrained to have a dysfunctional education system? I believe the answers are available with deep, strategic thinking and discourse. In order to arrive at a workable solution, it will require the active participation and commitment of all the stakeholders, from the government, to ASUU, parents and students, the NUC and perhaps donor agencies and NGO’s.

The government must begin to see education for its true importance to national development. Education is arguably the most important and strategic tool a country can equip its people with. Education is the knowledge of putting one's potentials to maximum use. One can safely say that a human being is not in the proper sense till he is educated. This importance of education is basically for two reasons. The first is that the training of a human mind is not complete without education. Education makes man a right thinker. It tells man how to think and how to make decisions.

The second reason for the importance of education is that only through the attainment of education is man enabled to receive information from the external world; to acquaint him with past history and receive all necessary information regarding the present. Without education, man is as though in a closed room and with education he finds himself in a room with all its windows open towards the outside world.

From the Senator at the National Assembly to the vulcaniser on the streets, a good quality education is vital. A good education has the capacity to lift a people out of poverty by equipping them with the means of making the best possible choices for their lives. A good education enables people to think imaginatively and creatively (which appears to be lacking in Nigeria, especially in public service), it enables them to act in more socially responsible ways and even make better decisions about their health.

The poor quality of our education is partly responsible for so many of the socio-economic issues which pervade our country today. With a better education, maybe so many of the garage boys and touts we have on the streets wouldn’t be there today. They would be able to better make smarter decisions as to what to do with their lives. The Boko Haram menace that has been thrust upon us is partly due to the un-education of millions of northern children in the eighties and nineties! If many of them had got a decent education I am sure that majority (certainly not all, as Mutallab has shown us) of those involved in suicide bombings today would probably have decided to chart another path for themselves. A better educated police would be able to think and act more proactively to prevent crime. A well educated school leaver would be able to identify career options available to him, without necessarily focusing on a white collar job. A carpentry shop owned by a well educated person would be able to appreciate the need to constantly improve and make use of available technologies to facilitate his business. It is really a sign of our failure that we have so many artisans in Nigeria who are not able to take advantage of electric tools in doing their work due to their high level illiteracy. A carpenter who uses electric saws, planers etc is likely to do a much better job and faster for that matter than one who saws wood by hand. Even a well-educated taxi driver is not the same as the typical uneducated taxi driver. While a well educated one can add value to the tourism drive of a country by also acting as a tour guide (the way they do in Ghana, South Africa, Kenya and Egypt), an uneducated one (like most Nigerian ones) wouldn’t even see the connection between his job as a taxi driver and his country’s tourism aspirations. Nigeria cannot develop anywhere near its potential without having the majority of its population WELL educated. If only the government could truly realise this and see the importance of an educated populace, perhaps it would be willing to put more resources, financial and other wise, to ensuring the sector emerges from its present comatose state.

Having said that, while our entire educational system needs to improve, from the primary right through secondary to the university, the focus of my article will be on the universities.

There is no doubt that due to the decades of neglect, the financial resources required to return our universities to some semblance of sanity will be massive. And while we certainly do not have a poor government, the financial position of the government is not particularly buoyant. Yes, corruption in Nigeria is massive, but even in the absence of large-scale corruption, I am not convinced that Nigeria can really afford to give its ballooning population a free and qualitative education right now. Let’s face ne fact - whatever is good and high quality costs money and education is no exception. Unfortunately, because of the failure of past governments, any government in Nigeria now has a colossal amount of things to spend money on and not enough money to spend. Infrastructure demands are looming! Nigeria needs to rehabilitate and build more roads, rehabilitate and build more schools and hospitals, power generating stations and related infrastructure, infrastructure for the Niger Delta, refineries, dams, sea ports et al. The financial implications are undoubtedly huge.

Let’s also face another fact - even in the midst of producing 2 million barrels of oil a day, Nigeria is still a relatively poor country. 2 million barrels sounds like a lot, but with 150 million people!? Trust me, it’s not. We tend to compare Nigeria with Saudi Arabia, Brunei, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Norway and some other oil producing countries. But the truth is that these countries produce a lot more oil than we do, with a fraction of our population. To put it in more perspective let me give the per capita income of these countries; Saudi Arabia $18,855, Brunei $37,053, Kuwait $45,920, Bahrain $27,248, UAE $55, 028, Norway $94,387 and Nigeria, with its 2 million barrels of oil per day - a paltry $1,401!! To put it in more perspective, South Africa that produces no oil has a per capita income of $5,685!! And these are countries that as at today have largely sorted out their infrastructure problems and therefore do not need to spend so much on roads and electricity generation and the like. So is Nigeria really a RICH country!? I don’t really think so! Therefore in as much as we would like to believe that Nigeria should be able to make education free, the way it might be in so many of these countries, I am not convinced that Nigeria can really afford it.

Where am I going with this? I believe that our universities should be structured such that the government takes care of all capital expenditure (capex), which would be budgeted for, while the universities take care of all operating expenditure (opex), including salaries, from their own internally generated revenue. This will likely mean that university tuition would go up, but with the importance of a quality education, would it not be worth it to pay more for a higher quality education? Like I said earlier, rarely is a thing of value and quality cheap. We often make references to “abroad” where education is free, but I wonder where exactly. I just browsed on the web and found that the average tuition fee for British citizens is about £3,200 (about N860,000), while in America, it is about $9,000 (1,350,000) for American citizens. And while tuition in a few countries in western and central Europe is free, in some cases fees for accommodation, living expenses and books still exceed Eur1,000 and in most cases anyway, the governments of most of these countries are currently reviewing them. Besides these are also some of the most heavily taxed countries in the world. I am not saying our tuition should be at these levels, but at least let the universities themselves make the call as to how much to charge based on my suggested financial autonomy and their perception of the kind of quality education they deliver. If a particular university wants to pay its lecturers N800,000 a month, it will have to ensure that its internal revenue is capable of handling it. In fact, it is my belief that financial and political autonomy in the universities, along with disparate salaries based on financial capacity of the universities to pay (ASUU will not want to hear this), will actually enhance the university system by providing competition.

This competition will force our universities to develop a value proposition to attract students and lecturers alike and will force the universities to better manage their resources.

A university could put forward its academic excellence in engineering or its excellent sports facilities to students as its unique selling point. Another could sell its linkages to the private sector after graduation as its unique selling point in a bid to attract students. Likewise another could sell its appreciable research grants as a reason to attract quality lecturers. There should be a reason to seek to attend one university over the other. For now, the only perceived difference in quality of our universities is that some are federal, while some are state owned or perhaps private. Just a few days ago, I read an article in the papers suggesting that our universities lack proper management. I believe this totally. Our Professors and vice-chancellors are at best administrators, not visionaries. Though they are specialists in their field, most lack the all round management expertise to effectively manage the resources in our universities! In fact, with the current structure of our universities, where everything comes from the government, they are not really encouraged to do so. Indeed, not every Professor can effectively function as a Vice Chancellor! However, with political and financial autonomy, the governing council of each university would be hard pressed to elect a vice-chancellor that would deliver a really well managed and focused university. The universities are not primarily money-making institutions, but I am of the opinion that there is plenty of room for cost savings on the one hand and improved revenue generation on the other, if the VC’s think a little bit more creatively.

Now, let it not appear as though I live in the clouds and have lost sense of all reality. No doubt, the generality of Nigerians are poor. For many, to afford the existing “cheap” tuition is a challenge, how much more to afford tuition fees of 2 to 5 times that. I share that sentiment. However, I believe the university system is better served by support to the students themselves rather than to the university. Rather than make tuition unsustainably cheap, I would rather a situation where tuition is allowed to find its level, while the government, churches, NGO’s and wealthy individuals support poor students who are unable to afford university education via bursaries, grants and scholarships. A quick check online indicates that tuition at Bowen University, a private university in Nigeria, is about N500,000.00, at Covenant University, it is ranges from N370,000.00 to N460,000.00, while at Redeemers University, it is about N400,000.00 for old students and about N600,000.00 for new students. These are universities built from scratch. Therefore, if the structure earlier proposed was at play, where government universities cater for only their operating expenditure themselves, and considering that the physical structures are in most cases already in place, perhaps the tuition at our government universities might settle at anywhere between N100,000 and N150,000 for a session.

Do the students and parents themselves have any role to play in all of this? Yes, they do. I believe students and parents alike have lost all sense of how important a good education is and the reason why they go to university. On the one hand, society is to blame. We have all grown up to believe that if a child does not have a university (or higher education) that such a child has no future. So much so, that we do everything we can to ensure our children get into university and obtain a degree, without giving much thought as to the quality of that degree. Yet, I know a number of people in Nigeria today, who are active in businesses totally unrelated to the courses they studied in university. If we really value a good education, shouldn’t we be willing to pay for it, even if it means giving up a few things? The Nigerian people are a very wasteful one. Even in the midst of poverty, we always seem to be able to find money to buy one union cloth (aso egbe or aso ebi) or the other, or to bury a parent that died years ago, or to organise a party or wedding ceremony in a bid to outdo the party a friend threw a few months back. These are all nice things, especially if the financial capacity is available, but largely irrelevant when there are more important things to invest in, such as a quality education for our children. Even our students have lost all sense of why they are in university. Perhaps they have lost hope in the usefulness of the degree in the outside world. In most cases, our graduates are not able to gain employment once they leave the university with their degrees. But the truth is that the quality of our education is so poor that our graduates are not really equipped and ready to fit into the corporate world and the outside world. Their minds have not been developed. They can barely use the computer effectively, they can barely speak good English and are barely any better intellectually than when they entered. As the old saying goes “one should go through university and allow university to go through him”. Unfortunately most graduates go through university, but university does not go through them. Many of our girls have turned to prostitutes on campus in order obtain money to afford vain things; expensive phones, clothes, shoes and bags, while many of the boys are cult members or strive to drive cars on campus and wear clothes that even their working brothers are not wearing. All misplaced priorities!! I recall that back in the day, many of our parents had to carry firewood, fetch water or hawk in the morning before they went to school and after they returned. That was a time when we valued our education. Our parents were prepared to give an arm and a leg to get an education then. Funny enough, when Nigerians go abroad to study, they are usually willing to work in Burger King, Mc Donald’s, ASDA Tesco and the like to earn money to support their school fees in search of a valuable education. However, our local students are not willing to sacrifice a bit more for their education. I am convinced that if most relatively poor students were given the option of working at the university car wash to earn an income to support their education, 90% would refuse, probably too embarrassed to do “such a job”. I guess this is because they get the impression that the available education offers little value and they therefore see no need to sacrifice for it. However, if the quality of our education improves significantly, perhaps our students will be willing to do more to support their own tuition fees.

There is so much more that can be said about our higher educational framework. Although I have said a lot, I do acknowledge that my views are not meant to suggest that there is only one way forward for the development of our university system or that I have all the answers. I have however attempted to be as objective and dispassionate about the issue as possible, from all points of view. Therefore I will give a rundown of what would be my main policy thrusts, were I saddled with the responsibility of re-structuring our university system

1. The universities should be given political and financial autonomy. Political autonomy is defined here as “giving the universities the power to elect its own vice chancellor and other principal officers”, while financial autonomy is defined to mean “ each university should be given the freedom to determine the salaries of its lecturers and other staff, based on their academic quality and what they bring to the table, subject to a minimum, as well as charge whatever tuition fees it deems appropriate and in general be responsible for financing its own operating expenditure”.

2. Government should continue to be responsible for capital expenditure in the universities as well as all research grants, as well as give operational grants from time to time to support the universities.

3. Government should put in place mechanisms whereby poor students are supported with scholarships, grants, bursaries and loans.

4. The universities themselves need to re-orientate their thinking. The current modus operandi of our university system, where everything falls from the government table, does not appear sustainable.

5. NUC should live up to its responsibility and effectively regulate the amount of student intakes based on available facilities as well as regulate the university system generally in order to significantly improve on the quality.

6. University education should be de-emphasised in favour of equally high quality technical and vocational education that empowers students to start their own business and do their own thing.

Hopefully, one day very soon, the government, ASUU and other stakeholders, will sit down together and discuss objectively and chart a sustainable future for our education system. My fear though is the lack of trust. ASUU, based on our experiences of the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, will likely not listen to any claims that the government cannot afford to give Nigerian’s an equivalent 60’s education in 2010. Government is also likely to be too big headed to agree that it has been largely incompetent in the managing of the human capital of this country and admit that it has to and can still afford to do much more than it is currently doing. All parties must be able to find some middle ground. However, if we cannot get this restructuring done, then it will be doom for this country over the next decade and beyond, as educational standards fall further and Nigeria does not possess the manpower required to effectively compete in an increasingly global and technologically driven economy.

THE FAILURE OF URBAN TOWN PLANNING

2009-10-16T10:49:00.000+02:00

Nigeria is a country with a population of about 150 million people, and roughly 250 ethnic tribes all with different languages and ways of doing things. This diversity often makes it rather difficult to get the peoples of our dear country to agree on any one thing. However, one thing I am convinced I can get all Nigerians to agree on is that the successive governments of Nigeria have failed its people.

The issues confronting us as a nation are already well documented, so I will not mention the long list again here. Asides from the knowledge of the multiplicity of issues, we are also largely aware where the blame lies. For example, for our bad roads, we can label the Minister of Road, Works and Transport (as nomenclature changes) to be incompetent. For our poor economy the Minister of Finance and the CBN Governor are the usual suspects. When we fume about the poor state of our Electricity supply, PHCN and the Minister of Power take the bashing and for the inadequacies of the Police, the Minister of the Interior can be labeled inept.

However, as I sat here, thinking about some of the things that annoy me the most about this country, it occurred to me that there is a parastatal (or is it a ministry) whose failures are hardly ever mentioned in this country. I refer to Urban and Town Planning!!

I am constantly baffled at how our cities tend to look like shanties. In fact, I recall that one of the United Nation bodies - the United Nations Settlements Programme, otherwise known as UN-HABITAT, recently declared Abuja as the only real city in Nigeria! If this is so, then in what are the millions of people who live in Lagos, Kano, Ibadan, Port Harcourt, Aba, Onitsha etc living? I venture to call them “huge slums” for want of a better word.

What I see in our ‘cities’ is utter lack of planning. Entire neighborhoods spring up with no plan for utilities and drainage. There are no areas set aside for commercial and residential purposes. Markets are not properly situated; banks, eateries and shopping plazas are allowed to spring up without proper parking space. Once a road begins to take on pole position within a city, traders line both sides of the road with shops selling all manner of things usually ranging from electronics, clothing and provisions. The situation in our cities is rather like a case of a flock of sheep without a shepherd, all wandering about aimlessly and in different directions and doing as they please.

The Urban and Town Planning ministry in most States has become so irrelevant in our lives that most people do not even remember that they exist. In fact, in most states when any attempt to correct this anomaly in town planning is made, the arrowhead is usually one task force or the other. What then do the staffs of the town planning authority do? It seems all they do is create the mess by way of rubber-stamping building permits and looking the other way when all manner of incomprehensible buildings are put up.

For example, I cannot understand the culture we now have in construction whereby banks, eateries and other commercial properties design their parking lots in such a way that visitors departing the premises have to back out onto busy streets to leave!! I am not a town planning professional, but simple common sense tells me that such a design is absolutely not a professional one and to keep it simple, makes no sense at all!! I may not be able to put a percentage to it, but I am sure a lot of the traffic we have today is caused by security guards slowing traffic down on our highways for someone to reverse his vehicle out of one bank or eatery or the other unto the main road. This is the case on almost every major road in every city in this country. Unfortunately, this should never have been the case. A functioning town planning authority should never have approved such designs (that is even if such areas are even meant to be commercial areas).

I also find it incomprehensible how churches have taken over all public space. In residential and commercial areas, flats and warehouses, shopping plazas and even roadsides, the churches are taking over every available building and space. One would think that Men of God would be the last of hope for ensuring that things are done the proper way in this country, but this does not appear to be the case. While it is rare to find a Catholic, Anglican or Methodist church situated without sufficient landmass to allow for proper parking, unfortunately, most of our Pentecostal churches are improperly situated. A few are located in commercial and industrial areas, where human traffic is limited on Sunday mornings, but most erect huge church buildings smack in the middle of residential areas, where absolutely no thought is given for human and vehicular traffic, ultimately ending up in huge traffic jams and inconvenience to residents and road users. How on earth have all these building been approved? If the Town Planning authorities have approved all these buildings, then we have a serious problem. But even at that, shouldn’t a Pastor know better to do the right thing? What is right is right and what is wrong is wrong!!

In Victoria Island and Ikoyi, both in Lagos, what used to be well-designed residential areas have been lost, probably forever, as almost every building is turned into one commercial property or the other? No wonder then, that the traffic in V.I on a working day and even on some weekends is legendary. Of course the roads were never designed to take such an array of cars!! They were designed to handle the traffic load of regular everyday people returning to their homes, probably from the Federal Secretariat, which was in Ikoyi then. Buildings that were designed to occupy a single family of say 5 in the heart of V.I have been knocked down and remodeled to become office blocks, now occupying 30-50 people and to make matter worse, usually with no preemptive thought as to where all these staff would park their cars. The consequence is now that people spend hours driving to places that would ordinarily have taken minutes. The attendant man-hours lost and its value in monetary terms can best be imagined. Not to mention the unnecessary cost of fixing cars that spoil in traffic as well as the artificial demand for petrol that it causes. The losses to the economy are massive.

Another problem that many highly populated cities in Nigeria are grappling with is flooding. However, what I have observed in many cases is that low lying areas within most cities that have formed natural drainage basins are encroached upon and built up with no thought as to where the displaced water would flow to. As you might expect, water, not aware of our needs and doing its own thing, usually demands to find its own level. The consequence usually ends up being perennially flooded streets and communities. Port Harcourt is a case in point in this regard. What is however comical is that when the flooding now becomes unbearable, as more people build and constrict the flow of water, the landlords then form an association and begin to call on the government to come to their aid. However, cases like this should never have happened if the Urban and Town Planning Authorities had stepped in and restricted such areas as off limits to construction.

As I said earlier, Nigeria has many issues and people are regularly talking about them. However, I find that some of the problems which frustrates our existence as Nigerians on a day to day basis - traffic congestion, human congestion, failure of drainages, flooding in our “cities”, refuse lining our streets and gutters, non delineation of residential and commercial areas and its attendant difficulties - can all be said to be caused by the failure of our various Urban and Town Planning ministries, but somehow, they seem to have slipped under the radar of public discourse… no one seems to be talking about them!!

THE NEED FOR AND IMPOSSIBILITY OF STATE POLICE

2009-10-14T12:28:00.000+02:00

There have been several calls made over the years for the provision of State Police in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The most recent of these calls was made by a member of the Lagos State House of Assembly and reported in some national newspapers, and this has led to me writing this article.

The current operational framework puts the Police firmly within the control of the Federal Government via the Inspector General of Police who reports to the President of the country. The calls for state police have been given credence by the perceived ineffectiveness and incompetence of the police. This view is not far from the truth. The failures of the police force are well documented. Assassinations upon assassination have gone unsolved, crime and general lawlessness is on the rise, the police are ill equipped and unnecessary roadblocks litter our highways and so on and so forth. However, is spite of all of this, can state controlled police really be a viable alternative?

Based on the facts on the ground and with the use of logic, a State controlled police makes sense. A few proactive and forward-looking states are having their plans and vision truncated by the ineffectiveness and incompetence of the Nigerian Police. The plethora of State agencies and task forces devoted to traffic management, sanitation control, action against street trading and the like all owe their relevance to the failure of the police. No state has as yet been able to provide an agency to take crime head on because of course, such a body would be required to possess weaponry in order to defend itself from criminals, which the constitution does not allow. A police force under the control of the state government, properly managed, equipped and motivated would potentially be able to bring about more rapid development to the state in question. The Governor is meant to be the Chief Security Officer of every state. However, in a situation where he does not control the apparatus, how on earth can he really be held accountable for the actions and inactions of the police within the confines of his state? Take Lagos state for example. Governor Fasola has given an immense amount of the support to the Police Command in Lagos, by way of purchase of vehicles, communication gadgets, bulletproof vests and more. This has had some effect in reducing crime, as reports reaching me from friends and family who currently reside there say crime has actually reduced. The situation could however be better. A major obstacle to effective policing in Lagos and everywhere else has not necessarily been vehicles or bulletproof vests, but logistics. 100 new vehicles are all well and good, but how do you deploy them effectively? Various police numbers to call when in distress are all well and good, but do the police have a means of responding? Do they have service level agreements (SLA’s) in place to guarantee that they are at every residence within 10minutes of receiving a call? Have they practiced how to beat Lagos traffic and deploy within the agreed time frame? Are they effectively trained to deliver quality service to the people? In the absence of control, there is little the Governor can do to improve on the lack of logistical capacity of the police. The police are almost a government unto themselves. Perhaps if Fasola had his own police force, he would be able to structure it in such a way that would give a positive answer to all of these questions, which would set Lagos aside as a safe place to do invest and do business, night and day, and would undoubtedly serve to rapidly expand the economy of his state.

This is however just one side of the coin. Let me now flip over to the other side. Let me now postulate what might happen in some of the not so proactive and forward looking states (for the sake of avoiding any backlash, I will not mention any state here). A state police under the control of one of such backward looking states could proffer doom for the state and by extension the country. The 2011 election is not too far away. With the current stage of our political development, consider what might happen if some of our current Governors had the apparatus of state police firmly under their control? I put it to you that all hell would break loose. Such a police force would undoubtedly become agents of intimidation, harassment and assassinations. Without state police, unseating an incumbent Governor is almost impossible. They usually tend to unleash all manner of touts on the opposition. Imagine what would happen if they controlled a police force. Imagine the late Lamidi Adedibu having a police force under his control? I shudder at the thought!!!

No doubt, some arguments can be made for the establishment of a state police. However, while there may be some need for it, I believe we should consider it an impossibility at this stage of our political and socio-economic development.

THE DEATH OF PROFESSIONALISM

2009-09-27T13:14:00.000+02:00

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers, Chartered Institute of Bankers, Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators, Nigerian Society of Engineers. These are some examples of the professional bodies we have in Nigeria and others abound! The ones listed here are just a tip of the iceberg. However, the ongoing crisis in the banking sector suddenly leads me to the question of what exactly the roles of all these professional bodies are? A professional body is meant to consist of a group of people in a learned occupation, who are entrusted with maintaining control or oversight of the legitimate practice of the occupation. They are also supposed to safeguard the public interest

I take a look all around me and I suddenly discover that true professionalism died long ago and has taken the back seat in this country. Rather, in almost every industry what we now have is a situation where quacks have wrested control and are now at the forefront of the industry. In most developed countries before operating as a plumber, electrician or carpenter, much less as an Architect or Engineer, one would typically have passed some exams and obtained to sort of certification to qualify to repair plumbing or wire a house. But here, all manner of people, both qualified and usually unqualified take on such jobs.

The banking sector is a vital industry in any country. It is an industry where the raw material is money….other people’s money! Through lending, it has the capacity to provide much needed capital to millions of people and industries, which might ordinarily not have had access to the funds required to set up their own small business, expand an existing one or add another production line to a cement factory. All of which would provide millions of jobs, lift so many out of poverty and grow a national economy. Yet, despite all the benefits of a virile banking sector, the industry is fraught with risk as it challenges the leadership to find a right balance between the desire to make profits and satisfy shareholder demand on the one hand and the safeguarding of depositors funds on the other. Therefore one would typically expect that in order to achieve this, the leadership of our banks would certainly have to know what they were doing. But do they?
In an industry as delicate and important as banking, one would expect that the Chartered Institute of Bankers would play a vital role in the running of these banks. Not directly of course! But by ensuring that those saddled with the responsibility of managing our banks were sound in every aspect of the profession. But sadly, this does not appear to be the case.
The profession of banking has been so diminished that the sector now attracts all manner of people. In a typical bank, if any survey was carried out, I can almost guarantee that every bank in this country has fewer Chartered Bankers or even Banking and Finance graduates in its employ than non bankers. In fact, when I was in University I recall some of my fellow students telling those studying Banking and Finance that “they were wasting their time”. Now, that is not to say that only professional bankers can work in a bank. At junior levels, yes, I believe they can, but at senior level? At Assistant General Manger level? Where the decisions that determine the future viability and sustainability of a bank are taken? No, I think not! What does a Yoruba graduate know about banking? What does a graduate of pharmacy know about banking? There is no way such a person would have had the tenets of the profession ingrained in his mind. Such a person can be smart and highly intelligent, but that doesn’t make him or her a banker? I find it odd that someone who studied Pharmacy, who spent 6 years learning about the do’s and don’ts of her PROFESSION, all the ethical and moral issues, suddenly veers off into banking and before you can say “hopscotch”, is suddenly in charge of a sensitive department such as Credit and Risk Management or becomes the Head of Treasury. Little wonder then, that our banks have stupidly created all manner of bad loans. Little wonder that they continually put all their eggs in one basket, ignoring the risk of credit concentration as it relates to individuals or companies as well as industries. Little wonder that marketing has been reduced to employing pretty girls of questionable backgrounds to hit the streets and encouraging them to do “what the girls in that other bank do”, rather than actually selling a product. If banking were so simple or trivial, those who designed the course wouldn’t have designed it for 4 years and there wouldn’t be a professional body saddled with the responsibility of maintaining the highest standards of ethics, integrity and professionalism (although CIBN can be said to have failed in that regard).
While I have used banking as a case study, the fact is that professionalism has disappeared. Real Estate management is now an all comers affair. Everyone is now an ‘agent’. Architecture and Engineering have been taken over by quacks. Clearing and forwarding is now something everyone can do.

What are we loosing by the death of professionalism? Well, for one quality. Quality is a priority in any business and profession. It is not only restricted to the product, but also the performance of the professionals. Lack of quality leads to a compromise in the standard of performance. This compromise in the standard of performance is what our banking crisis smacks of!!

THE CLEANSING OF THE BANKING SECTOR

2009-09-03T16:24:00.001+02:00

It has been a while since a single subject dominated the media the way the current banking reforms are doing. The media has been feeding fat on the frenzy the CBN Governors actions has caused and many a public commentator has lent his voice to the debate. Of all the various issues raised, the primary point of contention appears to be whether the action of the CBN Governor is a Northern orchestrated agenda or is an objective and independent mission to sanitize the banking system.

However, rather than play the typical North/South political game with the issue, I ask myself- based on the available facts, is the effort to cleanse the system the right thing to do? I have been privileged to work in a Bank before and in the Treasury department at that, as an inter bank trader, so at least I am qualified to say a thing or two on the subject matter. Like almost all people who have made one comment of or the other, I have not seen the findings of the CBN special audit. Therefore, my comments, like theirs, are based on available information.

I am well aware that of the 5 banks sanctioned, 3 of them have been absolute net takers of funds at the inter bank market as far back as 2002-2006 when I was an inter bank trader. Now, being a net taker of funds is in itself not a bad thing, but when it becomes a perpetual day in, day out, year in, year out thing, then there is obviously a problem. The inter bank is meant to be a market where banks borrow/lend for their short-term deficit/surplus clearing positions. It is absolutely not meant for long term financing. A bank can only be in a perpetual long term clearing deficit when there has been a gross mismatch of its assets and liabilities ie short term liabilities have been used to finance long term liabilities or assets that are not returning any cash flow (non performing loans). This may not have been an issue if it involved say 3-10% of existing loans, but when it involves half of a banks loan book, when never ending commercial papers are continuously rolled over and sold to generate liquidity, when ALCO (Asset and Liability Committee) meetings- arguably the most important top management meeting in any bank- are turned into meetings where the management chat about how much deposits their staff have brought in and whiplash those who have failed to meet their targets, then it is obvious that the CEO’s of these banks have no clue what they are doing and thus their removal from office by the CBN is well and truly justified.

So many of us have lost money or at least know someone who lost money to the failed banks of old. We have all wondered as to how the banks could continue to declare outlandish profits in a country where the manufacturing sector is almost dead and buried and most other businesses are experiencing declining fortunes. I’m therefore surprised that in spite of this, I hear so many negative comments about this reform exercise. While the approach of the CBN may have been better, I expect to hear more of constructive criticism as to how the process can be better facilitated, rather than outright condemnation of the exercise.

Anything that can reform our banking system and get it to effectively contribute to capital formation for meaningful economic growth and development is welcome and should be embraced by all, be it in the North or in the South.

THIS WHITE ELEPHANT UNION CALLED ASUU

2009-08-31T11:17:00.002+02:00

For the umpteenth time, the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities is on strike. ASUU is the union that has gone on strike the most over the last 20 years. And what are they on strike for this time? From what I gather, they intend to draw the governments’ attention to the decaying infrastructure in our universities, get a pay rise amongst other things.

There is no doubt that our educational system has decayed beyond belief. There is no doubt that the quality of our graduates are very poor, except for the rare few who still manage to excel (by Nigerian standards anyway). There is no doubt that the government should have done so much more for the sector. But the truth of the matter is that the education sector is not the only one that has suffered massive government neglect. Look at our roads and bridges; look at our electricity infrastructure, our police force and our health care. The whole country has been neglected and has had its infrastructure shredded to bits, so why do we continue to have ASUU in the news the way no other Union is.

It seems that ASUU has an over inflated opinion of its power. This bloated perception of itself seems to stem from the successes of ASUU in the Babangida era, where ASUU in conjunction with NUPENG and PENGASSAN and other unions successfully brought this country to a halt (the success of that era is also the reason NUPENG and PENGASSAN also strike at the slightest whim). However, in my opinion ASUU is not really that powerful. All the strikes that the union has embarked upon over the last decade or so have had little impact on the government. The governments’ receipts and revenues are generally guaranteed whatever ASUU does. In fact, ASUU’s continued strike actions have their greatest effects on the students, the very same ones ASUU is supposed to be fighting for, as well as the Nigerian Nation as an entity. Over the years, in all of the various altercations between ASUU and the government, ASUU has usually been painted as the hero and the government as the villain. This may well be, but rather than focus on the government, let me focus on ASUU for a change.

It is a well said proverb that it is only a fool that does the same thing the exact same way every time and expects a different result. ASUU has been striking consistently for over 20years now. Has anything changed significantly over the years? If not, why on earth would it suddenly change now? Has ASUU ever turned its spotlight on itself and challenged the Vice Chancellors of the various universities? The sector may be poorly funded, but we all know that like everywhere in this country, there is rather large scale corruption and nepotism in the ivory towers. There is room for much better management of available resources. We are also all too aware of the scourge of handouts and the harassment of female students in our universities. Many of the practices are being carried out by lecturers who are ASUU members. How many times have we heard ASUU challenge any of these practices successfully? If ASUU is not happy about the educational policies of the government, why does it not sponsor a bill at the National Assembly to right any wrongs that may be in our current laws? There are many other ways that ASUU can engage its energies to better the educational system, rather than its continued blind sighted approach to strike actions at every opportunity. Strikes may be necessary some of the time, but they certainly can’t be as necessary as the uncountable times the union has used the strategy.

If ASUU is to achieve its objective of making our educational system better, if indeed that is the true objective, then it must begin to think out of the box and perhaps seek to influence the formulation of acceptable policy, rather than seek to demolish already formulated but unacceptable policy. The Professors and Doctors who make up ASUU are meant to be highly intelligent, but they certainly don’t always act like it!

THIS ONCE GREAT NATION!

2009-08-27T15:18:00.000+02:00

For the greater part of my lifetime, I have been fed with this rhetoric of Nigeria being the Giant of Africa, a Nation with great potential! However, the more I grow older and wiser and continue to analyze this country, the more I realize that Nigeria is far from being a great country. The definition of a great country may vary slightly from one person to the other, but I expect all the definitions to contain some of the same ingredients. I expect to hear that a great country is one that protects its citizens, where the political system is relatively stable, one that provides quality education and healthcare to its people, one where basic infrastructure such as water supply, electricity, an efficient transport system are available and work, whether or not they are provided by the private or public sector and one where the rule of law reigns and citizens can find redress in the law courts.

Unfortunately, all of these things are currently not ingredients of the Nigerian state. Roads, water, healthcare, education, security, access to justice and electricity (to mention a few) are not readily available to the majority of Nigerians. Maybe they once were, but no more.
The recent shunning of Nigeria by the President of the United States of America and the scathing remarks of the US Secretary of State, Mrs Hilary Clinton, on her recent visit to Nigeria show just how far down the rungs of greatness Nigeria has fallen. The sad part of all of this is that those in government have not realized that Nigeria is longer great, if it ever was. I would rather posit that Nigeria was never really great or a giant, she was just once rich, but even that wealth is no more. With a ballooning population of about 150 million people, its much vaunted oil wealth is but a drop in the ocean when calculated in per capita terms.
We continue to beat our chests and boast of the being the 12th largest producer of crude oil, 8th largest exporter of the product and the largest in Africa. But have any of the top functionaries at the Ministry of Finance or Ministry of Petroleum stopped to re-calculate those statistics? If they have, they will probably discover that Angola has swiftly relegated Nigeria to the 2nd largest producer and exporter of crude oil on the African continent. And the way other countries are attracting investment whilst Nigeria looses out on investment, it may not be long before we slip further to the 3rd and possibly 4th. What a tragedy!

Whilst South Africa is preparing to host the soccer world in 2010 and has already successfully staged the Confederations Cup, beaming high quality signals to the world, we are struggling to host the U-17 championships and fighting in-house about whether AIT or NTA has been given the broadcast rights, when FIFA is just a phone call or an e-mail away. Most Nigerians know more about the World Cup holding in South Africa in a year’s time than they do about a competition holding in their own backyard in 2 months time. Such is the shoddy way we do things.

Is Nigeria a great Nation? All things considered, my answer to that is far from it! And the sooner those in Aso rock and Abuja realize this and begin to take urgent steps to remedy the situation, the better.

NIGERIA: DOWN TO 2ND LARGEST PRODUCER OF OIL IN AFRICA

2009-06-29T16:51:00.001+02:00

Nigeria has recently lost its title as Africa’s largest producer and exporter of crude oil. This is a title that we have clung to for many decades, yet our steady spiral down the ladder over the last couple of years is symptomatic of every thing that is Nigerian.

Why is that that we cannot get anything working in this country? You would think that an industry that provides about 90-95% of foreign exchange and about 80% of revenue would be treated like the proverbial goose that lays the golden egg, yet the oil and gas industry has suffered years of inattention characterised by inadequate funding and investment, policy somersaults, lack of a strategic direction and policy and so on and so forth. But then, the oil and gas industry is not the only one is it? Refineries have stopped working; roads have failed all over the country, the railway and airlines died long ago, PHCN has had its name changed several times, but has only gone from bad to worse, NITEL is comatose, gas plants are being built (some completed) with no earlier thought or plan about where the gas would come from - even with the Niger Delta crisis staring them boldly in the face, various stadia refurbished just 10 years ago for Nigeria ’99 look like they were never repaired, Murtala Mohammed International Airport is barely functional in the true sense of an international airport and various Government agencies and parastatals fail to perform their statutory duties efficiently and effectively!!

What exactly is the issue? Why can we not seem to get ourselves out of a perennial downward spiral? Have we been consigned to never grow, mature, and develop? Perhaps it is spiritual! Maybe the gods have put a curse on this country. Because sometimes the reasons for our continued backwardness defies explanation, despite the myriad of learned people that we have in this country. Churches fast and pray and things just get worse and worse. What on earth is going on???

The government of this once great country is just nailing the lid on our collective coffins - one after the other. It is bad enough that oil has too much leverage on our economy, but even this mono product that we have is being threatened by lack of government vision and sincerity to the issue of development in the Niger Delta. The crisis going on there need never have happened. Why spend so much to develop Abuja while millions languish right next to where the oil is being produced? These people have been pushed to the wall and have bounced back in the form of militancy, kidnapping, thuggery and general lawlessness. After all, he that is down need fear no fall.

We need a well-orchestrated strategy to get this country on the path of sustainable development and to resolve the myriad of issues that confront us as a nation. Unfortunately, the political ‘elite’ has not demonstrated that they have the intellectual capacity to fashion such a strategy. After all, 49 years of evidence cannot be wrong!

2 GOVERNORS AND 34 ADMINISTRATORS

2009-06-23T14:21:00.000+02:00

Our country operates a Federal structure wherein the country is ‘broken’ up into smaller States in order to ease administration. To a large extent, the States are meant to be independent entities and in charge of these 36 States are certain individuals called Governors who are meant to direct the affairs of their States in a manner similar to the way the President directs the affairs of the country, although by virtue of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, some things may be held as the exclusive preserve of the Federal Government.

In fact, in my opinion, the States have a better capacity to affect the lives of the people in a more direct way than the Federal Government can. How easy can it be to drive visible development from Abuja for the common man on the streets of Abakaliki or Ogbomosho or Zungeru. On the other hand, a State is just about the right size to allow for meaningful development. It is big enough to allow for the meaningful pooling of resources and small enough that the eye of the Governor can effectively cover the whole State, but of course, only if the Governor is someone with the vision and wherewithal to make it happen.

Herein lies the problem! I look at all the States of this country and I have come to the conclusion that we have only 2 Governors. The Governor of Lagos State, Mr Fasola on the one hand and the Governor of Rivers State, Mr Amaechi on the other. The rest are just Administrators! The progress that has been made in Lagos State is visible for all to see. While to some extent, the changes there can be termed as basic, but for Goodness sake, from where we are coming from as a country, the changes there are almost on the same scale as a miracle. Unlike most “governors” who talk a lot, but have nothing to show for it (reminiscent of a certain Mr Peter Odili), Governor Fasola only talks when he is already about to take action. And action is there aplenty. The BRT has been working non-stop since it was launched, a waterways transport scheme has been launched and the Lekki master plan has been launched and its implementation has started via the improved Lekki expressway. In addition there are also concrete plans in place for a free port in Lekki, as well as an international airport. Contracts have also been awarded for the massive expansion of the Badagry Expressway, while plans for the red and blue lines of the light rail system are also making steady progress. Action they say, speaks louder than words.

In Port Harcourt also, there is a wind of change and development, the like of which has not been seen in a previous administration. The whole city is almost one huge construction site. While this has its nuisances in the fact that the traffic situation has actually worsened, the situation will sure improve remarkably once the multitude of roads being constructed in the city are all completed. The traffic situation in Port Harcourt is legendry and of all the state capitals I have been to, only Lagos beats it hands down in that regard. However the reasons for traffic in PH are not far fetched. Aside from the old PH city, which was rather planned, most of what we call Port Harcourt today grew out of the massive expansion of the city due to the influx of people in search of a better life in a city flowing with oil money. As such, whole middle class enclaves sprang up in places that where hitherto simply villages and small communities, with their small roads and pathways. It is these small roads that were later tarred and ended up not providing an adequate road network for the city, due to their narrowness. However, Governor Amaechi has taken the bull by the horn by undertaking a huge road construction and dualisation exercise. Within the city, at least 2 flyovers are being built, 4 major roads are at different stages of dualisation and not less than 4 other major single lane roads have been marked for dualisation. In addition, there are many other brand new roads being built to reduce traffic by diverting traffic away from areas that were usually grid locked. I have not seen any road construction of this scale all at once in any city, except Abuja and perhaps Lagos. His administration has also embarked on a massive urban renewal exercise. Lots of buildings that were too close to the road have been demolished, shops in many areas that lined certain roads have been demolished, businesses residing in commercial areas have been given one year to vacate, while business concerns on the popular and busy Aba Road that have no provision for parking for their customers have been told to either relocate or face closure/demolition. These are all visible signs of development that will immediately benefit the people and impact their lives.

On the other hand, the Oyo State Governor was recently interviewed and was quoted as saying in response to claims that his government was not working, that his government had achieved a lot because it was paying salaries on time!!! Isn’t it amazing that in this day and age paying salaries on time is considered an achievement!! I am sure that one of his claims, along with that of many of the other governors, would be that his state has no funds. In my opinion, this claim has no basis because seated right here, typing this, I can think of dozens of ways that a State can raise its revenue profile. A province I once read about in South Africa gets about 35% of its revenues from fines!! Every day people are breaking laws in this country. Laws relating to sanitation, traffic/driving, failure to follow building plans and approvals and so on. All the government needs to do is to put in place strong structures to ensure enforcement and collection. This will have a 2-pronged effect. First, it will improve the government’s revenue and secondly, once people see that the government is serious about enforcement, it will bring about greater compliance to the laws of the land.

Our governors seem to think that their jobs are only about going to Abuja to collect allocation and then returning to their states to pay salaries. They do not realise that they have the capacity to develop their own states at an even faster rate than the Federal government can. Thank goodness Mr Fasola and Mr Amaechi have realised that they can do more for their States than Yar A’dua. All that is required is a fair bit of creativity, imagination and vision and voila…. an administrator can become a Governor!

ARE WE THE SAME AS WHAT WE SEE IN HOME VIDEO?

2009-06-03T12:09:00.001+02:00

If reports in the media are anything to go by, the Minister of Information has turned her spotlight on the local home video in her efforts at re-branding the country. In my opinion, she has every reason to do so!! Film, and acting generally, tries to re-enact what goes on in a country and generally portrays the values that a country holds dear. A typical American action film, while sometimes violent, usually extols the values of courage and bravery of a hero, reminiscent of the many heroes that America has produced in the many wars dotting its history. Likewise, the many films centred on adventure (Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean), crime (the Godfather), the police (Internal Affairs, Police Academy) etc seek to re-enact, the many adventures of people such as Christopher Columbus, the dark days of gangsters like Al Capone and the courage of policemen, day in day out, in America.

In Nigeria however, many, perhaps most of our home videos, especially the ones in English, do not seem to depict any positive values or teach many lessons. All we seem to see is women being abused and slapped, and our younger girls being showcased as adulterers, fornicators and hustlers, while the men are cultists, 419’ers or dubious businessmen and politicians. But if films are meant to recreate reality, then it must mean that all the attributes I just listed are indeed attributes of the average Nigerian. And that is that is really sad!! Dora certainly has lots of work to do. But then, should the attention be on the home video industry or the larger society that the home video industry mimics?

DOING THE RIGHT THING

2009-05-20T12:57:00.002+02:00

Growing up, I was taught many principles and values by which to live. Not to tell lies, not to steal and so on and so forth. Another one was to ‘do the right thing’! Africa is a continent deeply steeped in culture and tradition and what is generally common across the continent is that our various cultures and tradition almost always place a high emphasis on morality, honesty and generally doing the right things.

However, of recent no one seems to do the right thing anymore. From all the way up the pyramid to the bottom, the peoples of this country all seem to thrive on doing the wrong thing. In fact, it usually seems you make no progress in this country if you do the right things. Driving against traffic, corruption, prostitution, cheating (even in the church), bearing false witness, lying, forgery etc are simple examples of the wrong things we do so easily in this nation. There are way too many of such vices to mention here. Funny enough, it would appear as though the few who still tend to do more of the right things are the people who reside in the villages, who do not have a proper education. There, they still trade in the market honestly, there is not much stealing and cheating, and there is still respect. On the other hand, in the cities, where we are supposed to be more educated, the opposite is the case.

Doing the right thing no longer seems to matter. Or has the psyche of the Nigerian been so brutalised that we no longer even know what is right? Or do we just deny the truth for the quick conveniences of doing the wrong thing? Whatever the answer,this country needs to return to a situation where the generality of the people do the right thing, not vice versa!

THE NIGERIAN POLICE

2009-05-08T10:59:00.001+02:00

Daddy, when I grow up, I want to be a Policeman!! These were words often spoken by children long ago, when asked by their parent what they wanted to be when they grew up. Unfortunately, as time has gone by, statements such as these have become few and far between and to be honest, for a long time now, I have not heard any child make this kind of statement.

And how could they? Back in the day, a policeman was a respected individual, with his well tailored uniform, disciplined nature, standing in the society and community, high level of integrity and so on and so forth. But times have changed. In the current day, policemen are none of these. Rather policemen have become objects of corruption, raggedness and indiscipline. Policemen have lost all manner of respect in the society. Rather than look up to them, we now look down on them, if not in public (due to the fear of the gun), then at least in our hearts, where they fortunately have no means of entry. These days you see policemen wearing slippers about, dressed up in incomplete attire, looking haggard, hungry, malnourished and more. If all of these had no bearing and impact on larger society, perhaps I wouldn’t be bothered. Unfortunately it has! Due to the lack of respect for the police, breakdown of law and order is more and more becoming the order of the day. It is not uncommon to see people drive one way right up to a police checkpoint, offer N20 and be allowed to go scot-free! It is not uncommon for policemen to order tanker drivers off the roads and expressways where they park, causing hardship for other road users, only for the drivers to hiss and continue as is, knowing fully well that the policemen can always be bribed. Neither is it uncommon to see policemen being used as escorts and bodyguards for private citizens travelling, for weddings, for traders transporting goods across town and so on and so forth. It in not uncommon to see touts and pick pockets operate at major bus tops in full view of policemen. It is not uncommon to see taxis and buses parking at unauthorised street junctions and bridges and turning such areas to parks in full view of policemen, who should know better and act accordingly. It is now so bad that armed robbers operate without any hint of fear for the police! And why would they? The typical policeman is so ill trained and ill equipped that

The situation is indeed grave. The absence of a proper police force is causing more and more problems for the citizens of this country. A major, major overhaul needs to be done to salvage the situation. The minimum education standard for entry into the police needs to be raised; while those who do not met this new standard should be flushed out. Policemen need to be well educated, rather than barely capable of speaking English! The police also needs a newly developed and rigorous training regime that focuses on renewing their bodies and developing their minds for the challenges of 21st century policing, perhaps something modelled after the famous Police College in America. I doubt that in its current state the police colleges we have can graduate any useful policemen. The police also need to be well paid and insured for reasonable amounts in case of serious injury or death, after all, as a saying goes “if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys”. Then the senior police officers need to put in place procedures that govern how a policeman should operate in all facets of police work. This set of procedures should be monitored/audited by a separate outfit to ensure that even the police are being policed. This outfit should be comprised of professionals such as lawyers, accountants, engineers etc and some policemen and should be given legal backing to ensure they are authorised to delve into the affairs of the police.
A re-worked police force is extremely important. Nigeria cannot effectively develop as a nation with its police force in its current state of decay. The authorities need to act swiftly to salvage the situation, before the whole country descends so deep into lawlessness that the state of affairs can no longer be remedied

NIGERIA PLC

2009-04-28T09:13:00.000+02:00

The issue of privatising and deregulation of public enterprises has been in the front burner for decades now. I remember the IBB days when we had the TCPC (Technical Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation). Over time we have changed names, changed responsibilities, and now the organisation we know to be saddled with the responsibility of privatisation is the BPE (Bureau for Public Enterprises).

Privatisation cum deregulation has however been a very bumpy road. The moment deregulation policies are made; the polity seems to heat up. Unions begin to shout and threaten strike and all manner of things. Politicians, economists begin to say this and that, either for or against (usually against) and in most cases, the Government, not having enough will and probably never clear enough about the direction it wanted to go in the first place, backs down and things go on as usual. But to whose benefit?

Government has not been able to run any enterprise successfully over the last 20/30 odd years. The list of failed government enterprises is amazingly long. PHCN, Nitel, Nigeria Airways, Nigeria Railways, DFRRI, Ajaokuta steel complex, Nigerian National Shipping Line, Alscon (before it was privatised), NAFCON, National Theatre, Refineries, Eleme Petrochemical (before privatisation), Hotels, Banks, Newspapers and many more I can’t even remember! What makes us think they can do any better anytime soon? The longer these enterprises fail, especially the ones with no substitutes, the more the costs to the Nigerian economy and by extension, its people.

Yet, the many unions who go on strike to prevent the privatisation of all these enterprises don’t seem to think so. Usually they claim that once funding is in place, they can run the organisations, but I far as I am concerned that is a farce!! The unions of PHCN, Nitel etc, do not want these organisations privatised in order to hold on to their jobs (which they barely do) at the expense of the country. They know all too well that they cannot work in a privately owned company. They have spent too long working in a civil service way. The perfect comparison is Nitel vs the GSM companies. The GSM companies have brought in billions of dollars in investment, paid billions of Naira in taxes, created thousands of direct jobs and tens of thousand of indirect ones (from hawkers of recharge cards, distributors of recharge cards, builders of masts, steel fabricators, IT consultants, advertising agencies etc). On the other hand, how many times has Nitel advertised for staff in recent memory? Or when did it last contribute to Government income? The same questions can be asked of our refineries? Who has ever heard of any of our refineries putting out adverts for employment? Yet these are the places where our Petroleum Engineers, Mechanical Engineers and the like should be dreaming of working.

There is no doubt that many of the staff at these companies may loose their jobs if privatised. But the truth of the matter is that many of them are only currently employed due to the inefficiencies of the system. What 5 staff in the current PHCN do, 1 person in a privatised PHCN could probably do with a laptop- more efficiently for that matter!! The sooner the old, ancient and incompetent staffs of these companies give way to young, vibrant and competent people, the better for the Nigerian economy. It is also true that in the short term, the prices of the goods and services provided by these failed government enterprises may increase if privatised, as investments are made to bring existing facilities up to scratch, but I put forward that in the long term the prices will come down. After all we started GSM at N50 per minute in 2001, but now, depending on the service you are running, you may be charged as low as N16 per minute and that does not take depreciation of the Naira and inflation into consideration. In real terms it is even cheaper. What is the point of paying N6/Kwh of electricity that will never come and spend thousands of Naira running generators? Wouldn’t it be better to pay N11/kwh for stable electricity from a private company and have peace of mind to stock your freezer and conduct your business?

The truth is that the private sector will always be better at capital formation and allocation. The sooner we get the government to stop attempting to run businesses, and to convert Nigeria Ltd to Nigeria Plc, the better!!

SERVICE QUALITY

2009-04-23T09:21:00.002+02:00

In most cases, service quality is a tool in the hands of businesses worldwide to gain an upper hand or a competitive advantage over other players in the same industry. However, as is so often the case, what works well everywhere else doesn’t quite seem to hold much water in Nigeria.

In both our private and public institutions, service quality is generally poor. No!! This is an understatement!! In the private sector, it is generally poor, but in the public sector it is horrific! I don’t need to think too hard to come up with dozens of examples of where service is so poor in the public sector. Some are PHCN, the Police, the Customs service, the civil service and so on and so forth.

I once called the number given on my power utility bill to complain that I had not had power, more often referred to as “light”, for 3 weeks. Rather than take down my details and dispatch someone to ascertain what the problem was, the phcn customer services manager simply said “…eh, eh. You will have to come o, so that we can discuss…” I was taken aback! I retorted, “…I’m sorry. I am calling from my office and I am busy and can’t make time out to come physically. I thought that was why a complaint number was put on the bill, besides what do I need to come to your office for?”. The lady at the other end simply said “…until you come now. After all you are not the only one living in that area without light. Someone else should come!” At this point, I decided there was nothing to gain in continuing the discussion. I excused myself and got of the phone!!

No doubt, this is reflective of the Nigerian society. No one wants to do his job anymore except some gratification is paid, a favour done etc. For how long will we continue like this? For how long will we continue to kill this country? Funny enough, we are all quick to point a finger and complain when others are doing the wrong thing or when we don’t get appropriate service elsewhere, but we usually do the same things and deny others the same service quality we expect for ourselves when the tables are turned. We complain about corruption in this country, but we are quick to offer a policeman N100 rather than regularise out vehicle particulars. We are quick to bribe customs officials to approve fake documents to underpay duties, rather than declare the right value and pay the proper amount. Remember, when you point one finger, four others are pointing right back at you!

LASG vs Tanker Drivers

2009-04-21T08:22:00.005+02:00

I am almost certain that all Nigerians are now aware that there is a fuel crisis going on in the country. While for many years, especially for those in the north and east, fuel queues have always sprung up here and there, lasting for a few days, but never really getting out of hand, the current one, by all indications, is looking like it might end up as a mega crisis.

But how have we got ourselves here? The story in the media is that the cause of the current crisis is firstly as a result of importers and the NNPC to import fuel, due to a lack of clarity on the deregulation policy, and secondly due to the protracted issue between the Lagos State Government and tanker drivers over parking on the highways and the like.

I would like to focus on the second reason. The standoff between LASG and tanker drivers dates back many years. We have all been witnesses to the menace the tankers cause on our roads. Regular motorists on Lagos -Ibadan expressway will know what i'm talking about, as well as those who frequent the Apapa area. Even in Ibadan, at Ojo area, many a motorist has met his untimely death by crashing into one tanker or the other. But are the drivers at fault? My answer to this is yes and no. I say yes because every learned Nigeria should know that the highways are not parking areas and were never designed to be. Unfortunately, I doubt the average tanker driver is very learned!! And no, because the governments irresponsibility and incompetence (both state and federal) have led to this in the first place. First of all if our refineries were working, and we had built more by now, we probably wouldn't need as many tanker drivers and their hold on the product supply would be much less. Secondly, if we had a working pipeline system, we would need much fewer tankers and the distribution system would be more efficient. Thirdly, if the government had nipped this millitancy in the bud early enough, we would not have any issues with our pipeline network.

Unfortunate as it may be, we have handed power to the tanker drivers who now cannot be controlled, cannot be spoken to and to whom traffic laws no longer seem to apply, even it it causes misery for other road users.

If we had been brave enough to deregulate the downstream sector years ago, I doubt we would be in this mess today. By now there would have been more modern discharge facilities in other ports, thereby ensuring that not all produce comes in through Lagos. Also, if it were found to be cheaper, the railways may have become a more preferred mode of transport to the hinterland as opposed to the current system of trucking (how much fuel can one truck carry for goodness sake?) and perhaps that would have provided some impetus for the mordernisation or complete privatisation of the railway by now.

The current crisis is already among us, but what we must do is to ensure that it doesn't happen again. The solutions are available, but only to the creative, learned and proactive. Do we have such in government? Hopefully!!

CORRUPTION IN THE HALLWAYS OF JUSTICE

2009-04-19T15:51:00.002+02:00

The government structure of Nigeria, like most other democracies, is made up of the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary. In recent times, while the Executive and Legislature have been enmeshed in one controversy or another, usually bordering on corruption, policy inconsistency et al, the Judiciary has been hailed! Especially in the light of their recent judgements, as relates to the 2007 election. So much so, that the Judiciary is being hailed as the “…last resort of the common man”.

While it is generally correct that the Judiciary has done rather well, a closer look will indicate that even within the hallways of the Justice, corruption can be just as rampant as what obtains within the outer perimeters of the larger society.

I draw my thinking and conclusions from an incident that occurred to my friend. My friend recently won a case against the Ministry of Transport in Port Harcourt for having his car impounded and being fined N50,000 without any legal backing or conviction of the court, as the law states. The real story is that even after the judgement, the court bailiff refused to serve the judgement on the respondents except my friend paid N5,000. What is more shocking is that the court and the Ministry of Transport are very close to one another, right there in the secretariat area of Port Harcourt.

Isn’t it amazing that the same court that exercises judgement in your favour against an injustice meted out to you, will turn around and exact a bribe before the same judgement is served on the defendants? Isn’t that another injustice? So perhaps maybe it is safe to say that our Judiciary simply replaces one injustice with another!!

Myth or Reality?

2009-04-17T15:17:00.000+02:00

Nigeria is rich, there fore we should be enjoying! Nigeria has oil, so petrol must be cheap! Nigeria has money, so education should be free!!

Are these statements really true!? Or are they myths? Does Nigeria realy have all that much money and are we really all that rich?

A recent headline comes to mind. I was reading the news on yahoo, I think, and there was a report that University tuiton fees in the UK (for british citizens) were being proposed to rise from about £3,500 to about £5,000 and I wondered....."I thought education in the UK was free"!? After all that is what we tend to hear, as an reason for why it should be free here in Nigeria. I don't know what you think, but £3,500 doesn't sound free to me!!

The per capita GDP of the UK is about $40,000, while that of Nigeria, if the official figures are anything to go by, is just about $2,300. Wait a minute, is that right!? How can a country that earns so much be charging tuition fees of £3,500, while a country that earns so little (despite having oil), be charging £100 (GBP equivalent of about N25,000- private universities charge about 15 to 20 times that)? You would have thought the richer country should be able to afford to make its education free!!

But if these are the facts, can we expect a £500 education to equate to a £3,500 one? Is it possible!? Do I hear you say "......but Nigeria has oil"? True as this may be, lets compare our per capita GDP with a few other oil producing nations. Nigeria-$2,300; Qatar-$103,000; Kuwait-$57,400; Norway-$55,200; UAE-$40,000; Saudi Arabia-$20,700; Libya- $14,400 and Angola-$8,800.

So is Nigeria really rich after all!?

A good question to ask would be..."are countries rich because their citizens are well educated, or their citizens are well educated because their countries are rich..?"

The thinking that Nigeria is a rich country is a major problem we seem to have. The years of plenty have blinded us the the fact that all said and done, Nigeria is not really that rich, and that the country cannot really afford to give all its citizens as much free this and free that as we might like. Corruption is a factor. If corruption could be brought down to western levels, no doubt we would all have significantly better standards of living, but like I said before, all said and done, Nigeria isn't really that rich!!

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html

Competence vs Incompetence

2009-04-16T14:02:00.000+02:00

A friend once told me that after reviewing Nigeria's issues and problems, he had come to the conclusion that the problem with Nigeria is not so much of corruption as it is incompetence. While that may be a hard sell to the generality, after listening to his arguements I certainly do agree that he has a strong point.

But what is incompetence? A look at MS word for synonyms gives "ineffectiveness", "ineptitude", "stupidity" and "uselessness" as synonyms. What strong words!! Yet, a look around the public sphere in Nigeria shows that our nation reeks of incompetence!!

All around the world, the smartest most intelligent people are voted into public office. The American Senate is filled with Harvard, Oxford and Princeton style lawyers, successfull business men and generally men of real timber and calibre. But what do we have in Nigeria? The exact opposite. Those who fill our NASS, civil service, Police, PHCN etc seem to be the dullest and most unintelligble, unimaginative people possible. In America, the Army,Navy and Police compete with some of the best companies in the country to recruit the best brains for its services. The best engineers, IT specialists, Operations researchers etc can be found in these forces, but our own Army, Police, Navy etc are filled largely by non graduates. What do you expect from a police force that has primary 6 education as a minimum requirement!?

If these scenarios are representative of the entirety of our public institutions (which they are), then can we actually hope for any improvement in the way this country is administered? The sooner we exit from the throes of the incompetent the better.

And why should we? A cursory look at a scenario dominated by "competent" people will suffice. Take a look at the government of Lagos State. I look at that administration and I see competent people. The results are visible to all!!

My worst personal experiences in the county have come from the Police and PHCN. Imagine a PHCN staff cutting my power supply when I had paid to the same office a week prior. And his only explanation was that I should have pasted my bill on my gate. What incompetence!!! In a full week, a local PHCN office (Rumuokwrushi, PH to be exact) cannot reconcile its records to identify who has paid and who has not!!? That is really astonishing!! Even common MS excel can provide a means of keeping tabs of who has paid and who hasn't.

I'm not exactly clear on how this country can get out of the grip of the incompetent, but what is clear is that it must!!!

Haliburton Scandal

2009-04-14T17:52:00.000+02:00

My people, isn't it odd that the Nigerian Government is moving at a snails pace over the Nigerian angle in this Haliburton scandal!? For a govenment that claims to be fighting corruption on all fronts and in all its ramifications, it seemed not to even know such a scandal existed. Not till the NASS screamed blue murder over this did we begin to see some reports in the newspapers attributing this and that to the Attorney General of the federation, the EFCC chairman and so on.

As far as I'm concerned, this Haliburton issue presented a rather quick and easy way for the government to drive home its message on zero tolerance for corruption, since the case had already been tried in the US. There would therefore no doubt be a large cache of evidence to draw from, if only the Nigerian authorities were so willing...!!

Hopefully, the last has not been heard on this issue.