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International Women’s Day: Nigeria in focus …Women urge gender equality, inclusion for economic development KEMI AJUMOBI, DESMOND OKON & RUTH UDEMBA

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s the world marks International Women’s Day (IWD), which draws attention to matters relating to women and girls, women in Continues on page 38

Inside

MTN’s N1trn revenue signals resilience of Nigerian business ahead IPO M T N N i g e r i a’s financial performance in 2018 may have just s t re n g t h e n e d the resolve of investors who had been bought on the idea of buying the telco’s shares when they

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L-R: Nike Akande, former president, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI); Busola Solanke, analyst, and Oyinade Elebute, widow, during the Christian wake and night of tribute for Emmanuel Elebute, departed professor, physician and founder, Lagoon Hospitals, in Lagos, yesterday.

Pic by Olawale Amoo

LOLADE AKINMURELE & JUMOKE AKIYODE-LAWANSON

FGN BONDS

TREASURY BILLS

Shutter assures of listing timeline Targets end of first half to roll out PSB operations

are finally listed this year.

The profitable Nigerian unit of the South Africa-based telecom giant posted revenues of N1.04

trillion in 2018, the largest of any listed Nigerian company.

Its closest contender, Dangote Cement, posted revenues

of N618 billion from its Nigeria operations alone in 2018, while

Continues on page 38

Taxify rebrands to Bolt with eye on broader P. 2 transport market EFCC arraigns exSkye Bank chair, Tunde Ayeni, others for alleged P. 39 N25bn fraud The life and times of Professor Emmanuel Adeyemo Elebute (1932-2019)

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Stanbic IBTC stock rallies as fullyear results impress investors

... proposes final dividend payment of N15.36bn IHEANYI NWACHUKWU

T L-R: Kunbi Adeoti, director, human resources, Leadway Assurance; Adetola Adegbayi, executive director, general insurance, Leadway Assurance; Ini Abimbola, managing consultant, ThistlePraxis Consulting/guest speaker, and Titilola Bashorun, head, human resources, Leadway Pensure, at the 2019 International Women’s Day interactive session with the theme ‘Balance for Better’ organised by Leadway Assurance at the Leadway Assurance corporate office in Iponri, Lagos, yesterday. Pic by Olawale Amoo

Voter apathy may mar governorship/ state assembly elections

... fear of violence mounts, INEC’s neutrality in doubt ... We’ll not issue certificates to candidates announced under duress – commission JAMES KWEN, Abuja, & INIOBONG IWOK

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head of Saturday’s governorship, states’ assembly, FCT Area councils and supplementary elections, indications have emerged that voter apathy may mar the conduct of the polls.

Several eligible voters who spoke to BusinessDay expressed fear over possible outbreak of violence and also cast doubts on the neutrality of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct free and fair elections.Manyclaimedthattheresults ofthePresidentialandNationalAssemblyelectionannouncedbyINECintheir polling units did not reflect their voting.

It will be recalled that scores of people died during the February 23 polls resulting from violence.

Nigeria’s main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), had also criticised INEC for what it called the shady manner the commission conducted the polls. PDP on Tuesday challenged the results of the Presidential election in court.

International and independent observers had reported that elections in several polling units, especially in

the southern part of Nigeria, were characterised by late arrival of election materials, failure of card readers, manipulation of election results and violence which left several eligible voters disenfranchised.

“I am not sure I will come out to vote this time,” Olusegun Mayowa, a middle-aged entrepreneur, told BusinessDay, alleging the powerbrokers already had their preferred candidate in his constituency.

“The last time, a lot of us came out to vote, but they declared someone else the winner. With all this violence, I would just buy fuel and use my generator to watch what is happening on TV,” Mayowa said.

Shola Ogunwale, a stockbroker, advised INEC to improve on the early supply of election materials and security officials to polling units across the country, adding he would watch the tune of event before deciding whether to vote in the election.

“I will watch how the election unfolds before deciding whether to vote,” Ogunwale said.

Femi Akinbiyi, public relation officer of INEC in Lagos State, however, said the commission had corrected security lapses noticed in the

February 23 election, expressing confidence that Saturday’s election would be peaceful, free and fair in Lagos State and across the country.

This is as INEC on Thursday said it will not issue certificate of return to candidates whom poll officials announced their result under duress.

The commission said it will record zero vote for any polling unit, ward or constituency where the smart card reader is deliberately not used for accreditation during the elections.

“The commission is concerned that many of our materials, including ballot boxes, voting cubicles, voters’ registers and smart card readers were losttoactsofhooliganismandthuggery in the elections held two weeks ago,” Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman, said at the meeting of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security in Abuja, where he called on security agencies to step up efforts to curb violence in the remaining polls.

“Most worrisome is the attack on electoral officials. Some of our staff were abducted and taken hostage in an attempt to disrupt elections or influence the outcome. In fact, some

Continues on page 38

Taxify rebrands to Bolt with eye on broader transport market BALA AUGIE

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axify, a leading European on-demand transportation platform, is changing its name to Bolt and introducing a new logo.

The update brings the brand identity in line with the company’s broader vision of transportation that has already expanded from ridehailing, with cars and motorbikes, to scooter sharing.

The Didi Chuxing and Dialmer AG-backed company has predominately concentrated on Eastern Europe and African markets, but launched its e-scooter business, Bolt, in Paris in mid-2018.

Speaking on why the company

chose to make the change, Markus Villig, CEO and co-founder, Bolt said, “Taxify launched five years ago with a mission to make urban transportation more convenient and affordable.

Our first product was a taxi dispatch solution that gave the company its original name.”

Taxify raised $175 million in May last year, at a $1 billion valuation, in a deal led by Daimler. It has 25 million registered users across the 30 countries it’s active in, according to a spokesman.

The Estonian-born tech company has evolved in leaps and bounds since its inception and is currently working on expanding the scooter sharing service across a number of European cities.

“While we’ve made progress on our mission, we’ve also started to outgrow parts of our brand, including the name. Given our ambition to solve transportation problems on an increasingly broader scale, we want the brand to reflect the company’s future rather than the past,” said Uche Okafor, regional manager for West Africa at Bolt.

“Our new name ‘Bolt’ stands for fast, effortless movement – exactly what the experience of getting around in a city should be, be it by car, scooter or public transport. It also underscores our belief that the future of transportation will be electric,” he said.

•Continues online at www.businessday.ng

he stocks of Stanbic IBTC Holdings plc were on demand at the Nigerian bourse on Thursday following the holding company’s impressive financials for the full year ended December 31, 2018. Stanbic IBTC Holdings plc reported gross earnings increase by 4.67 percent to N222.360 billion in 2018, from a low of N212.434 billion in 2017 financial year.

Net Interest Income (NII) of N78.209 billion in 2018 as against N83.587 billion in 2017 represents a decline of 6.43 percent. Profit before tax (PBT) of N88.152 billion in 2018, from N61.166 billion in 2017, represents 44.12 percent increase.

The company’s profit for the year 2018 at N74.440 billion, as against N48.381 billion in 2017, represents a growth of 53.86 percent. In 2018 financial year, its basic earnings per share (EPS) stood high at N7.04, from N4.60 in 2017, up by 53.04 percent.

Following the group’s gross earnings increase by 4.67 percent and profit before tax increase by 44.12 percent for the year ended December 31, 2018, the board recommended the approval of a final dividend of 150 kobo per share as against 100 kobo per share in 2017.

The final dividend proposed is valued at N15.36 billion compared to a final dividend of N5.025 billion paid in 2017. The company had paid

interim dividend of N10.114 billion in 2018 as against N6 billion interim dividend it paid in 2017.

Stanbic IBTC Holdings plc share price rallied most at the sound of closing gong on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), moving from N46.6 to N48, up by N1.4 or 3 percent.

During the year under review, Stanbic IBTC Holdings plc issued an additional 191,087,214 ordinary shares of 50 kobo each for scrip dividend, thereby bringing the total issued and fully paid-up share capital of the company to 10.240 billion ordinary shares of 50 kobo each. Its market capitalisation stood at N491.546 billion as at Thursday on shares outstanding of 10.240 billion units.

The principal activity of Stanbic IBTC Holdings plc is to carry on business as a financial holding company, to invest and hold controlling shares in, as well as manage equity in its subsidiary companies.

The company has nine direct subsidiaries, namely, Stanbic IBTC Bank plc, Stanbic IBTC Pension Managers Limited, Stanbic IBTC Asset Management Limited, Stanbic IBTC Capital Limited, Stanbic IBTC Investments Limited, Stanbic IBTC Stockbrokers Limited, Stanbic IBTC Ventures Limited, Stanbic IBTC Insurance Brokers Limited, and Stanbic IBTC Trustees Limited. This is in addition to two indirect subsidiaries, Stanbic IBTC Bureau De Change Limited and Stanbic IBTC Nominees Limited.

Building materials prices soar despite lull in property market

...block prices up 25% over tight regulatory guidelines CHUKA UROKO & AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE

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rom the last quarter of 2018 to now, building materials prices have made positive movements from point A to B despite the lull in the property market and a significant slowdown in construction activities.

Whereas the slowdown in construction activities is as a result of the on-going elections in the country, the property market is yet to recover from the impact of the 15-month economic recession that crimped consumer spending power and forced real estate products consumers to reorder their priorities, leading to a drop in demand that is as deep as 30 percent in some high-end neighbourhoods.

But building materials prices are spiking, notably iron rods and moulded blocks (6 and 9 inches) which have, in the last three months, seen 20 percent and 25 percent price hike, respectively.

BusinessDay investigations reveal that whereas prices of iron rods have gone up because buyers have shunned the hike in their purchasing decisions, prices of 6 and 9 inches blocks are responding to new regulatory guidelines released recently by the Lagos State government for block moulders.

The prices of moulded blocks have moved from N200 per unit of 9-inch block to N250 and from N180 per unit of 6-inch block to N200. Similarly, the pricesofironrodshavealsoincreasedas a tonne of 8mm moved from N180,000 to N185,000; 10mm moved from N195,000toN215,000;while12mmand

16mm moved from between N190,000 and N192,000 to N205,000.

Olutayo Osifolu, managing director, Tayo Blocks Industry located along Idimu-Ikotun road, confirmed the new prices of blocks in an interview, blaming it on the Lagos State government’s new directive issued to block moulders’ association.

“The adjustment in the price of blocks is due to the directive by the Lagos State government for us to increase the quality of blocks used in building houses in order to reduce the high incidence of building collapse in the state,” he said.

With the new directive, granite dust, which is a very expensive material, was introduced as a compulsory component for moulding blocks. As a result, block moulders now make use of granite dust, sharp sand, maya material and cement in block moulding, but formerly the moulders used only sharp sand, maya material and cement without granite dust.

Previously, moulders used 14 bags of cement to mould 500 blocks, but with the new directive, they are expected by the Lagos State government to make use of 16 bags of cement to mould 500 pieces of blocks, thereby increasing cost.

BusinessDay understands that the addition of granite dust into moulding of blocks resulted in the rise in the prices of blocks and that the government is insisting on the use of granite dust because it does not have organic materials that weaken buildings.

•Continues online at www.businessday.ng

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Unstoppable you: Towards gender equality

Austin Okere

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n commemoration of this year’s International Women’s Day, I would like to honor our womenfolk by sharing the essence of my keynote at the last annual WIMBIZ conference at the Eko Hotel in Lagos, aptly themed Unstoppable you: Reinvent & reinvigorate.

To start with, I was deeply impressed by the preparation leading up to the event and by the attention to detail during the event; starting on time, to the full attendance and seamless coordination.

No small feat for an event of over 2,000 participants. Well done to the Board of Trustees and Executive Council of WIMBIZ. Having said this, Women do not seem to be making it in any large number to the top of any profession anywhere in the world, even though the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number five is Gender Equality.

The numbers tell the story quite clearly: Sahle-Work Zewde, Ethiopia’s first female president is currently Africa’s only female head of state; of 190 Heads of State in the world, only nine are women; of all the people in parliaments in the world only 13% are women; in the corporate world, C-Level Jobs and Board Seats, only 15% are women; there are only two female CEO’s in the banking sector in Nigeria; even in the non-profit world, where you expect more women to be in leadership positions, there are only 20% of women at the top; last year

just 2% of Venture Capital funding went to startups founded by women, this is not surprising, since women comprise just 9% of the decision makers at U.S. Venture Capital Firms; and the numbers have not moved very much since the turn of the 21st century.

The other problem that women face is having to make tougher choices between professional success and personal fulfillment. A rent survey in America showed that of married senior managers, two thirds of the men had children and only one third of the women had children. Verna Myers, an African-American Diversity Consultant once told a revealing story at a TED talk; Verna was on a long-distance flight; and having settled into her seat, the voice of a female pilot came over the public announcement system. Wow! she thought to herself, we women are indeed breaking through the glass ceiling. We are now rocking stratosphere!

With that she settled into a book. Not very long after, the plane went through some very severe turbulence. The first thought that came to her mind was “I hope this sister can drive this thing”. And then she caught herself. What bothered her was that this thought will not at all have crossed her mind at all if the pilot had been male; and these are the hidden biases that many of us carry and have been carrying for centuries. We are mentally associated with the male as competent and successful.

In the work place men seem to be overwhelmingly our default. Rightly or wrongly, we trust the strategic roles to men, cementing stereotypes and prejudices in which we have been schooled over and over. I usually get this from our womenfolk in the workplace. “I prefer to hang with the guys because...”Well, this is who you feel implicitly connected to; that is your default. Do not be hard on yourself for falling into this category

because a lot of research on implicit association test, which measures unconscious bias seem to suggest that our default are indeed men. We need to get out of denial that these stereotypes exist and rather look within; and be willing to change ourselves and who we trust and feel connected to. Scientists tell us that instead of denying our gender biases, we should be changing our mental associations of who women are; by staring and memorizing the faces and names of the most awesome women we know.

This helps us to dissociate the automatic associations that happen in our brains. It helps us to relearn a new awesome trust and break the stereotypes associated with women.

When we see a woman in a successful role, say a leading role in a hit movie, our thoughts seem to drift to “who did she have to sleep with” but we hardly ask that of successful men. Unfortunately, both men and women are guilty of these associations, whether inherent or expressed; implicit or explicit. Biases are the stories we make up about people before we know who they actually are; but how are we going to know them without being willing to embrace them? This is why we need to get disconfirming data that proves that our old stereotypes are wrong.

While I do not entirely agree with all her viewpoints, I daresay I admire the good work done by our own Chimamanda Adichie to greatly move the needle forward in this regard. To break the gender divide, we need men and women to walk towards our discomfort by expanding our social and professional circles and embracing complete gender diversity in our networks. We need to build the type of relationships that reveal the holistic person and goes against the stereotypes.

Wherever you are, ask yourself who is here and who is missing.

How many authentic relationships do we have with aspiring young women?

‘

Beyond giving the glory to God, do not look outside yourself to explain your successes.

I find that Women systematically underestimate their own abilities

How many do we have in the Boardrooms and in top management positions? How many do we have in politics?

We need to get off the fence and become actors and advocates in this journey of diversity and gender equality. We must call things out when we they are wrong because the other people who see, and perpetrate these stereotypes are our children. Biases are planted and nurtured by none other than us. Children are born with a mind that is a clean slate, and most of their developing years are spent with their mothers. What do we write on these slates that so strongly reinforces these biases and stereotypes between the genders?

The elephant in the room is how are we going to fix this? I will make bold the following suggestions: Firstly, stand up to be seen, speak out to be heard – keep your hands raised. Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook tells the story about a talk she gave, and after that a young lady in the audience came to see her backstage.

She was upset because Sherly said she would take only two questions more.

The lady (and all the other women in the room) put their hands down after the two questions. But guess what? The men kept their hands up; and guess what else? Sheryl took more questions; and all from men. Perhaps this is how the men get ahead.

Note: The rest of this article continues in the online edition of Business Day @https://businessday.ng Austin Okere is the Founder of CWG Plc, the largest ICT Company on the Nigerian Stock Exchange & Entrepreneur in Residence at CBS, New York. Austin also serves on the Advisory Board of the Global Business School Network, and on the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Innovation and Intrapreneurship. Austin now runs the Ausso Leadership Academy focused on Business and Entrepreneurial Mentorship

Social media and tech startups: The new youth leadership platforms Chika Nwogu

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s technology becomes more ubiquitous, new ways of thinking and doing things are visible and accessible.

Ideas, beliefs, systems and standards are being propagated today through many ways and predominantly through social media and technology startup companies. According to a 2018 Business Insider report, social media platforms are most popular among the 18 – 29 age demographics. Digital jobs are now highly sought-after career and income options. The unemployment challenges have birthed more entrepreneurs and freelancers.

The rise of social media influencers and technology companies have created more income opportunities, produced leaders and influenced government policies - directly and indirectly.

Social media influencers are individuals with established credibility in a particular area, a large number of followers on social media platforms, and the ability to engage and persuade their audience on a number of issues.

These individuals may or may not own their own businesses, but earn income through idea propagation.

Technology startups build hardware, software, algorithms and platforms for a consumer, and technology enabled startups leverage on technology to deliver products or services to the customer.

Today, with a simple click, it is easier to form or join a group with common interests, and then

determine the future direction of these teams from any location. These teams could be as few as two members, and as many as, but not limited to, one million members; with no need to assemble at the same geographical location.

Historically, ideologies were limited to small geographical regions and could take a couple of years to reach other territories or continents.

Today, technology has made it easier and faster to reach any part of the world with ideas and concepts that can change lives, transform societies, improve well-being of a nation as well as ensure security of lives and properties.

New industries emerge as ideologies overlap or get refined. These industries exist to solve a problem or create a movement with the potential of influencing the society and possibly government policies. In the past, Nigerian influencers were mainly political leaders, religious leaders, traditional rulers, billionaire traders and captains of huge businesses mostly over 45 years old. Today, we can see influencers in various forms across all ages and industries. They are known as entrepreneurs, opinion leaders, activists, and thought leaders withhuge digital and non-digital following. These leaders are developing systems, influencing people and spreading their ideologies globally leveraging on digital channels and startup companies.

Social media and technology startups have provided more opportunities to lead and influence others. Building a followership on social media, or starting and running a company requires brutally honest answers about your motives, passions and goals in life, because these are drivers of the kind of system and culture an organization or followersimbibes; as a famous saying goes, “anorganisation is a reflection of

its leader”.Therefore, young people are paying more and more attention to their personal brand and identity as well as what legacy they would like to leave.

Industry observers have noted the rise of more technology focused entrepreneurs in the last 5 years. The government has also put in place some policies and interventions that support the rise of tech entrepreneurs. Fresh university graduates, typically in their early to mid-twenties now have better chances at being successful business owners and opting for entrepreneurship versus getting employed in an organization.

We can now see web designers, applications developers, social media strategists, product development specialists, user experience designers, user interface designers, enterprise designer begin their careers by starting businesses in tech subsectors such as Health tech, Edutech, AgTech, FinTech, Transport, Logistics and Ecommerce.

This immediately places them in leadership capacity, leading themselves, and then anyone who joins them in their entrepreneurial journey. Mentors, thought leaders, advisors, influencers are the roles they are likely to play at various points within the tech ecosystem.

As soon as the business gets started, they are tasked with communicating the mission, vision and values of the organization and also the strategic direction for the venture. As a result, they develop a strong personal identity and an understanding of their impact on their community. Because they understand the challenges facing their peers, it is easier to proffer solutions to addressing the issues, applying communication skills, teamwork, professionalism and

project management skills to solve a problem.

Leveraging on their positions as organsations or team leads in startups, they use various technology channels to propagate ideologies, systems and ways of doing things. They do this by thoughtfully building a followership or ‘tribe’ based on similar interests. These followers view them as inspirational role models, mentors, or in some cases competition. Having large following on various digital media channels might lead to various digital and non-digital public engagements, seminars and conferences.

Using technology, these days,people now find themselves tasked with leading teams, predominantly from a very young age.

By getting into leadership at that age, they are reminded of what is important and valuable to them, their peers and their community. It is some sort of compass, suggesting directions to take, andhas further expanded opportunities for youth development and youth engagement.

We now see more youths deeply concerned and involved in community development, making concerted efforts to solve social injustice and economic challenges through social media engagements and technology startups.

Leadership thus takes a new perspective and continues to evolve, and the youths are standing up and being counted! What number are you?

Chika Nwogu is a Business Strategist/Project Manager and the founder of WriteMyBusiness – A business writing service company. She is a Volunteer Research Assistant with the Christopher Kolade Centre for Research in Leadership and Ethics (CKCRLE) at Lagos Business School.

CKCRLE’s vision is creating and sharing knowledge that improves the way managers lead and live in Africa and the World. You can contact CKCRLE at crle@lbs.edu.ng.

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How to go viral: Marketing by influencers

EIZU UWAOMA

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ere’s a true story of me.

Growing up, we were crazy teenagers on the island, in Lagos. Out of boredom, (this was before emails or GSM networks) we will have an idea of a party. Then I’ll tell this one guy (who was a connector), he will then tell another “popular” guy (a sneezer) and in less than a day, over 300 people in the lonely streets of Ikoyi will converge as a crowd (like epidemics) for an evening rave. This was unusual in a place like Ikoyi. We were influencers sbefore we even knew what the word meant. Most people knew us for this. The police knew us too, they called us DTPs (DisturbingThePeace). We were the cool kids parents warned their wards about, still other kids wanted to be like; we had followers even before Twitter and In-

stagram. Still we turned out great. But what can we learn from this?

Well, as we grew older and became mature, we created more positive movement like The Potters Lounge, Sharing Life Issues with Chaz B, same overflow of people, then Hexavia the Masterclass and the Business Club.

Even though we’ve grown older, the concept of having strong followings still remains. These days, I’ll send a captivating broadcast still and over 5000 people will get it, and 50 people will repost it. It’s still the same concept..

It is very possible to master how to make things reach the tipping point and then go viral. Like a celebrity’s sex tape, like the Ebola epidemics, like Patience Jonathan’s “diairis God” statements, like popular Nigerian dance moves, like a worldwide campaign of “BringBackOurGirls”...

Generally, scandals, fashion, bomb blasts, trends, slangs, bad news become what they become through a common concept. They all start from one individual, a single source and then spread in minutes, into millions like virus do!

Now, imagine if you understood how to make things go viral and popular like trends, then you can either become a marketing guru, a religious or product evangelist or a terrorist.

I mean you can disrupt a society’s attention.

It comes from understanding

“I don’t know” Olamide Balogun

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elcome to another Friday, dare I say, like no other. Since last week so much has gone on all over the world. This may be stating the obvious but many times all we comment on is that time is flying. I just wanted us to see that time is not just flying without any results. Things are happening.

Are things happening in your life? Do an evaluation.

I was reading a book this week. They said a few things that I felt impacted my theme this week. They said correlation does not always equal causality. So for example according to Steve Levitt and Stephen Dubner because two things travel together does not mean one causes another. For example, the statement that married people are happier than single people. This may make you think marriage causes happiness. However, not necessarily, apparently there is data to show that happy people are more likely to get married in the first place.

Knowing what to measure and how to measure it makes many things less complicated. Unfortunately, it is easy to let our

the concept of the mavens, sneezers and connectors. This is summarised through the law of the few. This states that for a message to go viral, it must be sticky and initiated by a small select group of people categorized into mavens (experts), sneezer (broadcasters/platforms with large but targeted followers of like minds), connectors (socialites and networkers) or all put together.

To understand this concept, make a list of 10 of your closest friends (family and colleagues not included).

Now, think backwards to how you met them, trace the sources and see if there is a trend, an asymmetric pattern or correlation. Did you notice that most of your closest friends were once introduced to you via a common source?

There’s always that one friend that connected most of the people you today call friends. Everybody has that one person, that one friend. Can you identify him?

That’s a connector!

‘

Still unknown to a lot of people, big budget for campaigns, and ads are failing and contagiousness is replacing mainstream marketing

Mavens on the other hand are people who know everything, while connectors know everyone. Mavens are masters. They are experts and thought leaders in their chosen field and industry, and since there are different industries in the world, they are usually scattered everywhere.

But connectors are people who connect everyone to the same page, the

biases, political, intellectual or otherwise colour our view of the world. Apparently, there is growing evidence to show that even the smartest people tend to seek out evidence that confirms what they are already thinking, rather than getting new information that would give them a more robust view of reality.

In order to run your human resources so that you get the very best results out of them and indeed running all your factors of production to give you the very best, you must be ready to abandon the herd mentality and think completely differently. (I don’t like the term ‘out of box thinking’ because that still means you are in a box even if you are thinking out of it). Herd mentality means you are quick to embrace the status quo, slow to change your mind.

Here is a story for you. A little boy named Dapo goes to the mall with his father and sister. They drive in a green car. At the mall, they play games, eat ice cream, take part in a quiz and have a meat pie for lunch.

Please answer the following questions What colour was the car?

Did they have amala and gbegiri for lunch?

Did they listen to music in the car?

Did they drink Fanta with lunch?

When asked many people gave answers to all the questions. The truth is that besides the first two, there is not enough information that to answer the third and fourth questions correctly. Yet people will not admit this. They will go ahead and form an answer when all they need to say is ‘I don’t know’.

There are different levels of knowledge.

There are the known facts, things that can be scientifically proven, H2O is water, if you say HO2 is water, you will eventually be proven wrong. However, beliefs are things we hold true but may not be easily verified. With be-

liefs, there is a lot of room for disagreement.

The key to learning is feedback. It is impossible to learn anything without it. A great example is being the first person to bake bread.

If you are never allowed to actually bake it, eat it and see how the recipe turns out, how will you know whether or not it works? Even with good feedback, it can take a while to learn.

To be first at something globally or just in your organisation, you must be ready to think.

Thinking is a dying art and many people are too willing to delegate their thinking. The first point in thinking is admitting that you don’t know a thing.

Many people are either as I said above running with the herd or they are just too busy to think and too busy to re-think the way they think. When was the last time you sat for at least an hour of unadulterated thinking?

“Few people think more than two or three times a year. I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week” George Bernard Shaw. Just to be clear, thinking here is not the same as worrying.

Back to your Visioning and the ‘why’ of what you do. In many scenarios when you pit a private benefit against the greater good, the private benefit wins especially when we are playing it safe. Today, I put it to you that selfinterest can be frustrating if your ambitions are larger than simply securing some small private victory.

There is nothing wrong if all you want is a small private victory. However, don’t plan for a small private victory and be disappointed when that is all you get. If you, however, want to do something big you have to be bold and courageous.

There is noright way to think about solving a given problem. (This is again assuming that your organisationhas been set up to solve a

same world. They have a special gift of bringing the bests of a particular demography, the world together through the sneezers.

The person who owns the platform upon which mavens and connectors meet is referred to as a sneezer.

Mainstream marketing is failing due to Information Immunity. The greatest contributors to information overload is excessive advertising, attempts on mind control by media, consumerism driven by capitalism, mind-altering marketing, corporate fake news, social media, and generic mass education -- all of the mechanisms that shape independent thought till our reactions creates Information Immunity. Still unknown to a lot of people, big budget for campaigns, and ads are failing and contagiousness is replacing mainstream marketing. How well do you know them?

With too much ads everywhere plus social media, as the world gets to the breaking point of information overload, the future of business moves away from marketing and goes back to the value of word of mouth, triggers and intimacy. This will depend on the value and stickiness of the message, the context of the message and the quality of the channels that carries it (which must satisfy the law of the few.

Uwaoma is a start-up, corporate restructuring and strategy consultant. He writes via contacteizu@gmail.com

problem.) There is no smart way or foolish way. There is no black or white way. The modern world demands that we think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally, that we think from a different angle, with a different set of muscles, with a different set of expectations, that w think with neither fear nor favour with neither blind optimism nor sour scepticism.

We said a vision requires foresight, insight and hindsight. I guess a good place to start is predicting the future. Please take care in predicting. Someone once said by 2005, the internet’s growth will slow down because a law called Metcalf’s law. Well, we can see what Facebook, Google to mention a couple are doing and how they are growing in leaps and bounds. Not a good prediction and yet it was made by a supposed guru at the time.

Like I said above, for insight, we need to know the correct questions to ask that will lead us to the correct answers. So apparently, the educational system in the world is not as good as it was. This seems clear that the teachers must not be as good and dedicated as there were in the good old days. However, the real reason is that the family system and values are being so eroded. Parents have become too busy to pay enough attention to their children.

Finally, hindsite can only be best achieved if there is a good feedback system in place and if we actually feed back the results into future deliberations.

Next week we will move on from visioning but I hope you have crafted or re-visited your vision and the ‘why’ of your organisation’s existence.

Balogun is the founder of Box & Cedar Ltd a boutique Recruitment and HR Consulting firm Www.boxandcedar.com

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Friday 08 March 2019

The endangered Nigerian middle-class

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rom independence in 1960 to the early 1980s Nigeria grew a solid and robust middle class of professionals – Doctors, teachers, professors, Engineers etc – who were financially secure, lived in GRAs around the country, could afford to educate their children up to university levels (then our universities were still centres of excellence), visited cinemas and prestigious restaurants and social clubs often, shopped in exclusive shopping malls and could buy new cars easily.

Then came the structural adjustment programme (SAP) and the devaluation of the naira. The unintended consequence was the decimation of the salaries of the middle class. Imported goods became expensive and out of the reach to all but the elite. New cars automatically went out of the rich of the middle class and they had to resort to buying used vehicles popularly known as Tokumbo in Nigeria.

Gradually, those professionals (majority of them) who had the opportunity to relocate abroad left and those who couldn’t leave or didn’t want

to leave were demoralised. Also, the desired locations of the middle class became run down and shabby. By the time Nigeria returned to democracy in 1999, the middle class had all but vanished.

However, by the turn of the 21st century, a noticeable change occurred. Through the great work done by the democratic regime of President Olusegun Obasanjo, the middle class was gradually restored and began to grow in leaps and bounds to such an extent that Nigeria became an attractive investment destination to many auto firms (to set up assembly plants) and large chain super-market stores.

However, the progress has now firmly been cut short. Due to the deliberate policy choices and inactions of the government, of course, sparked by low oil prices and scarcity of foreign exchange, the naira has taken such a severe hit that the country was thrown into recession.

Expectedly, the economic recession with its attendant suffering is not affecting the poor alone. True, prices of consumer goods and services consumed mostly by the poor have tripled.

But the steep decline in the value of the naira has also affected the prices of luxury and aspirational

goods and services demanded by the middle class also.

Just like it happened in the late 1980s and 90s, Nigeria’s robust but fragile middle class that expanded greatly from 2002 due to deliberate government policy is now shrinking and at the risk of disappearing entirely. Their fat salaries have been eroded by the steep decline in the value of the naira and they can hardly afford to shop in foreign boutiques and stores in Victoria Island and Ikoyi again. Even the fanciful cars they had always bought is now largely above their reach and they had to make do with imported used (Tokunbo) cars.

To drive the nail into the coffin of the middle class, a deliberate government policy has now priced Tokumbo cars out of the reach of the middle class. The justification was the implementation of the National Automotive Industry Development Plan (NAIDP) of 2013 meant to grow the volume of locally assembled vehicles by raising tariffs on imported cars.

However, the devaluation of the naira has made rubbish of that policy. But how does the government care? It has gone ahead with the implementation of the policy charging 35 percent

import duty and another 35 percent surcharge, making it a total of 70 percent of the market price of the vehicle. The new charge, which applies to a unit of any imported vehicle, irrespective of the model or brand, makes importation through the land borders (smuggling) far cheaper than through Nigerian seaports.

But it is not only the people that are suffering. By implementing such punitive tariff regime on imported vehicles, the government has ceded most of the revenues it should be making to Benin Republic, which has taken advantage of the Nigerian government’s irrational policy action to lower its duty on imported vehicles. What is more, the current structure now provides a rich avenue of corruption to customs’ officials who give genuine customs’ documents to these smuggled vehicles for a fee.

We are baffled that the government can be so retrogressive and almost irrational in policy decisions. The lack of effective demand for new cars has stymied any plans to establish vehicle assembly plants in Nigeria. The plan is now helping to price out used cars from the reach of Nigerians. that is most retrogressive and should be stopped.

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Friday 08 March 2019

13

CITYFile

24 suspected drug peddlers nabbed in Kano

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he police Kano State have arrested 24 persons suspected to be dealing in illicit drugs and possessing dangerous weapons.

Spokesperson of the police in Kano, Abdullahi Haruna presented the suspects to newsmen at the police headquarters in Kano. He said that the suspects were arrested in criminal hideouts between February 28 and March 6, 2019. He listed the drugs to include cocaine, Indian hemp, ‘suck-and-die solution’, tramadol tablets among other illegal drugs.

According to Haruna, items recovered from the suspects include sticks, knives, cutlasses, sword and machetes.

He said two of the suspects, Mujahid Abubakar and Iliya Garba were arrested at Sabon Gari Market in Kano and the drugs recovered from them were 1,660 bottles of diazepam injection, 7,000 bottles of tranzile injection and 2,150 tramadol injection.

Others include 8,000 enjon merinetin injection, 180 phenobartil injection, 40 penzozine injection, 14 voltean injection, 1,600 cocadamol tablets and a sack containing used drugs.

He said the command also arrested one Muhammad Abdullahi of Hotoro Quarters, a distributor of cocaine substance and four wraps of the drug were recovered from him.

Haruna added that 13 suspects were apprehended at Sabon Gari, who were in possession of 720 cutlasses, and said that investigation revealed that some of them were armed robbers.

According to him, a stolen tricycle was recovered from them and they confessed to committing the crime.

In another development, the command has announced it would deploy about 20,000 personnel for duties in Saturday’s governorship and house of assembly elections in the state.

Haruna said the personnel to be supported by other security agencies, would be deployed to all polling units across the state, and assured that his command would work in harmony in ensuring a violence-free poll.

Members of Impact Future Nigeria, protesting against alleged “Militarization of Electoral Process in Nigeria”, at the front of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Abuja on Wednesday.

NAN

Election violence: Army hands over 67-year, 13 others to police in Rivers IGNATIUS CHUKWU & INNOCENT ETENG

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or alleged involvement in election-related violence, the 6 Division of the Nigeria Army in Rivers State has handed 14 persons to the police, including a 67-year man.

The suspects were handed over by

Living below poverty line:

In search of survival, Yusuf switches from yam to fruits Name: Saiminu Yusuf Age: 40 years Occupation: Hawker State: Kano Dependants: Wife and three children

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aiminu Yusuf hawks fruits and vegetable in Ikeja, Lagos.

Every day, he uses a wheelbarrow to move his goods around an estate in Adeniyi Jones, Ikeja.

A native of Kano, Yusuf came to Lagos hoping to secure a paid employment but ended up selling yam before switching to vegetable and fruits.

“I came to hustle in Lagos. I was selling yam before I changed to vegetable and fruits like carrots, pepper, cucumbers, tomatoes and apples. Business has been sluggish. I wish to sell more but i just have to thank God for everything,” he told our reporter.

Apart from moving his wares in wheelbarrow around, Yusuf faces other challenges in his day to day struggle.

“I am alright with this business but I would like to expand the vegetable business such as buying more apples, lettuces and cabbage for resale. I equally need an umbrella stand because most times I sit under the sun all day.

I come here around 3:30pm – 4pm and leave around 7:30pm,” he said.

Yusuf said he ventured into the business when his friend told him that no one was selling vegetable and fruits in the area. He eventually

Adeolu Kalejaye, a brigadier general, on Wednesday, at the army headquarters in Port Harcourt.

According to the deputy director of public relations, Aminu Iliyazu, a colonel, the suspects were arrested on February 23, 2019, during the presidential and national assembly elections in Port Harcourt and Abonnema in Akuku-Toru local government area of Rivers State.

He said the handover is to enable the police carry out further investigations and possibly prosecute those found to be culpable. “It’s usual practice for the Nigeria Army to handover suspects arrested to the Nigeria Police. Today, again, we have 14 suspects who were arrested on 23 of February during the last presidential and national assembly elections for various offences which bother on violence.

“We are here to hand them over to the Rivers State police command for further

investigation and possible prosecution,” Iliyazu said.

This is the third batch of suspects the army is handing over for investigations since the February 23 elections. A total of 83 suspects had earlier been handed over in two batches of 30 and 53. The new batch of 14 brings the total number to 97.

Iluyazu said the suspects were handed over in batches because: “We released them only when investigations or preliminary investigations are conducted and finished.”

Rivers State by this could be leading in the number of electoral offenders. In Bonny, elections did not even hold in the first place because over 400 youths blocked the centre where materials were kept, claiming they were fake. The results in Emohua were rejected because of violence and irregularities. It is a state where each party would produce its own result.

Flooding: Group trains mitigation personnel

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Yusuf

ventured into it when he sensed the opportunity it offers.

When inquired where he got the capital to start the business, he said the money he realised from selling yams was what he used to set up the business.

Yusuf gets his merchandise from Ijora and Mile 12 in Lagos.

humanitarian group, Christian Aid, has called for capacity building for members of the Disaster Mitigation Management Platform (DMMP) to respond to disasters effectively and timely.

Uzor Uzioma, the programme coordinator, made the call at a one-day training in Kaduna tagged: “improving early warning and early response systems to strengthen disaster preparedness in Nigeria’s middle belt’’.

Uzioma said the training was to strengthen the coordination of members of DMMP to respond to disasters and improve on early warning.

“Having these members better coordinated and working together, they will live up better to their responsibilities of preparedness towards emergencies.”

She said that for planning and action to better manage disaster risk and response, the DMMP members had agreed to set up a technical working committee to reduce the work load of State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA).

“Emergencies have to be a collaborated effort that should not be left in the hands of SEMA alone.”

She said that the agencies had identified issues and challenges they faced within the state and designed local contingency plans to respond to those issues.

One of the participants, Yahaya Mohammed said he was impressed with the meeting as it was an “eye opener’’ for him.

“The meeting has helped me to relate with other agency staff to come up with an action plan to work better together for the benefit of the state.”

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MoneyInsight

Friday 08 March 2019

TeamApt CEO shares inside story of how it secured $5.5 million funding

TOSIN ENIOLORUNDA, CEO and founder of TeamApt in this interview with BusinessDay’s Frank Eleanya shares strategies for raising funding and how startups can bootstrap without going burst.

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Tell us about TeamApt eamApt is a digital banking and payment infrastructure provider. At the moment we provide banking solutions like mobile and internet banking, robotics as well as payment infrastructure for banks. To really understand TeamApt is to go into the core of why we exist. TeamApt exist to provide financial happiness…that is our drive. We think that when people die what we should use as metrics of how well they lived their lives should be how happy they were throughout.

We believe that money is an important part of why people exist. We build solutions that help people be happy with their money. We do it in four major ways; by helping people collect, pay, manage and grow their money. To do this, we work with banks, businesses and people. Since 2015 we have been building solutions that are central to this mission. We started with solutions that help banks like ALAT build their digital banking platforms. Today almost all the banks except one or two banks use our solution to service their customers. So increasingly we are in the forefront of the digital transformation.

We have built a robotics solution that basically mimics what humans do. That cut down the turnaround time that many banks use in resolving problems that their customers had. It also improved the way customers felt about their banks.

TeamApt is also going ahead to implement digital payment infrastructure like APIs that will help banks talk to themselves and do things like bank transfers. We are also building solutions that help businesses as well as consumers.

What was it like bootstrapping till this point?

It is something that is very dear to me.

I have written and explained that a lot of startups should not get carried away in the money raising hype. They should focus a lot more on building their products. Money will find you if you have a solid product that people need. It is also worsened by the stories of some startups – especially high profile – that more or less shut down after many years of seeming growth. What this points to is that it is fundamental that you have a solution to a problem.

That solution need to be built it in a way that you can scale.

What TeamApt has done is, from day 1 we focused a lot on delivering solutions to our customers and ensuring that they pay us. What makes a company go bust is when the money that you make is less than the money that you need to survive. Bootstrapping is growing your company little by little as fast as you can with the little money that you are making and putting it back into the business. In the beginning we had the idea but we picked something small and we were fortunate to have our first customer

the same with the US or Europe where investors can just give you money on the hope of good returns. Investors that invest in Nigeria are a lot thriftier and they really want to see value. It actually takes a lot of time to raise money; in fact it is another reason TeamApt did not raise money on time.

I am a single founder and if you spend 30-40 per cent of your time trying to raise money there are many other things that will suffer like company culture, engineering, customer service etc. when you are focused on what is most important you will get the money you need eventually.

Finally, when you raise money less, at the end of the day, the founder and the people retain more control of the company and they become richer.

Tosin Eniolorunda

pay us. It is important that you get your customer to pay you upfront. For instance, you have a solution and you pitch it to your customer and he or she likes it, and you give the price, typically when you get a contract like that they will pay you some money upfront for mobilisation. That is the money you need to start. This is especially true for enterprise and business companies.

When you are paid upfront you have float to run your business.

Secondly, you need to find a way to keep your cost low. How do you keep your cost low? One of the biggest costs for a technology company is our human resource cost. In fact we do not sell any inventory. The only inventories we sell are brains, so the challenge is how you get brains to work with you when you do not have a lot of money to pay. It is worsened by the fact that a lot of Nigerians are leaving the country especially the IT ones. Germany, Canada, Dubai, Estonia is becoming a lot interesting for these guys.

So how do you get them to stay with you?

There are three strategies; one of them is they need to believe in you. They need to be convinced you have a high chance of success and you have a clear vision. Secondly, you need to give them skin (equity) in the game, which means they are part owners. When they are part owners, they can weigh the suffering of now and compare it with the gains of tomorrow. That means, if by tomorrow the company blows, they will blow with it. Some of them will stay.

For those who stayed, you have to ensure you don’t compromise your integrity. They need to believe you and it means that whatever you say is

what you will do.

Thirdly, you should do things that are not in the line of your business that can just bring in money. In the early days of AirBnB for instance, they sold cereals just to bring money. It wasn’t in line with their core business. In the early days of TeamApt we did businesses that were not in line with financial services to bring in money.

If you have a solid business model I believe it will get you investors that will be interested in you.

What it all does for you is to give you the discipline and the culture that you need when the money finally comes. Our economy in Nigeria is not

‘

I think one of the challenges of the VC market in Nigeria is that as long as there are faster and easier ways to make money, many will always go that direction. There are directions like real estate in Nigeria where you can get almost 100 per cent growth in 3 years

How did you get nearly all the Nigerian banks working with you despite being a small company?

Certainly the experience from my former employer helped. I have been an entrepreneurial person before joining Interswitch. It takes preparation; to prepare means 10,000 hours.

It means that for the tasks you want to blow at, you should have logged at least 10,000 hours working on it. The next one is you need to be bold and the time needs to be right.

For me, I have gone through a lot of entrepreneurial training; I have built things before I joined my employers.

The next one is products. I got exposed but I did not have all the knowledge, I was just able to understand because I was a programmer and a small product manager. That gives you some of the basics but it also exposes you to some of the typical problems of the industry.

How we made it happen was that by this minimum knowledge we started to research better. When you start talking to customers, it will give you a deeper understanding of the problems that they have and how you can solve them. By the time you have a problem to solve, the ability to solve the problem, the means to solve the problem and the mind, things start to fall into place. The next thing is the ability to quickly refine so that you are growing in it and you do not stay on one point. Because you are bootstrapping it makes it harder, but when you get your first N10 million do not go and buy a car, put it back into the business and start building it further. We found some problems that industry had at the time and we keyed into it quickly enough for them to believe and scale into many of the banks. We have been fortunate; many of our customers have supported us since then.

What does the partnership with Quantum Capital Partners require?

They funded us to more or less achieve the growth objective that we have. I think something that is interesting about us to them is the fact that we

have grown to this stage without any external help. That fundamentally shows something is right. Others hide under “We are raising capital” and nobody knows what goes under the hood.

They also have a portfolio of companies that I believe puts us in line of their vision. At TeamApt we are currently thinking global. Of course before you think global you should first conquer your home.

The investment is arguably the largest local funding to a local startup, what do you think this portend for the investment market in Nigeria?

I think one of the challenges of the VC market in Nigeria is that as long as there are faster and easier ways to make money, many will always go that direction. There are directions like real estate in Nigeria where you can get almost 100 per cent growth in 3 years.

Putting your money in government bonds can guarantee 17 per cent yearon-year value risk free. The thing with startups is that they are risky but also very high yield and it takes people that have the understanding and the right skills and partnership to know how to mitigate those risks and be comfortable to put their money in the startups.

But our fund is a patient fund.

Nigeria will get a local VC industry if government’s ease of doing business initiatives becomes serious and the risk of running startups is improved.

It will also help when you have a lot of exits that are interesting and people see “I put N1 million into this company and five years after it is N50 or N100 million.” We need to have more of such stories. MTN had such a story at a time. I also believe that people who put money in Interswitch will have such a story. Such stories will improve the interest of local investors.

When should the Nigeria tech ecosystem expect its unicorn?

I think there are some unicorns in the making to be honest. I think Interswitch could be close to becoming one. I think it could take a maximum of five years we will find a unicorn coming out of Nigeria, especially a local one. One of the biggest risks is that the Nigerian economy is not doing very well especially with respect to our exchange rate. For instance, a company that was worth $10 million when naira was N180, let’s say they earn 100 per cent of their money in naira, now that the naira is worth by a factor of 2, the company is worth like $5 million. A unicorn being a $1 billion company means that the company would have been $2 billion when the naira was N180 or N150. These are some of the things that might have delayed unicorns from coming out of Nigeria. A lot of Nigerian firms are trying to get revenue outside of the country, I believe that in about five years’ time we will have a very public unicorn.

Friday 08 March 2019

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COMPANIES & MARKETS

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C O M PA N Y N E W S A N A LY S I S A N D I N S I G H T

OIL $ GAS

Why investors should take a second look at Seplat DIPO OLADEHINDE & OLUWASEGUN OLAKOYENIKAN

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lthough Seplat Petroleum Development Company Plc, recorded a 45 percent decline in post-tax profit to N44.87 billion in the 2018 financial year, investors and shareholders still have something to cheer with current plans to explore more investment opportunities in gas production.

First glance After-tax profit of the Nigerian upstream exploration and production company, which is listed both in Nigeria and United Kingdom, weakened from N81.11 billion recorded in 2017 after surmounting a N45.38 billion loss in the previous year, no thanks to an income tax expense that made that happen.

The oil company’s profit before tax grew to N80.62 billion in 2018 from N13.45 billion, largely driven by a 65 percent surge in sales to N228 billion from N138 billion recorded in the previous year after an oil price rebound helped it boost revenue and pay down some of its debt.

As a result, Seplat’s gross profit rose 48 percent to N119.75 billion despite the cost of goods sold reaching N108.64 billion from N73 billion recorded a year earlier.

The company paid N35.75 billion as tax expense in 2018 as against tax credit of N67.66

billion it received a year earlier which boosted its bottomline to N81.11 billion, even as the oil exploration firm posted a pre-tax profit of N13.45 billion in 2017.

According to the company, the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) granteditapioneertaxincentive for a three-year period which elapsed at the end of 2015.

Seplat said its 2018 financials was prepared with the effect of post pioneer tax status which resulted in a tax expense of N35.75 billion, compared to a net tax credit of N67.66 billion for the same period in 2017, owing primarily to deferred tax credits of N68.34 billion.

Checks by BusinessDay reveal that the oil exploration company neither pay any income tax nor receive any tax credit in 2014. It, however, paid N4.25 billion as tax expense in 2015, while it received N2.04 billion and N67.66 billion tax credits in 2016 and 2017, respectively.

A deferred tax asset is an asset on a company’s balance sheet that may be used to reduce taxable income. It is created when recorded income taxes payable are higher than the income taxes paid to the government.

As at the end of 2018, Seplat still had N42.49 billion to pay as deferred tax as against N68.42 billion it had a year earlier. This, it may decide to pay wholly, partly or delay in 2019.

L:R: Olaoluwa Babalola, brand manager, Heineken; Mfon Bassey, senior brand manager, Heineken; Onari Georgewill, winner all-expense paid trip To UEFA Champions League 2019 Semi-Final, and Kola Oluborode, regional business manager, Nigerian Breweries PLC, at the Heineken UEFA Champions League premium viewing event in Lagos.

Pic by Pius Okeosisi

The stock closed 3.57 percent lower to N596.90 on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) after the 2018 financial statements were made public in the early hours of Wednesday, indicating investors negatively reacted to the shrinkage in profit.

Second glance However, the company in a conference call and webcast hosted, Wednesday, has revealed plans to explore more opportunities in gas production through investment, a move that could help the firm record improved profitability in the long term.

Seplat’s board took the Final Investment Decision (FID) to invest in large scale ANOH gas and condensate development which will form the next phase of transformational growth for its gas business.

The ANOH gas development at OML 53 (and adjacent OML 21 with which the upstream project is unitized) is expected to underpin the next phase of growth for the gas business and Seplat’s involvement positions it at the heart of one of the largest greenfield gas and condensate developments onshore the Niger

Delta to date.

“Seplat is well positioned to leverage the experience gained at the Oben gas processing hub to incorporate operational and cost efficiencies,” Seplat said in its 2018 financial.

Going forward, Seplat is hoping to realize strategic premium derived from its gas business operations which are aimed at making Seplat the largest single supplier of processed gas to the domestic market, leveraging midstream processing capacity to attract and grow 3rdparty tolling business and also considering strategic initiatives to demonstrate equity value of

the gas business.

With overall operated gas processing capacity standing at the 525 MMscfd level, Seplat said it’s actively engaging with counterparties to increase contracted gas sales with the intention of taking gross production towards the 400 MMscfd level on a consistent basis.

Of the 525 MMscfd total processing capacity, 465 MMscfd is located at Oben with the remaining 60 MMscfd located at Sapele while the 375 MMscfd expansions at Oben (Phases I and II) was completed by Seplat as a 100 percent investment project.

“The gas processing capacity expansion is also designed to allow the company to accept third-party gas and receive a processing tariff,” Seplat said.

Seplat’s gas revenue increased by 474 percent since 2014 to a record $156 million in 2018 which accounted for 21percent of 2018 total revenue while gas production was up 27 percent year-on-year.

Capital expenditures on oil and gas assets in 2018 stood at $88 million which includes a license renewal fee of $25.6 million; drilling costs for the Oben gas production well, re-entry of two Ohaji South wells and the well work over of Jisike while Gas project costs include the NAG booster compression station at Oben and other costs associated with plans towards ANOH FID.

BANKING

GTBank declares N184.63bn profit in 2018, declares N2.45k final dividend OLUFIKAYO OWOEYE

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ier-1 bank, Guaranty Trust Bank on Wednesday released its full-year 2018 result, highlights of the result shows gross earnings surged by 3.69percent to N434.69billion in full year 2018 compared with N419.23 billion in the same period 2017.

Profit Before Income Tax increased by 9 percent from N197.68 billion in 2017 to N215.59 billion in 2018 driven by decline of 17 percent and 29 percent year-on-year in provisions and operating expense respectively. The results also imply cost-of-risk and cost-toincome ratios of 0.4 percent and 37 percent respectively.

Profit for the year stood at 184.63 billion a 9.96percent increase from 167.91 billion in 2017.

The bank also announced the payment of a final dividend of N2.45k per ordinary share of 50 Kobo, this brings the total dividend for the financial year ended December 31, 2018, to N2.75k as against N2.70k paid in 2017.

The bank’s Earnings per share also grew from N5.98 in 2017 to N6.54 in 2018. Profit Before Tax Margin also grew

from 0.547 to 0.50 in 2018, while Profit After Tax margin also grew from N0.40 in 2017 to N0.42. Return on Equity grew from 0.27in the full year 2017 to 0.32 same period 2018.

Revenue from its corporate banking segment which includes current accounts, deposits, overdrafts, loans, other credit facilities, foreign currency, and derivative products

offered to very large corporate customers and blue chips stood at N238.85 billion, an 8 percent drop from N261.38 billion in 2017.

Revenue from commercial banking segment which involves current accounts, deposits, overdrafts, loans, and other credit facilities, foreign currency and derivative products for mid-size and fledgling corporate customers stood at N50.37 billion from 41.71 billion in 2017, representing a 20.7 percent increase.

Revenue from Retail banking segment which includes private banking services, private customer current accounts, savings deposits, investment savings products, custody, credit and debit cards, consumer loans and mortgages was N108.28 billion a 24 percent surge from N87.08 billion in 2017.

Revenue from SME banking which incorporates current accounts, deposits, overdrafts, loans, and other credit facilities, foreign currency and derivative products for small and medium-sized enterprises and ventures stood at N26.28 billion, a 37 percent increase from N19.13 billion recorded in the same period 2017, In addition, revenue from Public Sector which involves current accounts, deposits, overdrafts, loans, and other credit facilities, foreign currency and derivative products for Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies were put at N10.73 billion up 14.88 percent from N9.34 billion recorded in the full year 2017.

Income from account maintenance charges increased 12 percent to N10.58 billion in 2018 from N9.41

Edited by LOLADE AKINMURELE (loladeakinmurele@gmail.com) Graphics: David Ogar

billion in 2017, while income from its e-business grew 28 percent to N9.58 billion in 2018 from N7.47 billion in 2017 showing growing confidence on electronic payment platforms.

According to the report released by the bank, 45, 737 complaints were received during the full year 2018, a significant drop from 371,159 complaints in 2017, however, amounts claimed increased to N700 million IN 2018 from N602 million in the previous year.

Shares of the bank recorded increased bargains which pushed the price higher by 35kobo or 0.93 percent, to N37.95 at the close of trading on Wednesday. Year-to-date, GT Bank shares have outperformed the index. The shares have gained +10.0% compared with +2.2% for the NSE ASI.

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CONSUMER GOODS

Nestle posts biggest profit in 5 years, prosposes N38.50 dividend per 50k share SEGUN ADAMS

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hares of Nestle Nigeria, one of Nigeria’s largest fast-moving consumer goods firms, On Wednesday remained flat as the company posted its biggest profit in over 5 years for the year ended 31 December 2018.

Nestle remained at N1,510 per share, 14.65 per cent above the 52 week low of N1,317 set on March 23, 2018, at the close of Wednesday’s session which saw the equities market close on a bearish note.

The consumer goods company recorded a 9 per cent increase in Revenue to N266.27 billion as Food business contributed N168.17 billion or 63 per cent to turnover compared to N98.1 billion from its beverage segment.

Although the cost of sales rose 6.3 per cent, gross profit recorded a double-digit growth of 13 per cent to N113.92 billion in 2018.

Consequently, gross margin improved slightly as the com-

pany retained N0.43 on each N1 of sales to service its other costs and debt obligations in 2018, compared to N0.41 in the preceding financial year.

Operating profit margin, however, was slightly squeezed as it dropped to 22.77 per cent in 2018 compared to 22.81 per cent recorded in 2017, even though operating activities increased 8.87 per cent to N60.64 billion in 2018.

Net Finance cost improved significantly as the consumer goods giant was able to pare its negative carry by 90 per cent from N8.9 billion to approximately N890 million in 2018.

Nestle which has been steadily growing its Profit before Tax since 2016 posted a pre-tax income of N59.75 billion, 28 per cent increase compared to 2017 figure and in spite of an increase in tax expense by the same percentage in 2018.

Profit for 2018 grew doubledigit to hit N43 billion, the biggest for Nestle in over 5 years with shareholders earning N54.26 on every unit held com-

pared to N42.55 in 2017.

Declared dividend which represents the interim dividend declared during the year (N20.00) and final dividend proposed for the preceding year but declared during the current year, rose 90 per cent to N37.65 billion in 2018.

Nestle prosposed a final dividend of N38.50 per 50 kobo ordinary, composed of N34.20 from the profit for the year ended 31 December 2018 and N4.30 from the after-tax profit for the year ended 31 December 2009.

The dividend would be subject to appropriate withholding tax and approval at the Annual General Meeting for shareholders whose names appear in the Register of Members as at the close of business on the 10th of May 2019.

Since trading commenced for the New Year, Nestle has gained 1.68 per cent, underperforming both the Consumer Goods index and the NSE AllShare Index which has gained 1.8 per cent and 2.2 per cent in respectively in 2019.

L-R: Iyke Ejimofor, executive secretary, Nigeria- South Africa Chamber of Commerce; Yomi Ibosiola, associate director, data & analytics, PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC); Kikelomo Longe, principal, Capital Alliance Nigeria Limited; Foluso Phillips, chairman of the Chamber; Femi Osinubi, partner and leader, data & analytics/AI, PWC West Africa; and Russell Eastaugh, partner, PWC, at the Chambers’ Breakfast Forum sponsored by PWC.

MANUFACTURING

Thomas Wyatt hits 5-year low as revenue drops by 41 percent ISRAEL ODUBOLA

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hare price of Thomas Wyatt Nigeria Plc, a Lagos-based manufacturer and distributor of stationery products, closed at N0.23 on Wednesday March 6, the lowest since 2014, as revenue plunged 41.4 percent to N45.2 million for nine months ended December 31, 2018 from N77.3 million posted in the previous comparable period.

The sharp decline in revenue pushed the company to record a gross loss of N4.8 million in the review period, against a gross profit of N23.1 million posted a year earlier.

The stationery manufacturer faces tough challenges in its business environment including lack

of available locally made raw materials and heavy reliance on importation of machines and raw materials.

Operating losses compounded to N31.8 million in the first nine months of 2018 from N5.8 million in the previous period. Loss before taxation worsened to N36.3 million in the review period, buoyed by revenue decline and N4.5 million incurred on borrowing.

This heightened after-tax loss to N36.7 million for nine months ended December 31, 2018 compared with N6.2 million posted twelve months earlier. Consequently, loss per share nosedived to 17 kobo from 3 kobo in the corresponding period of 2017.

The total assets of the stationery producer in the review period stood at N423.1 million,

indicating a 2.1 percent decline from N432.3 million reported in FY 2017, buoyed by a big drop in cash and cash equivalents.

The company’s total liabilities hit N746.1 million for nine months ended, representing 3.8 percent increase over N718.6 million recorded in FY 2017.

Meanwhile, total equity (negative) aggravated to N322.9 million in the review period compared with N286.3 million reported in FY 2017.

In the final quarter of 2018, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) suspended trading in the shares of Thomas Wyatt Nigeria Plc and five other listed companies over late submission of operational reports and financial statements.

The company received a fine of N1 million.

APPOINTMENT

NBA player, Andre Iguodala, joins Jumia Board JUMOKE AKIYODE-LAWANSON

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ndre Iguodala, professional basketball player for the Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association (NBA), has joined the Board of Directors of Jumia, the popular e-commerce platform.

As Jumia’s ambassador charged with promoting business development and technology in Africa, the company believes that Iguodala’s network in the technology industry, interest in Africa and vast experience as an athlete on one of the most successful teams in NBA basketball history will be an added advantage to its efforts in promoting e-commerce in the continent.

“Because of my Nigerian heritage, Jumia’s use of technology to deliver innovative online services to consumers and improve the quality of everyday life in Africa is very important to me,” Andre Iguodala said. “I’m thrilled to be a part of this unique enterprise that is shaping the future of digital Africa.”

In addition to his numerous basketball achievements, Iguodala is widely recognized for his interest and knowledge in technology and e-commerce.

He has invested in over 40 companies through F9 Strategies, including GOAT, Zoom, HIMS, Lime, Walker & Co., Thrive Global, AllBirds, Casper, STANCE and Carta, to name

a few.

Iguodala has also partnered with Bloomberg to create the annual Players Technology Summit, which convenes top executives and leaders in the technology, venture capital and sports communities.

Noting the influence and appeal that the NBA star brings to the board, Sacha Poignonnec and Jeremy Hodara, cofounders of Jumia said: “Andre is a role model to many of us, and we are very proud to have him join Jumia and help us drive the company forward.

We appreciate his commitment and passion for the tech industry and for Africa, and we can’t wait to collaborate and accelerate our impact on the continent.

L-R: Zanna Zakari Idris, the Wali of Borno; Emmanuel Isangediok, marketing manager, SPAR, and John Goldsmith, head of marketing; SPAR Nigeria, receiving the award as the Best Retail and Superstore Brand during the 3rd edition of the West Africa Brands Excellence Awards held in Lagos recently.

L-R: Adetokunbo Ayo-Ogunsanya, group head, human resources & administration, Inlaks; Abdulrahman Abdulkadri; Abdulhakeem Abdullahi Opeyemi; Akinsanmi Oluwatosin Bamidele, Inlaks, ATM Academy Grandaunts, and Tope Dare, executive director, Inlaks at the Inlaks ATM Academy Graduation ceremony in Lagos.

L-R, Zubairu Ibrahim Bayi, director of administration, Julius Berger Nigeria Plc, Belinda Ajoke Disu, director Julius Berger Nigeria Plc and Tobias Meletschus, director, corporate development, Julius Berger Nigeria Plc, after receiving their membership certificates at the IoD Induction in Lagos recently.

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COMPANIES & MARKETS StarTimes’ expansion continues as firm launches Smart TV ODINAKA ANUDU

S

tarTimes is continuing its expansion drive as it unveils the newest generation of television set, StarTimes Smart TV. Available in 2 sizes, 50 and 55 inches, StarTimes Smart TV offers the highest quality of pictures and sound, 4K Ultra HD and Dolby Surroung with a view to giving viewers an immersive experience.

The 4K Ultra HD resolution is having four times as many pixels as HD which completely changes the level of visual detail and clarity expected from TV screens.

Whereas traditional HD is limited to 1920 vertical columns and 1080 horizontal rows of pixels, 4K Ultra HD has a total resolution of 3840 pixels by 2160 – a slightly smaller resolution than the 4,096 x 2,160 resolution seen on cinema screens.

StarTimes Smart T V also connects you to online streaming, videos, games, music and much more.

Equipped with Bluetooth port, Ethernet port and builtin Wi-Fi, StarTimes Smart TV is able to connect Internet from anywhere in the house. This connection is used to stream television shows and movies as well to browse Internet.

The Smart TV comes with more than 100 popular applications, including YouTube, Deezer or TED. It offers also a series of free video games for adult or children.

With built-in DTT and Satellite TV (DTH) access, as well as Internet TV and over-the-top content (OTT), no need to buy a decoder anymore to access hundreds of channels and unlimited Internet content.

Controlling these rich features is more than easy with StarTimes Cast App. The smartphone becomes not only a remote controller but also a TV guide and a portal to share video, music, photos to the Smart TV. StarTimes Smart TV has been designed according to the world’s highest quality standard, the CE standard.

StarTimes is the leading digital TV operator in Africa, serving nearly 22 million users with a signal covering the whole continent and a distribution network of 200 brand halls, 10,000 convenience stores and 15,000 distributors in 30 countries.

It owns a featured content platform, with 480 authorised channels consisting of news, movies, series, sports, entertainment, and children’s programmes, among others. The company’s vision is ‘To ensure that every African family can access, afford, watch and share the beauty of digital TV’. StarTimes achieves this by combining satellite and terrestrial DTV systems as well as OTT services to provide an open and secure digital wireless platform.

The company provides a robust signal transmission service for public and private broadcasters, offers consumers outstanding PayTV programs, online video service, terminals, door-todoor service and flexible payment.

L-R: Abdulrahman Yinusa, chairman, CIBN Capacity Building & Certification Committee; Wumi Adeniyi, council member, CIBN; Christabel Onejekwe, executive director, NIBSS Plc; Uche Olowu, president/chairman of council, Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) and Adeniyi Ajao, HCIB, MD/CEO, NIBSS, during the Stakeholders Engagement with NIBSS at the NIBSS in Lagos.

PR firm to aid local brands’ expansion in global markets IFEOMA OKEKE

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ivacity PR, a global Public Relations firm said it is aiming at helping brands to expand to global markets using local creativity and personal branding by hosting Nigeria’s first edition of Glocalisation and Branding Summit in Abuja. The event will hold at the NAF conference centre on 21st March.

Kemi Areola, Chief Executive Officer, Vivacity PR, disclosed that season brand experts, including Lanre Osibona, SSA to President on ICT; Joe Abah, Nigeria Country Director, DAI; Tony Ojobo, President,

African ICT Foundation; Charles O’tudor, CEO, ADSTRAT Consortium, and Chidi Okpala, Personal Brand Strategist, have been confirmed to speak at the event.

According to her, no fewer than 1000 participants would attend the summit, where topics such as, Carving A Niche, Making Your Brand Stand Out Through Uniqueness, Personal Branding In The Digital World, Creating A Global Brand With Local Personnel, Local Financing For Glocal Brands, Getting Comfortable With Out Of The Box Branding And Advertising In The Nigerian Sector and other interesting issues would

be discussed.

“The idea is to bring together global and local brands to explore areas of synergy, discuss financial options, impacts of technology and social media on branding and techniques that would make brands stand out and generate required revenue,” Areola said.

With the theme, ‘Accessing global markets using local creativity and personal branding,’ she noted that the event, which is a Corporate Social Responsibility of the organisation, would be free but provides sponsorship opportunities to corporate entities that are willing to partner with the firm.

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A good meeting needs a clear decision-making process BOB FRISCH AND CARY GREENE TIME

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hat should a team do when it’s tasked with making a decision or recommendation but can’t reach consensus?

In our more than 60 years of combined experience working with boards and senior executives, we’ve seen leaders give plenty of thought to the information involved in their meetings.

But they typically don’t consider how they’d like to finish them.

We’re not suggesting they should know in advance what decision will be made. But they should know how a decision will be made if people can’t agree.

In situations where everyone in the room reports to a common manager, and that person is present, there’s not much of an issue.

If the team can’t decide, the boss will. But in today’s highly matrixed organizations, closure in the absence of consensus can be an enormous challenge. Team members — even an individual executive — may well have multiple

reporting lines. Finding a “natural tiebreaker,” whether one person or another group, may involve decisions bumping up two or even three levels — which is an impractical solution in many cases, and one that risks casting an unfavorable light on the group.

When we ask our clients, “What’s going to happen at the end of the conversation if the decision isn’t obvious? How exactly will it be made?” the answers often include: “Let’s see how it goes,” “We’ll figure it out” or the classic “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

We think that’s a bad idea. Your team shouldn’t try to make an important decision unless everybody understands what’s going to happen if its members can’t reach an agreement.

So, before a decision-making meeting starts, be clear about how the decision will be made. For example, tell the group there will be 90 minutes of discussion and if there is no resolution after that time, the issue will be put to a vote.

While this may seem obvious, be sure to consider how the results

determines the decision, what is required? A simple majority? A two-thirds vote? Is anyone given veto power?

Also consider what happens if the executive or team with final authority isn’t in the room. How should the issue get elevated? Will the vote be enough input? Should majority and minority viewpoints be documented? If so, how?

Once you’ve outlined a plan, share it with key stakeholders early so they can ask questions or suggest changes. It doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, it should be clear and simple so that everyone understands the process.

Teams don’t need to get stuck spinning around a whirlpool of indecision. Meetings just need to start with everyone knowing how they will end. will be used in the room. Does the verdict rest directly on the vote, or is the vote merely advisory for the accountable executive?

Most decision-making models, such as the responsibility assign-

ment matrix known as RACI, suggest that one person be accountable for making the final call, but if your organization takes a more collaborative approach, you need to clarify what a vote means. If it

Bob Frisch is the managing partner of the Strategic Offsites Group and the author of “Who’s in the Room?” Cary Greene is a partner of the Strategic Offsites Group and a co-author, with Frisch, of “Simple Sabotage.”

Why a one-size-fits-all approach to employee development doesn’t work as my clients have found, it’s easier than you think. Here are the key steps:

SYDNEY FINKELSTEIN CONNECTING s a manager, you know you need to think about your team members’ careers and help them develop. But are you challenging yourself to go beyond your company’s standard resources and provide customized coaching and support?

A 2016 Gallup poll of millennials found that almost 90% valued “career growth and development opportunities,” but less than 40% felt strongly that they had “learned something new on the job in the past 30 days.” That same poll found that managers are critical to the experiences that younger employees have at work.

My research confirms not only that bosses matter a great deal, but that some have tremendous positive impact on the people who work for them. The excep-

A

tional leaders I studied don’t leave it to human resources to create career-progression programs for their team members. Rather, they personalize their coaching, support and teaching efforts. And they understand how people grow over time and adjust their actions accordingly. As a result, they keep their teams engaged and excited.

Managing each report in this way might sound daunting. But,

1. ORGANIZE DEVELOPMENTAL INFORMATION ON A SPREADSHEET: For each employee, keep track of a range of information, including: — Your assessment of her potential; — Feedback she has given you about your management style; — The employee’s preferred ways of working; — The employee’s key motivators; — Opportunities you see to further her career, including networking connections you can make, stretch assignments and promotion targets; — The employee’s stated career and developmental goals; — Feedback you want to offer; — Broader wisdom you wish to

impart.

2. CONSULT AND UPDATE THESE GRIDS WEEKLY: Take 15 minutes at the end of each week to think about your team members.

Note any new information you’ve uncovered, specific interactions you’ve had and steps you’ve taken to coach, teach and provide support. If you find it hard to remember details, keep a notebook and jot down thoughts in real time.

3. DO A DEEPER DIVE EVERY THREE MONTHS: For each employee, what patterns are you seeing? Is the team member making strong progress? How has she reacted to your coaching and development efforts? Have you given the right kind of advice and recognition? Is there anything you would change?

4. TALK TO TEAM MEMBERS: As you gain insight into individual progress, pull team members aside one by one to discuss. Don’t

2017 Harvard Business School Publishing Corp. Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate

Expertise It’s in our DNA www.firstbanknigeria.com

FirstBankofNigeria

In an ever changing economy, with 125 years of serving YOU, we remain strong, trustworthy, dependable, safe and consistent.

You can be confident that we will continue to deliver innovative banking products and services which seamlessly and conveniently suit your lifestyle needs.

Visit www.firstbanknigeria.com to learn more about us.

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necessarily wait for your quarterly analysis to have these informal conversations. Make these interactions a defining component of your work together. Show that you know what success looks like for each employee and what each needs to do to improve.

5. CONSULT THE GRID EACH YEAR WHEN WRITING PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS: Many managers struggle to recall the nuances of their team members’ performance and development work over a year. With all your observations and impressions laid out before you, you’ll find yourself writing much more insightful evaluations in much less time.

Sydney Finkelstein is a professor of management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and the author of “The Superbosses Playbook.”

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Experts bank on FDI to spur growth in Nigeria’s troubled pharmaceutical sector ANTHONIA OBOKOH

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espite the problems facing manufacturers in the Nigeria pharmaceutical industries and the difficult environment they operate, experts in the industry are still optimistic, saying that the sector needs urgent strategic reform in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to regain its place among peers.

Speaking at the monthly lecture titled, ‘The Business Environment and Economic Outlook of the Nigerian Pharmaceutical Sector 2019’ organised by the Association of Industrial Pharmacist of Nigeria (NAIP), these experts lamented that Nigeria needs to deepen the foreign exchange financing by building up precautionary foreign reserve holding to level that will strengthen the Naira enough to protect store of value attribute of the currency.

“A weak currency not only makes financial system fragile, it precipitates instability and undermines growth and the government lack enough money to stimulate the economy,” said Ayo Teriba, chief executive officer CEO, Economic Associates.

According to Teriba, up to the early nineties, Nigeria had a larger stock of FDI than India, South Africa or the United Arab Emirates, but they have since overtaken Nigeria, with India now having more than triple, and Saudi Arabia having more than double, Nigeria’s FDI stock.

“Nigeria must join the liquidity race and regain its place among peers, the main weakness over the years is that low levels of foreign

L-R: Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa, president, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN); Mr Ignatius Anukwu, national chairman, Association of Industrial Pharmacists in Nigeria (NAIP) and Dr. Fidelis Ayebae , managing director/chief executive officer, Fidson Healthcare Plc, during the first bi-monthly meeting/ lecture of NAIP, held at LCCI, Alausa, lagos recently.

reserves leave the system uninsured against external financial shocks, weakens the Naira exchange rate, and makes assets denominated in Naira poor stores of value and wealth .Nigeria needs to wake up,” economist said.

Ignatius Anukwu, chairman NAIP alarmed on Nigeria re-strategising the deteriorating access to foreign exchange to import the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (APIs) for smooth operation of pharm manufacturers.

“About 70 percent of drugs are been imported to Nigeria with finished goods and then we manufacture there in the country about 30 percent. We heard some experts saying naira maybe devalued a little bit. Whatever happens to exchange rate is going to hit the industry very hard, if we are having difficulty accessing Forex, it is going to be a very

big challenge for us,” he said The NAIP chairman added that the government need to help enhance more manufacturing to happen in the sector by moving it from the 30 percent to 70 percent that the national drug policy is aiming.

Anukwu therefore noted that many Nigerians still pay out of pocket for their medicine as the NHIS is yet to capture enough citizens to the scheme, urging that the country should look at how to progress in the next years by growing with increasing percentage shift in manufacturing.

Speaking on Economic contribution, Moses Tule Director, Monetary Policy Department, Central Bank of Nigeria said the Chemical and Pharmaceutical subsector is recorded under the manufacturing sector

in Gross domestic product (GDP) computation. “ The c h e m i c a l a n d pharmaceutical subsector contribution to the overall GDP has been less than 1.00 percent, since 2016, the manufacturing sector has contributed below 10 percent of the total GDP,” Tule pointed out.

However, Fidelis Ayebae CEO of Fidson Health Care Limited said many pharmacists now struggle to be salesman, urging for a favorable government policies to encourage setting up of pharmaceutical industries and sustaining those already existing.

“Government needs to make the right investment to stimulate the economy and reduce unemployment rate,” Sam Ohuabunwa, President of Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) added.

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Working long hours increases depression risk in women

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omen who clock 55 working hours or more every week might have a higher risk of depression. Also, working weekends can increase depression risk for both men and women.

A new study that now appears in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health found that working excessively long days could be detrimental to mental health.

The team came to this conclusion by looking at data collected from Understanding Society, the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS).

The UKHLS tracks the health of around 40,000 households in the U.K. For this particular study, the researchers used data from over 23,000 men and women. These data included information about employment.

They discovered that the people with the worst mental health overall were women who worked 55 hours or more, worked most or every weekend, or both. The difference was significant when compared with women who work standard hours (35–40 per week).

Mental health and work habits The team found a number of employment differences between genders. Men, in general, tended to work longer hours than their female peers. Also, almost half of the women worked part-time, while only 15 percent of men did.

Also, married men were more likely to work longer hours, while married women usually worked fewer.

The scientists had a number of theories on why there were differences between men and women in the workplace. They note that women are more likely to work long hours if they work in a maledominated field. Also, they saw that people who work weekends tended to work in service sector jobs with lower pay.

As the study authors write, “Such jobs, when combined with frequent or complex interactions

with the public or clients, have been linked to higher levels of depression.”

They recognize that women often have a “potential double burden” when factoring in household duties and caring for family members. This type of work is unpaid and increases their workload across the board.

However, there were a few factors that seemed to affect mental health no matter what the person’s gender was. Older workers, workers who smoke, those who earned the least, and those who had the least control at their jobs tended to be more depressed when compared with other workers who did not have these specific circumstances.

Clinical depression is one of the most common mental health conditions. It has several risk factors, which can include a family history of depression, major life changes, trauma, stress, and certain physical illnesses.

The symptoms of depression may include persistent sadness, feelings of hopelessness and guilt, loss of interest in hobbies, and sleeping issues.

Work-related stress It is no surprise, then, that those who work long hours or over the weekend may experience some work-related stress, which could be a trigger for depression. The authors write: “Previous studies have found that once unpaid housework and caring is accounted for, women work longer than men, on average, and that this has been linked to poorer physical health.”

They explain that their findings do not establish cause, but that they may encourage employers to consider new policies that aim to decrease the burden on women in the workforce without decreasing their participation in the job sector.

Culled from Medical News Today (MNT)

Group urges Kwara government to release fund on family planning SIKIRAT SHEHU, Ilorin

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he Awareness Initiative for Good living (AIGL) in Kwara State has urged the state government to release budgeted fund for family planning in order to improve on maternal health and reduce mortality rates.

Ajibola Wahab, Chairman, AIGL in the State, who made the plea at an Advocacy Core Group Meeting in collaboration with Pathfinder International, Nigeria, stressed the need for the release of funds for Family Planning to buy consumables.

“We discovered that NGOs have been supplying the facilities, but there are no consumable and we want to make family planning free so that when you access family planning

you don’t need to pay a dime, but we discovered that anybody that goes for family planning they will still ask her to pay certain amount of money and we said it should be free,” he said According to him, when a patient gets there, they will tell her that she is paying for the consumable that is not provided.

He explained that consumables are; cotton wool, needle and syringe, methylated spirit and all materials that are necessary to access the devices, however, said that, “the government is not doing this and that is why we are advocating for government to fund family planning.

“The funding we are talking of is to them to buy consumable so that when consumable is bought to

every facility in the state; then individual would be able to access family planning free of charge.

“Our objective of this meeting is based on how to gear up the state government. All along, they have been approving our budget for family planning but they have never released any fund. It on this, we want to strategize on how to make it possible this year so that government can release fund.

“We learnt that this year, three million was approved for family planning so, our meeting today, is actually based on how to get out that three million.”

In her submission, Kosi Izundu, Program Officer, Reproductive Health/Family Planning, Pathfinder International, stated that the meeting was to review their

activities so far in the year and also to strategize how best to go about the work plans for the rest of the year and as well to brainstorm on how to work efficiently and move forward.

“Family planning is a sensitive issue, not what everybody buys into, that is why our advocacy is really important in terms of securing funding and ensuring that even with the commitment in to create budget line, the money is actually released and used for what it is budgeted for.”

She encouraged every woman of reproductive age to go and access MPE services for free, talk to a trained health to give advice on the best method that is suitable for her and also consult with her spouse to see how best to go about living the family

life and to make best decision for herself.

Izundu, explained further that, after the meeting, the group will be able to work together and be able to achieve its goals and objectives and for every mile stone, they will be able to record remarkable success and that this success is able to affect the state as a whole in terms of ensuring that women are able to live a healthy and better life. “ It is not just about the advocacy but the biggest goal is that, we want to make sure that every woman in Kwara State is healthy, she should be able to get pregnant when she wants to, able to delay pregnancy, able to take good care of her child and to space child bearing,” she added Sadiat Bola Asaju, family planning coordinator

Kwara State Ministry of Health noted that there is lots of improvement in the service, “we have been receiving support from our partners in the state.

“My advice to women is that family planning is very effective in improving child health and maternal health and it can reduce infant and mortality rate. We want men to support their wives in taking family planning commodity.

She expressed hope that after the meeting, “there will be increase in the Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) for the family planning in the state. Presently, the CPR is 10.3 percent but our met need is 30.7 percent so we want to improve it and there are lots of agencies standing in the state to improve those things when the fund is released.”

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Family planning gains traction as economy takes toll …Postinor 2 price spikes over high demand BUNMI BAILEY

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igeria’s tough economic situation may be pushing more couples to adopt family planning methods, including the use of contraceptive pills, according to experts.

Contraceptive pills, also known as birth control pills, are medicines with hormones containing a combination of an oestrogen and a progestogen to prevent pregnancies or control childbirth. They are commonly used by women between the ages of 15 and 49.

Uche Ajike, an Enugubased family planning expert, Society for Family Health (SFH), said more women seem to be realising that the economy is very hard and this has pushed up the awareness and the demand for various family planning methods.

“In the North, for example, the demand for inject-

ables, a common modern contraception method, is on the rise. Over 70 percent of injectables are used in the North whereas down South, other methods are more popular,” Ajike said.

He said many organisations, including the Federal Ministry of Health and interpersonal community agents, are now joining in the advocacy of educating and expanding the knowledge and benefits of contraceptive pills (modern family planning).

Nigeria had made little

or no progress in improving the use of any contraceptive method in the past.

According to Nigeria’s 2013 demographic health survey by the National Population Commission, about 85 percent of women and 95 percent of men reported they knew about a contraceptive method, but just 15 percent were using it.

Nigerians have been faced with harsh economic conditions in recent times.

The World Poverty Clock report by Brookings Institution in May last year showed

Kainico set to launch non-invasive glucose monitor for diabetes patients

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ainico Limited is set to launch the non-invasive glucose monitor for diabetes patients in Nigeria. kai Larsen, director of Kainico Limited who made this known to journalists recently said that diabetes is a growing concern for Nigeria and monitoring is important to remain on a lifestyle that minimizes health complications.

As a result, the firm is set to launch the non-invasive glucose monitor developed

by Evia Medical Technologies in the United Kingdom to offer pain-free monitoring of glucose levels in diabetic patients.

Larsen explained that egm1000 non-invasive glucose monitor combines ultrasonic, electromagnetic and thermal technologies by using a patented algorithm, adding that it is not a gadget, but a medical devise.

He stated that the egm1000 is difficult to compare with solutions that draw blood, adding that many type2 diabetics at the beginning measures themselves as many times daily as the doctor prescribe, but after a while measures themselves not even once per day.

“Drawing blood is uncomfortable, so it leads to people not measuring themselves. Not measuring is the

HBL TEAM

way back to an unhealthy lifestyle and to high blood sugar, and later to severe health problems,” Larsen said.

“Older people with diabetes have a higher risk of stroke and to avoid severe health implications it is important to control glucose and also understand what eat and exercise needed.”

He added that when monitoring oneself frequently using the egm1000, it calculates and presents an estimated HbA1c level, the average level of blood sugar over the past 2-3 months.

Larsen said the product will be formally launched next year and has gotten the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) registration number and should be available in selected pharmacies and hospitals by the middle of

next year and orders can be placed directly to the distributor Kainico Ltd, in Lagos and in Abuja.

“After many months of providing documentation and explanations, laboratory, testing, NAFDAC finally approved the world only device that accurately reads glucose without drawing your blood,” He noted that the product was developed by Evia Medical Technologies owing to the challenged experienced by David Freger who had diabetes and like many others suffered from this life-long debilitating disease.

The device measures tissue and skin glucose and not blood glucose. It is an indirect measurement and the glucose in the blood can be detected from the tissue and skin after some minutes, he says.

that Nigeria is now the nation with the highest number of extremely poor people, having about 87 million people in extreme poverty, compared with India’s 73 million.

The country was in recession for five consecutive quarters but returned to positive growth of 0.72 percent in the second quarter (Q2) of 2017, from -0.67 percent in Q1 2016. And for the full year of 2018, it ended in 1.93 percent, according to data from National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Unemployment rate rose to 23 percent in the third quarter of 2018, from 18.8 percent in the same corresponding period in 2017.

“The economic situation in the country has pushed up contraceptive use,” said Bayo Osunshina, a family planning doctor at Lagos-based Vitamedical Clinic.

“A number of women are now taking family planning of different types. The most common one is the injectables. And it is more com-

monly used in the western part of the country than in the east. But generally, there is an increase,” Osunshina said.

Postinor 2, a popular contraceptive pill among women, is currently either scarce in the market or sold at a premium where available.

Checks in well-known pharmaceutical stores in Lagos – including HealthPlus Limited, Juli Pharmacy, Care Forte Pharmacy, Teen Pharmacy, and T&D Pharmacy – showed the drug is hardly available, leading to a sharp rise in price.

Our findings show that where available, the drug now sells for between N950 and N1,600, up from its former price of N400-N600.

The high demand for the drug is responsible for the rise in price, a pharmacist at T&D Pharmacy said.

“It is not even in the market currently,” Tomisi Akinyemi, a pharmacist at HealthPlus Limited, told BusinessDay. “People are hiking the price because it is

scarce and the demand for it is high. I know that a lot of pharmacies do not have it.”

Akinyemi explained that Postinor 2 is the only contraceptive pill that is scarce at the moment.

NPS MEDICINEWISE, an independent peer-reviewed journal providing critical commentary on drugs and therapeutics, says that Postinor-2 is an emergency contraceptive containing levonorgestrel, a hormonal medication which is used in a number of birth control methods. It is not intended as a regular method of contraception. It is used to prevent pregnancies when taken within 72 hours of unprotected sexual intercourse.

It is estimated that the pill prevents 85 percent of expected pregnancies. 95 percent of expected pregnancies will be prevented if taken within the first 24 hours, declining to 58 percent if taken between 48 hours and 72 hours after unprotected intercourse.

Food & Beverage West Africa exhibition holds in Lagos

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he premier exhibition dedicated to West Africa’s food and beverage industry, the new international trade show will take place at the Landmark Centre in Lagos from June 18-20 2019, according to the press statement made available to BusinessDay. Nigeria’s food and drink retailers will have the opportunity to connect with suppliers, distributors and manufacturers at a new globally-recognised business exhibition next year.

Food & Beverage West Africa, a free-to-attend three-day trade event, will provide a platform for local companies to build business relationships with clients from across Nigeria, neighbouring West African countries and from around the world.

However, the exhibition is expecting to attract over 4,000 people from the sector. Participants will include food and drink retailers, grocery buyers and hospitality businesses looking to source the best products and business deals from over 150 exhibitors.

Food & Beverage West Africa is a new exhibition created by BtoB Events, a dynamic exhibition organiser, created by the former divisional director for Africa of a FTSE 100 organisation within the exhibition industry.

Jamie Hill, managing

director of BtoB Events, said: “Having organised exhibitions in the food and beverage sector across Africa for the past three years I am particularly excited about Food and Beverage West Africa.

“The foundations are in place to create a global market place here in Lagos, connecting local and international business and forging long term trade partnerships and knowledge sharing.”

The event will help Nigerian companies who wish to expand their business across the country and to export to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

In addition, there is a great deal of international interest in Nigeria and West Africa, with international companies wanting to meet local representatives to bring their products to the region.

“We have country pa-

vilions already confirmed from no less than four continents, with more in the pipeline – so it really will be a unique opportunity for Nigeria to taste and sample the flavours of the world,” said Hill.

“We want people to realise how exciting the market is here with huge opportunities and a growing customer base. Our long-term ambition is for the overseas companies taking part to establish good business links and set up their manufacturing plants in Nigeria in the future.”

The exhibition has already attracted some bigname sponsors.

JustFood, West Africa’s leading provider of quality consumables and global food equipment brands, along with NASCO, an export and wholesale company based in the UK, are signed up as Gold Sponsors.

ANTHONIA OBOKOH and ANI MICHAEL / Reporters. Email: obokoh.anthonia@businessdayonline.com I David Ogar, Graphics

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Nigeria’s agricultural trade records N548bn deficit in 2018 Stories by CALEB OJEWALE Twiiter: @calebtinolu

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he trade in agricultural goods by Nigeria in 2018 had a deficit of N548 billion, with the country importing far more agricultural goods than it exported. Out of N1.15 trillion in agricultural goods traded betw e en Nig er ia and other countries, imports accounted for 73.82 per cent, while exports accounted for 26.18 per cent.

For full year 2018, data so far made available by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in its quar terly Foreign Trade Statistics, showed imported agricultural goods accounted for N852.11 billion, a 4 per cent decrease from N886.7 billion in 2017. The 2017 figure was however an increase of 35.09 per cent when compared to N656.4 billion in 2016. On the other hand, Nigeria exported a total of N302.24 billion worth of agricultural goods in 2018.

For 2018, Agricultural goods export in the first quarter of 2018 was N73.25 billion, representing 1.56 per cent of total exports.

However, agricultural goods import cost N184.49 billion, and represented 7.33 per cent of total imports. In total, agricultural goods accounted for N257.74

billion and 3.57 per cent of total trade in the first quarter of 2018.

The main driver of Nigeria’s agricultural goods import in the first quarter of 2018 was wheat, just as recorded in the other quarters of the year.

The total trade of agricultural goods in Q2, 2018 stood at N310.4 billion (4.72 per cent of total trade), in which exports and imports recorded N85.9 billion (1.92 per cent of total exports) and N224.5 billion (10.66 per cent of total imports) respectively. Apart from wheat, which as usual accounted for

the bulk of importation, other imported agricultural products include Blue Whitings from Netherlands (N7.1 billion), Russia (N4.7 billion), and Faroe Islands (N3.4 billion); Mackerel were imported from Japan, Chile and the Netherlands which were valued at N3.8 billion, N1.9 billion, N1.8 billion respectively.

The major exported agricultural products in Q2, 2018 were Cashew nuts (N38.4 billion), Sesamum seeds (N19.4 billion), Raw Cocoa beans (N6.8 billion), Fermented cocoa beans (N4.6 billion), Frozen Shrimps

and Prawns (N3.1 billion). Specifically, N26.6 billion worth of cashew nuts were exported to Vietnam, N10.01 billion to India, N665.1 million to UAE. The second p r i ma r y e x p o r t e d agricultural product in Q2 2018 was Sesamum seeds. This product was exported m a i n l y t o Tu r k e y (N4.7 billion), Japan (N4.1 billion) and China (N3.3 billion).

Other major agricultural products include superior quality raw cocoa beans which were exported to Malaysia (N472.9 million) and Netherlands (N3.1 billion) and Frozen shrimp and prawns which were mainly exported to The Netherlands (N1.9 billion) and USA (N511.4 million).

The trade in agricultural goods in the third quarter of 2018 stood at N269.7 billion representing 2.99 per cent of the total trade.

The Export component of this trade was valued at N45.4billion, a decrease of 47.2 per cent compared to N85.9billion recorded in the previous quarter. In terms of imports,

the total Agricultural products were valued at N224.3billion or 5.38% of total imports during the quarter. The major driver, as usual was wheat imported mainly from Russia, Canada and Australia and United States.

The trade in agricultural goods in Q4, 2018 was valued at N316.5billion representing 3.7 per cent of the total trade.

The Export component of this trade was valued at N97.7billion, an increase of 115.10 per cent compared to N45.4billion recorded in the preceding quarter. On the import transactions side, agricultural goods recorded N218.8billion or 6.11% of the total imports during the period.

In the fourth quarter, export of agricultural products was dominated by Sesamum seeds (whether or not broken), good fermented Nigerian cocoa beans, superior quality raw cocoa beans, and Cashew nuts (in shell) with values worth N33.9billion, N24.5billion, N9.6 billion and N5.8 billion respectively.

For imports, the most prominent were wheat related goods, with a cumulative sum of N102.7 billion. Crude palm oil imported from Malaysia, Colombia, and the United States was also noted by the NBS as significant in the last quarter of 2018.

Seven things Buhari needs to fix in agriculture over the next 4-years (2)

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s it appears to be another four years for Muhammadu Buhari as Nigeria’s president, the article continues from last week with an additional two areas of focus that need attention in agriculture.

Value addition Nigerian exporters of agricultural produce are often excited when their goods are shipped overseas and they earn some foreign currencies.

However, most of these exports are raw, unprocessed goods that as a result, see the Nigerian exporters getting less value than would have been obtained if some processing was done. There are however several reasons why this remains the norm. Top on the list is electricity, particularly the near non-existence of it in some rural parts of the country where agricultural activities take place. Therefore, agric produce is harvested and rushed off to the market for it to be sold as quick as possible before deterioration sets in. Notable for these are vegetable crops such as tomato, which perish in high volumes, yet the country still has a huge demand gap to be filled.

At some point in 2018, Tomato farmers complained of huge losses (to the tune of N10 billion) as the commodity continues to perish in large volumes, without them being able to sell off or get them preserved.

It was the second time in the year the complaint will be made, as farmers allege sabotage by some entities that continue importation of tomato pastes into the country,

without recourse to government’s policy on it.

George Uwakwe, chief risk officer, Guaranty Trust Bank, had expressed the view that bankers have always advocated that value chains across agriculture need to be fixed. He explained that, it is one thing to provide funds to the farmers, but when they produce, most of the time substantial portion of the produce get spoilt before getting to the market. “If the producers cannot sell, the truth is that you will not be paid back (as a bank). That is the issue,” he said.

However, fixing the value chain needs to run end-end, that is, from inputs carefully developed to deliver desired yields, through wellmanaged production processes, and final delivery to consumers.

Currently, fresh tomatoes are often packed in raffia baskets instead of Crates, increasing the tendency for spoilage. There is also a dearth of temperature Controlled Storage, and in the end, all of these still require funding to be achieved.

As Bolarin Omonona, an agricultural economist at the University of Ibadan explained, “finding the value in the value chain involves heavy investments in the agricultural value chains”.

Agricultural finance is crucial to support the growth of the agricultural sector because of its importance for food security, job creation and overall economic development.

The tomato value chain for instance needs to be fixed, and potentially retain up to N72 billion

in crops that may have been lost. At the same time, funding is required in order for this to be achieved. The banks, as it appears, would need to have more trust and commit funds so that the risks they fear can be gradually eliminated when the value chain is fixed.

Access to Finance and Derisking agriculture Access to finance and derisking go hand-in-hand as without guarantees, financial institutions are reluctant to support agricultural projects. With a lot of focus on agriculture in recent years, funding has remained elusive for millions of smallholders and other players in the sector, as commercial banks find it difficult to commit substantial funds. Interest rates are crippling for agribusinesses to attempt, and even when they try to, securing funds is extremely difficult.

While the Nigeria IncentiveBased Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending has been trying to improve this in recent times, more still has to be done.

Uzoma Dozie, CEO, Diamond Bank, told BusinessDay in an interview, that while his bank has been lending to agriculture for a long time, it has been more from a large scale perspective, not the primary end. He however expressed optimism in going all the way down to the smallholder farmers if the value chain fixes being promoted by NIRSAL can take effect.

“In recent time, with support

from the central bank, and emphasis on achieving food security, we are now looking at the primary end (of agriculture),” Dozie said.

He explained that Diamond Bank is currently providing finance for over a thousand farmers across different belts, and this number will increase exponentially as more players come into that market. But for his bank to do more, he says there have to be more investments in storage, processing, and even availability of farm equipment to improve the odds that farmers will be able to produce optimally, sell profitably, and be able to pay back promptly.

With the value chain fixed, especially as being promoted by NIRSAL, “There is a bright future in agriculture,” Dozie said.

On the risk side, “Investments in agriculture, unlike many other business ventures, are exposed to a wide range of risks and uncertainties.

There are risks associated with input and prices, agricultural yield, post-harvest losses, product prices fluctuation, and vagaries of nature such as inclement weather conditions; flood, drought, fire, outbreak of pests and diseases,” noted Folashade Joseph, MD, Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation (NAIC), in an addressed presented on her behalf at an forum

by Dayo Mobayo, NAIC’s head of its Lagos office.

Jo s e p h e m p ha s i s e d t hat the application of insurance to agriculture could provide risk

management, income stabilization and reduction of economic wastage.

This will to some extent address challenges of risk, which financial institutions cite when they develop cold feet in lending to the sector.

However, there is a need to create more confidence in NAIC as presently, a good number of stakeholders in agribusiness do not consider it reliable.

“NAIC has poor capacity. They aren’t well organized and don’t pay claims promptly. My friend was delayed for his rice farm, (and) they (later) claimed the accident happened too soon after he signed up,” said Yomi Fawehinmi, a member of the Agric and Agro-allied group platform of Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI).

For Taju Onitiju, CEO, Tajukola farming enterprises, a farmer since 1983 (four years before NAIC’s establishment), “I don’t think many people believe in NAIC, and I don’t believe its existence is justified,” he said.

Globally, agriculture is a risky venture, one in which unexpected diseases or pests could wipe out months (or even years) of hard work and investments. It gets worse in places like Nigeria where little advancements have been made in developing agricultural systems that are immune to adverse (natural and man-made) conditions. To top this, there is hardly insurance to cushion against agricultural losses in Nigeria.

This has to change in the next four years.

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Odunayo Oyasiji

Land and property registration process in Nigeria

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and plays a major role in businesses. Without land, businesses cannot be established.

Babatunde Fashola in 2015 while signing the Bill to consolidate all land related laws in Lagos state into law stated that “In our basic economics, land is a very important asset to capital formation… you can’t start a bank, you can’t start a business, you can’t farm; you can’t even extract crude oil without identifying a particular piece of land or oil well (embedded in land). So it’s the basics of capital formation, it’s the basics of prosperity; it’s the basics of economic well-being and the basics for job”.

In the World Bank’s ease of doing business 2018 report, one of the things assessed is in the area of property registration.

Under this, what is being measured is “the procedures, time and cost required to transfer a property title from one domestic firm to another so that the buyer can use the property to expand its business, use it as collateral or, if necessary, sell it; assesses the quality of the land administration system; includes a gender dimension to account for any gender discrimi-

natory practices.” Sadly, Nigeria was ranked as number 179 of 190 countries with regards to property registration in the 2018 report. It shows how extremely difficult it is to register land or property in Nigeria.

According to the report “ an entrepreneur has to go through 12 procedures over 73 days and pay 15.3% of the value of the property to transfer land, making Nigeria one of the most difficult and expensive

The principle of natural justice

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atural justice simply means or refers to the proper procedure for doing justice in a matter. This principle is hinged on two latin maxims i.e. audi alteram partem and nemo judex in causa sua. The first one (audi alteram partem) means that parties to a dispute are given the opportunity to express or state their sides of the story. It simply means that you must hear both sides.

The second maxim (nemo judex in causa sua) basically means that you are not expected to be a judge in your own case. This is because justice can never be done where a party in a dispute is also responsible (directly or indirectly) for determining the outcome of

the matter.

The principle of natural justice is always strictly applied and adhered to in the court of law. A decision or judgement of court that is arrived out without observing the two rules under the principle of natural justice will not stand.

A party has the right to be heard- refusal to hear a party will amount to shutting the door against a person whose right is guaranteed by the law. The law presumes that there is no way justice can be done in such a situation. Also, a party who is a judge in his own case is likely going to end up favouring himself. Therefore, the law presumes that justice can never be done in such situation.

places to register property in the world. Registering property is easiest in Kaduna, where it takes 8 procedures and 44 days at a cost of 9.5% of the property value. By contrast, in Rivers the same process takes 12 procedures, 112 days and costs 25.1% of the property value.”

The foregoing simply means that nearly 200 million naira is needed to register a property that is worth 2 billion naira in Kaduna while over 500 million

naira is needed to register the same property in Rivers Statethis represents the cheapest and most expensive scenarios in the country.

The report further stated that the long waiting time is mainly because of the requirement of the consent of the state governor. This is one of the areas where lawyers and analyst have been advocating for a change in the law. The Land Use Act 1978 vests the land in

each state in the state governor.

The above shows that there is need to do a lot of work in the area of title and property registration across the country. The importance of land to businesses cannot be overemphasized. If a company acquires a property and finds it difficult to register same in its name then the chances of the company having access to loans and other facilities are reduced as such property will not be fit for use as a collateral/ security.

Furthermore, the cost of registering the property is extremely high. The process of registration too is long and not straightforward. Therefore, the cost of starting and running a business is significantly increased. This in itself is discouraging for an entrepreneur.

The burden the whole process places on businesses is too heavy and negatively impacts the business. As earlier said, this area will remain a discouraging factor and harmful to the survival of businesses if states do not take urgent and decisive steps to address the long process, unnecessary delay and extremely expensive registration of titles process.

Demand guarantee Meaning his is a very useful instrument in commercial transactions. It is also called bank guarantee. It comes in different forms and types depending on the use. That is why we have for example- performance bond/ guarantee, tender guarantee or bid guarantee, advance payment guarantee or stage payment guarantee, retention bond/guarantee and maintenance guarantee. It is similar to letters of credit in some ways-especially due to the fact that it is independent of the underlying contract between the parties. The guarantor (bank) must honour the guarantee once the beneficiary makes a demand.

It is usually demanded by a party to serve as a form of protection in a situation where the other party refuse to perform his obligations as agreed. The rights and duties of parties to the demand guarantee are usually governed by Uniform Rules for Demand Guarantees (URDG), 2010.

tion of its charges.

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Reason for a demand guarantee Just like letters of credit, demand guarantee plays a major role in protecting the interest of parties and ensuring that business is transacted both locally and across borders without the fear

of being duped. Performance of obligations under a contract is key- especially to a party that has parted with money. For example, Mr A resides in Nigeria and wants to import a car from Japan. Mr A gets in touch with Mr B who sells cars in Japan. They both agree on the terms of contract of the sale of the car. Mr A who is the buyer/importer can request for a demand guarantee from Mr B who is the seller. The function of a demand guarantee in the foregoing scenario is to protect the buyer (who might have paid fully or partially) in a situation where the seller in Japan fails to perform his obligations under the contract.

The buyer can then present the demand guarantee and get paid by the bank.

How it works An exporter or seller approaches his bank for issuance of a performance guarantee in favour of the buyer. The bank carries out the instruction of the seller based on some terms and after collec-

Difference between a demand guarantee and letters of credit Letters of credit offers protection for the seller in that payment for the goods bought is s e cu re d u p o n p re s e ntati o n of the documents stated in the letter of credit. The documents are usually evidences of performance of the underlying contract. It must be noted that the letter of credit itself is independent of the underlying contract and payment is made once conforming documents are presented. However, a demand guarantee seeks to protect the buyer against the risk of nonperformance, late performance or defective performance of the underlying contract. The liability of the bank is primary under the demand guarantee and the beneficiary must be paid once a demand is made. The demand guarantee enjoys independence from the underlying contract as the bank cannot look into the performance of the underlying contract to determine if it will pay or not. A demand guarantee focuses more on the protection of the interest of the buyer while a letter of credit is more interested in securing payment for the seller.

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Will TeamApt’s $5.5m funding spur local investors on big tech investments?

Stories by FRANK ELEANYA

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he history of investments into technology startups in Nigeria has for a long time been one-sided – in favour of foreign venture capitalists and private equity firms who seem to have more confidence and bigger appetite for risk for early stage businesses than local investors. It is arguably what makes the announcement by TeamApt, a Nigerian payment infrastructure provider, that it secured $5.5 million from Quantum Capital Partners, a private equity a very big deal.

An expert who spoke to BusinessDay describes TeamApt as one of the unsung heroes of fintech in Nigeria. The investment

by Quantum is the first time the fintech company is receiving equity funding in its more than three years history.

Tosin Eniolorunda CEO and founder of TeamApt quit his promising career at Interswitch in 2015 in the hope of filling a gap he had identified in the payment service space. He was later joined by ex-Interswitch colleagues, Odun Adeboye, Tunde Ogidan and Felix Ike. Adrian Agho and Emeka Ibe came on board from other companies.

Six of them formed Team Apt. Eniolorunda told BusinessDay in an interview that in the early days of TeamApt, the team had to do businesses not related to financial services in order to bring money to the new venture.

“It actually takes a lot of

time to raise money in Nigeria,” he says. “In fact, it is another reason TeamApt did not raise money on time.”

Being a single founder, Eniolorunda said he had to focus on what was important rather than spend 30-40 per cent of his time chasing investors which could have meant neglecting to build a solid company culture and structure.

In the case of TeamApt, bootstrapping eventually became an advantage. First, it gave

the company the discipline and the culture it needed to present as a testimonial when the money bags came calling.

“Our economy in Nigeria is not the same with the US or Europe where investors can just give you money on the hope or returns,” Eniolorunda continued.

“Investors that invest in Nigerian startups are a lot thriftier and they really want to see value.”

Founded in 2008 by Jim Ovia, investing in tech startups for Quantum Capital Partners

is a new adventure. Notably, the company’s overview posted on Bloomberg Capital Market describes it as a firm that “does not invest in startups, venture or seed investments, and does not take minority stakes.”

Collins Onuegbu, executive vice-chairman of Signal Alliance and an Angel Investor explained that in the strictest sense, private equity firms do not focus on startups.

“Their focus is more on mature and maturing companies,”

he said.

TeamApt is the first major investment in a startup the private equity firm is making in Nigeria.

“TeamApt’s ability to continuously innovate with a strong focus on customer delivery driven by an impressive management team were the key elements that supported our investment thesis,” says Elaine Delaney, the general partner at Quantum Capital.

A source close to Jim Ovia who chose to remain anonymous told BusinessDay that founder Jim Ovia had always been a major cheerleader of technology businesses in Nigeria.

“Jim Ovia has always been different from the other successful business leaders in Nigeria in his understanding and support of technology, so this is not a surprise. He and his wife founded Cyberspace 24 years ago and he also started Visafone, successfully sold to MTN for $400 million, when practically all his peers went burst (Multilink, Starcomms, etc.) Of course, under him, Zenith Bank is one of the most technologically advanced commercial banks in Nigeria with about 60 developers within its fold.

“Which other successful businessman do you know in Nigeria that has invested in technology?” the source said.

In 2015, Synergy Capital Managers, a private equity fund manager with base in Mauritius and focused on small businesses in West Africa is believed to have invested $3 million in NetPlus. However the funding

was unannounced. Although a source told BusinessDay that Synergy has its origins in Nigeria, this has not been confirmed.

Local investments in Nigerian tech ecosystem have remained relatively insignificant; this is despite the fact that Nigeria is Africa’s largest digital market and the 8th largest in the world in terms of internet users.

Nearly 90 per cent of the $94 million raised by startups in 2018 came from foreign investors.

Experts have told BusinessDay that Quantum Capital’s investment in TeamApt is unlikely to galvanise more local funding into the tech ecosystem.

The problem may not be lack of confidence or the right businesses, given that international investors have never balked at investing in promising startups.

Eniolorunda suggested that the problem could be deeper than confidence.

“I think one of the challenges of the VC market in Nigeria is that as long as there are faster and easier ways to make money, many will always go that direction,” says Eniolorunda.

“There are directions like real estate in Nigeria where you can get almost 100 per cent growth in 3 years. Putting your money in government bonds can guarantee 17 per cent year-on-year value risk free.”

Onuegbu told BusinessDay that Quantum Capital Partners’ investment is a very positive development.

“It is certainly not a good sign if all the money flowing into startups from private equity is offshore,” he said.

Era of cryptocurrency smartphones looks good on adoption, but…

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s the world awaits the release of Samsung’s Galaxy S10 series that would come with a secure storage system for cryptocurrency private keys, the digital currency market has been bristling with excitement.

The Galaxy S10 will list four cryptocurrencies namely bitcoin, Ethereum, Enjin Coin, and Cosmo Coin.

The price of Enjin Coin (ENJ), a crypto asset native to a gaming-suited blockchain network called Enjin and one of the cryptocurrencies to go live on Galaxy S10 rose more than 200 per cent from 0.00000958 to 0.00002943 within 24 hours of the Samsung announcement last week. News of the imminent release has also seen Ethereum (ETH) make a solid

price recovery rising from $124 to $139 as at time of writing this article. Volume of bitcoin (BTC) transactions in Nigeria has also appreciated from N1.155 billion to N1.213 billion, according to data from LocalBitcoins.

Although Samsung is the biggest player in the smartphone market, the Galaxy S10 is not the only smartphone willing to host cryptocurrency wallet.

HTC have launched the Exodus 1, duped the ‘blockchain phone’ since 2018. Unlike the Galaxy S10 which has a cold storage solution that allows user store private keys offline, the Exodus uses a Social Key Recovery system. Users of Exodus can select a small group of contacts and give them parts of their keys.

If a user loses his or her key, they can recover them piece by piece

from their contacts Sirin Labs which used proceeds from a successful initial coin offering (ICO) to build Finney, the first blockchain smartphone and Electroneum which has begun selling its $80 Android phone that can mine cryptocurrency. The Electroneum M1 smartphone comes with built-in smartphone technology which enables users to earn cryptocurrency as they keep using their smartphone.

Beyond the immediate impact on prices of cryptocurrencies, is the story of adoption. “(It) makes adoption easier since you already have infrastructure, it’s like say, someone preloading WhatsApp on a phone,” says Yele Badamosi, director at Binance Labs and founder of Microtraction a VC

firm focused on blockchain startups.

A new mode of purchasing HTC Exodus 1 is supported by Binance following a partnership agreement that allows customers to do so using Binance Coin.

Like Galaxy S10, the Exodus 1 comes with preloaded Blockfolio app which helps users track price fluctuations of various coins (a blockchain version of the Stocks app), and Cryptokitties that allows users trade and breed digital cats on the Ethereum blockchain. The Zion wallet on the Exodus allows users to store and transact with Bitcoin, Ethereum, and a few dozen tokens and collectibles built on the Ethereum blockchain.

The Zion is built in such a way that first timers can eas-

ily set up their cryptocurrency account.

Although the market has seen significant price drops in recent times, adoption has remained positively unchanged.

The market as a whole lost 85 per cent of its value in 2018 however the number of new users managed to stay up. According to a Cambridge study, the number of users participating in the cryptocurrency ecosystem grew from 18 million in 2017 to 35 million users in 2018, a 94 per cent increase.

The study also showed that the number of accounts at cryptocurrency exchanges almost doubled in 2018. In 2017, there were around 80 million user accounts while this year there are about 150 million accounts. The number of users verifying their

identity is on the rise too. A reported 20 million users verified their accounts in 2017 and that number has now doubled to 40 million verified user accounts.

A recent survey carried out Luno Nigeria about adoption rates in the country has also confirmed that more people are embracing cryptocurrencies.

“However, there is still a mile to go for utility,” Bademosi told BusinessDay. It is one thing to put a cryptocurrency wallet on a smartphone; it is another thing to get shops, businesses and individuals to put the cryptocurrencies into daily use. So far, bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that has enjoyed wider domestic and commercial acceptance. May be the next smartphone solution could focus more on utility.

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25

Hotels Why visit Southern Sun Ikoyi?

Top BusinessDay Partner Hotels

OBINNA EMELIKE

W

ith a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) standing at $136 billion in 2018, Lagos economy will record a four per cent growth in 2019 while the national economy will grow by 2.8 per cent, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has predicted.

Well, that means more business and investment trips to further take advantage of the booming economy of Lagos. That also means more leisure trips to explore beyond the commercial offerings of the city, often referred to as ‘Eko’ by the indigenes.

However, while in Lagos, there is a place to lay one’s head, rest the body, connect business, conference, get fit and do more.

Of course, Southern Sun Ikoyi Hotel is the ideal place for business and leisure in Lagos. Beyond the warm welcome that awaits guests, the Tsogo Sun branded hotel, which is set on Alfred Rewane Road in the highbrow Ikoyi area of Lagos, offers exceptional convenience for guests.

A visit exposes guests to the hotel’s stylish sophistication, classic and contemporary design, which combine with discreet service to provide an uncomplicated approach to give guests a memorable experience.

From the tastefully decorated rooms with spacious living areas, pool, fitness centre with sauna and steam rooms, comprehensive business centre, executive lounge, banqueting and meeting, the hotel caters to travellers’ comfort on every level.

On offer are 195 beautifully furnished rooms, suits and delux suits that guarantee utmost peace and privacy.

Also, the warm and inviting

Novotel Port Harcourt Address: 3 Stadium Road Rumuomasi, Port Harcourt Rivers State, Tel: 0809 713 5734

Transcorp Hilton Abuja 1 Aguiyi Ironsi Street Maitama, Abuja Tel: +234-708-060-3000

The lobby area

One of the stylish rooms

rooms offer stylish finishes and modern amenities to ensure a practical and comfortable stay for guests.

The uniqueness of the accommodation offerings are the huge space, private en-suite bathrooms, all luxuriously fitted and wheelchairaccessible rooms, which are available on request.

As well, you need a ‘Ninth Floor Lounge’ experience.

The lounge on the 9th floor is a small private area exclusively for long-stay and suite residents and discreetly positioned in the hotel for those in the know, with complimentary snacks and drinks, news-

papers, and TV with 24-hour news and sports. It is a quiet place for making connections or for some out-of-the-office downtime.

If you want excitement beyond the hotel room, you can spend the day lounging on the sun deck at the swimming pool, gym at the fitness centre or visit nearby facilities including beauty salon, casino entertainment centre, golf course, restaurants and shopping malls.

Also, dining is a special occasion with an extensive menu complemented by a fine selection of international wines. From Nigerian classics

like egusi soup and pounded yam, to caprese salads and gourmet burger sliders, as well as bakery-prepared desserts and sweet treats, the menu carters to all palates.

Moreover, casual lunches and light dinners can be enjoyed on the outside terrace while the stylish cocktail bar is the ideal spot for meeting colleagues and friends.

For the corporates, conferencing at Southern Sun Ikoyi offers a full range of services and facilities that are tailored to suit meeting requirements. With five venues offering space from 10 – 100 delegates, breakaway spaces and welcome areas, AV technology and business services support, screen plasma TV, wireless microphone, voice conferencing, flip charts, whiteboard, success is guaranteed for conference organisers.

As well, visiting conference delegates can benefit from highly competitive business/long-stay rates and group check- in preference.

But do not forget the Sunday Brunch and the Saturday Ethnic Night, which have become popular among both in-house and outside guests.

The cheerful team of hospitality professionals awaits your visit for a special treat.

Protea Hotel Apo Apartments Address: Ahmadu Bello Way, Apo, Abuja Tel: 09 480 1818

Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham Abuja 1 Uke St, Garki, Abuja.

Tel: +234 9 4603900, +234 805 7522500

Chida Hotel International Address: Plot 224, Solomon Lar Way, Utako, Abuja Tel: 0810 871 8882

Radisson Blu Hotel Ikeja #38/40 Isaac John St, Ikeja GRA100271, Ikeja Tel: +234-908-780 5555

206 Hotel Plot 206 Cadastral Zone B02 Opposite Kenuj 02 Mall, Oladipo Diya Road, Durumi District, Abuja Tel: 08119707993 Email: 206abuja@gmail.com

Radisson Lagos Ikeja #42-44 Isaac John Street, GRA Ikeja, Lagos

Lagos sets for 3rd food, drink festival on March 23

T

he third edition of the Lagos International Food and Drinks Festival scheduled for March 23, 2019 at the Eko Atlantic Waterfront, Victoria Island, Lagos will feature a wide array of exciting and entertaining activities including indigenous cuisines and drinks sampled from over 40 Nigerian ethnic groups, live musical performances by renowned Nigerian artistes, and live comedy shows.

There will also be various competitions including cooking, music, dance, eating and drinking, food art exhibitions, dance performances by cultural troupes, chef masterclasses, children’s fun activities,

wine-tasting sessions, seminars on food and nutrition, SMSE match-making sessions, exhibitions and sales bazaars, according to the festival organisers.

The 3rd edition of Nigeria’s biggest festival of food, drinks and culture, which builds on an immensely successful 2nd edition, will welcome over 10,000 visitors and up to 100 vendors during the full day of festivities.

“As a brand, Nigeria resonates with international audiences well beyond its actual square footage – our music, our creativity, our food, all continue to grab global attention,” Steve Ike, the festival director, said while announcing the host-

ing of the third edition of the festival in Lagos.

“The Nigeria International Food & Drink Festival was inspired by this audacious, pervasive cultural energy that has translated into the bold flavours of our cuisine and the pungent, heady sensibilities of our spirits,” he said.

Ike said the festival weekend will deliver non-stop entertainment, including a variety of drinks, food stalls, live music, games, comedy and sweepstakes and is set to become a highlight on the Lagos social calendar.

“On a nationalistic front, this festival will bolster the business behind the food industry in Nigeria. Think of the generation of increased

economic activity for the chefs, caterers and culinary gurus who participate, the restaurants, hotels and eateries that house them, and the amazing spinoffs it would create for local suppliers of goods and services to the food industry,” Ike said.

“Now expand the horizon of the thinking to what this means when we introduce global exposure to the product.

The world will understand that Nigeria is so much more than her current stereotype – this benefits our tourism product, increases our exports of both goods and services, and helps generate muchneeded foreign exchange,” he said.

Protea Hotel (V/Island) Off Ajose Adeogun Street, V/ Island

Gombe Jewel Hotel, 22, Njamena Street, off Aminu Kano crescent Wuse 2, Abuja.

Radisson Blu Anchorage Hotel 1A,Ozumba Mbadiwe,Victoria Island.

26

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Friday 08 March 2019

‘Our music streaming platform is offering 80% visibility to local content’ Having supported and learnt from the shortcomings of other music streaming platforms, Chidi Okeke, CEO, Groove Platform, a pan-African solution and technology driven outfit with core focus on Nigeria, is out with something different. In this interview with Obinna Emelike, the entertainment entrepreneur unveils uduX, the latest streaming platform that will launch this year, focus on local content, data among other issues.

Ho w r e v o l u t i o n a r y i s Groove Platform in offering listeners access to music, artistes better revenue? here is something we are trying to educate people on, but you cannot tell somebody not to do something without offering solution.

I set up a company called Groove Platform. It is panAfrican with core focus on Nigeria. I want the local artistes to get paid for their talents or music. This kind of platform exists outside Nigeria. There is Boom Play and Music Plus, but before I thought of doing this, I have supported all these other existing platforms. However, there is no harm in having many platforms, in America they have multiple platforms, it depends on how you set up your business.

If your strategy is different from others, you will be able to make it, and again our population is huge.

Boom Play is quite big; they have done very well by going with Techno phone, which is preloaded with their app. So, what it means is as they sell that phone, it already has that app. But the difference on the downside is that there are a lot of people on it, about 98 percent of the people on it do not pay for music. So, what happens then is that you are trying to solve a problem and create revenues for the artistes, you have got huge numbers, but the revenues compare to the number of the people you have is totally different. So, how many people are really able to make money from it.

The key word is download, which means seeing a song, liking it and downloading to one’s phone. But it occupies space in the phone.

So, the limit to the amount of songs I can download

T

Chidi Okeke

is only proportional to the amount of space I have in my phone. If you download on Boom Play, you pay for that download and that money is shared with the artistes.

But technology right now and what the international platforms do now is that they do not want you to waste the space on your phone or have a certain amount of space on your phone, they want to give you 5 or 10 million tracks, you do not need to download, just go, scroll click and listen. You can listen to them anytime you want and as many times you want within the space that you are paying your subscription.

Same for me, I you want listen to 1 million tracks in one million times, I am only going to charge my subscription and that what most platforms do now.

You do not have to download the songs and you can even create the songs you like. It is called creating a play list, adding new ones, among others. But each time you do this, you are using

data. So, one of the disadvantages of the technology for us in Africa is that data is expensive and it means as you are doing this, telecom companies are making lots of money.

Data is key to download, music streaming and is expensive here, how are you solving the problem?

What we have done is that we have used technology again to solve problem because we know that data is expensive in Africa, when you listen to a song first on the platform, you do not use your data to listen to it the second time and onwards. There is a secret on how this is done, if you listen to 20 different songs, we compress them into a space in your device and keep it for you. If you put off your data and play the songs, they will still play.

But if the data is off and you try to play a song you have never played before, it will not work, because it requires data. But while you were offline, we are able to track all

the songs you played, so that we can still use that to tell the artiste the number of people and how many times they played his tracks.

How are you pushing the vision for local content and home-groomed technical resource?

Our focus is to be local, when we started this journey we wanted to showcase that in Nigeria we have the talent, technical resource, and all our developers are here in Nigeria and not in China.

Other people that try to do same thing source people outside. What it has done for us is the creating of a lot of young talented developers we are using to create the magic that we are creating. Everything about it is local, the curators are local, the technology staff and developers are also local.

At the same time, we say to ourselves, even though we have signed partnerships with major international labels such as Universal and Warner Music, we have ex-

What is uduX all about?

We have learned from all the mistakes we have made in the past, we are now able to track our revenue, progress among others using technology. We created a platform called uduX, once we put up your song, it tells you what is going on with your song, we use apps to know the location where people are playing your songs, to enable you know where your fans are.

So, we are generating data, which we lacked all these while. So, these platforms now offer data at the click of a button. While Youtube cannot tell you where people who are watching you are, our platform tells you the country and even where in Nigeria your fans are. Once again, we call the platform uduX. The name is African, first we wanted to add an African feel to it even with the

logo, the name, heritage, and origin. We sampled a lot of opinions on this, we came up with a name that, funny enough, the age brackets that we used to sample opinion toed that line. ‘Udu’ is an ancient African music instrument from Nigeria.

The core objective is we were creating an international model, but we wanted to be sure that the root will not be forgotten.

We spent two year plus on the project. We have been doing business here without paying royalties to publishers and songwriters, but for us, from the inception when it was created, percentages are allocated. So, anybody that has anything to do with a track whether as a publisher, writer or that you added your voice, there is a separate amount that is offered and is different from what the artistes get.

What we have done is to follow the international standards, but also made it local. Why it took us time is that we needed to get all the publishers around the world, the amount of legal work to get all of them sign, and we had to spend time to convince them on how we want to do this for Nigeria.

There are some tariffs or royalties we cannot afford to pay here, if not the artistes will not make any money. So, we had to fight to get concessions. The toughest part of what we have being doing is the negotiations on how the structures, contents and revenues will be shared and that was probably why we spent a lot of time. We wanted to solve existing problems because there is no point bringing something when it is not solving a problem.

When we were doing this, we carried a lot of artistes along to feel their pulse because we want to get it right.

run for the second term.

Several issues spring up to threaten his ambition as the cunning and hilarious games of politics begin to unfold. He must listen or ignore the advice of his cabinet to determine if he would lose or win the election against a formidable opposition party.

The new movie, which

promises to push the boundary beyond its current state, is executive produced by Christopher Ede. Speaking on the forthcoming movie, Shirley Ann Ede, who produced and acted in the movie, revealed that she would be the first African woman to make a movie about elections in Nigeria.

plained to them that though you want us to push your curtain, our focus is that we want the local artistes to be the ones making the money on it and how have we done that,?

If you look at platforms like Deezer, Apple Music among others, what is pushed on your face is not local music, but more of international music. That is the same thing I want to do, but the other way round. If you search inside you will find the Wizkid and other local musicians. But for us, when you search our platform, what is going to be pushed to you is local music, if you search for Beyoncé or Drake, or Jay Z you will find them, but what is pushed more on your face is local music. We did a ratio and offered all the internationals 20 percent. So, their visibility is 20 percent and 80 percent visibility for local music.

Mr. President, a new blockbuster, premieres today in cinema

A

fter minor setback in cinema schedules and date mix up, ‘Mr. President’, a new Nollywood movie, is now ready for the cinemas this weekend March 8, 2019.

Some lucky fans may have the privilege of meeting some of these superstars in a cinema closest to them.

‘Mr. President’ was pro-

duced by Shirley Ann Ede, a new entrant who is set to make a bold statement on Nigeria’s election. She is set to become the first woman to confront political entities using entertainment as the platform to drive her message. Shirley is a global thinker and a trailblazer who is ready to push Nollywood to global standards with the

quality of her works.

‘Mr. President’ is an intriguing and entertaining movie, which is powered

by Little Brother Global Entertainment. The movie’s release coincides with Nigeria’s general election with script from political and election realities in this part of Africa.

‘Mr. President’ movie

engages a high number of known stars and cinemas faces like Toyin Abraham, Ayo Makun (AY ), Broda Shaggi, Shirley Ann Ede, Funky Mallam, Lizzy Jay (Omo Ibadan), Padita Agu and a host of others.

The revolutionary movie depicts how the President interrupts a football game to declare his intention to

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BUSINESS DAY

27

Family Business more Cons Business etiquette

Janet Adetu

More Sibling Rivalry / Inlaw Sibling Rivalry ibling and inlaw sibling rivalry is evident in almost every family. Not a very good experience when it starts as it can drag on for years affecting other generations to come. This maybe born out of favoritism or positioning which may not go down well with other siblings. Sadly this does not stop at just family businesses but also in the process of reading out a Will or in sharing family property. A friend recently shared his ordeal where a sibling of his who he sponsored both first and masters degree abroad suddenly accused him of wanting to take advantage of a recently sold family property belonging to their late father. It almost became heated, unknown to her he had already deliberately given the proceeds of the property to his m other and gave her the free will to distribute the proceeds as

S

she desired. Many sibling’s rivalry experiences are bundled with lack of gratefulness, appreciation and sadly no apology. It is strongly advised that all disgruntled family members find ways and means of settling undesirable disputes and move on in unity for the sake of generations unborn.

Lack of Succession Planning A family business may be thriving successfully, enjoying years of goodwill, to the point where they are the favoured business in that industry. It is only when the founder begins to age or unfortunately fall

ill that it dawns on them that there is nobody to carry on the legacy in their absence. It is not necessarily a done deal that succession needs to be a family member most especially where no one has the technical

skills or is business oriented to take over. At this point some families have opted to sell the business to investors or outright purchase and cash in on the profits born by the true family of that business. Considering all options in the early stages of a family business should liad on the table during business meetings or at informal settings to keep the business track open. This does not need a whole lot of people but the advice of a legal practitioner is best.

Global & Modern Day Business Practice Many family businesses started

‘

A family business may be thriving successfully, enjoying years of goodwill, to the point where they are the favoured business in that industry

very small with no real global standard practices. Today’s businesses have outgrown the old style with technology taking over almost all aspects. Many family businesses again are fast fading away due to

the lack of adopting change and technology or as simple as keeping abreast of time. For businesses to thrive there must be an awareness of how best to grow tge business and solve problems that reflect present day circumstances.

Legal Structure All businesses must have a legal structure, it is surprising but true that some businesses have no ral legal status or documentation. Documents have been claimed to be lost so in the event of any unfortunate litigation problems are complicated. Clear identity must be established as to whether the company is limited by guaranty, a partnership, a sole proprietorship or otherwise.

All formal directors must be established and share ratio agreed. All stakeholders must be known by all, if there is a board of directors, and a management team let them be published openly. It is also good to identify each job responsibility and clear job description and key performance indicators.

Running a family business that is already established as well as going into a fresh family business has many potential areas that can create problems in the future. It is important that all facets of the business are spoken about and apt decisions made for the true success of that business.

Please be kind to share your experience. Follow me on all social media platforms @Janetadetu.

Send me an email at janet.adetu@jsketiquetteconsortium.com

Movie Review – WHAT MEN WANT

Linda Ochugbua

I

t’s paramount that I explain to you that this is a comedy movie with no yardstick or serious basis, making it quiet difficult to visualize or believe considering the fact that you know quiet alright this story cannot really happen. A major question going on in my head was that if this was really possible, so many people will manipulate the others which is typical to us human. Well I was warned to remove reality from this and just enjoy the movie, after all, we have so many unrealistic stories like the super heroes and we still follow true.

If you want to have a good laugh and something to take off your stress, with loads of vulgar words and above 18 adults scenes, then this might not be a bad choice after all, but if you are looking for a real storyline with substance and realistic basis, then you might have to pass on this one. For all the fans of “Girls Trip”, you will enjoy this hilarious movie from the same producers. It was quiet easy to predict the movie as the trailer gave out too

many information, you will kind of know what to expect and how the movie will pan out.

This new movie was directed by Adam Shankman and written by Tina Gordon Chism, Jas Waters, they tried to rewrite the story of a young woman, who acquired mystic powers from a shrink and was able to read the inner thoughts and minds of men, yes only men. There were a few aspects of the movie that made sense like the cinematography, nice pictures and locations, and costumes, most especially the dresses worn by “Ali Davis” who is popularly known as “Taraji P. Henson”. They also had some nice actors that made the movie very funny. The downsides were that the storyline didn’t look realistic enough, but made everyone laugh so hard, that they forgot their worries and sorrows, till when it was time to go home.

The movie started off with Ali who played the lead role in the movie at a table with all men. She was gunning for the position of the senior partner, which to her seemed like forever to get to. She felt she was being stereotyped and sidelined from the promotion, when indeed she was actually a terrible team player.

Ali was very hardworking and ambitious; she desperately wanted to get to the peak of the agency and was willing to do anything to get a seat at the top. There was one obvious truth which was her terrible work relationship with the men she worked with, she was so stubborn and tough and was terrible at listening or taking advice from others. Suddenly one day she attends an evening outing with her friends, where she meets a shrink called “Sis-

ter” who gives her a special tea and unexpectedly she accurses some supernatural powers to read the minds and thoughts of men. At first she wanted it taken away from her, but on the second thought she realized the goldmine she was seating on and came up with a plan on how to use this to her advantage by getting into the heads’ of her colleagues and using them to get her desired promotion, what she thought was so nice and exciting turned out to become a huge problem for her a few weeks later.

A few lessons learnt from her were that in life, we seek to get something desperately

and then when have it we find out that there is more to life than just that. She was pretty happy and excited when she got the gift that others didn’t have, she was carried away and didn’t use it right to the benefits of others, but for her selfish interest, forgetting that one day she could lose it. She forgot that what you do with the gifts you have would be either used for or against you. You’ll have to watch to see how it all ended for her.

Cast: Taraji P.Henson, Aldis Hodge, Richard Roundtree, Wendi McLendon Covey, Tracy Morgan, Josh Brener etc Genre: Comedy Director: Adma Shankman Ratings: R (for language and sexual content throughout andsome drug material) Written: Tina Gordon Chism, Jas Waters Runtime: 117 minutes Studio: Paramount Pictures To my verdict I would score this movie a 7/10it was a very simple movie, with lots of other things that added up to making it cool.

On the long run we kind of enjoyed the humor that the movie brought and I would easily recommend this to the comedy movie lovers only, to go try it and have a good laugh.

Feel free to review any movie of your choice in not more than 200 words, please send us a mail to linda@businessdayonline. com , also please do answer the question of the week on social media and stand a chance to win a free movie ticket.

Linda Ochugbua @lindaochugbua

28

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Trophy 5-a-side is aimed to identify fresh talents - Tolu Adedeji International Breweries Plc, IB, recently launched a 5-a-side grassroots football tournament tagged ‘Join The Field of Honour’ and unveiled ex-international, Joseph Yobo, as campaign ambassador. The tournament is expected to span 10 weeks and culminate in a grand finale where the winning team will take on other African teams in the continental final in Tanzania. In this interview with Tolu Adedeji, Marketing Director, International Breweries Plc, by BusinessDay’s Anthony Nlebem, Adedeji explains the company’s decision to sponsor a 5-a-side football tournament and what it intends to achieve with it. Excerpts.

Why is IB getting involved with 5-a-side football? e are indeed happy to be hosting the maiden edition of the 5-a-side tournament. It is something we are really proud of because Nigerians always unite over football. That is very important to us as a brand.

Football is the passion point for the entire country, which is why when we play football nothing else matters because our pride and honour are on the line. This is why football for us is something that fully describes what the brand represents and what we really believe in, that is, bringing honour to the country.

Also, in line with our natural disposition towards the development of the communities in which we operate, we recognized that 5-a-Side football is the most popular type of football played in our communities. We reasoned, therefore, that organizing a 5-a-Side tournament of this nature would be a good complement to other efforts aimed at developing grassroots football in Nigeria.

We understand the tournament is being restricted to 4 states. Why only 4 states?

As you know, Trophy as a brand has its origin in the southwest, which we are now sharing with the entire country because it has been accepted by all. It is no longer termed a southwest brand but a national brand. The outlay and logistics required for a tournament of this nature are quite enormous. Imagine coordinating over 1,000 teams and the complexities associated with it in this maiden edition alone. We need to perfect this to ensure a hitchfree competition in those four states, then we can make the competition pan-Nigeria.

However, even with this maiden edition, opportunity to engage we are engaging every

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Joseph Yobo, ex-international and International Breweries ambassador with Tolu Adedeji, marketing director, International Breweries Plc at the launch of Trophy 5-a-side football tournament held in Lagos recently

consumer across the country through what we call the Super Fans. This tournament is not only about the players, it is also about the supporters.

Everybody can participate regardless of where you reside.

You are either a player from the four states or a super fan from across the country. It is a one Nigeria tournament and not limited to any region.

Will this be an annual or a biennial event and what are your expectations after this edition?

Our first priority is to produce the team that will represent Nigeria in Tanzania for the continental final, playing against countries like Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Tanzania, South Africa and so on. Our first priority is to ensure that Nigeria is well represented at the continental stage and to bring back the trophy and honour to us. Upon the success of this edition, we plan to make it a regular event. We will share the information with the general public when we decide if it’s going to be annually or biennially. Whichever way, we want it to be part of

the IB calendar, going forward.

Our local football league needs sponsorship. Do you have plans to sponsor the local league or perhaps one of the local football clubs in the future?

We are focusing on Trophy 5-a-side for now, which is all about grassroots, but everybody must play their part.

While some organisations may choose to partner with the big leagues, others may choose to partner with international clubs and some focus on grassroots talents across the country, which is what we are focusing on right now.

This does not mean that we will not provide some form of sponsorship in the future, but for now, we are focusing on grassroots football across the country. The 5-a-side format is to identify fresh talents that will become the Yobos of this world, in a few years from now.

In addition to the prize money, the winning team is expected to play in the regional finals in Tanzania.

Are you sponsoring their trip to Tanzania?

Indeed, we are also giving

a special opportunity to the players. Anyone who is part of this tournament is being given an opportunity of a life time to go and represent Nigeria on the continental platform. For me that is what I am most particular about and hopefully, a few years from now, some of them will say I began with the Trophy 5-a-side tournament and today I am representing Nigeria in our national team or I am playing with one of the big clubs in Europe. We also have different cash prizes for the different stages of the tournament. We are going to be recruiting over 1000 teams at the very beginning and the different knock-out stages will attract various cash prizes, while the winning team gets the N3 million prize money.

They will also get an all-expense paid trip to Tanzania alongside the super fans that will be recruited cross the country to cheer on our team.

We hear you talking about Super Fans in this campaign.

Can you shed more light on this?

The Super Fans are the passionate people who cheer

on their favourite teams and support them to go for honours. You do not have to be a footballer to become a Super Fan. All you need to do is walk into an accredited bar or check our social media pages @TrophyLager, to get all the necessary information you need to become a super fan.

‘Super Fans’ will be selected to cheer Nigeria to victory at the Pan African stage, which will happen in Tanzania’ What are the social media handles? @TrophyLagerNigeria on Instagram, Trophylager on Facebook and Twitter. Also visit www.africa5s.com to locate the accredited bars closest to you.

For the MVP who emerges after the tournament, do you have any plans for him?

Will you help to boost his football career?

Already, this is a big opportunity for all the players and in addition, the finals will be aired live on national TV where the whole world will be watching and you never can tell what will come out of that.

Someone somewhere may identify a talent and before you know it, one club or the other may approach the player. The platform provides the players with a huge opportunity for them to showcase their talents to Africa and the world.

Do you have other plans for grassroots football besides this 5-a-side tournament?

For now we are focused on getting this off the ground and getting it rolled out running successfully across thousands of outlets across the country, getting the winners to go to Tanzania with our ambassadors; Folarin Falana (Falz) the entertainer, Joseph Yobo, Nigeria’s ex-international and Femi Adebayo, an A-list Nigerian actor. They will also get to meet Samuel Eto’o in Tanzania. But right now, our focus is getting this tournament off the ground and succeeding. In

future, we can always expand.

Would you share the fixtures of the matches in the mass media, so fans can visit match venues and follow the games?

We will do a lot of uploads online and in a few days, our website for the tournament will be active, www.Africa5. com. We will also have radio jingles and TVCs on an ongoing basis to keep fans and our consumers well informed. We will also have digital adverts and you will definitely be well informed.

Will the Nigerian Football Federation and the Nigerian Referee Association be part of the tournament?

We have representatives of the Nigerian Referee Association here today, Sports Writers Association of Nigeria, SWAN, and Joseph Yobo, an ex-international and ex-captain of the Super Eagles. We are not doing it alone for sure.

What are some of the rules guiding the tournament?

You do not have to be a professional footballer to participate in the tournament.

Anyone who has the passion for the game, above the age of 18 can go into any of our accredited bars, make enquiries and register to play if you qualify.

Where will the matches take place?

All that information we will share as the tournament proceeds. Stay tuned to our social media pages Apart from the use of football, in what other ways are you connecting with your consumers?

We are very big on events like festivals, across the different communities we operate in and at the grassroots levels.

There are different festivals that are celebrated in the different communities and we always actively support them.

We also have the various CSR projects we have executed over the years.

Heineken delights football fans with Champions League experience Anthony Nlebem

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orld’s most international beer brand, Heineken®, has revealed that it will be delighting football fans across Nigeria with unique, premium viewing experiences for the rest of the UEFA Champions League Campaign, while also giving consumers an opportunity to watch the semifinals and finals matches live in Europe.

The announcement of these

exciting new plans by Heineken was made on Tuesday, the 5th of March 2019 during one of the premium viewing experiences hosted at Farm City Lounge, Lekki, Lagos.

The UEFA Champions League is one of the most followed sports competition in the world with an audience of about 1.1 billion. With the 2018/2019 season approaching the final stage in the next few months, Heineken is set to back up its 25-year sponsorship of the prestigious tournament by providing fans with exciting

and entertaining ways to enjoy the football matches.

As part of this commitment to providing fans and consumers with the most remarkable

and unmissable moments from this year’s Champions League, Heineken has partnered with hundreds of outlets across Nigeria to deliver premium view-

ing experiences to consumers nationwide.

The premium viewing experiences have kicked off as the UEFA Champions League resumes the second leg matches of the second round fixtures.

These viewing experiences will see fans in across Nigeria experience the UEFA Champions League in a new and exciting way as Heineken seeks to give fans a truly premium and unmissable experience.

Speaking on the announcement of the UEFA Champions League Trophy Tour, Emmanuel Oriakhi, Marketing Director,

Nigerian Breweries Plc said: “The UEFA Champions League is the most coveted trophy in club football competition, and one of the most followed sporting spectacles in the world. Heineken’s rich history with UEFA has brought us some of the most iconic and unmissable moments in the history of football, ” Oriakhi said.

“From the unforgettable volley by Zidane to seal the 2001 Champions League final to the miracle of Athens where Liverpool overturned a 3-goal deficit.

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BUSINESS SOUTH-SOUTH

COMPLETE COVERAGE OF SOUTH-SOUTH / SOUTH-EAST

Academy mulls introducing anti-corruption studies in tertiary institutions GODFREY OFURUM, in Calabar

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ola Akinrinade, a professor and provost of AntiCorruption Academy of Nigeria, has revealed that the academy was working with the National Universities Commission (NUC), National Board of Technical Education (NABTEB), among others, to introduce anti-corruption studies in the curriculum of all tertiary institutions in the country.

Akinrinade made this known in Calabar, Cross River State capital, at the 20th Bassey Andah Memorial lecture, held at the University of Calabar International Conference Centre.

Delivering the main paper at the event titled, “Corruption and the Development of Nigeria,” which he slightly adjusted to “Corruption and the Underdevelopment of Nigeria,” Akinrinade explained that educating Nigerians on how to behave

correctly will reduce corruption in the country.

He attributed the underdevelopment of the country to the devastating consequences of corruption and corrupt behaviours, on the part of those entrusted with the citizens’ commonwealth. He observed that corruption was one of the most prominent elements militating against the proper sharing of resources in Nigeria; noting that the incidences of corruption permeate almost every space in Nigeria, and has made the country and its system unhealthy.

He explained that Nigeria is one of the countries with the largest number of legislations for combating corruption, stressing that the existence of multiple acts and agencies to implement the provisions of the acts is evidence of the multidimensional nature of corruption in Nigeria; and possibly of the weakness of legal response to the problem.

“The question is, why is it that one anti-corruption legislation and body after the other, the phenomenon, rather than abating keeps intensifying?” he queried.

Some of the legislations put in place to tackle corruption in Nigeria include: the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal (CCB&T) Act, the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences (ICPC) Act 2000; the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (Establishment) (EFCC) Act 2004, the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) Act 2007; the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) Act, 2007, and the Fiscal Responsibility (FRA) Act 2007.

“Observers of the Nigerian political process will attest to the fact that there has been a lot of investment of efforts during the

past several months in the anti-corruption drive, particularly on exposing corrupt officials of the past administrations and recovering of stolen funds. We have heard stories of former officials of the previous governments being accused of stealing huge sums of money that generations yet unborn cannot finish spending. There are official statements that as soon as investigations are completed, the alleged crooks would be taken to court. Certainly, arresting, prosecuting and jailing of offenders cannot be discarded as a means of tackling corruption and deterring others,” said Akinrinade.

But he argued that without enforcing the law, there is no basis for condemning corruption; noting that as we cannot stop people from stealing in ordinary life, it is

futile to expect corruption to disappear completely in public life. So, the legal route for seeking societal redress must continue.

He suggested solution to winning the fight against corruption, to include going beyond arrest and jailing of offenders to prevention of corruption. “Beyond the legal route, it was time the country explored building the structures for a sustainable long-term response that would transcend regimes and administrations in the country”, he said.

He observed that the cost of enforcement, including cost of investigations and prosecution relative to the value of recoveries, point squarely to the need to take corruption prevention seriously.

“If history has any message for us, it is that enforce-

ment has never provided a failsafe solution to the challenge of corruption in Nigeria.

“Nigerians are usually tantalised by stories of former officials and/or their cronies caught and being placed in handcuffs or sentenced to jail. But let us ask ourselves, how many of those paraded in the past have ended up in prison, serving jail terms commensurate with their crime?

He noted that the foundation of long-term sustainable war against corruption and development of the country laid in attitudinal change. Enlightenment promotes attitudinal change, and in turn, encourages prevention.

He suggested that it was time we put the “public” back into public service in the country.

Ugwuanyi asks pregnant mothers, children to use government health facilities REGIS ANUKWUOJI, Enugu

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nugu State governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi has advised especially rural dwellers in parts of the state to effectively access health facilities provided by the state government in their communities across the state.

Ugwuanyi stated this while commissioning a modern six-bedroom health centre equipped the latest health equipment at Ihe Community in Awgu Local Government Area of the state.

The governor who was represented by the state commissioner for Health, Fintan Ekochin emphasised on the state government’s free medical care for children and pregnant mothers in the state; and called on pregnant mothers to stop patronising traditional birth attendants (TBAs) to avoid complications in child birth.

He however, frowned at the low patronage of the state health facilities, despite all efforts made by government to equip

them with drugs and other equipment.

The governor said the state government has priority in development of primary healthcare centres (PHCs) in both rural and urban areas for the health of children.

He commended the traditional ruler of the community, Martins Ibeziako, Oka-Oburuzo of Enugu Ihe-Oke, who ensured that the community used the N5 million of the N10 million given to every autonomous community in Enugu State to construct any project of their choice, based on the state’s Visit Every Community (VEC) recommendation.

“We are very happy about community efforts.

It is a sign of community ownership. When a community is proud about something, they will use it well and protect it,” the governor said.

The traditional ruler, Ibeziako commended Governor Ugwuanyi for the health project and other work in Ihe, particularly University of Education just approved to be cited in the community.

Officers from the 6 Division of Nigerian Army, parading suspects for election violence before handing them over to Rivers State Police Command in Port Harcourt on Tuesday. NAN

NGO seeks inclusive governance to facilitate economic prosperity ANIEFIOK UDONQUAK, Uyo

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ebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre (KWDRC), a NonGovernmental Organisation (NGO) focusing on critical women’s voices, their issues and actions tied to anticorruption and accountability has called for inclusive governance to fast track economic prosperity.

It also observes the connection between corruption and women’s lack of access to public services, includ-

ing access to healthcare, access to education, water, transportation, agriculture, as well as participation in decision making.

Emem Okon, executive director of Kebetkache, stated this at a town hall meeting in Eket, Akwa Ibom State, stressing that inclusive governance would ensure that women have access to employment and support for their businesses.

The town hall meeting which was part of the 16 days of activism against Gender Based Violence,

noted the significance of the day; saying that it helps to create tools to pressure governments to implement promises made to eliminate violence against women.

According to her, it would also help to establish a link between local and international work to end violence against women. She called on the society to respect the human rights of women; adding that when there is equality, justice and freedom, it would prevent violence.

She pointed out that whenever and wherever humanity’s

values are abandoned, we all are at a greater risk; we need to stand up for our rights and those of others.

In his presentation, Tijah Bolton Akpan, speaking on open government partnership, identified corruption as the major obstacle to development in Nigeria over the years; noting that transparency, accountability, citizen participation, as well as technology innovation were the four principles of open governance partnership which the country had signed.

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NPA seeks 30% reduction in tariff, shipping charges to attract cargoes to Eastern ports AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE

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overnment agencies operating in the nation’s seaports must review tariff and charges on ships calling ports in the Eastern part of Nigeria with imported cargo by at least 30 percent to encourage effective utilisation and patronage of Warri, Rivers and Calabar ports, the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) says.

Speaking at a day focus group meeting organised

by Obiageri Obi, directorgeneral, Nigerian Chamber of Shipping (NCS) on Maximising the Economies of the Eastern Ports,” held in Lagos on Wednesday, Hadiza Bala-Usman, managing director of the NPA, pleaded with agencies like the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) to join the NPA in cutting cost for

the shippers.

Usman, who was represented by Iheanacho Ebubeogu, general manager, Security, said if the cost differentials between Lagos and Eastern port were down by 30 percent, importers would be attracted to use the port.

“NPA have reviewed its tariff earlier, and when I mean review of tariff across board, NPA tariff has to come down, NIMASA should review their Cabotage tariff, Customs tariff should come down so that, people can be motivated. I do not want us to think that addressing security alone that everything will be achieved,” she said.

Usman however said there was need for synergy between NPA and security agencies to ensure comfort to shipping and prevent host communities from interfering in shipping through piracy and other related crimes.

She identified the need for development of deep seaports for bigger vessels to call at Nigerian ports, adding that the depth of water channels cannot handle modern vessels. “Because our channels are long, it is good for NPA to carry out dredging optimisation study, which we have started.

“We need deep seaports where these bigger ships will come in because we have responded to economy of scales where these other ports will become transhipment port with the inland container depot to get all goods. If we don’t do that, we will see ships going to Abidjan, Senegal because they have deeper draft and the ships will lighten the cargo before coming to our ports,” she said.

She urged promoters of new seaports in Nigeria to make plans for Port Master plans instead of planning for the individual ports alone to forestall the Apapa mistake.

Shell: 120 fresh entrepreneurs get N400,000 each to join over 7,000 others to create wealth IGNATIUS CHUKWU

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hell Nigeria has released another 120 groomed entrepreneurs with N48 million (N400,000 each) to join 7,077 others already making waves in the private sector to create wealth and employ others. They represent the 2018 batch in Shell’s LiveWIRE scheme that has gone nationwide.

Of the number, seven were singled out as outstanding but one lady was toasted as the most outstanding. She got a brand new laptop from one of the managers. LiveWIRE has grown from strength to strength in the past 16 years and now has fund managers (Grofin) and banks such as UBA and GTB working as

partners. It has emerged as one of the strongest job creation and entrepreneurship schemes in Nigeria, though initially dedicated to the Niger Delta.

Most of the graduands are said to be venturing into agric/food processing subsector with the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC) working with Shell to ensure regulatory standards from the onset.

Over 3,000 LiveWIRE beneficiaries are said to have been supported with seed capital in the past while many more have gone ahead to get other funds from sources such as Grofin and Tony Elumelu Foundation.

According to Shell’s general manager (external rela-

tions), Igo Weli, they have reached out to banks to support the scheme, saying the scheme enables young people to start their own businesses and create jobs for themselves and others.

“It provides budding young entrepreneurs with access to the essential business knowledge and customised support they need to transform their enterprising ideas into a viable and sustainable business.”

He said 2018 was an exciting year in enterprise development because in addition to the regional programme, Shell launched a special LiveWIRE programme in Ogbio local Government Area in Bayelsa specifically for Oloibiri where oil was first found in commercial quantity in Nigeria.

AXA Mansard restates commitment to partnering customers ENDURANCE OKAFOR

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XA Mansard Insurance plc, a member of the AXA Group and global leader in insurance and asset management, has restated its commitment to service excellence.

In line with one of the company’s goals for 2019-“Customer First,” the company and all its employees are committed to fulfilling its promise to all its customers and to ensuring sterling and world class service standards at every point of contact.

Speaking with the Group Head of Strategy & Marketing at AXA Mansard Insurance

plc, Kola Oni, he stated, “It is in the company’s DNA to consistently provide exceptional service that leaves memorable experiences in the minds of our customers. We promise to make our customers our partners, not just premium payers.

All our employees understand our brand’s promise to our clients and are sufficiently equipped and willing to deliver on this promise at all times.”

He further noted, “In an attempt to serve our customers better, the company has a number of initiatives geared towards the continuous improvement of services. One such initiative is the AXA First Responder service which pro-

vides on-the spot assistance to customers at accident scenes, including immediate claims settlement for smaller sums.”

AXA Mansard Insurance plc is a member of the AXA Group, the worldwide leader in insurance and asset management with 166,000 employees serving 105 million clients in 62 countries.

The AXA Group is a worldwide leader in insurance and asset management, with 160,000 employees serving 105 million clients in 62 countries. In 2016, IFRS revenues amounted to Euro 100.2 billion and IFRS underlying earnings to Euro 5.7 billion.

AXA had Euro 1,429 billion.

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CBN to give SMEs loans at 5% through NIRSAL MFB ONYINYE NWACHUKWU, Abuja

… national MFB to take off with N5bn capital

he new National Microfinance Bank being set up by the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), the Nigeria Post Office and the Bankers’ Committee will take off with N5 billion initial capital, Godwin Emefiele, governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), said on Wednesday.

The Bankers’ Committee provided the set-up equity capital and owns 50 percent of the bank, while NIRSAL and NIPOST own 40 percent and 10 percent, respectively.

The CBN governor said this at the tour of the NIRSAL MFB in Gwagwalada, Abuja.

Emefiele said the loan would be issued under the Agri-Business Small and Medium Enterprises Investment Scheme (AGSMEIS), an initiative of the Bankers’ Committee, saying the loan would run for tenure of seven years

with two years moratorium.

He said the fund, made up of 5 percent Profit After Tax (PAT) from Deposit Money Banks (DMBs), was being set aside to support the SMEs in agriculture and other types of small businesses.

According to Emefiele, the initial capital base of the bank is N5 billion, saying accessing credit facility is a major hindrance to SMEs development because of their inability to provide collateral.

He, however, said SMEs operators would access the loans without necessarily providing any collateral, saying, “The asset that we are financing for them will act as the collateral. “That collateral will be registered in our national collateral registry as something that is eligible to serve as collateral or security for a loan that has been taken.

“We truly need to be able to set up MFBs that will reach out to the unbanked and help

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deepen financial inclusion.

“That way we will make it easy for people to access credit, particularly the small and unbanked people because we have always said that these are the very weak along the chain. “We have already set a target that by 2020, the rate of financial inclusion must increase to 80 per cent from about 48 per cent a year and half ago.’’

The MFB is a collaboration of the Bankers’ Committee, NIRSAL and the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST), and will be set up in all the 774 local government areas (LGAs) to bridge the financial inclusion gap.

“We are just inspecting one out of the first seven and we are scaling up to the next 50 in the next phase.

We believe that before the end of this year, we would have moved substantially in making sure that they are set up and be able to provide finance to small businesses,”

he said.

On the NIRSAL MFB crowding out other MFBs, the governor said that was not the intention.

He said rather, the NIRSAL MFB would complement the services of the existing MFBs and see to it that whatever services were being provided by them would be seen to be fair to their customers.

“I also know about the rural communities where the microfinance banks charge very prohibitive interest rate, but here we are talking about making fund available to these people. “This will help to create some form of competitive landscape so that those kinds of practices will no longer arise.’’

Chiamaka Odinga, a veterinary doctor, a beneficiary of the loan, said she was very happy about the establishment of the bank, as it had erased the issue of collateral for loans.

L-R: Claire Henshaw, project manager, Arc Skills; Dola Arilesere, former president, Nigeria Institute of Building; Ijeoma Mezu, Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF) Employability officer; Adeyemi Jubril Adesina LSETF employability trainee; Ewoma Oloye, head, corporate services, and Karibo Ekeopara, corporate communications manager, both of Construction Kaiser Limited, during the LSETF/Arc Skills graduation ceremony of its construction trainees in Lagos, yesterday. Pic by Olawale Amoo

South-south pensioners laud Obaseki’s uninterrupted payment … as Edo leads in ease of doing business

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gainst the backdrop of issues of unpredictable pension payment regime and unpaid pensions plaguing different states in Nigeria, the South-South Zone of the Nigerian Union of Pensioners (NUP) has hailed the Governor Godwin Obaseki-led administration in Edo State for a regime of uninterrupted pension payment in the state.

Chairman, South-South Zone of the NUP, Pullen Noruwa, said this at the South-South Zonal Forum of the NUP, held in Benin City, the Edo State capital.

Noruwa lauded Governor Obaseki for his commitment to the welfare of pensioners,

whose monthly pension had been uninterrupted since he assumed office.

Noruwa, who is also the chairman of Nigerian Union of Pensioners (NUP) Edo State chapter, appealed to the state government to reinstate the deduction of 1 percent union dues, among other requests.

Edo State Head of Service (HoS), Isaac Ehiozuwa, said Governor Obaseki’s passion to keep retirees happy had paved the way for the state to develop a phased payment plan in settling pension arrears accumulated from as far back as 1999.

Ehiozuwa said this plan by the state had resulted in the payment of arrears of pensions

without hindrance, stressing that the days of waiting on rolls to get paid were over.

Noting that the state government has approved the automatic migration to the pension system for retired civil servants, he said, “I appeal to civil servants who are about to retire to key into the laid down procedure to avoid a situation where pensioners will have to suffer avoidable hardship after disengagement from service.”

This strategy, he said, will put an end to protests by pensioners and tackle the nonpayment of pension arrears.

He advised aggrieved members of the NUP to channel their grievances through the

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Search for new economy begins at ‘Rivers Debate’ … all fingers point at security crisis as cause of economic decline IGNATIUS CHUKWU

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he search for a new economic model to rescue the economy of Rivers State seemed to have been launched at the ‘Rivers Debate,’ a platform created by the business community in the state to interrogate those seeking to run the state on May 29, 2019. This was to help the business community understand who to vote for on Saturday.

The three candidates that managed to make it to the Aztech Arcrum where the debate held from 6pm to 8pm on Tuesday, March 5, 2019, seemed to tear in three definite directions.

Whereas the Action Democratic Party’s (ADP) Victor Fingesi said convincing fleeing companies to return through a security architecture would do the trick, his Labour Party counterpart, Isaac Wonwu, said diversification, especially back to agriculture, was better. Precious Elekima of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) however floated a radical departure, saying the solution was in creating a community based investment and management strategy.

Elekima said he build 92 industries in four years in the communities in the state and moved N5 billion per year to each of the 23 local councils to invest in industries that would depend on raw materials in each locality.

Pelted by each of three moderators (Segun Owolabi of Rhythm, Florence Keyamba of Social Democratic Network, SDN, and Kofi Bartel of Nigeria Info, all in Port Harcourt), each of the

three contestants tried to be realistic as well as win the hearts and votes of the Rivers people.

Elekima said he would also move 35 percent of the internally generated revenue (IGR) of the state to the communities plus 15 percent to the local councils and retain 50 percent at the state level. This was his formula for ending the protracted tax harmonisation exercise that had lasted for 15 years without a document.

His formula however seemed to worry analysts who knew that the state devotes about N130 billion for salaries and running the government (recurrent). If he gives N115 billion per year to LGAs, he would exhaust the about N300 billion that the state is guaranteed per year from both IGR and federal allocations per year.

Wornwu on his own said he would push for a rice and cassava revolution in addition to palm oil and other agro products to create a new economy. Fingessi said he first do a security summit to reduce tension in the state, thus attracting back the fleeing companies.

He said Rivers State has had high presence of multinationals and other companies but that insecurity was the issue. If resolved, he said, the economy would bounce back. All the others agreed that insecurity was fundamental but said they too would confront it.

The president of the main organizers of the ‘Rivers Debate’, the Rivers Entrepreneurs and Investors Forum (REIF), Ibifri Bobmanuel, said it was important to know how anyone seeking to govern the state would deal with the private sector.

Stiff penalty awaits defaulters of due process in procurement - NNPC HARRISON EDEH, Abuja

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roup Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Maikanti Baru, has warned management and staff of the corporation against any action that contravenes the provisions of the Public Procurement Act in the award of contracts, saying severe penalties await any defaulter.

The NNPC helmsman gave the warning at a Supply Chain Management workshop for NNPC procurement managers, which held Wednesday in Abuja.

Baru in a statement issued by the corporation’s group general manager,

group public affairs division, Ndu Ughamadu, cautioned staff against contract splitting and accumulation, which he described as a deliberate act by procurement managers to subvert due process in the procurement process.

He restated the corporation’s commitment to transparency in every aspect of its operations, stressing that all procurements and contract awards in the corporation under his watch so far had been carried out in conformity with the Public Procurement Act. To further deepen the culture of transparency in the corporation, the GMD directed the Supply Chain Management Division to

step up its level of monitoring of the various tender boards within the NNPC for full compliance.

He commended President Muhammadu Buhari for the early approval of the NNPC budget, assuring that as the chief revenue earner for the nation, NNPC was committed to the economic policies of the Federal Government.

“The whole essence of the next level is to ensure that things are done correctly and speedily for the benefit of the people,” Baru said.

The workshop was organised to sensitise procurement managers in the NNPC to the new procurement policies of the Federal Government.

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On Lagos-Badagry Expressway, it’s daily tale of torment, sorrow and tears Most parts of the Lagos-Badagry Expressway, Nigeria’s gateway to the West African coast, have remained death-traps 10 years after the state government began reconstruction and expansion work on the road, writes TEMITAYO AYETOTO

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djacent the wreckage from an explosion that hurriedly sent some commuters’ feet down the earth some weeks earlier, a man, hands akimbo, cast a downcast stare on a bonnet flung open.

Beneath the blue vehicle was a mechanic clad in fading green traditional wear, seeking answers.

That crisp morning, Innocent Kalu’s 15-seater bus had a terrible knock on a stone that only arrived at one of the deadliest spots along the Lagos-Badagry Expressway after the fatal accident. He was heading to Okokomaiko when the bus engine gave way at Barracks bus-stop.

It squeezed N5,000 out of him instantly.

That was 62.5 percent of the vehicle’s monthly cost of upkeep, N8,000.

As he stood there waiting on Sule, the mechanic, for a miracle, hellish memories of the daily torment experienced on that road encircled his thoughts that he could only regret being unfortunate to be stuck again on a blood-sapping spot for hours.

The soil near him was still wearing a mournful look that day, struggling to heal like the families of those who lost their lives in the tanker explosion accident. It was unusually black and soaked in fuel.

“This is a toll-gate to hell rather than a gate to neighbouring West African countries,” said the estate surveyorturned-driver. His tale is only one in the many stories of ordeals encountered on the road.

About 5.2km away, Henry Chukwuemeka, 52, had his patience waning from the inability to get a bus swiftly to Mile-2 from Iyana-Iba. Iyana-Iba is a melting point that is highly choked from people trooping in from Iba, Alaba, Ikotun, Ig-

ando Iyana-Ipaja, among others.

The ill-starred businessman lives at Iba and runs an auto spare parts business in Apapa, another distress-prone area. The frustration easily helped him kill the thoughts of using his car regularly.

Even with the decision, his nightmare occurred in daylight on the bumpy road to his workplace.

“This road is nothing one can write home about. This road is a death-trap.

I’m older than my age now because of the stress on this road. I’m trying to get a new apartment at Apapa so that the stress will reduce,” he explained.

The poor state of the road has been sustaining a thriving motorcycling business as motorcycles almost outnumber vehicles plying the route. Many commuters are aware of the dangers but cannot survive without them and pay highly to escape unending gridlock.

According to the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report for 2018, Nigeria ranks 132 out 140 countries by the quality of roads. It scores a shameful 2.4, unlike Kenya which heralds Africa to rank 61 and score 4.2.

The rating has a proof in the messy shape of the Lagos-Badagry Expressway, a route which connects Nigeria to other West African countries through the Seme Border. It also leads to the Lagos International Trade Fair, Alaba International Market, the Lagos State University, the ancient city of Badagry, and countless residential communities.

The incidences of trailers stumbling and petrol-laden tankers going up in flames have been routine activities. Robbery attacks thrive around FESTAC FirstGate and up to Agbara and Badagry, while commercial activities shrink. A journey of

less than 30 minutes could take two hours and under limited choices, people grudgingly move on, wishing the government would respond accordingly.

After the state government took it upon itself to begin the construction 10 years ago, users heaved a sigh of relief, but the relief never came as expected. As governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola had assured residents that the road expansion to 10 lanes would continue under his successor whom, he said, understood the project thoroughly. The reward so far has been repair works between Eric Moore and Okokomaiko.

Also, the Federal Executive Council last year approved a contract for the rehabilitation of the 46km section from Agbara to Badagry and to Seme Border. Months after, the signs of commitment have not translated to the passable roads that commuters dream of. The road is replete with different abandoned works even when both the state and federal governments have mapped out the aspects they would undertake.

More like a useful material for campaign manifesto, the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in Lagos, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has pledged to deliver the road, citing its role in connecting the country to other ECOWAS states as critical.

“Specifically, the ongoing 60-kilometre Lagos-Badagry Expressway project being executed by the state government must be completed as early as possible. The project has two major intermodal transport schemes – the Lagos-Badagry Expressway and the Light Rail Mass Transit with their accompanying infrastructure – 10 lanes superhighway taking off from Eric Moore interchange and traversing westward

through Orile Iganmu, Alaba Oro, Mile 2, Festac, Agboju, Iyana-Iba, Okokomaiko, Iyana-Era, Ijanikin, Agbara, Ibereko and terminating at Badagry,” Femi Hamzat, Sanwo-Olu’s running mate, said on radio.

It seems the residents will again have to wait for another four years or even four more before they can experience traumafree movement on the road, except the axis between Agbara and Seme Border where the Federal Government embarked on rehabilitation and construction on February 10. Beyond that point, it appears misery might continue without respite when approaching Alakija, Trade Fair Underbridge and Ojo Military Cantonment.

Mike Ochonma, a transport journalist who lives on that axis and plies the route daily, said the integrated transport system which will accommodate mass transit and rail system has been abandoned, years after the road was commissioned. He regretted that the Nigerian government has failed to take a cue from well-structured societies by not understanding that roads have expiration periods and must be cared for in due time.

“The moment you cross Seme Border, you begin to feel what a road should look like. The Republic of Benin has a dedicated lane for bikes, barricaded with iron, stretching kilometres into the town.

You cannot ask the minister of works the lifespan of a road in Nigeria and he will tell you,” Ochonma said.

“In a decent society, few years to the expiration of a particular stretch of road, you will see them coming there to scrape the old surface and reinforce it with new asphalt but here, we over-politicise roads,” he said.

Bad roads do not only have implication on life or economy, they also increase

the population of walking corpses, said Doyin Odubanjo, a public health expert.

This implies more Lagosians are dying by instalment.

“It causes extreme fatigue and a lot of people in Lagos are suffering from a lot of exhaustion. So their performance even at work will not be optimal,” Odubanjo said.

“When you are stressed out, you can have tension headache, ulcer, and high blood pressure, which could lead to stroke. Inhaling fumes can give respiratory and eye problems,” he said.

According to the World Health Organisation, evidence is emerging that children living near roads with heavy vehicle traffic have about a 50 percent higher risk of suffering from respiratory symptoms than children living in areas with low traffic. The organisation opines governments need to address road safety in a holistic manner, which involves effective interventions including designing safer infrastructure and incorporating road safety features into land-use and transport planning, improving the safety features of vehicles, improving post-crash care for victims of road crashes, and setting and enforcing laws relating to key risks.

Chidi, 50, resident of Godwin Ebi Estate, Abule-Osun, wishes the government could reassure him of safety according to these prescriptions. However, in the absence of that, he travels abroad to find succour.

“Government ought to take care of the people that vote them. Containers fall every day killing people like fowl. Let the government even work on the road so that everything will be okay. It doesn’t take the government anything to fix this road. If it rains, nobody can walk here,” he said.

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BUSINESS DAY

33

Live @ The Exchanges Top Gainers/Losers as at Thursday 07March 2019 GAINERS Company

Market Statistics as at Thursday 07 March 2019

LOSERS Opening

Closing

Change

Company

STANBIC

N46.6

N48

1.4

MOBIL

CADBURY

N10.2

N11

0.8

DANGCEM

DANGFLOUR

N10.9

N11.35

0.45

ETI

N13.7

N14

0.3

CUSTODIAN

N5.85

N6

0.15

PZ FLOURMILL UCAP

Opening

Closing

Change

N180

N170

-10

N196.5

N195

-1.5

N12.1

N11.1

-1

N19.95

N19

-0.95

N3.3

N3

-0.3

ASI (Points) DEALS (Numbers)

deals. Zenith Bank Plc, Access Bank Plc, FBN Holdings Plc, GTBank Plc and UBA Plc were actively traded stocks.

The Financial Services sector led the activity chart with 190.3million shares exchanged for N2.44billion; while Consumer Goods followed with 12.4million shares traded for N175million.

Vitafoam shareholders approve N260.5mn dividend, bonus issue

T

ished products throughout West Africa sub region.

At the annual general meeting, the shareholders received and adopted the report of the directors, the audited financial statements for the year ended September 30, 2018 together with the report of the auditor and audit committee thereon.

Vitafoam Nigeria Plc reported turnover increase from N15.92billion in 2017 to N17.61billion in 2018.

Profit before tax grow from N290.28million in 2017 to N619.23million in the 2018 financial year, while profit

11.937

PwC report shows why African capital markets declined in 2018 despite large transactions

P

N

he shareholders of Vitafoam Nigeria Plc at the company’s 57th Annual General Meeting (AGM) held on Thursday March 7, 2019 in Lagos, approved for the board of directors to pay the recommended 25kobo dividend which amounted to N260.51million.

Also, the shareholders approved that the Board should issue bonus of one (1) new share for every five (5) units already held.

Both the dividend payout and bonus shares were meant to reward Vitafoam shareholders for their unwavering support and commitment to the cause of the company.

Vitafoam Nigeria Plc is Nigeria’s leading manufacturer of flexible, reconstituted and rigid foam products. It has the largest foam manufacturing and distribution network which facilitates just in time of fin-

2.739

MARKET CAP (N Trn

Stories by Iheanyi Nwachukwu

7.84percent, from N10.2 to N11; while Dangote Flourmills Plc rallied from N10.9 to N11.35, 45kobo or 4.13percent.

The volume of stocks traded increased by 11percent, from 197.2million to 218.9million, while the total value of stocks traded increased by 1.90percent, from N2.68billion to N2.73billion in 3,519

after tax also increased to N486.10million from N190.54million in 2017.

“The boost in both turnover and profitability reflected the robustness and fundamental strength of our business”, Bamidele Makanjuola, chairman, Vitafoam Nigeria Plc told shareholders at the meeting.

According to him, following the economic downturn of recent years, the company took the strategic decision to reengineer the entire business with special focus on products quality and innovation, market differentiation, customer service and consumer education.

“These efforts underscored our long-term priorities of growing revenue, controlling operating costs, and driving higher gross margins. We made great strides in cost containment and sustained positive trends in gross

218,899,660.00

VALUE (N billion)

…NSE ASI declines by 0.35%

gote Cement decreased from N196.5 to N195, losing N1.5 or 0.76percent; PZ Cussons Nigeria Plc decreased from N12.1 to N11.1, losing N1 or 8.26percent.

Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc share price rallied most, from N46.6 to N48, adding N1.4 or 3percent. Cadbury Nigeria Plc gained 80kobo or

3,519.00

VOLUME (Numbers)

Stock market loses additional N42bn igeria’s stock market continued its movement on the loss path, shedding N42billion at the sound of closing gong on Thursday March 7, 2019.

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All Share Index (ASI) decreased by 0.35percent at the close of trading on Thursday March 7, 2019 while the Year-to-Date (ytd) return stood at 1.84percent.

The All Share Index closed at 32,010.06 points as against the preceding day close of 32,121.74points while Market Capitalisation stood lower at N11.937trillion as against preceding day close of N11.979 trillion, losing N42billion.

Mobil Oil Plc recorded the highest decline from N180to N170, down by N10 or 5.56percent. Dan-

32,010.06

margins,” Makanjuola added.

The chairman noted that the company is enjoying facilities through the Bank of Industry ( BOI) at moderate interest rate, an option it prefers at the moment.

Responding to a shareholder’s comment on the operations of the subsidiaries, the Group Managing Director, Taiwo Adeniyi explained that three of the seven subsidiaries had begun to generate profit while others would soon follow the same trend. Adeniyi however noted that the Sierra Leone’s Branch might be sold in view of its challenges.

Adeniyi assured the shareholders that the company’s financial performance would continue to improve regardless of the nature of the operating environment and this shall always translate to higher shareholder value.

wC has released its 2018 African Capital Markets Watch publication, which analyses equity and debt capital market transactions that took place between 2014 and 2018, as well as transactions by African companies on international exchanges.

The report lists all new primary market equity initial public offerings (IPOs) and further offers (FOs) by listed companies, in which capital was raised on Africa’s principal stock markets and market segments. The report also includes IPO and FO activity on international exchanges or non-African companies on African exchanges, on an annual basis.

Overall, African equity capital market (ECM) activity in 2018 declined both in volume and value in the wake of global and local economic and socio-political uncertainty. Despite 2018 starting on a positive note with some landmark transactions, capital markets activity

declined year-on-year by 25 per cent in volume and 40 per cent in value.

Andrew Del Boccio, PwC Capital Markets Partner, said: “The positive trend recorded in 2017 in overall ECM activity, in terms of an increase in volume and value, was not sustained in 2018 despite the strong market indications at the beginning of the year.

“While 2018 started with several landmark IPOs and FOs, as the year progressed, companies retreated from the capital markets or suspended listing plans as uncertainty and volatility increased across Africa and the globe.”

In 2018, $2.2 billion was raised in 17 IPOs compared to $3.1 billion raised via 30 IPOs in 2017, representing a year-onyear decrease of 43 per cent and 27 per cent in volume and value of IPOs, respectively. FO activity also declined both in volume and value; $6.1 billion was raised in 77 FO deals in 2018 compared to $10.7 billion raised in 95 deals in 2017.

NSE commemorates 2019 International Women’s Day

T

he Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), will join the rest of the world tomorrow (Friday, March 8, 2019) to commemorate the International Women’s Day (IWD) by hosting a half-day symposium and ‘Ring the Bell’ for gender equality at the Exchange in Lagos. Themed “Balance for Better”, the event is targeted at galvanizing efforts in line with The Exchange’s objective to accelerate progress towards bridging gender parity.

This event, organized in partnership with International Finance Corporation (IFC), UN Women, United Nation Global Compact (UNGC), World Federation of Exchanges (WFE) and Sustainable Stock Exchange Initiative (SSEI), will bring together male and female thought leaders from emerging industries to take a more holistic look at gender balance and its reality to busi-

nesses.

This year’s event is supported by Nasdaq, House of Tara, Shuga Plum, Modara Natural Beauty Products, Coco Ribbon and Olori Cosmetics The symposium will be headlined by Eme Essien, Country Director, International Finance Corporation (IFC) who will discuss opportunities for women in key industries and share insights on how technology can bridge the gender gap. It will also feature panel discussion by experts across different fields like Serah Makka-Ugbabe, Country Director, ONE Campaign; Olukemi Awodein, Managing Director, Chapel Hill Denham; Olusola Amusan, Philanthropies Lead, Microsoft Nigeria; Sandra Aguebor, Founder, Mechanic Initiative; Ola Brown, Managing Director, Flying Doctors Nigeria and Debola Williams, Founder, Red Media Africa.

34 BUSINESS DAY

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FEATURE

On Lagos-Badagry Expressway, it’s daily tale of torment, sorrow and tears Most parts of the Lagos-Badagry Expressway, Nigeria’s gateway to the West African coast, have remained death-traps 10 years after the state government began reconstruction and expansion work on the road, writes TEMITAYO AYETOTO

A

djacent the wreckage from an explosion that hurriedly sent some commuters’ feet down the earth some weeks earlier, a man, hands akimbo, cast a downcast stare on a bonnet flung open.

Beneath the blue vehicle was a mechanic clad in fading green traditional wear, seeking answers.

That crisp morning, Innocent Kalu’s 15-seater bus had a terrible knock on a stone that only arrived at one of the deadliest spots along the Lagos-Badagry Expressway after the fatal accident. He was heading to Okokomaiko when the bus engine gave way at Barracks bus-stop.

It squeezed N5,000 out of him instantly.

That was 62.5 percent of the vehicle’s monthly cost of upkeep, N8,000.

As he stood there waiting on Sule, the mechanic, for a miracle, hellish memories of the daily torment experienced on that road encircled his thoughts that he could only regret being unfortunate to be stuck again on a blood-sapping spot for hours.

The soil near him was still wearing a mournful look that day, struggling to heal like the families of those who lost their lives in the tanker explosion accident. It was unusually black and soaked in fuel.

“This is a toll-gate to hell rather than a gate to neighbouring West African countries,” said the estate surveyorturned-driver. His tale is only one in the many stories of ordeals encountered on the road.

About 5.2km away, Henry Chukwuemeka, 52, had his patience waning from the inability to get a bus swiftly to Mile-2 from Iyana-Iba. Iyana-Iba is a melting point that is highly choked from people trooping in from Iba, Alaba, Ikotun, Ig-

ando Iyana-Ipaja, among others.

The ill-starred businessman lives at Iba and runs an auto spare parts business in Apapa, another distress-prone area. The frustration easily helped him kill the thoughts of using his car regularly.

Even with the decision, his nightmare occurred in daylight on the bumpy road to his workplace.

“This road is nothing one can write home about. This road is a death-trap.

I’m older than my age now because of the stress on this road. I’m trying to get a new apartment at Apapa so that the stress will reduce,” he explained.

The poor state of the road has been sustaining a thriving motorcycling business as motorcycles almost outnumber vehicles plying the route. Many commuters are aware of the dangers but cannot survive without them and pay highly to escape unending gridlock.

According to the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report for 2018, Nigeria ranks 132 out 140 countries by the quality of roads. It scores a shameful 2.4, unlike Kenya which heralds Africa to rank 61 and score 4.2.

The rating has a proof in the messy shape of the Lagos-Badagry Expressway, a route which connects Nigeria to other West African countries through the Seme Border. It also leads to the Lagos International Trade Fair, Alaba International Market, the Lagos State University, the ancient city of Badagry, and countless residential communities.

The incidences of trailers stumbling and petrol-laden tankers going up in flames have been routine activities. Robbery attacks thrive around FESTAC FirstGate and up to Agbara and Badagry, while commercial activities shrink. A journey of

less than 30 minutes could take two hours and under limited choices, people grudgingly move on, wishing the government would respond accordingly.

After the state government took it upon itself to begin the construction 10 years ago, users heaved a sigh of relief, but the relief never came as expected. As governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola had assured residents that the road expansion to 10 lanes would continue under his successor whom, he said, understood the project thoroughly. The reward so far has been repair works between Eric Moore and Okokomaiko.

Also, the Federal Executive Council last year approved a contract for the rehabilitation of the 46km section from Agbara to Badagry and to Seme Border. Months after, the signs of commitment have not translated to the passable roads that commuters dream of. The road is replete with different abandoned works even when both the state and federal governments have mapped out the aspects they would undertake.

More like a useful material for campaign manifesto, the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in Lagos, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has pledged to deliver the road, citing its role in connecting the country to other ECOWAS states as critical.

“Specifically, the ongoing 60-kilometre Lagos-Badagry Expressway project being executed by the state government must be completed as early as possible. The project has two major intermodal transport schemes – the Lagos-Badagry Expressway and the Light Rail Mass Transit with their accompanying infrastructure – 10 lanes superhighway taking off from Eric Moore interchange and traversing westward

through Orile Iganmu, Alaba Oro, Mile 2, Festac, Agboju, Iyana-Iba, Okokomaiko, Iyana-Era, Ijanikin, Agbara, Ibereko and terminating at Badagry,” Femi Hamzat, Sanwo-Olu’s running mate, said on radio.

It seems the residents will again have to wait for another four years or even four more before they can experience traumafree movement on the road, except the axis between Agbara and Seme Border where the Federal Government embarked on rehabilitation and construction on February 10. Beyond that point, it appears misery might continue without respite when approaching Alakija, Trade Fair Underbridge and Ojo Military Cantonment.

Mike Ochonma, a transport journalist who lives on that axis and plies the route daily, said the integrated transport system which will accommodate mass transit and rail system has been abandoned, years after the road was commissioned. He regretted that the Nigerian government has failed to take a cue from well-structured societies by not understanding that roads have expiration periods and must be cared for in due time.

“The moment you cross Seme Border, you begin to feel what a road should look like. The Republic of Benin has a dedicated lane for bikes, barricaded with iron, stretching kilometres into the town.

You cannot ask the minister of works the lifespan of a road in Nigeria and he will tell you,” Ochonma said.

“In a decent society, few years to the expiration of a particular stretch of road, you will see them coming there to scrape the old surface and reinforce it with new asphalt but here, we over-politicise roads,” he said.

Bad roads do not only have implication on life or economy, they also increase

the population of walking corpses, said Doyin Odubanjo, a public health expert.

This implies more Lagosians are dying by instalment.

“It causes extreme fatigue and a lot of people in Lagos are suffering from a lot of exhaustion. So their performance even at work will not be optimal,” Odubanjo said.

“When you are stressed out, you can have tension headache, ulcer, and high blood pressure, which could lead to stroke. Inhaling fumes can give respiratory and eye problems,” he said.

According to the World Health Organisation, evidence is emerging that children living near roads with heavy vehicle traffic have about a 50 percent higher risk of suffering from respiratory symptoms than children living in areas with low traffic. The organisation opines governments need to address road safety in a holistic manner, which involves effective interventions including designing safer infrastructure and incorporating road safety features into land-use and transport planning, improving the safety features of vehicles, improving post-crash care for victims of road crashes, and setting and enforcing laws relating to key risks.

Chidi, 50, resident of Godwin Ebi Estate, Abule-Osun, wishes the government could reassure him of safety according to these prescriptions. However, in the absence of that, he travels abroad to find succour.

“Government ought to take care of the people that vote them. Containers fall every day killing people like fowl. Let the government even work on the road so that everything will be okay. It doesn’t take the government anything to fix this road. If it rains, nobody can walk here,” he said.

Friday 08 March 2019

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BUSINESS DAY

35

FEATURE ‘God has given me everything’, Otunba Subomi Balogun states at 85

T

hose who argue that there can be no greater treasure in life than the early understanding of purpose and its diligent pursuit have a point. In it, is the wisdom of according a pride of place to the Almighty in all of one’s affairs – the doors of limitless possibilities just seem to remain eternally open, and favours of unimaginable proportions tiding towards one’s ways. You need only to take a glean at the life and antecedents of Nigeria’s exemplar-entrepreneur and man of the moment, a great colossus of the month of March, to be generally reassured of the truism in the above assertions.

Not only has The Olori Omo-Oba Akile Ijebu treaded on daunting paths, in some cases as pioneer, but has set records of accomplishments in those paths. Having contemplated and dared; having succeeded where others have failed, and even for that courage to go and succeed anywhere whims had taken him, the first Nigerian to singlehandedly set-up a Bank, now fits the bill of the proverbial saying: `whatever he does, clap.’ Otunba Dr Michael Olasubomi Balogun, CON, is one man whose epithets could fill a basin. Variously described as the billionaire with taste and charisma, an icon of a rare kind, a pathfinder, Nigeria’s grandmaster of banking, the man with a heart of gold and a pillar of the Christian faith and more, Otunba Balogun has become more than an inspiration, a man whose quietness also speaks volumes.

Imagine for a moment, the several thousands of Nigerians, even foreigners that have been provided platforms to express their skills and talents because someone had provided a platform.

Think for a moment, all the difference that has been made because one decided to, not only dream but fight to accomplish the dreams. These are why, as he adds another year this season, the bells cannot but toll, and the citations cannot but roll, for the impact that he has made and continues to make in life.

In the corporate world for example, he is the torch-bearer of the financial power house with numerous outlets, the FCMB Group. Through that alone, he has become a beacon of hope for Nigeria in the financial services sector of the economy. One man who has produced over 10 Managing Directors of different Banks in Nigeria, all his former staff, not only is the story behind FCMB founding also a lesson in perseverance and vision, its cutting-edge service delivery in the sea of other equally determined competitors, is still a subject of corporate study. How else can a single life be more impactful? How else would anyone desire to pass through this existence! Yet, it is not the beginning. The whole story goes back to that auspicious 9th day in March in 1934 in the Nigerian traditional and legendary town of Ijebu-Ode in Ogun State, and the infant Subomi was born. The stars may not have dimmed, but there was no doubt that a mortal of rare qualities that would translate ingenious ideas and unusual commitment had come to sojourn. The account has been re-

Otunba

narrated times over, how quite early in life, he began to show signs of his unique individuality, beginning with his decision to get right early, his spiritual side.

It was unheard of at the time, but for a man that understands both vision and capability of the sovereign God, there was no deterring. This was how, supported by his wife of inestimable value, Olori Abimbola Adetutu, he ‘waylaid’ the then Vice President, Dr Alex Ekwueme, seeking the assistance of being given a banking license. Flash back again to his early life: He was just 13 when the conviction to convert to Christianity dawned on him, and if you had expected the young lad to do so in a brash manner, you got it wrong. Instead, he tabled the matter maturely before his parents who were established Muslims, via his loving mother. Which parent would refuse a child endowed with respect and driven with determination?

The rest, as they say is history.

The paradigm shift in philosophical focus happened while he was schooling at Igbobi College, and after school, Subomi took up employment as a class room teacher, helping to groom the future hope of the nation as at that time. Thereafter, he left the shores of the land for the United Kingdom where he studied law at the London School of Economics. Thanks to the right foundation he had before traveling, and in line with his life of vision, the young Subomi did not allow the klieg lights of Europe distract him from his vision of being an accomplished man. This can be attested to by the fact he remained diligent in attending fellowships in faraway UK. All through, he never left anything to chance; instead, he always demonstrated readiness to give what is required, and to pay the price necessary to obtain the desirable goals. Earlier, he had passed out with a Cambridge Grade One School Certificate in 1952, from Igbobi College, and later the London

School of Economics (LSE) where he read Law. He graduated from LSE with Second Class Honours Degree in June, 1959 and was called to the English Bar in December, 1959.

With the academic feathers firmly in his pocket, he returned to his fatherland, promptly joining the then Western Region’s Ministry of Justice, where he was a Crown Counsel and later, a Parliamentary Counsel. Another turning point of his life dawned in 1966 for it was in this year that he joined the Nigerian Industrial Development Bank, a dream work place for many young Nigerians then. He invested some nine years of diligent work, being the first Principal Counsel and Company Secretary, and also worked at the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), otherwise known as the World Bank, and its private sector affiliate, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) both in Washington DC. Here, he caught another vision, but it was not a vision caught while idling away, but one that

‘

You cannot bottle a man of vision, and this was what precipitated Subomi Balogun’s move to leave, a move that culminated in the founding of a Broking and Issuing House that was shortly to become a household name - City Securities

flowed from the diligent engagement and sinking of one’s self in the daily, but daunting work regimen of the financial institution.

Thus, began an intriguing rendezvous with investment banking, a quest that has since brought a paradigm shift in his entrepreneurial endeavours, and indeed the banking direction of the entire nation. Subomi Balogun’s elite position amongst banking moguls in the country is not without a reason, but comes from the missionary journeys he has led, and the pioneering roles he has played. He is reputed to have been the leading advocate for the establishment of investment banking in Nigeria, using the auspices of the NIDB. Any Nigerian banker of note would always regale the story of the then ICON securities, a merchant banking outfit which was established in 1973 as a subsidiary of NIDB. He made great things happen, even in anonymous ways while holding the forte as the Director of operations in the institution. His was not devoid of intrigues, for while it was expected that he would naturally move up to head the institution where he had invested tremendous passion and diligence, the opposite was happening.

Like it is said, you cannot bottle a man of vision, and this was what precipitated Subomi Balogun’s move to leave, a move that culminated in the founding of a Broking and Issuing House that was shortly to become a household name - City Securities. Its cutting-edge delivery saw to it netting business relationships with equally bluechip oil service firms and institutions of the time like Mobil, Texaco and Total. Upon reflection in the near past, he had equally shared how it was he was inspired by entrepreneurial feats of Siegmund Warburg, who cofounded S.G. Warburg. His was not an admiration from the distance; he actually paid an understudy visit to

the firms in London, prior to birthing his bank for merchant financing. Then came 1979 when he took the bold step of applying for a merchant banking license to establish First City Merchant Bank. The dream came to fruition four years later in 1983, - a new dawn in Nigeria’s banking culture had begun, in that Balogun’s new baby came with an infectious culture and tradition, such that has impacted lives and businesses and set new vistas of service delivery in the banking firmament.

Otunba Balogun established an entrepreneurial culture at the new bank, unique as an owner managed bank in contrast to the government owned banks at the time. His business philosophy is unique and has accounted for the soaring success that FCMB has recorded since inception. Those who know say this is anchored on his human faced profit mentality, in the sense that he is a serial investor in persons, individuals, groups, institutions and the society. This is exemplified in his massive Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) engagements as both an individual and as a corporate player.

Recall that in 1987, he was the first in Nigeria, through First City Merchant Bank Limited to endow a Professorial Chair in a University when at the University of Ibadan he set up a Chair for Capital Market Studies in the Department of Economics and Finance.

A Research Fellowship domiciled at the Legal Department of the University of Lagos, is also to his name, the roll call of benefiting institutions from his milk of human kindness including the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Yaba College of Technology, African Leadership Forum, the Children’s Emergency Unit in the University Teaching Hospital, Ibadan as well as the Ijebu-Ode General Hospital. One of his many legacies is the fully equipped and air-conditioned 40-bed Children’s Centre at the Ijebu Ode General Hospital, a fulfillment of a promise he had made earlier.

Otunba Subomi endowed, perpetually, an annual award of scholarships to the best students in Muslim College, Ijebu-Ode in honour of his late father; and also set up another scholarship endowment in honour of his mother known as “Iye Subomi Scholarship”; an endowment at the Nigerian School for the Blind at Oshodi, as well as an Annual National Marathon Championship for Disabled Athletes. He has single handedly endowed churches and even the establishment of dioceses in some Christian denominations in Nigeria.

It is difficult to think of any sphere of society where he has not left footprints.

Otunba Balogun is the pillar behind the “Otunba Tunwase Foundation” to cater for all his philanthropic endeavours and services to the community. When the construction work of the “Otunba Tunwase National Paediatric Centre (OTNPC), took-off in earnest, he handed over a cheque of N10 million and on June 7, 2013, Otunba Balogun wholly donated the Paediatric Centre, valued modestly at N3.7billion, to the University of Ibadan at a signing of Deed of Total Gift ceremony.

36 BUSINESS DAY NEWS

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Friday 08 March 2019

Take a well-deserved rest at 82, Obasanjo told

Gender gap among digital remittance to Nigeria narrows by 20% in 5 years

… my criticism of Buhari not borne out of hatred – ex-President

HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE

RAZAQ AYINLA

F

ormer President Olusegun Obasanjo was on Tuesday advised to take a welldeserved rest, fight less, and rather §take a position of a consultant as he attained the glorious age of 82.

Obasanjo marked his 82nd birthday anniversary at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, on Tuesday, in an event that had in attendance dignitaries from far and near including Mongosuthu Buthelezi, founder of South Africa’s Inkantha Freedom Party. Buthelezi delivered a lecture entitled ‘Colonialism, Apartheid, Freedom and South Africa Rising’, where he identified corruption as the biggest challenge facing the African continent.

In a goodwill message at the event, the Alake and Paramount Ruler of Egbaland, Oba Aremu Gbadebo, advised Obasanjo to desist from his ceaseless attacks on President Buhari.

“At 82 years, I think you should keep your sword more rather than use it al-

ways,” said Gbadebo, who served as a military officer during the military administration of Muhammadu Buhari (1984-85).

Also, in a statement to mark Obasanjo’s 82nd birthday, President Buhari described the former president as a passionate and great patriot who deserves accolades for his immeasurable contributions to Nigeria’s democracy and national unity.

President Buhari acknowledged that irrespective of their political differences, he still holds Obasanjo in the highest esteem because his contributions to the development of the country overshadow those differences.

“Chief Obasanjo gave a good account of himself and inspired his juniors with his wit and other leadership skills. Nigeria’s successful transition to democratic rule in October 1979 was one of Obasanjo’s remarkable contributions to national development,” Buhari said.

“As he celebrates his 82nd birthday anniversary, I wish Chief Obasanjo more good health, knowledge and wisdom in the service of Nigeria and humanity,” he

said.

In his response, Obasanjo said his criticism of Buhari’s administration, programmes and policy was not borne out of personal hatred and animosity but an attempt at making sure things are done according to democratic norms to deepen democracy and ensure economic growth and development.

The former president also called on African leaders to focus more on democracy, good governance and the growth of the economy.

“There is nothing personal between President Buhari and I. In a democracy, you can criticise a policy, a government or a leader because democracy is not a family affair,” Obasanjo said.

“If it is my brother that is occupying the leadership role and he is not doing what I believe he should do, he must be criticised and that is what democracy is all about.

I have been in that position longer than any Nigerian will ever be there. So, if I say anybody in government in Nigeria is not doing well, let that government prove that it is doing well,” he said.

T

he gender gap for sending digital remittances to Nigeria is rapidly closing as new data from WorldRemit show digitally savvy Nigerian women abroad are sending more money home.

The gender gap between male and female WorldRemit customers sending to Nigeria between 2014 and 2018 has narrowed by 20 percent.

Nigerians living abroad sent home a record $25 billion (N9trn) in 2018, making Nigeria the largest remittancereceiving country in Africa.

As remittances continue to grow, women are making an increasing contribution to the country’s development.

To mark International Women’s Day, leading online money transfer service WorldRemit and Access Bank celebrate the contribution Nigerian women living and working abroad make to their home country, with new data revealing that the gender gap for sending digital remittances to Nigeria is rapidly closing.

The new WorldRemit research reveals that the proportion of females sending digital money transfers to Nigeria via WorldRemit has grown by 10 percent within

the last five years, and 37 percent of WorldRemit’s customers sending to Nigeria are female, compared to 27 percent in 2014.

The UN estimates that over 46% of Nigerian migrants are female, with the majority living in the United Kingdom and United States of America. Money sent from mothers, sisters and aunts living abroad help millions of families in Nigeria pay for essential needs such as healthcare and education.

Evidence suggests that, although female migrants tend to earn less than their male counterparts, they send a higher proportion of their income home more frequently.

Digital money transfer companies are improving the access that women have to remittances and helping their money go further.

WorldRemit enables the Nigerian Diaspora to send money home in a few taps from their phones without having to travel to an agent, lowering costs and increasing speed and convenience.

As WorldRemit celebrates International Women’s Day, the company is offering new customers zero fees on their first transfer to Nigeria if they use the code

ACCESSBANK when making payment.

Pardon Mujakachi, country manager for Nigeria at WorldRemit, says: “Ensuring digital inclusion for financial services for women on both the send and receive side is critically important, as we know that when women thrive, families, businesses and local economies thrive too.

“Our data shows that women play an increasingly vital role in Nigeria’s development by sending money home to support education, cover healthcare costs, make investments, and more. At WorldRemit, we’re committed to simplifying that process, and making it faster, cheaper and easier to send and receive remittances.”

Victor Etuokwu, executive director, personal banking, Access Bank, says: “At Access Bank, we are very passionate about women. Hence, we have products and services that are tailor-made for women because we recognize the importance of their role in the family and the society at large.

We have now taken this a step further by partnering with WorldRemit, to ensure that women outside Nigeria can seamlessly remit money to their families or for their businesses back in Nigeria.

Friday 08 March 2019

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INEC needs radical overhauling, says Kila, others JOSHUA BASSEY & JOHN SALAU

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irector, Centre for International Advanced and Professional Studies, Anthony Kila, a professor, has called for a radical overhaul of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) following the controversies that ensued after the one-week postponement of the February 16 presidential election over logistics challenges.

Kila’s views tally with that of Obafemi Hamzat, deputy governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lagos, who believes that INEC as presently constituted breeds inefficiency and wastage and therefore required unbundling.

Hamzat, who spoke with BusinessDay, said the election umpire should be decentralised along the six geopolitical zones, with each of the zones allowed to print election materials but with supervision from the head-

quarters in Abuja. This, he believed, will eliminate the recurring incident of election materials not reaching the electorate in their farflung localities on schedule time.

Speaking at the 2019 Presidential Elections Predictions: A Post Mortem, held by the Association of Political Consultants Africa, in Lagos, on Sunday, Kila said enormous resources being spent by INEC do not reflect on efficient conduct of elections in Nigeria.

According to Kila, it is currently too expensive to manage INEC because of the mistrust between the commission and the electorate.

“At the moment, one thing that should be said about INEC is that we are paying a price for not being transparent; the lack of trust is costing us a lot that is why INEC is too expensive to manage.

“INEC of today is analogue, slow, confused, not certain, and not transparent.

It does not reflect the society of today; this INEC needs a

total change,” he said.

Kila, who believe that every election is a test for political parties, candidates, the umpire (INEC), and for analysts, stated that the INEC of the future would decentralise authority, responsibility, and digitalise process.

“There is no reason why we should be seating and counting votes for 48/72 hours before we get results.

There are ways to handle the whole election of Nigeria like one big master sheet of Excel Sheet, in which wherever you vote from, we can get the results live in real time and it will go to a visible website for example, and more media stations can transmit it just as they are coming in right away.

“We need to outsource a lot of things that INEC is doing; I have proposed and will continue to stand by the proposal that INEC should work with banks – people should be able to collect their PVC in their banks,” he said, saying the process of register-

ing for vote and collecting the Permanent Voters’ Card (PVC) was outdated.

Kehinde Bamigbetan, the president, Association of Political Consultants Africa, said the 2019 elections showed that plan and strategy could work based on the analysis that influenced the predictions made before the elections.

“Political management is part of behavioural sciences: it is said and believed that as far as human beings are the ones who vote and participate in politics, political predictions about how people are likely to behave during an election will be largely based on scientific principles,” he said.

According to Bamigbetan, the group work to promote, sustain and foster the democratic process as a matter of principle and practice, hence providing a forum for the exchange of ideas and views on principles and techniques of politics, political campaigning and government relations.

L-R: Bamidele Abayomi, general manager, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB); Simbi Wabote, executive secretary, NCDMB, and Funmi Ogbue, managing director, Jake Riley Limited, during the Nigerian Oil and Gas opportunity fair press conference in Lagos, yesterday.

Pic Pius Okeosisi

MTN delves into device manufacturing to increase smartphone penetration JUMOKE AKIYODE-LAWANSON

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TN on Wednesday launched the first ever smart feature phone in Nigeria in a bid to drive down cost of mobile devices and in turn increase mobile penetration in all its countries of operation, especially Nigeria, the biggest market for the telecom company.

Despite facing difficult times in Nigeria in the past few years, MTN has succeeded in developing wellrounded telecommunication operations, serving over 66 million subscribers in Nigeria by providing a range of consumer and business digital services including voice and data connectivity and

most recently adding device manufacturing to its robust portfolio.

Speaking during the launch of the third-generation (3G) mobile device at the MTN head office in Lagos on Wednesday 6 March, 2019, Rahul De, chief marketing officer, MTN Nigeria, said it had become important for the company to do something about driving down the cost of smartphones in the continent so as to deepen penetration and create an opportunity for connectivity in the rural areas.

“Availability of affordable devices for data connectivity is very critical to us at MTN. We know that once a country is connected, the GDP

growth will be faster and exponential. So we decided not to depend on Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), but to make available, affordable 3G smart feature handsets in the Nigerian, and consequently the African market,” De said.

The MTN device which comes pre-installed with significantly compressed popular mobile applications such as Whatsapp, Facebook, Youtube, Google maps and others, runs of Kai Operating System (KaiOS).

With a 2.4 inches screen size, 2000 mAh battery that can last up to two days without being charged and dual SIM capability, front and rear cameras, its own operating system with down-

loadable apps, allows simple email formats and retailing at only N8,000, the new smart feature phone is as affordable as a feature phone and as multifunctional as a smartphone.

“Going forward, MTN will probably produce 4G AND 5G devices to suit market demands. We are testing the waters right now and making sure that when we go mass, the quality doesn’t suffer. We have taken all necessary permission from the regulator to bring in these devices through the proper channels. Once the volumes pick up, there is a probability that one day we may start producing these devices in Nigeria,” Rahul De told BusinessDay.

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BUSINESS DAY

Dow Chemical names Edosa Obayagbona as new West Africa managing director KELECHI EWUZIE

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ow Chemical, world second largest chemical manufacturer by revenue with approximately $62 billion global annual revenue for 2017, has announced the appointment of Edosa Obayagbona as managing director of its West African regional operations with headquarters in Lagos.

In a statement Thursday, the company says Obayagbona has the responsibility of leading the organisation through the next level of growth in the region.

The company observes that West Africa is key to its African growth ambition, which is anchored by a strong economic potential, increasing regional economic integration, government led drive for diversification, high access to mobile technology and a young, entrepreneurial demographic – these drivers have the potential to spark an accelerated industrial revolution.

According to the statement from the American multinational corporation, Obayagbona becomes the first Nigerian indigene appointed to this position. He was previously the Finance Director for Dow Chemical’s India Subcontinent Region and now replaces Tony Groosman, who retired earlier this year.

“In this expanded role, Obayagbona will also serve

as the Finance Director (CFO) and will oversee all financial matters in Sub Sahara Africa (SSA) for Dow Chemical, he brings to bear more than 20 years of global experience to the region,” the statement states.

He started his Dow career as a summer intern in 1999. He subsequently held various roles in risk management in the company’s corporate Treasury function before leaving for Koch Industries in October 2005.

While at Koch Industries, he held various global leadership roles in risk management, corporate finance, business continuity planning, and corporate real estate.

Dow Chemical is determined to support West Africa’s growth trajectory with scientific and technological expertise/talent development in line with the African vision for infrastructure development and economic success to transform into an industrialised, prosperous continent capable of providing a higher quality of life for its citizens.

What 9mobile’s magic hour promo means to customers CHUKA UROKO

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n various ways, business organisations try to prove to their clients and customers that they care for them and so go all out to create customerfocused products that give the customers opportunity to benefit from whatever they have on offer.

This is very common among service providers, especially those of them that offer alternative products to customers and, therefore, face stiff competition for attention and patronage. In this class, telecommunication companies, whose services can be swapped one for another, stand out.

Among the top four that straddle the Nigerian market, 9Mobile prides itself as a customer-friendly network service provider and so, frequently comes up with products or promo through which it demonstrates its care for the customers.

Presently, it has an on-going promo known as Magic Hour Promo, which offers its customers a chance to win good prizes

including free airtime, smartphones and cash prizes running into millions of naira. The promo will run from February to May 2019, giving the customers three whole months during which they will be winning various prices.

The promo is aimed to appreciate customers for their brand affinity over the past decade. New and existing customers of the telco are free to participate in the promo, and they can win as many times as possible.

Prizes up for grabs include the N20 million grand prize for one winner, and N5 million to be won by one lucky customer at each of the monthly draws.

Also, one customer will win N250,000 while five customers will win N50,000 cash daily for 90 days, subject to the terms and conditions of the offer.

Five smartphones will also to be won every week, during the duration of the promo.

At the first prize redemption of the promo which held at the Ikeja City Mall, Lagos, winners were presented with prizes including smartphones and N50,000 cash.

38 BUSINESS DAY NEWS MTN’s record N1trn revenue signals...

Continued from page 1 it raked in N901 billion from its

entire Africa operations.

“MTN will be priced at a premium when it is listed because of its huge revenue potential which the 2018 financial report shows is expanding at breakneck speed,” said Tajudeen Ibrahim, head of research at Lagos-based investment bank, Chapel Hill Denham.

“The company’s strong performance gives investors a taste of what is to come and many would be licking their lips as the company finalises its listing,” Ibrahim added.

MTN Nigeria expects to list its shares on the Nigerian Stock Exchange in the first half of 2019, subject to regulatory approvals. This will be achieved via a listing by introduction and will be followed by a public offer once market conditions are conducive.

Rob Shutter, MTN Group’s CEO,

in an exclusive interview with BusinessDay shortly after the telco’s financial result was published Thursday, gave assurances of a listing before June 30, 2018.

“I can’t see why there will be significant delays in our planned listing,” Shutter said.

“We have complied with the regulatory requirements and the team on ground has made good progress in getting us ready for listing. The only thing is something administrative and considering how far we are into the process, I think that is unlikely. A listing in May will be a good outcome,” he said.

About the Payment Service Bank licence that MTN applied for in November 2018, Shutter said “the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has been responsive and the next step is to get an approval in principle”.

“Then we can register the company and roll out operations. We hope to get through on that in the

C002D5556

first half,” he said.

MTN Nigeria extended the strong performance evidenced at the interim period and reported full-year results that beat analysts’ expectations, with double-digit growth in voice revenue of 18.7 percent. That helped drive strong service revenue growth and the further widening of the Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation (EBITDA) margin. EBITDA grew by 30.7 percent to 18.394 billion rand (excluding CBN payment).

EBITDA margin increased by 4.5 percentage points to 43.5 percent (excluding CBN payments which came to 194 million rand or N4.78 billion).

MTN Nigeria’s revenue, which contributed 28.2 percent to the Group’s revenue, rose 17 percent compared to last year, thanks to a 40.1 percent increase in data revenue to 5.498 billion rand. Fintech revenue grew 32.3 percent to 1.03 billion rand, second only to the South African market. That was enough to overpower a 58.3 percent slump in

L-R: Chidum Ayeni, business transformation manager, Nigerian Breweries plc; Grace Omo-Lamai, human resource director; Jordi Borrut Bel, managing director; Ndidi Nwuneli, non-executive director; Adeyinka Aroyewun, non-executive director, and Sade Morgan, corporate affairs director, at the celebration of the 2019 International Women’s Day in Nigerian Breweries, Lagos, yesterday.

International Women’s Day: Nigeria in...

Continued from page 1

Nigeria have been called upon to continually up-skill themselves,

network actively, and put themselves forward confidently for greater roles in society.

Some prominent Nigerian women who spoke with BusinessDay also called for gender balance, women empowerment, and inclusion of more women in governance in the country for economic development.

The calls are in tandem with this year’s theme, ‘Think equal, build smart, innovate for change’, as well the campaign hash-tag, ‘#Balance for better’.Both aim to find innovative ways to advance gender equality and the empowerment of women, particularly in the areas of social protection systems, access to public services and sustainable infrastructure.

“Gender imbalance as a critical issue has never been more challenging for us. The prospect of growth for women in business and the labour force generally is already hampered by norms and stereotypes which form a big part of our culture today,” said Osayi Alile, CEO, Aspire Coronation Trust Foundation.

“However, this is the time for women to rise above their mental barriers. A woman’s journey to success begins from harnessing the power of her mind,” she said.

Toyin Sanni, CEO, Emerging Africa Group, said the gender divide

is a global problem, even though it is a bigger problem in certain areas than in others.

“The solution is not what the women are doing or what they are not doing. It’s a collective responsibility.

Yes, women should up-skill themselves, network actively, and should put themselves forward confidently and project themselves,” she said.

Sanni said women also need to know that they make up about 50 percent of the population, and so, ideally, should be found in 50 percent of the leadership positions.

“I see the gap as an opportunity for all of us to continually upscale ourselves, for us to put ourselves forward even for leadership positions and not to be discouraged if we don’t get it at all, first try until we get there,” she said.

Organisations and countries, Sanni said, should set deliberate targets for inclusiveness because everybody loses when some are excluded.

“Nigeria cannot continue to underestimate the role women play in advancing our national interests and our country’s goals of peace, stability, and prosperity,” Precious Ozemoya, a sustainable development enthusiast, said.

“We recognise that what makes us diverse makes us strong and no nation can get ahead if about half its population is left behind,” she said.

Ozemoya said if Nigeria truly supports the Sustainable Develop-

ment Goals, then gender equality should govern not only the ranks of its defence service but its philosophy to advance true equality and equity around the globe.

Nigeria has very poor records of gender-based violence, with many cases of exploitation, rape, and verbal and physical abuse of women and girls. Trafficking in women and girls for forced labour or prostitution is also on the rise.

In addition, young girls suffer from unhealthy traditional practices, such as female genital mutilation and early child marriage, which deprive them of their childhood and education and expose them to vesico vaginal fistula (VVF) as their frail bodies are poorly developed for marital ‘responsibilities’ like pregnancy.

“Having a law against female genital mutilation is a major step but ensuring that people are aware of its existence is very important in our new resolve to rid Edo State of the practice,” Godwin Obaseki, Edo State governor, said regarding gender-based violence.

The state recently passed a new law, Violence Against Persons Prohibition (VAP) Act, providing for life imprisonment without an option of fine for perpetrators of female genital mutilation (FGM) in the state.

Experts have said there are twice as many women below the poverty line than men, and up to 19 times as many men in executive positions than women. In the corporate world, women struggle to be heard, as only

digital revenue to 908 million rand.

Digital revenue declined because of further optimisation of value-added services (VAS), but analysts expect a return to growth in 2019.

In dollar terms, MTN Nigeria’s revenuecomesto$2.9billion,whichiswell below the $4.2 billion revenue in 2012.

“MTN Nigeria is clearly benefitting from deliberate investments in our network, cost optimisation initiatives and human capital,” the company said.

The company’s subscriber base rose by 11.3 percent to 58.2 million as at December 2018, from 52.28 million as at December 2017, which implies a net addition of 5.92 million to the subscriber base.

As at February 2019, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) shows that MTN Nigeria’s subscriber base expanded even further and now sits at 66.7 million.

Friday 08 March 2019

The company reported average revenue per user (ARPU) of N1,535.73 in the fourth quarter of 2018, up 3.5 percent from 2017.

Meanwhile, on December 24, 2018, MTN South Africa announced that MTN Nigeria had successfully resolved the matter with the CBN relating to the notional reversal of a 2008 private placement transaction, although the tax dispute between the Nigerian unit and the Attorney General is yet to be resolved and will come before the Nigerian courts on March 26, 2019. The audit committees of both MTN Nigeria and MTN Group have assessed the Attorney General’s claims and remain of the view that all taxes due have been paid, and as such no provision or contingent liabilities need to be raised.

“We will vigorously defend our position on this matter,” the company said.

Voter apathy may mar governorship/state...

Continued from page 4

of the supplementary elections I referred to earlier were caused by such acts of thuggery,” he said.

Yakubu said he was confident that working together with the security agencies, the commission would consolidate on the largely peaceful conduct of the Presidential and National Assembly elections while also taking decisive steps to deal with the minority of violators intent on disrupting the conduct of peaceful elections.

“However, the commission will not tolerate the act of holding our officials hostage and forcing them to declare winners under duress. Where such occurs, the commission will not reward bad behaviour by issuing them Certificates of Return,” Yakubu said.

“We have once again reconfigured the smart card readers for the elections on Saturday. The use of the card readers is mandatory and there will be no exemption to their deployment for accreditationofvoters.UnderourRegulations and Guidelines, there are clear penalties for the deliberate failure to deploythemonthepartofourstaff.Where such happens with the connivance of

communities, the result of election in the polling unit(s) will be cancelled and zero vote recorded,” he said.

Nigerians will once again go to the polls this Saturday to elect a total of 1,082 candidates, including 29 state governors, 991 members of Houses of Assembly, six chairmen and 62 councillors for the FCT area councils.

“In addition to elections into 1,082 constituencies nationwide, the commission will conduct supplementary elections in 14 states of the federation covering seven senatorial districts and 24 federal constituencies. Elections in the affected areas were disrupted mainly by acts of violence involving ballot box snatching, abduction of INEC officials, over-voting and the failure to adhere to regulations and guidelines,” Yakubu said.

He added that Certificates of Return for governors and deputy-governorselect,membersofstates’assembly-elect and chairmen and councillors for the FCT would be presented in each state of the federation by the supervising national commissioners and the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) on a date to be announced next week.

few make it to the boardrooms.

They battle unequal payment, and in some cases, sexual harassment.

In politics, men generally dominate, even though women show up as candidates, voters, politicians, activists, and in most cases in Nigeria, as praise-singers. Again, women tend to be treated very differently from their male counterparts, and the results of every election year tell the story.

For instance, despite women constituting 49.5 percent of Nigeria’s population, according to National Population Commission (NPC) figures, no woman has emerged president or vice president in the country’s nearly 60-year history. Similarly, no woman has emerged governor in an election. Elections conducted between 1999 and 2015 produced only 16 female deputy governors.

While there were more female deputy governors in 2007, only four women became deputy governors in 2015.

“We definitely do not want to have women in politics just to meet the gender diversity requirement and these women end up as flower pots or showpieces in the political scenes; we need to have dynamic, tenacious, confident women,” Imomoemi Ibisiki, divisional head, human capital management, Heritage Bank plc, said.

“Women with history of transformational leadership need to engage strategically in progressive politics.

Gladly, Nigeria doesn’t lack women with these qualities,” she said.

Elishama Ideh, a former presidential candidate and founder, Part-

nership For A New Nigeria, lamented that there are not enough women in politics in the country.

“We have a society that is predominantly patriarchal and also very gender-biased, where the women have been programmed into a mindset that they cannot aspire beyond a certain limit. Also, politics in this clime is very dangerous and it is all about money. These issues have boxed women into a corner,” Ideh said.

“The solution is that women should be encouraged to step out boldly and more. Women should rise up to support aspiring women and not further castigate them because it takes a lot of boldness and courage for any woman to rise up in our society to say they want to run for any public office,” she said.

Omolara Adesanya, governorship candidate of Providence People’s Congress (PPC) in Lagos State, said many women were not coming out because of fear and because of the mindset that women belong to the kitchen.

“Women are already aligning with governance but their full potential is not being harvested. There are so many intelligent women out there with the tenacity to do something for their country but they are not being encouraged,” Adesanya said in an exclusive interview with BusinessDay. “Violence is also another reason why women don’t put themselves forward. Politics can only be dirty if you make it dirty, so you can just do it the right way if you don’t want it to be dirty,” she said.

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BUSINESS DAY

The case for a new development strategy Continues from back page will be maximized while ensuring social justice and equal opportunities; and (iii) Provide shelter, food and other amenities for all citizens.

Welfarism is clearly at the heart of our constitutional economics. Within this broad framework, a development strategy should define the path by which we can advance the cause of industrialisation, accelerated growth, structural transformation and collective welfare.

In the early decades of independence, import-substitution industrialisation was the chosen path. By the early seventies, significant inroads were made by way of industrialisation. But then things began to fall apart. The discovery of oil brought with it the “Dutch Disease” syndrome, by which the exchange rate was kept artificially high to bring in cheap imports to satisfy the urban elites at the expense of agriculture and the rural poor.

Agriculture and industry were undermined, as ours became an import-dependent rentier economy. Failure to diversify the economy also means that there were no jobs to absorb an ever-expanding population. Public finances also come under heavy risk when global oil prices go down and the capacity of the state to generate revenues dwindle.

From the experiences of other emerging economies, a development strategy requires a group of technically trained economists and technocrats working together to evolve a new set of ideas on how the country can make giant leaps forward. We need an intellectual champion such as the statistician P. C. Mahalanobis who became head of the Indian Planning. But Mahalanobis and his team could not have succeeded without the foresight and vision of a great statesman such as Prime

Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, a Cambridge-trained scientist and lawyer. The Indians also brought in foreign economists such as Ragnar Frisch, Oskar Lange, Nicholas Kaldor Michael Kalecki, Milton Friedman and Peter Bauer to critique their strategies.

In Singapore, the economist Dr. Goh Keng Swee was a trusted adviser and counsellor to Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew who was himself a firstrate jurist and visionary. They also enlisted the help of the Dutch economist Albert Winsemius who served as an adviser to Singapore during the years 1961 to 1984. Winsemius had led the first UN mission to Singapore in the early sixties and was soon bowled over.

The Singaporeans were humble enough to subject their ideas to severe critiques by Winsemius who made it his life-mission to see the small island nation succeed.

What we in Nigeria today need is a small crop of highly gifted practical economists and technocrats who have a clear vision of where our country should be and how to get it there. They must be patriots not driven by sectional or ethnic sentiments. They should, rather, be believers in the New Nigeria National Project. We need them to work together to build a model of the economy and to address the critical questions of “what, why, and how?” We should address our minds on how to become an industrialised knowledgebased economy in the coming two decades; how we can take millions of our people out of poverty; how we can build a flourishing middle class; and how can we become the financial hub of the continent and make our Naira an international trading currency – how we can hook on to the global economy, with its opportunities and risks.

Continues online at www.businesday.ng

L-R: Ibrahim Aliyu, chairman, North South Power Company; Olubunmi Peters, vice chairman, North South Power Company; Solape Oguntayo, team lead, capital markets, United Capital Investment Banking, and Sunny Anene, group executive director, United Capital plc, at the Bond Signing Ceremony of North South Power Company’s N8.5 billion 15-year guaranteed Fixed-Rate Senior Green Infrastructure Bonds, recently.

EFCC arraigns ex-Skye Bank chair, Tunde Ayeni, others for alleged N25bn fraud OLUWASEGUN OLAKOYENIKAN & INNOCENT ODOH, Abuja

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he Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Thursday, arraigned former chairman of the defunct Skye Bank’s Board of Directors, Tunde Ayeni, before Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu of a Federal High Court, Abuja on a 10-count charge, bordering on money laundering to the tune of N25,415,080,000 (Twenty Five Billion, Four Hundred and Fifteen Million, Eighty Thousand Naira).

According to a statement issued on Thursday by Tony Orilade, acting head of media and publicity of the EFCC, Ayeni was arraigned along with Timothy Ajani Oguntayo and two companies, Control Dredging Company Limited and Royaltex Paramount Ven-

NNPC’s DSDP partners to patronise corporation’s shipping arm HARRISON EDEH, Abuja

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o ensure sustained profitability of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporations (NNPC) shipping subsidiary: NIDAS, the NNPC group managing director, Maikanti Baru, has urged partners involved in the Direct Sale Direct Purchase (DSDP) scheme of the corporation to patronise the NNPC shipping subsidiary.

Baru passed the advice to two of NNPC’s relevant subsidiaries: Crude Oil Marketing Division (COMD) and the NNPC Trading Limited during his visit to the NNPC office in Hammersmith, London, where he met staff of both the London office and NIDAS. DSDP is a scheme by which NNPC sells crude oil

directly to offshore refiners and receive products from same in return.

Ndu Ughamadu, group general manager, public affairs, confirmed in a statement issued on Thursday that the corporation was elated by the profitability strides recorded by NNPC/NIDAS no sooner than it launched into international freight business.

“I wish to commend NIDAS for beginning to make money for the NNPC. I am particularly elated with the company’s performance which has seen it doing 15 voyages on clean petroleum products from October 2018, just four months after it resumed international freight business,” Baru told the company’s staff.

He called on them to redouble their efforts towards sustaining the current tem-

po, he said, was in line with the profitability drive of the corporation.

NIDAS Limited managing director, Lawal Sade, who spoke at the visit of the GMD, lauded Baru for his support and efforts in revamping the company, he said, prior to the GMD’s assumption of office, had been moribund.

“Our recent modest successes wouldn’t have been possible without Baru’s support. We are truly inspired by this visit and we are ever ready to achieve the targets set for us by the NNPC Management,” he said.

Sade further stated that the company would work harder to sustain the tempo by engaging and soliciting the support of sister NNPC’s outfits and international partners towards improving the corporation’s bottom-line.

tures Limitedd, for allegedly conspiring at different times to fraudulently divert depositors’ funds domiciled at the bank for personal use.

One of the counts read: “That you, Tunde Ayeni, whilst being Chairman, Board of Directors of the defunct Skye Bank Plc and Timothy Ajani Oguntayo while being the Managing Director, MD, of the defunct Skye Bank Plc, on or about 24th December 2014 at Abuja, within the Abuja Judicial Division of this Honourable Court, did conspire to commit an offence to wit, money laundering by transferring the sum of N3,000,000,000 (Three Billion Naira) from the defunct Skye Bank Plc suspense account to the First City Monument Bank Plc of Control Dredging Company Limited, which money you reasonably ought to have known forms part of

the proceeds of an unlawful act, to wit: fraud and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 18(a) and punishable under Section 15(2)(b) and (3) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011 (as amended).” They pleaded “not guilty” to the charges.

Counsel for the first, third and fourth defendants, Wale Akonni, thereafter, moved the bail applications for his clients, arguing that the charges were bailable. A similar application was moved by Dele Adesina, counsel for the second defendant, for his client.

Counsel for the EFCC, Abba Mohamed, however, raised objections to the applications for bail, the statement said. But after listening to the arguments, Justice Ojukwu, admitted the first and second defendants bail in the sum of N100 million and two sureties

in like sum, who must be residents of Abuja with landed property. They are also to present tax clearances for 2016, 2017 and 2018, all of which must be verified by the court registrar.

The case has been adjourned to May 27, 28 and June 4, 2019.

It would be recalled that Ayeni and Oguntayo were on March 6, 2019, also arraigned by the EFCC before Justice Valentine Ashi of a Federal Capital Territory, FCT High Court, Apo, on a separate four-count charge bordering on criminal breach of trust to the tune of N4,597,500,000.

Earlier, on December 17 2018, the duo were arraigned before Justice Nnamdi Dimgba of the FHC sitting in Abuja.

Justice Dimgba has been transferred to Asaba Division of the FHC, the statement said.

Buhari continues consultations, meets Labour leaders TONY AILEMEN, Abuja

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head the inauguration of his next four years in office, President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday continued his consultations, this time, with the Organised Labour, asking them to forward proposals on how to achieve effective governance in the years ahead.

This is as the President also urged Labour leaders to support the current administration’s efforts to rebuild a solid economy.

The President, speaking while receiving the Labour leaders, expressed his appreciation to them for their understanding during the Minimum Wage negotiations as well as the just concluded Presidential and Na-

tional Assembly elections.

The President, while addressing the Labour leaders, said, “The next four years will be peaceful, prosperous and corruption free. I therefore look forward to receiving your proposals so that together, we can achieve these goals.”

The President, who again lamented that he inherited a failed government from his predecessors, recalled how Nigeria lost opportunities to build infrastructure when crude oil was “sold for $100 per barrel per day for 16 years, without nothing to show for it.

“Oil production from 2.1 million barrels per day went down to half a million. The militant was unleashed on this administration. So really, there were terrible management of this country in the last 16

years, and we are just trying to make up.”

Buhari, while also appealing to the Labour leaders over the Minimum Wage agitation, said his administration would not succeed without their cooperation, adding, “l appreciate the pressure you are under from your respective constituencies.”

He also used the opportunity to appeal to Nigerians to go out en-mass to vote for candidates of their choice during the forthcoming gubernatorial and state assembly elections.

“By the Grace of God, majority of Nigerians have given me another four years. We will remain focused on our promises, which remains security, economy and fighting corruption.”

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NEWS 36-yr concession: Bi-Courtney justified as FAAN refutes plot to take over MMA2 IFEOMA OKEKE

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ollowing a statement released by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited [BASL], operator of the Murtala Muhammed Airport 2, is justified in its claim of 36 years validity on the Build-OperateTransfer concession model of the airport terminal.

FAAN’s reaction, which was made available to newsmen through the company’s general manager, corporate affairs, Henrietta Yakubu, refuted in strong terms the allegation of a takeover of the administration of MMA2 from BASL. Recall that a report had emerged online alleging that a source close to the Ministry of Transport, Aviation Unit, had disclosed that the management of FAAN had been authorised by the Ministry to take over the terminal on the expiration of alleged 12 years

consensual agreement between BASL and the agency in May. In her words, Yakubu said the agency was not aware of any plans to take over the operations of the MMA2 terminal. She was also quoted to have said someone might be trying to be mischievous, hence the report.

The agreed extension to 36 years was not disclosed, instead the report said the 12year agreement would expire on May 7, 2019, which was the exact date the terminal commenced operations with flight service by the defunct Chanchangi Airlines.

The report alleged that the planned takeover was also causing some instability among staff members of BASL, who were believed to be looking elsewhere for alternative jobs following the threat by the government.

The report also claimed the chairman of BASL, Wale Babalakin, had been making efforts through some of his

contacts in the Presidency to frustrate the takeover of the terminal on the due date, claiming that the concession agreement between the two was for 36 years.

Reacting to the report, BASL said the MMA2 concession was valid for 36 years, which was yet to expire.

In a statement signed by the spokesperson for Bi-Courtney, Eniola AdeSolanke, on Tuesday, said, “We will like to set the records straight by stating that Bi-Courtney Limited entered into a concession agreement with the Federal Republic of Nigeria, for the Build, Operate and Transfer of the MMA2 for 36 years.”

According to Bi-Courtney, FAAN offered it a 36-year lease in a letter dated October 12, 2006, and an agreement was duly signed on the February 2, 2007, by the minister of aviation.

It added that the agreement was further confirmed at a meeting held on July 7, 2009 chaired by a former President, the late Umaru Musa Yar’adua.

Court of Appeal okays Taraba APC guber candidate to contest NATHANIEL GBAORON, Jalingo

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ourt of Appeal Yola, sitting in Jalingo, on Thursday ordered a stay of execution of the judgment of the Federal High Court Jalingo that disqualified the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Sani Abubakar Danladi, from contesting the Saturday governorship election.

The presiding judge, Justice Chidi Nwaoma Uwa, ruled in favour of the APC and Sani Abubakar Danladi on the motion ex-parte and order of interim injunction filed by counsel, demanding the stay of execution of the judgment delivered by the Federal High Court and to restrain the respondents from executing the judgment and orders of

the court, pending the determination of motion on notice filed by the applicants.

“The parties are to maintain the status quo ante bellum and are to stay action and or steps towards the execution of the judgment of the Federal High Court. An interim order of injunction is hereby ordered, restraining the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th respondents from taking any steps towards the execution of the said judgment,” Justice Uwa said.

Counsel to the APC, Chia Elijah, who briefed journalists after the ruling, said it became pertinent for the judgment of the Federal High Court to be stayed pending the outcome of the appeal so that the candidate would not be denied the right to participate at the election.

“In view of the proximity of the order of the Federal High Court to the conduct of the governorship election in the state, and the fact the APC candidate has the right of appeal against that judgment and has filed a notice of appeal, if the order is not stayed and the election is conducted, he would have suffered injury in the sense that his right to contest at the election would have been denied, and the outcome of the appeal would have been rendered nugatory, like medicine after death.

“As such, the appeal court has ordered that the status quo be maintained pending the outcome of the appeal.

The implication is that all the orders of the Federal High Court are stayed pending the ruling of the appeal,” the judge said.

NCDMB unveils plans for 2019 NOGOF FRANK UZUEGBUNAM

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igerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) has unveiled plans for the 2019 Nigerian Oil and Gas Opportunity Fair (NOGOF) scheduled to hold in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State from April 4 – 5, at the premises of the new NCDMB headquarters.

The theme of this year’s Fair is ‘Maximising investments into the Nigeria oil and gas industry for the benefit of the Nigerian people.’

“One of the key objectives of NOGOF is to bring together governments, national oil companies, investors, corporate players and independents, we

can give them a unique space within our country to network, discuss and share knowledge,” said Simbi Wabote, executive secretary, NCDMB, at a press conference in Lagos.

The Fair will attract the quality speakers with the sessions led by leaders of industry, ministers, head of NOCs, leading geoscientists and CCEOs from major local and international oil and gas companies.

The potential benefits of NOGOF 2019 include integrating oil producing communities into the oil and gas value chain, fostering institutional collaboration, maximising participation of Nigerians in oil and gas activities, linking oil and gas sector to other sectors of the economy, max-

imising utilisation of Nigerian resources i.e. goods, services and assets and attracting investments to the Nigerian oil and gas sector (service providers, equipment suppliers etc).

“It is uncommon to find major players in our sector and beyond gather together in the same room in support of Nigerian Content. So, it is with great pride that we are able to bring together major players across the upstream, midstream and downstream sectors of the Nigerian oil and gas industry as well as government agencies, Industry regulators and national assembly to showcase opportunities in this industry and present available in-country capacity to all stakeholders in attendance,” Wabote said.

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Edo shrinks gender gap as 54,000 women benefit Employers set agenda for Buhari ahead 2nd term from World Bank-backed Nigeria for Women Project JOSHUA BASSEY (ERGP). sion of their businesses. We … as Obaseki canvasses priority roles for women in devt

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fforts to bridge gender gap in Edo State has received a boost as 54,000 women from the three senatorial districts are set to benefit from the pilot phase of the Nigeria for Women Project, Governor Godwin Obaseki says.

Obaseki, who inaugurated the State Steering Committee and State Technical Committee of the Nigeria for Women Projects at Government House in Benin City, says the project is supported by the World Bank in collaboration with the Federal Government and designed to empower women across Edo, Ogun, Niger, Taraba, Abia and Kebbi states.

Expatiating on the benefits the programme holds for women, the governor maintained that his administration was committed to bridging the economic and social gaps that exist between men and women in the state.

“We are addressing all forms of gender gaps which

have encouraged extreme poverty in the state. So much is being done to ensure that women and girls are empowered with relevant skills to enable them to become selfreliant and contribute more to the economy,” he said.

According to Obaseki, “When women are empowered, it has a multiplier effect on the nation’s economy and poverty reduction.”

He stressed the importance of a robust database for the committees’ work and charged members to come up with modalities on how the projects will be executed.

“We need to come up with specific action plans and monitoring mechanism so we can measure outcomes,” he urged, and tasked the various Ward Development Committees to be part of the screening of the project beneficiaries, to allow for fair representation, he said.

In her votes of thanks, Magdalene Ohenhen, commissioner for women affairs and social development, said

the ministry was passionate about the project and would ensure it succeeded.

Ohenhen commended the governor’s efforts at mainstreaming women in governance and particularly for ensuring that Edo State was part of the project, and assured that the committees would act on the terms of reference given by the governor.

In a related development, Governor Obaseki said Nigeria and other developing countries would need to rejig their developmental models to accommodate more women if they were to record substantial progress and harness the full potential of their human resources.

The governor said Edo had shown the light in this regard with his prioritisation of women in development shown through robust gender mainstreaming policies and programmes as well as the enactment of laws that protect women and other vulnerable persons from abuse.

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mployers of labour under the auspices of Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) say they expect to see President Muhammadu Buhari stay focus on policies to lift mass of impoverished Nigerians out of poverty as well as check ‘regulatory gangsterism’ ahead of his swearing for a second term on May 29 this year.

President Buhari, candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), won a re-election bid in February 23 presidential election, as he polled 15,191,847 votes to beat his major challenger, Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), who secured 11,262,978 votes.

According to Timothy Olawale, director-general of NECA, while speaking in Lagos, although the employers’ body does not expect surprises judging from the President’s policy thrust in the last four years, it nevertheless expects that the administration will not deviate from key polices contained in the Economic Growth Recovery Plan

“Having followed keenly the thrust of President Buhari-led administration, we do not expect any deviation from the administration’s policies.

Much surprise is not expected judging by the direction of the current administration since its inception, hence, we expect to see more of policy stability,” Olawale said.

According to NECA, there is the need for the government to sustain its commitment to the implementation of the ERGP. Olawale noted that stability of different economic policies, focus on different social investment programmes such as the trader-moni, etc, which are deemed pro-poor and deepening of engagement with the private will help the government put the economy on growth path.

He added that infrastructure development must also be sustained, as employers expect to see the completion of major infrastructure projects across the country.

“We are also witnessing a steady progress in the export expansion grant, which supports exporters in the expan-

expect the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) to step up the implementation of its mandate and the implementation of the Ease of Doing Business policy.

We, however, hope that the passage and implementation of the 2019 budget will be given due attention as we are already in the 3rd month of our fiscal year, not forgetting that several business decisions are tied to the passage of the budget.”

The DG, who expressed concerns of businesses, as regard what he termed ‘worrisome trend’ in the first four years of the administration, reminded the president-elect of the need to check ‘regulatory gangstarism,’ which reached a new height in the first four years of the administration.

“As the President was making efforts to ease the challenges of doing business in Nigeria, some regulatory agencies were stifling businesses, discouraging entrepreneurial propensity of small and medium scale entities and inadvertently creating the environment for job losses.

FCCP law seen as catalyst for conducive business environment for female entrepreneurs HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE

F L-R: Jide Sipe, head, event management, corporate communications and external affairs, GTBank; Kenneth Edet, chairman, Nigerian Polo Association; Ade Laoye, president, Lagos Polo Club, and Seyi Oyinlola, tournament manager, Lagos Polo Club at the press conference to announce the 2019 Nigerian Polo Association Lagos international Polo tournament sponsored by GTBank in Lagos, yesterday.

Pic by Pius Okeosisi

FG awards N1.6bn contract for acquisition of mobile harbour crane at Lokoja Port AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE

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etermined to promote transportation of cargo via water as alternative to road, the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) has awarded a contract for the supply and installation of a 64-ton mobile harbour crane at the Lokoja River Port.

In a statement signed

by Tayo Fadile, general manager, public affairs of

NIWA, the managing director of NIWA, Olorunnimbe Mamora, at the contract signing ceremony on Wednesday in Lokoja, said the project was in line with government determination to enhance water transportation.

Mamora said the contract was awarded early enough to ensure the commencement of business activities at the port by next year.

According to Mamora, the construction works at the port, which will be fitted with state-of-the-art

equipment, has reached 75 percent completion.

He further disclosed that the contract, which was awarded at a cost of N1, 600,344,000 to Messrs LIEBHERR Nigeria Ltd, would be executed within one year.

“When completed, the port and others already completed and nearing completion including Baro, Onitsha and Oguta would enhance inland water transportation of passengers and goods, and create thousands of direct and

indirect employment opportunities for Nigerians,” Mamora said.

He said that the choice of the contractors was informed by the track record, which the contract has.

Also speaking at the occasion, Hermann Wohuhes, managing director of LIEBHERR Nigeria Ltd., thanked NIWA for the confidence reposed in the firm.

He promised to deliver the job strictly in line and within the terms of the contract. The port is located at Jamata area of Lokoja.

ederal Competition and Consumer Protection Act (FCCP), which came into effect on February 6, 2019, is seen as a catalyst to creating a more conducive business environment for female entrepreneurs.

‘Debola Osibogun, president, Consumer Awareness and Financial Enlightenment Initiative (CAFEi), stated this in a speech made available to BusinessDay. The Act repeals the Consumer Protection Act Chapter 25, Laws of the Federation Nigeria 2014 and Sections 118-128 of the Investment and Securities Act, which regulated Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As) via the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and “establishes the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission and the Competition and Consumer Protection Tribunal; for promotion of competition in the Nigerian markets at all levels, by eliminating monopolies, prohibiting abuse of a dominant market position and penalising other restrictive trade and business practices.

She said the new law

would be enforced by an independent FCCP Commission to secure the rights of all consumers and ensure safe products and efficient markets, through the creation of the FCCP Tribunal to handle any issues or disputes arising from noncompliance with the regulation.

Aside from the obvious benefits of the FCCP for all consumers such as improved and increased choice due to a greater number of industry players offering more innovative products, she said there are some benefits that could arguably accrue to women more than men.

“Even though this law will not constitute ‘silver bullet’ in closing the gap on gender equality as the regulation does not directly address issues such as the gender wage gap and segmentation, it will go a long way in increasing access to female participation in economic activities thereby enhancing the objective of empowerment for women,” Osibogun said.

Nevertheless, she said it remains to be seen if increased female participation translates to economic growth given the higher costs of running a business in the formal sector.

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Will February 23 cast a pall on March 9?

Zebulon Agomuo and Iniobong Iwok

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n Saturday, February 23, 2019 many eligible Nigerian voters enthusiastically went to their polling units to exercise their civic responsibility.

While many were brutally disenfranchised; a few lost their lives in the process.

In many places across the country, an exercise that should ordinarily go on smoothly ended in bloodbath. The voting process was in many places disrupted and ballot boxes either carted away or burnt.

Allegations of manipulation of figures were rife. It was alleged that the figures were either inflated in some areas or drastically reduced in some other places for whatever reasons. At the end of the day, people’s votes did not count and this killed the enthusiasm of voters in participating in this Saturday exercise.

This decision is worsened by the threat in some states by some politicians and their thugs to deal with whosoever that wants to vote against their party or anointed candidates.

Since the February Presidential and National Assembly elections, the rating of the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) in the estimation of many Nigerians has drastically dropped. INEC was accused of being complicit in the electoral fraud recorded during the exercise.

The decision of the Commission to postpone the elections from their original dates, and at an unholy hour (a few hours to the polls) was an embarrassing or tactless act.

There was also anger over the inability of the INEC to make necessary materials available at the poll-

Mahmood Yakubu

ing units at the right time. In many places across the country, the adhoc staff and materials arrived very late which largely disenfranchised many people.

Although the umpire has since explained and blamed the shift on logistics problem, critics insist that there was more than meets the eye.

Recall that even before the elections, the two prominent parties- the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) had accused the INEC of pandering to the whims of their opponent. That sentiment appears stronger now than before with the conclusion of the Presidential election and the award of certificate of returns to President Muhammadu Buhari.

The role of the security agencies was also called to question during the February 23 elections. The perception that the nation’s security agents went beyond their brief or were overtly partisan, may have eroded the confidence of many in stepping out on Saturday to exercise

their franchise.

As the gubernatorial and state Assembly elections are a matter of hours from now, indications are that the exercise may witness a measure of voter apathy in some states.

The fear of looming violence is palpable. There is also the concern about the neutrality of the INEC and the security agencies, despite repeated assurances.

INEC has been criticised by many Nigerians over the alleged shabby manner it conducted the February 23 Presidential and National Assembly elections.

Moreover, a number of International and Independent observers reported that elections in several polling units, especially in the Southern part of the country were marred by late arrival of election materials, failure of card readers, manipulation of election result and violence which left several eligible voters disfranchised.

The decision of the main opposition party, the People’s Democratic

Wike in final review says no conspiracy can defeat Rivers PDP Saturday Ignatius Chukwu

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ivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike has met with a large crowd of leaders of the various election coordinators in the various local council areas in the state especially the Rivers East zone to review preparedness for Saturday elections.

The governor seems satisfied that latest strategies against him would not crack his iron-cast plans.

The governor this declared that there is no way that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) can lose the Governorship and State Assembly elections because Rivers people are firmly with the party.

Governor Wike further declared that the Governorship and State Assembly elections will be used to end the illegal activities of the political monster of Rivers State.

Speaking during a town hall meeting with leaders of Rivers East Senatorial District in Port Harcourt on Thursday, Governor

Wike charged the people not to be intimidated by soldiers as they have a duty to vote for him and other PDP Candidates on March 9, 2019.

He said: “There is no way that the PDP will lose Rivers State and they tell the world that the elections are free and fair. Even if we want to play politics, how would they explain to the International community that PDP lost to an unknown party that did not campaign.

“How many soldiers will they deploy to implement the rigging. I am not worried about their bringing more troops from Sokoto and Kafanchan, God is our security. During the Presidential and National Assembly elections, they struggled for 25 percent, but they did not get it”.

The governor said that Rivers State has passed the stage where a failed politician will direct the people on who to vote three days to the election. He said nobody will play God in Rivers State.

He emphasized that Rivers people must stand firm to ensure the victory

of the PDP on March 9, 2019. “Nobody should be afraid, come out and vote for the PDP. Your votes will be counted. Your votes will be protected”.

The governor urged traditional rulers to insist on credible polls across the state. “We will win on Saturday because we know that God is with us. Those who think they have the power will face God. They want to disrupt the elections to instigate postponement. Do not fall into their hands”.

He noted that the illegal arrests by the military will not stop the victory of the PDP during the Governorship and State Assembly elections. “If they arrest 2000 persons, they will see more 10, 000. Our people should be security conscious about their movement because these people are very desperate,” the governor said.

Governor Wike noted that he has planted key projects in all the Local Government Areas of the state. He said after his re-election more projects would be executed for Rivers people.

Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to challenge the result of the election was premised on the above listed alleged lapses.

Olusegun Mayowa, an entrepreneur, told BusinessDay he had decided not to vote because it appears the authorities already had a predetermined result and their preferred candidate in his constituency.

“I am not sure I would come out to vote this time; the last time, a lot of us came out to vote, but they declared someone else the winner.

With all this violence and I would just fuel my generator to watch what is happening on TV,” Olusegun said.

Shola Ogunwale, a stock broker, advised INEC to ensure early arrival of staff and materials to the polling units across the country, adding that he would watch the tone of event before deciding if to vote in the election or not.

“Yes I have my PVC, but INEC has to improve on the supply of election materials to polling units; in my area, the election commenced at 12pm the other time and during the counting of votes, hoodlums invaded the venue.

“It seemed to me that INEC was colluding with them because it all appeared like a planned work. So, I would watch first; I would not just go out in the morning until I have watched how peacefully the election is going on before deciding if to vote,” Ogunwale said.

Kate Olatunji, a teacher, said she would not venture out of her apartment on the day of election and that none of her three children would.

“I narrowly escaped death on February 23. I had just finished voting when some boys riding in keke Maruwa swooped on the ballot box and emptied the contents on

the ground. They were shooting in the air and everybody scampered for safety. Even if they are going to give me one million Naira cash on Saturday, I would not come out. My vote will not count as it not count the other time,” Olatunji said.

According to her, “My husband has not recovered from the trauma of what his eyes saw on that day. In fact, none of my children will step out the house on Saturday. You can imagine, from my family alone, five people would not vote. I have never seen this type of election. The most annoying part of it all is that after March 9, you will not see them again until next four years. Look at Nigeria; does it look like a place that human beings are governing? I am sick and tired of everything.”

By the same token, Mike Anumba, complained about too much threats that may have frightened eligible voters into taking a decision never to participate in the election on March 9.

“I voted in the last election of February 23. My area was quite peaceful. But with what I am hearing about Saturday, I am not sure I would go out that day. Some other people have also said so to me. You know the kind of words we hear people use and what they say; the threat and all that, are really giving people concern. So, it is as if that some people have decided to stay back in the comfort of their homes to avoid being caught in any crossfire,” Anumba said.

Femi Akinbiyi, public relations officer, (PRO) of INEC in Lagos State, said the commission had corrected security lapses noticed in the February 23 election, expressing confident that Saturday’s election would be peaceful, free and fair, not only in the state but also across the country.

March 9 Poll: Police vow to deal with political thugs in Ondo YOMI AYELESO, Akure

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he Ondo state Police command has revealed that adequate security had been put in place ahead of this Saturday’s House of Assembly election in the state.

The commissioner of Police, Undie Adie who spoke at a stakeholders summit in Akure, the state capital on Thursday said the command would deal with individuals or group who will distrupt the process.

The Commissioner of Police urged political parties and their candidates to play the game by the rules and eshew violence,adding that the security agents would be fair to all parties.

According to him , the restriction of movement on election day between 6am and 6pm would be strongly enforced ,urging people of the state to abide the restriction order. “ I want to assure political parties and indeed the people of Ondo state

that the security agencies are up to the task in ensuring peaceful election on Saturday.We want a violence free election.

“Let me warn political thugs and their sponsors that we will deal with anyone who distrupt the process of election on Saturday in accordance with the law. “ Also, the movement restriction on election day will be full in force.

We are begging our people in the state to adhere to it between 6 am and 6 pm and anyone found to violate this directive will be seriously punished.”

The state chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Clement Faboyede declared that the state is charged after the presidential and National Assembly elections..

Faboyede alleged that the ruling All Progressives Congress ( APC) in the state are planning to unleash thugs for the saturday’s election on the people, adding that the PDP don’t harbor thugs.

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INIOBONG IWOK

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ll appears set for what promises to be a keenly contested gubernatorial election in Lagos State come tomorrow

, March 9.

Since December when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officially lifted the embargo on politicalcampaigns across the country, candidates of the different parties have been busy selling their programmes to the electorate, while their posters have occupied strategic locations around the state.

According to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) no fewer than 12 candidates are in the gubernatorial race in the state.

Some of the gubernatorial candidates are; Omolara Adesanya, who is the governorship candidate for the Providence People’s Congress (PPC).

Adetokunbo Pearce the gubernatorial candidate for the Social

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Lagos governorship race and the task ahead Democratic Party (SDP), Muyiwa Fawora candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Owolabi Salis, of the Alliance for Democracy (AD).

Others are Gbadamosi Babatunde Olalere, candidate of the Action Democratic Party (ADP), Adeyemi Abiola, canididate of the Democratic People’s Congress (DPP), Funso Awe of the National Conscience Party (NCP), Ladipo Johnson of the Alliance National Party (ANP), and Jimi Agbaje candidate of the main opposition party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) and Babajide SanwoOlu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

In the last few weeks, there have been alignments which have led to several of the candidates pulling out of the governorship race and pledging to support either the candidate of the PDP or APC. Incumbent governor of the state, Akinwunmi Ambode, had failed in his bid to seek re- election after losing the party’s ticket in a bitter and controversial primary.

Ambode had fallen out with officials of the party in the state and as well as the national leader of the party, Bola Ahmed.

However, ahead of Saturday’s election the four major candidates contending for the governorship of the state are; Owolabi Salis candidate of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), a lawyer who is passionate about changing the status quo in

the state, who promised to focus on infrastructural development.

Gbadamosi Babatunde Olalere of the Action Democratic Party (ADP), a real estate developer, whose vibrant intellectualism stole the show, in a recent debate organised by the Covenant Christian.

He is passionate about his agenda and policies for the state, much is centered on improved transportation system, transparent governance and increased staff salaries.

Jimi Agbaje the candidate of the PDP is not new to politics in the state, he had previously contested the gubernatorial election in the state in 2011, 2015, and lost.

In 2015, Agbaje a trained pharmacist, lost to incumbent Ambode by about 100,000 votes in an election the PDP claimed it won.

With large grassroots support, especially among the non- indigenes in the state, there is a belief among political observers that if the gubernatorial election is free and fair, Agbaje poses a real threat to the APC. Agbaje promises to build an egalitarian society where all individuals and groups would have equal opportunity and access.

He also says he will rescue the state from the grip of a few elite, and prioritise education and health care.

Babajide Sanwo-Olu is the APC candidate, a graduate of the Lagos State University, the London Business School and the John F Ken-

nedy School of Governance.

Sanwo-Olu promises to tackle the problem of traffic gridlock in the Apapa axis in less than four months.

“First on the list, I will tackle the traffic problem of Lagos frontally,” Sanwo-Olu said during ‘The Platform’s debate which held on Sunday in Lagos.

“Out of the two traffic gridlocks that we have identified, some are low-hanging that we can resolve within the first 60 days … the first 60 days is to solve the ones that are low-hanging.

“Within the first 100 days, I will tackle the gridlock in Apapa I will make sure that we will not see that again.

“For the rail, it is work in progress. There is a blue line that is coming up, there is a red line which in conjunction with the Federal Government has finally been agreed.”

However, the contest is expected to be a straight fight between Agbaje and Sanwo-Olu, based on the deep political structure, membership and strong financial strength of the two major parties in the state.

Pundits have, however, warned that whoever emerges the next governor among the candidates will have a huge tasked of initiating programs that would take the state to the next level. Must be ready to take big decision, and act swiftly.

However, three key areas urgently need immediate attention in the

state.

Firstly, the current waste disposal system in the state is chaotic and has failed; a drive across the state shows that wastes is littered on the roads indiscriminately.

The next Lagos governor needs to initiate an efficient waste management system, even if it involves partnering with the private sector, but it must be affordable to the residents of the state.

Perhaps the biggest headache for Lagosians now, is the traffic gridlock across the state. The commercial capital of the country urgently needs a light train system which would run across the state; this would ease movement, aid commerce and take pressure off the roads, while creating jobs in the process.

Unemployment among the youth remains a key issue in Lagos State; there is a need for the next governor of Lagos State to increase funding for the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund which was set up by the current (Akinwunimi Ambode) administration.

Experts predict that about 7,000 to 8,000 Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have benefited from the agency in the last three years.

However, to make the agency impact more people; the state government should consider partnering with the private sector or donor agencies to secure more funding for the agency in a bid to make the its realizes its objectives.

IWD 2019: Life gets better when balance is achieved JOYCE AKPATA

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he theme of this year’s International Women’s Day (IWD) celebrations, ‘Balance for Better’, caught my attention.

Indeed the better the balance, the better the world. Could there be a general consensus around this? Can this be acceptable in most situations? In my opinion, this might only be acceptable by feminists. Mind you, ‘feminists’ are not only women; a feminist is anyone who aims to or supports the idea of establishing and achieving political, economic, personal, and social equality of sexes. We still live in a world with strong male dominance despite the increase in the campaign for gender parity in all spheres. But then, that should not deter us from striving to achieve a more genderbalanced world.

Is the task for achieving this for the women alone? Oh no, it’s not. All hands have to be on deck every time and everywhere to strive to make a positive difference in championing the goal of a gender-balanced world.

Seek out opportunities to create gender balance, be it in government, board rooms, religious places, employment and representation of any kind. According to Gloria Steinem, world-renowned feminist, journalist and activist, “The story of women’s struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist nor to any one organisation but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights.”

Thus, this call to action is for all and not for a particular gender. It behoves on every individual to strive to create a more balanced world.

In the business world, where women account for about 50 percent of the workforce, ascending to the corporate heights is an arduous climb, especially for women. Research has shown that companies that encourage managers to help women navigate the path to the top will gain more from their talents across the entire workforce. So it is good sense to encourage females to aspire to senior positions and help them build their confidence to position them for those opportunities when they arise. We should discour-

GENDER EQUALITY age and reduce incidences of bias while offering a level-playing field for both male and female employees.

It has become common knowledge and proven by various researches that women in the corporate world have a more difficult path to getting to the top stratum due to various factors which require their putting in double effort and perseverance.

This sometimes affects women’s aspirations and confidence over time and reduces the zeal to pursue opportunities that will help propel their career. Organisations need to see gender balance as a priority and be intentional about it. Women should be encouraged to take advantage of work-life balance programmes without fear that such could negatively affect their career progression.

How do we then position women to take on those leadership roles or sit on the seemingly male-dominated tables? Women need to prepare themselves by building their knowledge base and acquiring relevant skills for their industry bearing in mind that

for an organisation, competence must necessarily be the watchword and the first consideration. It is also necessary for women to improve their confidence level, assertiveness and networking skills. Women must not be deterred by the various tags placed on aspirational women—over ambitious, bossy, and aggressive, among others. They must also overcome the seemingly popular ‘Imposter Syndrome’ which many women battle with, making them believe that they are inadequate or incompetent even when they have proven themselves to be high flyers and very successful.

On the part of organisations, there is a need to strategically create a pipeline for grooming female leadership. This should start by actively increasing the number of women in middlelevel positions and also by creating a culture of gender diversity across the organisation. Recent studies have revealed that a correlation exists between women leadership and organisational performance.

Government, businesses, not-forprofits and indeed individuals need to take on active roles in promoting

gender diversity and inclusion. This has to be attacked head on. There is a need to create more awareness about its importance. Organisations need to make a business case for gender diversity and set measurable targets and hold themselves accountable.

In concluding, I must reiterate that the gender inequality challenge presents a significant draw back to our economic prosperity in the long run.

It is not only a social issue. Holding women down from fulfilling their potential retards our collective progress as organisations and societies. It holds down the development of a major asset of production and growth. It is therefore in the interest of humanity that women be given their due and be encouraged to flourish like their male counterparts. A recent study

by McKinsey found that $12 trillion could be added to global GDP by 2025 if women’s equality was advanced.

Need anyone say more?

HappyInternationalWomen’s Day.

•Akpata is the director-general of the Nigerian-American Chamber of Commerce

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ECB unveils fresh bank stimulus amid rising eurozone gloom Markets welcome pledge by dovish central bank to keep interest rates on hold until 2020 CLAIRE JONES AND MICHAEL HUNTER

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he European Central Bank is to keep interest rates on hold until 2020 and has made a fresh offer of cheap funding for the region’s banks in a stark response by policymakers to faltering eurozone growth.

In a move that took markets by surprise, the ECB said on Thursday it would hold another series of auctions of multiyear loans to banks at low rates in an attempt to support growth.

Mario Draghi, ECB president, said in a press conference that the economy was “in a period of continued weakness and pervasive uncertainty”.

The stimulus for banks, dubbed Targeted Longer-Term Refinancing Operations, was announced just three months after the ECB called a halt to its €2.6tn programme of buying a range of bonds to try to lift the eurozone out of its financial crisis.

The bank said the new series of quarterly targeted longer term refinancing operations would start this September and ending in March 2021. Each operation will have a two-year maturity.

After the central bank’s an-

nouncement, the euro slipped by as much as 0.6 per cent to a session low of $1.1243, a level last touched in mid-February.

Financial shares were boosted. The Stoxx index tracking the region’s banks — the main beneficiaries of the low-rate refinancing scheme — rose 0.1 per cent, having been down as much as 0.7 per cent.

Eurozone bonds also rallied, sending their yields lower. Demand for Italy’s shorter dated debt sent the yield on its 2-year paper to its lowest level since May 2018, down 14 basis points to 0.128 per cent. The German 10-year Bund yield fell 3bp to 0.10 per cent.

The ECB held its benchmark main refinancing rate at zero and kept the deposit rate at minus 0.4 per cent. It also changed its statement on interest rates, saying they would stay at record lows “at least through the end of 2019”. It had previously said that rates were expected to remain on hold at least through the summer.

The ECB’s council said it would continue to reinvest the proceeds of bonds maturing under its €2.6tn quantitative easing programme “in full” and for “an extended period of time” past the

Nigeria’s returning president has a chance to make amends Muhammadu Buhari should use his second term to pursue a dynamic and coherent agenda THE EDITORIAL BOARD

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igeria’s recent election produced a winner, but victory for incumbent Muhammadu Buhari has generated little enthusiasm in a country performing far below its potential. The poll in Africa’s most populous country was marred by a week-long delay, sporadic violence in which dozens died and allegations of vote-rigging. What was supposed to have been the largest election in Africa’s history — with 84m registered voters — turned out not to be because of a dispiritingly low turnout of 35 per cent. The result is being challenged as a “sham” by the loser, Atiku Abubakar, in a dispute that is likely to rumble on in the courts for months.

The Nigerian people deserve better than this. Democracy has to mean more than a poorly run election every four years. With his renewed mandate, it is now Mr Buhari’s task to rebuild faith by running a dynamic and successful administration and by building the institutions that can lay firmer foundations than in his previous term.

The omens from his first four years in office are not good. During that time, the former military leader ran a lacklustre administration with no obvious sense of direction. There was no coherent economic strategy of the sort being attempted by the likes of Ethiopia, Rwanda or west African neighbours Ghana and Senegal to produce the rapid growth needed to haul tens of millions of people out of poverty. It is an indictment of its leadership — both military and democratic — that the continent’s biggest oil producer should have

more people living in absolute poverty than any other country in the world.

Mr Buhari’s priority this time must be to set out a coherent agenda, implemented by technocrats rather than ideologues, to turn things round.

Nigeria desperately needs to create a level playing field for business in which access to foreign currency, permits and other requirements is both predictable and rational. His much vaunted crackdown on corruption must go beyond taking action against a few minor officials. Some big scalps would help. More important still is to implement systematic changes — whether by reforming institutions, using technology or by removing arbitrage opportunities — to create a more transparent environment. People should prosper in Nigeria based on what they know and how much value and employment they can create, not by their connections.

On security, Mr Buhari’s first term was also less than successful in spite of repeated declarations of victory over Boko Haram. There is credible evidence of a renewed threat in the north-east in the form of a breakaway Islamist group. Nigeria’s army remains ill-equipped, both literally and institutionally, to take on such a challenge.

Too often, its armed forces — which have committed human rights abuses of their own — have been part of the problem rather than the solution.

There has been some success in taming insurgency in the oil-rich Delta region, where real grievances about economic exclusion have bubbled over into sabotage of oil installations.

But Mr Buhari must do more to offer lasting solutions to the violent clashes between pastoralists and sedentary farmers that have erupted in the country’s central belt and beyond.

European Central Bank president Mario Draghi © Reuters

date when eurozone interest rates begin to rise.

The set of measures went beyond what most investors expected and reveal the central bank’s concern over the way growth in the eurozone has tailed off.

The region has relied heavily on exports, and concerns over global trade battles and Brexit have weighed on its economic performance.

Italy, the region’s third-largest

economy, is in recession and even Germany, the motor of the economy, narrowly avoided recession at the end of 2018.

“This certainly goes further than most of us thought that the ECB would,” said Paul Diggle, senior economist at Aberdeen Standard Investments.

“At this stage it is about as far as the ECB will go towards admitting that the European economy faces some serious headwinds in the

months ahead. Markets are going to cheer the response from the ECB with the euro selling off and bond yields and equity markets rallying.”

ECB officials still hope that the slowdown will be temporary, pointing to a strong labour market, a slight rise in government spending and a series of one-off factors affecting German industry last year as signs that the economic data could soon improve.

Why bulls on Wall Street are becoming an endangered species Investors build up cash levels amid fears that near-record US expansion may end soon RICHARD HENDERSON AND ROBIN WIGGLESWORTH

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hen Krishna Memani, chief investment officer for OppenheimerFunds, went on TV a few months ago to discuss his view that the US stock market bull run had at least another five years left in it, the hosts and guests were visibly flabbergasted.

In one exchange with David Rosenberg, the gloomy chief economist at Gluskin Sheff, they even laughed, Mr Memani recalls.

“Maybe there’s a recession by the end of the year and I look like a moron,” he says. But it is the right call, he insists, as last year’s market ructions forced the US Federal Reserve to temper its plans to raise interest rates. “[The year] 2018 will be the best thing that ever happened to the cycle,” he says. “This could be a 20-year cycle as long as the [Fed] doesn’t do something dumb . . . This is going to be the longest business cycle ever.”

Equities have enjoyed a dramatic V-shaped recovery from December’s mayhem, posting their best start to a year in almost three decades. But the scepticism that has greeted Mr Memani’s forecasts is a vivid example of how big bulls are now almost an endangered species on Wall Street.

The stock market has traditionally attracted optimists, given how rosy outlooks help attract investor inflows and increase the pot of

money that pays Wall Street’s salaries and bonuses. Most of the time, bears have been curious oddities to be tolerated, rather than people to seriously listen to.

But the usual perma-bullishness has been replaced with gloom, as many analysts, strategists and economists fear that the expansion in the US economy — which in July will become the longest postwar run on record — will probably end soon.

More than three-quarters of the 281 National Association for Business Economics members believe a US recession will occur before the end of 2021, according to a survey released last week. But many investors are more pessimistic.

Fund manager views on how the global economy will develop over the coming year are near their gloomiest levels since 2008, according to Bank of America’s latest investor survey. As a result, fund managers have trimmed their exposure to US stocks to the lowest point in nine months and now have their greatest allocation to cash since the depths of the financial crisis in January 2009, the survey indicates.

Over a third think that the S&P 500 has already seen its peak.

“We acknowledge that the recent surge in [stock market] price and breadth is a positive signal about the future. However, earnings revisions have been some of the worst we’ve ever observed in terms of breadth and velocity,” Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley’s chief US equities strategist wrote in a recent

note to clients.

However, the thinning herd of diehard bulls believes these predictions are wrong. They reckon a sense of “career risk” — it is safer to be in the mainstream, even if you are wrong, than make an out-ofconsensus call that could fail — has fomented a grim kind of groupthink among analysts and investors.

This is particularly acute for bulls, as being bearish and wrong is often seen as more acceptable than being bullish and wrong.

The former are often portrayed as merely conservative and cautious investors, while the latter are cast as feckless idiots. Sean Darby, chief global equity strategist for Jefferies, points out that this is an acute problem at the moment.

“The clients themselves point out that their biggest problem is career risk,” he says. “If indeed the US does have a recession and they didn’t make any asset allocation toward defensiveness and taking money off the table, it would be such a big problem for them with their own clients.”

That does not deter everyone, however. Federated Investors, the $460bn-in-assets fund house based in Pittsburgh, believes that the US expansion could go on for another two decades, arguing that persistently low inflation will keep interest rates subdued for a long time, supporting the economy and markets. “We think it’s a secular bull,” says Linda Duessel, senior equity strategist for Federated Investors.

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The EU must match China’s drive to invest

Africa’s women are rising to challenge gender discrimination

Italy and others should recognise the Belt and Road Initiative’s geopolitical goals

Across the continent, women are claiming positions of power and influence in our public arenas

U

nder its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, China has been expanding its economy’s footprint across Asia and Africa, mostly in low- and middle-income economies. Now the project is aiming to leap into the top league, with Italy considering signing up as the first G7 country. A common European strategy for how to accommodate BRI is overdue.

China’s objective — to tie the Eurasian continent closer together through comprehensive transport and infrastructure links — is a laudable one. Deeper trade and human links could be of benefit to all. But it is naive to ignore BRI’s geostrategic implications.

As currently pursued, it goes well beyond the plain economic objective.

There can be no doubt about the fundamentally one-sided nature of BRI. It is designed with China very much at its centre.

Beijing is putting forward the financing, often the actual construction, and above all the master plan for the new trade routes — a plan designed with Chinese interests in mind.

This is an entirely understandable strategy for an emerging power preparing to take its place as the world’s largest economy.

China can expect much more than mere economic benefits if it can centre the Old World’s economic infrastructure on itself, so as to act as the core of continental production chains much as Germany does within Europe today.

Such a strategy promises not just greater trade — which all should welcome — but, potentially, control of the infrastructure and of the rules governing the trade that flows through it. For example, Beijing has tried to bring BRI projects under the jurisdiction of Chinese courts.

While better infrastructure links and greater trade can work to everyone’s benefit, Europe cannot let the attraction of a shortterm economic boost substitute for a strategy to shape BRI’s longterm geopolitics in its favour.

Both in method and in content, BRI projects have at times been at odds with European interests.

Beijing has conspicuously focused on parallel bilateral relationships with EU member states, starting with the poorest ones.

The 16+1 initiative promises 11 EU members on the bloc’s eastern flank infrastructure investment that are often badly needed.

China has signed a BRI-related memorandum of understanding with Greece. It hopes to do the same with Italy. Some of this may bring investment. But in each case it will be with China as the senior partner in the relationship, rather than an equal partner to a united EU. BRI participants in Asia and Africa have often learnt the hard way what junior status may involve. Pakistan and Malaysia have revisited some projects after finding their financing costs were higher than expected; Sri Lanka has had to forfeit the ownership of a Chinese-financed port.

Friday 08 March 2019

SAHLE-WORK ZEWDE

C Randal Quarles was appointed to tthe Financial Stability Board late last year © Reuters

Global regulators launch inquiry into leveraged loans Scrutiny reflects concerns that corporate debt could undermine financial stability SAM FLEMING

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he Financial Stability Board, a top global rulemaker, has launched an examination of parts of the $1.4tn leveraged loan market, as officials intensify scrutiny into potential financial stability risks surrounding corporate debt.

Randal Quarles, the FSB’s chairman, told the Financial Times that regulators could act if their findings point to actual hazards in the market for leveraged loans — the increasingly popular practice of extending credit to lowly-rated, more indebted companies.

The focus of the FSB’s review, which is expected in the autumn, will be on so-called collateralised loan obligations, bundles of leveraged loans that are sold in tranches. The FSB wants to identify the holders of CLOs around the world and assess the risks that investors could pull money from exposed institutions during a severe downturn.

Among the investors in CLOs are banks, investment funds and insurers.

“From a financial stability risk [point of view] we need to know more about that than we do and we have set up a process at the FSB to understand that,” Mr Quarles, who also serves as the Federal Reserve Board’s vicechairman for supervision, said in an interview on Tuesday.

“Is there a cross-border or crosscutting supervisory or regulatory

response that ought to be taken to mitigate that risk? That is how we would expect to see this evolving if the analysis were to show there [are] some respondable risks there.”

The review is part an attempt by Mr Quarles to refocus the FSB on identifying possible hazards on the horizon after the body spent the past decade helping preside over the post-crisis framework for financial regulation.

Mr Quarles, who was appointed to the FSB late last year, said financial stability risks — as opposed to business cycle risks — have “abated very modestly” this year compared with last.

Among the areas currently on his radar is the risk that regulatory barriers between countries fragment global banking and damage financial stability — something that will be in focus under Japan’s presidency of the G20 this year. Other areas under scrutiny are potential vulnerabilities in the fintech arena and among central counterparties.

The key area of unfinished business for the FSB is arguably the shadow banking sector, which is often more lightly regulated and is swelling in size around the world. The FSB’s latest assessment of what it now calls “non-bank financial intermediation” found the sector has ballooned to more than $50tn — according to a narrow definition.

Companies have been amassing cheap loans thanks to low interest rates and loosening lending standards, and

in the US non-financial corporate debt is now a higher share of gross domestic product than before the crisis.

US banks do not have “excessive” exposure to CLOs, Mr Quarles said, but “we have less of a handle on that globally, as to whether there are ‘runnable’ institutions that may be exposed to leveraged lending”. By “runnable”, Mr Quarles was referring to institutions such as banks that could experience a run on deposits.

The drive to reduce fragmentation of the global banking system is also “top of mind” at the FSB, he added.

The ultimate goal would be to prevent international co-operation from breaking down as countries engage in a destabilising scramble to hold capital and liquidity in a crisis.

“What is the right amount of prepositioning of capital and liquidity in local jurisdictions relative to in home countries?” Mr Quarles added. “That will be a very key issue going forward — not just in this G20 cycle but over a longer period of time.”

Press reports this week suggested that the Fed was considering new liquidity requirements on branches of foreign-owned banks, but Mr Quarles stressed that “a change along those lines would be a significant shift to our regulatory approach, and we would take our time to get something like that right before we would do it”. He added: “We would want to allow ourselves and the public plenty of time to consider the costs and benefits to any shift.”

Zuckerberg switches Facebook’s mission from openness to privacy Social network founder changes emphasis after data sharing scandals HANNAH MURPHY

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a rk Zu c k e r b e r g ha s pinned the future of Facebook on a shift from its historic mission to make the world more “open and connected”, saying on Wednesday that “privacy-focused” communications were becoming more important than open platforms.

In a 3,200-word blog post, the founder and chief executive of the social network said that he recognised that the group had focused on tools for sharing posts and did not “currently have a strong reputation for building privacy protective services”.

But he said that private messaging, small groups and ephemeral posts had become “the fastest growing areas of online communication”.

Facebook was weighing how to allow users’ messages and metadata to auto-delete after a certain amount of time, he said, and would only store data in countries where governments did not violate citizens’ privacy, even if this meant its services were blocked in those regions.

Mr Zuckerberg is battling increasing pressure from the public and regulators over the privacy of user’s information following a string of scandals, including the Cambridge Analytica data sharing revelations last year.

The post comes weeks after it emerged that Facebook had plans to integrate the messaging services of WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger into one encrypted system, meaning only people sending and receiving messages will be able to view them.

Facebook bought the photo sharing app Instagram and messaging app WhatsApp in 2012 and 2014 respectively, but to date the services have remained relatively independent from their parent company.

On Wednesday, Mr Zuckerberg reiterated a commitment to deliver end-to-end encryption across the trio of platforms, a move which could irk law enforcement officials who fear the system allows criminals to communicate without detection.

“I believe the future of communication will increasingly shift to private, encrypted services where people can be confident what they say to each other stays secure and their messages and content won’t stick around forever,” Mr Zuckerberg said.

hange is sweeping Africa.

Systemic barriers to gender equity are falling and a growing number of women leaders are reshaping the continent.

Across the continent, women are increasingly challenging traditional norms by claiming positions of power and influence in our public arenas. Rwanda, Seychelles and my own country of Ethiopia now have cabinets split evenly along gender lines, with some of the most powerful posts occupied by women.

A new generation of African leaders is investing in social and human capital, universal health coverage, education and gender equality. This is a story that’s particularly important to tell as we approach International Women’s Day. Globally the proportion of seats held in parliament by women has slowly risen from just 12 per cent in 1997 to 24 per cent in 2018. Amid this, a handful of African countries stand out. In Rwanda, over 60 per cent of members of parliament are women, and in Namibia, South Africa, Senegal and Mozambique, at least 40 per cent of parliamentarians are women.

This represents a dramatic shift in representation, inclusion and democratisation of opportunity. For young women particularly, seeing other women in leadership positions and non-stereotypical professions helps to expand their horizons. For institutions and governments, tapping the full potential of their talent pools brings diversity of perspectives and experience when hard decisions must be made.

But to enable more women to serve as leaders, we need to redistribute power and ensure equal pay at work. The International Labour Organization estimates that the gender pay gap is higher in sub-Saharan Africa than any other region in the world.

Gender equality and respect for women’s rights starts at home, where power and wealth are still in the hands of men. Yet women tend to spend more out of household budgets on providing for their families than men do.

A report launched today, at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, reveals that gender equality in the workplace is still a far cry. The Global Health 50/50 report: Equality Works, which looks at the policies and practices of nearly 200 organisations active in global health, shows that seven out of 10 of such organisations are headed by men.

In four out of 10 organisations, women occupy fewer than one-third of senior management positions. It’s hardly a surprise, then, to discover that the women employed by these organisations receive 15 per cent less pay than men.

On gender-related workplace policies, the report showed that the vast majority of organisations do not offer fully remunerated, adequate and equitable parental leave. Neither do the majority support mothers returning to work by offering flexible working arrangements. Only 22 countries meet or exceed the International Labour Organization standard of 14 weeks of paid maternity leave. This has a clear impact on equal opportunity and limits career progression for women.

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Economists see ECB’s revised growth predictions as ‘brutal’ Draghi comments are ‘a bit of a gamble’ as he does little to tackle external risks, says another SARAH PROVAN

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he European Central Bank on Thursday unveiled a fresh offer of cheap funding for the eurozone’s banks, revised economic growth and inflation predictions for the region, and says it will keep interest rates on hold until 2020.

Mario Draghi, the ECB president, said the central bank projects gross domestic product growth for this year of 1.1 per cent, revised down from its December forecast of 1.7 per cent. The ECB downgraded its inflation forecast for the region to 1.2 per cent for 2019, compared with December’s prediction of 1.6 per cent.

The euro fell as much 0.7 per cent against the dollar on the announcement to a four-month low.

Here’s what economists have to say about the announcements from Mr Draghi: Thursday’s announcements are “a bit of a gamble as they will do very little to tackle the biggest risks for the eurozone economy, which according to the ECB stem from external sources”, said Carsten Brzeski, chief economist of ING Germany.

“The ECB’s current strategy clearly follows the idea of ‘if you can’t beat it, try to avoid it for as long as possible’, hoping that today’s measures are sufficient to put a floor under the current economic slowdown.”

“The ECB has come out fighting with its decision to delay its interest rate hike at least until the end of the year and by announcing a

new TLTRO,” said Robert Sierra, director in Fitch Ratings’ economics team.

“The sharp deterioration in growth prospects means that the ECB will be revising its growth and inflation prospects by a meaningful margin given the strong response that has just been announced. This decision comes sooner than most had expected.”

Jordan Hiscott, chief trader at ayondo markets, called the projection for GDP growth in 2019 “brutal cuts” from the central bank.

It seems like any possible interest rate rises are all but completely ruled out until likely 2021.

At this point, calling it dovish would be a gross understatement, as the turn from what was a slight tightening of monetary policy in recent months has become more significant Claus Vistesen of Pantheon Macroeconomics, said that, as inflation will take longer than anticipated to reach its target, “this is a perfectly reasonable argument for additional easing, but Mr Draghi made it appear as if the ECB has just recently discovered that growth in the eurozone is slowing”.

He added that this is in contrast to its position up until recently that the slowdown that began in Q3 was temporary.

“The central bank is disposed to err on the side of dovishness, and effectively is signalling that it is a price-taker of market-based interest rate expectations,” he said, adding that the interest rate profile in the eurozone looks a lot more like that of Japan than that of the US.

Investors with $6tn in assets call for soya traders to tackle deforestation

Hermes, BNP Paribas and Aviva among group of 57 pushing for ‘quantifiable’ commitments

ANNA GROSS

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group of investors, with more than $6tn of assets under management, have called on big agricultural companies to take concrete and measurable steps to tackle deforestation caused by soya production.

The 57 investors, including Hermes, BNP Paribas and Aviva, want agricultural companies to publicly disclose “quantifiable” monitoring and traceability commitments, and their protocols for dealing with farmers and suppliers that cause deforestation.

They are backing a campaign launched by environmental pressure groups Ceres and PRI to push traders to take action.

Recent soya supply chain commitments have been criticised for failing to include strategies for dealing with farmers who are not compliant.

Julie Nash, director of food and capital markets at Ceres, said that this is the first stage in a two-year engagement process between investors and over 25 of the largest publicly traded

companies in the South American soya trade.

“This issue has really bubbled up to the surface and we’ve been getting intense interest from investors,” said Ms Nash. “They’re become increasingly aware of the market risks faced by these companies if they don’t meet their 2020 targets.”

As demand for socially-responsible investment booms, big money managers increasingly have to weigh environmental social and governance standards in their investment decisions.

Some investors are concerned that companies in their portfolio are not on target to meet their carbon commitments by 2020.

Soyabean cultures, which take up more than one million square kilometres of land, are the second biggest driver of deforestation across the world. The global meat market has driven up demand for soyabeans — a key ingredient in animal feed — leading to increasing destruction of natural forests and savannahs across Latin America.

ECB President Mario Draghi © Reuters

Dovish ECB draws investors into eurozone bonds Euro takes a hit and stocks move off lows as policymakers act to boost lending and growth MICHAEL HUNTER

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ction from the European Central Bank to address the eurozone’s stuttering economic growth is drawing investors away from the shared currency and back into its sovereign debt.

Stocks in the region are off their lows, but remain weaker overall.

While the ECB was expected to discuss restarting its provision of cheap finance to banks in order to stimulate lending into the economy, its decision to proceed with such a scheme in September came as a dovish surprise.

It also all but ruled out lifting interest rates in 2019, having previously indicated that action would not precede the summer and reduced its growth forecasts “substantially.”.

Eurozone bonds rallied, sending their yields lower. Demand for Italy’s shorter-dated debt sent the yield on its 2-year paper to its lowest level since May 2018, down 14 basis points to 0.128 per cent. The country’s benchmark 10-year debt yield fell to its lowest level since

July 2018, down by over 12bp to 2.492 per cent The German 10-year Bund yield fell 4.1bp to 0.089 per cent.

The re-cast guidance knocked the euro, sending the currency down by as much as 0.4 per cent to $1.1260, its weakest level in 15 trading days.

There was surprise among analysts at the extent of the ECB’s action, which comes at its last scheduled monetary meeting before the scheduled date of Brexit.

Paul Diggle, senior economist at Aberdeen Standard Investment said: “This certainly goes further than most of us thought that the ECB would.

“At this stage it is about as far as the ECB will go towards admitting that the European economy faces some serious headwinds in the months ahead. Markets are going to cheer the response from the ECB with the euro selling off and bond yields and equity markets rallying.”

The Europe-wide Stoxx 600 moved up off its session low, but

remained weaker on the day, with concern at the region’s anaemic growth setting the tone to trade.

Having been as much as 0.6 per cent weaker, it traded down 0.1 per cent overall.

The Stoxx index tracking the region’s banks — the main beneficiaries of the low-rate refinancing scheme, known as targeted Longer-Term Refinancing Operations — climbed back into positive territory. Having been down as much as 0.7 per cent, it rose 0.1 per cent overall.

James Rossiter, senior global strategist at TD Securities, described the ECB’s move as “more dovish” than expected, and added: “The ECB is much more worried about the slowdown in growth at the turn of the year . . .

“At this juncture, a lot of bad news is already reflected in the euro, but it nonetheless reaffirms that the common currency remains anchored for the time being. We anticipate that the broad ranges should remain intact for now.”

Cobham to resume dividend in wake of Boeing dispute settlement UK group aims to address underperformance at Advanced Electronic Solutions business SYLVIA PFEIFER

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obham has promised to reinstate its dividend as the UK aerospace and defence group seeks to draw a line under a turbulent period dominated by a contract dispute with Boeing.

The FTSE 250 group said on Thursday it would revive payouts to shareholders at its next interim results, starting at 1p in the first full-year period, even as it reported 2018 revenues had dropped 11 per cent to £1.86bn.

Underlying operating profit was £196.1m, a drop of 8 per cent, after £5.5m in adverse currency effects and £22.5m in lost contribution from divestments. Cobham nevertheless ended the year with £10.3m of net cash. Shares in Cobham were down 2 per cent to 117p in early afternoon trading on Thursday.

David Lockwood, chief executive, said that while it had been a

year of progress, the low initial payout was prudent because the company was “not yet fully out” of a difficult phase.

Cobham cheered investors last month after it announced an end to a long-running dispute with Boeing over the American company’s troubled aerial refuelling tanker programme for the US Air Force. Under the settlement, the UK company took a £160m charge on top of a £40m hit announced last July, saying the schedule for its fuel delivery system had been reset and was expected to complete around the middle of 2020.

Despite underlying progress last year, Cobham’s overall performance was let down by its Advanced Electronic Solutions business, which provides critical data communications on land, at sea and in the air and space.

Cobham blamed a fall in its underlying operating profit on poor execution, including £9.5m of

programme charges as well as increased overhead costs.

Mr Lockwood said the “number one issue” for the company this year would be to address the underperformance of the division.

Its management team has been boosted, while the company plans to reduce its overheads by $20m this year.

Sandy Morris, analyst at Jefferies, said Cobham’s “overall pace of recovery is still at a crawl” because of the unit’s underperformance.

“Much depends on how much faith exists in a turnround” at the division, he added. “Given the progress [at two other businesses], we see grounds for optimism.”

Mr Lockwood said Brexit was not a big concern for the group because it has “relatively little trade” between the UK and EU. Nevertheless, the company, which counts Airbus among its customers, has put in place about “£10m worth of buffer stocks”.

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ANALYSIS Huawei suit accuses US of ‘unconstitutional’ equipment ban Chinese telecoms chairman says Congress acted as ‘judge, jury and executioner’ YUAN YANG

A The devil’s lottery: the perils of diving for ‘Baltic gold’ Chinese demand for amber has led to soaring prices but also dangerous mining from the seabed JEMIMA KELLY

O

n January 10 last year, a body in a scuba-diving suit was found washed up on the Lithuanian shore. It was the corpse of a 21-year-old man named Kirill, who had gone missing nine days earlier when diving for amber — so called “Baltic gold” — more than 60 miles away, off the coast of Kaliningrad.

Kirill’s death was just the first of at least nine such fatal accidents in 2018, the result of a perilous pursuit for the gem that has nevertheless become a livelihood for thousands of young men in Kaliningrad, the Russian outpost.

“It is dangerous, but what are we to do? It’s either this, or it’s going back to the army for 25,000 roubles [$380] a month,” says amber-diver Nikita, 22, on the beach at Yantarny, the coastal town in Kaliningrad close to where much of the amber is found.

“We have an old saying in Russia: he who doesn’t risk never gets to drink champagne.”

About 100 miles along the coast from the Polish city of Gdansk, Yantarny is a place where the grinding forces of globalisation mingle with the blunt realities of geopolitics and elements of the Russian underworld.

The rush for Baltic gold, which sometimes sells for more than the real thing, has been driven by consumers in China, where it is mainly used as jewellery for both men and women. From soyabean fields on the fringes of the Amazon to copper mines in the south of Congo, Kaliningrad is one of the many regions being reshaped by China’s voracious demand for commodities.

Some of that demand is satisfied by the official Kaliningrad Amber Combine, a subsidiary of the Russian state-owned conglomerate Rostec.

But a significant amount of the amber is supplied by a booming black market and the divers who risk their lives for it.

The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad is the centre of the world’s amber trade, with the region holding about 90 per cent of the global reserves of the fossilised tree resin.

It also boasts some of the oldest amber in the world — the product of a coniferous pine forest that fell into the Baltic Sea between 40m and 50m years ago.

An area smaller than Wales wedged between Poland and Lithuania, Kaliningrad is also home to the Russia navy’s Baltic Fleet, as well as its nuclear-capable Iskander missiles, which have a range of 400km and would be able to hit Berlin in just a few minutes. That makes the exclave, which was part of Germany until the end of the second world war, both of vital strategic importance for Russia and of considerable concern to its neighbours.

Off the coast of Yantarny, which takes its name from the adjectival

form of yantar — the Russian word for amber, the warships of the Baltic Fleet loom large behind scores of little rubber dinghies that take the amber-divers about a mile out to sea; the rumble of cannon fire rolls over the waves intermittently as the navy conducts live-fire exercises.

“In the Far East of Russia, everyone is involved in caviar”, says Aleksey Krupnyakov, a Kaliningrad-born former Olympic wrestler on the run from the police over extortion charges related to the amber black market.

“Amber is like the caviar of the Far West.”

Until 18 months ago, most of the amber sold in this unofficial market was mined on land, by so-called “black diggers”. The biggest risk was being caught by the police. But after a government crackdown and a 100fold increase in fines to a maximum of Rbs500,000 for illegal mining, the diggers turned into divers: they started seeking to extract amber from the Baltic seabed.

The biggest danger now is getting stuck under 35 feet of water. Not only do the amber divers dig holes several metres deep into the sea floor that sometimes collapse on top of them, but pumping the sand makes the water cloudy and difficult to work in.

“After about 30 people were fined at the new rate, they [the black diggers] all decided to stop digging on the land and moved to the sea,” says Anton Alikhanov, Kaliningrad’s 32-year-old governor, who became Russia’s youngest-ever regional chief when he took over the position in October 2016.

“We’ve made it almost impossible, from an economic perspective, to illegally dig for amber on land.”

Mining on land has always been illegal in Kaliningrad. Yet diving for amber has an unclear legal status.

That means the activity brings in no taxes. More than 50 per cent of the 3,500-strong working-age population of Yantarny are listed as officially unemployed, in a region with a 5.4 per cent jobless rate. Most of these people, the town’s mayor Alexey Zalivatsky says, are involved in the unofficial amber market.

“Yes, it’s a problem for our budget, but it’s not a big problem,” Mr Zalivatsky says. “We’ve lived with it for many years. This is the traditional way of life and work in Yantarny.”

Each dinghy, usually carrying two divers, brings in about 5-10kg of amber each day, according to Mr Zalivatsky. But the risks are wildly unpredictable.

“There is no particular relation with the level of experience or technical training of the diver,” Mr Zalivatsky wrote in a Facebook post in December, after another diver had drowned.

“This is more like a devil’s lottery.

Someone must get a terrible ticket.”

Amber divers typically have little scuba-diving training, and are often using old equipment. A new technique the divers have developed, whereby they use pumps to raise the

amber up from under the seabed, makes the pursuit particularly dangerous.

“You are effectively at the bottom of a five-storey building in the dark and the slime, and if anything goes wrong you can die,” says one former diver, who now deals in amber and runs the “Amber Catching Lovers’ Club of Kaliningrad” group on Russian social media site VKontakte, which functions as a kind of marketplace and support group.

“When you pump you don’t see anything. You’re not in control of the situation,” he adds. He says 12 men died in Kaliningrad’s waters searching for amber in 2018 — higher than the nine that the mayor counts.

Since it is a black market, it is difficult to know how much amber is produced unofficially. But it is large enough to provide a living for the thousands of men, aged between about 16 and 45, who are now involved in it. The governor says about 2,000 dinghies go out every day if the weather permits.

And it’s not just the divers: there is a whole network of entrepreneurs in Kaliningrad who have at some point dealt in the black market for amber.

People such as Mr Krupnyakov, the former wrestler. Along with a team of nine other former wrestlers and boxers, in 2014 he started providing “security services” for black market diggers and at one stage 240 of them paid Rbs5,000 each a month for protection from rival gangs of diggers and the police.

But in November 2016, he was accused of attacking a group of amber divers and demanding monthly payments of Rbs10,000 for their “services”, all of which he denies.

Mr Krupnyakov, who also used to be in the police and still has friends in the force, managed to evade arrest.

But three of the men he was with were convicted of extortion last August, and sentenced to nearly five years in prison, as well as ordered to pay a fine of Rbs200,000 each. Mr Krupnyakov is now on a Russian wanted list.

At the time when Mr Krupnyakov and his gang were offering their services to illegal miners, the market was booming. Amber dealers say prices increased as much as 10 times between 2012 and 2016 on the back of strong demand from China. Although used for little other than jewellery and ornaments these days, amber has been a prized commodity in China ever since the days of the Ming dynasty and is seen as carrying healing powers and good fortune.

But dealers say the appetite has fallen as demand for other stones such as turquoise has grown, resulting in a fall in amber prices of 20-30 per cent. They also say the Chinese have become more discerning. They prefer the rare white amber over the more common yellow and orange varieties. Pieces that contain insects or other small animals — so-called “inclusions” — are also more valuable, and the bigger the lump, the better.

Huawei chairman has accused the US Congress of acting as “judge, jury and executioner” when it introduced legislation that banned purchases of its equipment, as the telecoms group confirmed it had filed a lawsuit against the prohibition order.

Guo Ping confirmed to reporters in Shenzhen on Thursday that the company had filed a lawsuit against the US government in the District Court for the Eastern District of Texas against the “unconstitutional” restrictions, which were enacted last year as part of the annual US National Defense Authorisation Act (NDAA).

“In enacting the NDAA, Congress acted unconstitutionally as judge, jury and executioner,” said Guo Ping, one of Huawei’s rotating chairmen.

Glen Nager, partner at law firm Jones Day, which filed the complaint on behalf of Huawei, said Congress had overstepped its powers in passing the NDAA clause that bars the telecoms group’s products.

“Congress only has the power to make rules, not apply rules,” said Mr Nager. “It is effectively adjudicating on its own whether Huawei is influenced and subject to the Chinese government rather than allowing the executive and courts to make that judgment,” he added.

Huawei’s case echoes that of Kaspersky Lab, the Russian cyber security company that US officials banned from government systems in 2017, warning its software could be used by Moscow to gather intelligence. Kaspersky filed two lawsuits against that ban, which failed after a judge ruled that the US government was legitimately

Guo Ping, one of Huawei’s rotating chairmen © Reuters

The suit filed by Huawei, reported by the Financial Times on Tuesday, opens a fresh offensive in the battle between Huawei and the US government.

The company is battling US allegations that its equipment could be used by Beijing for spying, and is fighting a legal case against the extradition to the US of its chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou after she was detained in Canada.

The US has also been lobbying allies in Europe and those in its so-called “Five Eyes” intelligencesharing network — which includes the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand — to block the use of Huawei infrastructure in 5G networks.

Although the company admitted its US-based revenues were tiny, “the impact of this case has been profound and far-reaching, and caused serious damage to our global reputation”, said chief legal officer Song Liuping at the press conference on Thursday.

By filing the lawsuit, Huawei said it hoped to alleviate the damage done globally by US concerns about the company.

“Congress has repeatedly failed to produce any evidence to support its restrictions on Huawei products,” said Mr Guo. “After exhausting all other means to allay the doubts of some US lawmakers, we are left with no choice but to challenge the law in court.”

protecting its own interests.

Asked why Huawei thought it had a better chance of succeeding than Kaspersky, Mr Song said “the two cases are not comparable”.

Huawei argues that its case is stronger than Kaspersky’s because the ban on the Russian company only affected US government agencies.

Huawei said the harm it suffers is much greater since not only the government but also government contractors are banned from buying its products. For example, the company argues, an elevator company that uses Huawei in its back office cannot supply elevators to the US government.

Last year, US President Donald Trump signed the NDAA into law, thereby banning government agencies and their contractors from buying technology that includes components from Huawei or its domestic rival ZTE. But “just because you have a name on a box, doesn’t mean what’s in that box always comes from that named vendor”, said John Suffolk, Huawei’s global cyber security and privacy officer, adding that tech supply chains were global.

Huawei is seeking a judgment that states restrictions targeting its products are unconstitutional and a permanent injunction against the measures.

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understanding the economy of nigeria’s 36 states

T

he purpose of this series is to present evidencebased picture of Nigeria vis-a-vis the current presentations by politicians and various interest groups which are not backed by facts and figures. Such presumptuous speculations have driven the various national discourses or debates on the future of Nigeria, including such thorny issues as restructuring, whether fiscal, political, geographical or administrative.

Facts are sacred, they say, and as such must be given priority in our search for national viability and survival.

‘Understanding the Economy of Nigeria’s 36 States’ series presents such an objective, dispassionate picture of the state of the economy and so viability and sustainability of the various component parts, sub-nationals or federating units of the country going forward. This series will serve to either buttress or discountenance some of the claims made on both sides of the restructuring argument.

The series, written by Cambridge-trained economist, Dr. Ayo Teriba, looks at each state at a glance in the

context of its geopolitical zone and as it compares to other states. The data present irrefutable facts about each region and its component states and raise the question: are they viable as constituted today and going forward?

Each series examines a state’s realities from the perspectives of economy, resource endowment, state of wellbeing of its populace, and its budget (revenue and expenditure profile).

Today’s edition covers an overview of FCT and Niger State in the North-Central region.

FCT FCT Summary • Economy The FCT’s output was 8.46 percent of Nigeria’s GDP in 2017, the largest in both the North-Central and the North, 3rd in the country. Services were 78 percent, Non-Oil Industry, 21 percent and Agriculture was 1 percent.

est economy in both the North-Central and the North, 3rd in the country. The territory’s 2 million Population is 1.0 percent of national population, the least populated in the North-Central, the North and in Nigeria. Land Area of 7,600/km2 in the territory is 0.84 percent of Nigeria’s land mass, the least in the North-Central and the North, 29th in the country. Government Revenue of N74billionin 2017 was 2.47 percent of all States’ and FCT’s total revenue, the highest in the North-Central, 2nd in the North, and 8th among the 36 States and the FCT.

• Endowments The territory’s land area is 0.84 percent of Nigeria’s land mass, the least in the North-Central and the North, 29th in the country. Without coastline or boarder, the territory is bounded by four States; three within its region (Kogi, Nasarawa and Niger), and Kaduna from the North-West.

• Wellbeing Population of FCT is 1.0 percent of national population, the least populated in North-Central, in the North, and in Nigeria. With its small land area, FCT is 11th most densely populated in Nigeria, 15th in literacy and has the 5th life expectancy of 53 years in the country and has the highest Per Capita GSP in Nigeria.

• Budget FCT’s retained 2.4 percent of States’ revenue in 2017, 8th in the country, spent 3.8 percent of States’ outlays, 7th in the country, incurred a deficit, and held 3.5 percent of total debt, 14th in the country.

1. Economy Structure FCT’s estimated Gross State Product (GSP) in 2017 was N9.6 trillion or 8.46 percent of Nigeria’s GDP, the largest in both the North-Central and the North, and 3rd in the country after Lagos and Rivers. Services were 78 percent, Non-Oil Industry, 21 percent and Agriculture was 1 percent.

2. Endowments The Federal Capital Territory was created in 1976 to relief Lagos State of the dual status of State and FCT it had gained since 1967. Without coastline or boarder, the territory is bounded by four States: Kaduna to the North, Niger to the West, Nasarawa to the East, and Kogi to the South. FCT’s land area of 7,600/km2 is 0.84 percent of Nigeria’s land mass, the least in the North-Central and the North, 29th in the country. Major towns and cities are; Garki, Wuse, Central Cadastral, Asokoro, Maitama, Guzape, Kukwuaba Cadastral, Gudu Cadastral, Dutse, Gwarimpa, Gaduwa, Utako, Mabuchi, Durumi, Jabi, Katampe, KafeWumba.

* N40 billion Agricultural output in the territory was 0.15 percent of all agricultural production in the country, the 7th in the North-Central, 20th in the North and 36th in Nigeria. * N2.03 trillion 2017 Non-Oil Industrial output in the State was 13.4 percent of the gross Non-Oil Industrial output in Nigeria, the largest in North-Central and the North, 2nd in the Country. Manufacturing (majorly Food, Beverage and Tobacco and, Textile, Apparel and Footwear) and Construction dominated 98 percent of the State’s non-oil output. * FCT’s N7.55 trillion Service output was 11.8 percent of Nigeria’s Service output, the largest in North-Central and the North, 2nd among the 36 States and FCT. Inter-State Comparisons With a Gross State Product (GSP) of N9.6 trillion or 8.46 percent of Nigeria’s GDP in 2017, the larg-

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understanding the economy of nigeria’s 36 states 3. Wellbeing

4.1.2.1 Revenue 2017 Actual total revenue of N74.0 billion in FCT was 2.47 percent of all States’ actual total revenue, the highest in the North-Central, 2nd in the North and 8th among the 36 States and the FCT. The revenue components in 2017 were: • Statutory Allocations of N40.2 billion was 2.7 percent of the total allocations to all States and FCT, the highest in the North-Central, 2nd in the North and 7th in the country.

• Internally Generated Revenue of N18.7 billion was 2.4 percent of total, the highest among the NorthCentral States, 2nd in the North and the 10th in Nigeria.

• Value Added Tax of N9.3 billion was 1.9 percent of States’ total, the 6th in North-Central, 15th in the North, and 29th in the country.

4.1.2.2 Spending FCT’s actual total expenditure of N142.6 billion in 2017 was 3.87 percent of actual total spending by all States, the highest in the North-Central, 3rd in the North and 7th in the country. The spending components in 2017 were: • Recurrent Spending of N120.3 billion was 4.5 percent of the recurrent outlays of all the State’s and the FCT, the largest in the North-Central, 3rd in the North, and 5th in the country.

• Capital Spending of N22.3 billion in the State was 2.15 percent of States and FCT’s total capital outlays, the largest in North-Central, 6th in the North and 12th in Nigeria.

4.1.2.3 Deficits FCT State is one of the only 25 States and the FCT in Nigeria that had deficits in 2017. The State made an overall deficit of N68.6 billion, the largest among the 5 North-Central States had deficit, 3rd among the 17 States that had deficits in the North and 4th among the States that had deficits in the country.

4.1.2.4 Debt Total outstanding debt of N113.5 billion in the State was 3.5 percent of the States and FCT’s total debts, the 2nd in the North-Central, 3rd in the North and 14th in the country.

• Domestic Debt of N103.3 billion in December 2017 was 3.1 percent of States and FCT’s domestic debts, 2ndin the North-Central and the North, 12th in the country.

• Foreign Debt of N10.2 billion in December 2017 was 0.8 percent of the total foreign debts of the States and FCT, 5th in the North-Central, 14th in the North and 31st in the country.

4.1.3 2013-2017 Trends Total Revenue: FCT’s total revenue declined by 43 percent from N129.5 billion in 2014 to N74 billion in 2017. The slump in revenue came from declines in both gross statutory allocations (GSA) and internally generated revenue (IGR). Value added tax proved resilient in the face of global oil price slump and concomitant recession in the national economy.

FCT’s 2.0 million population is 1.0 percent of national population, the least populated State in North-Central, in the North, and in Nigeria. With a land area of 7,600/km2, FCT’s density is 264 people per km2 compared to the country average of 219/km2, the most densely populated State in North-Central and the North, 11th among the 36 States and the FCT. Literacy in FCT is the highest among the North-Central and the Northern States, 15th in Nigeria. The territory’s life expectancy of 53 years is the highest in North-Central and the North, 5th in Nigeria. Female life expectancy of 54 years is also the highest in North-Central and the North, 5th in Nigeria. Male life expectancy of 51 years retains the highest in the North-Central and the North, 5th among the 36 States and FCT. The territory’s Per Capita GSP of N4.8 million is the highest in the North-Central, the North and in Nigeria.

FCT’s Total Spending: Total Spending fell from N187.1 billion in 2014 to N142.6 billion in 2017.

Recurrent spending grew from N96.9 billion in 2014 to N120.4 billion in 2017, while capital spending fell from N90.2 billion in 2014 to N22.3 billion in 2017.

4. Budget 4.1.

Fiscal Realities of FCT 4.1.1 2018 Aspirations FCT’s N40 billion 2018 budget is 0.43 percent of all States’ and FCT’s 2018 budget, 7th in the North-Central, 20th in the North, and the 37th in Nigeria.

4.1.2 2017 Realities Revenue Use: Since 2015, FCT has incurred growing current deficits since 2015 and overall deficits were three times as large as its capital budget by 2017, as deficit financed recurrent outlays were twice as large as deficit financed capital outlays.

Financing • Revenue financing: overall deficits were 44.5 percent of total revenue in 2014 and 92.8 percent in 2017.

• Spending finance: overall deficits as a fraction of total spending was 30.8 percent in 2014, and 48.1 percent in 2017.

• Capital budget finance: overall deficit as a fraction of the capital budget was 63.1 percent in 2014, 307.2 percent in 2017.

FCT’s Debt • Domestic debt stock was N84.3 billion in 2013 and had surged up to N103.3 billion in 2017; from 96.8 percent of revenue in 2013 to 139.5 percent in 2017.

• Foreign debt stock grew slightly from N6.1 billion in 2013 to N10.3 billion in 2017; from 7.1 percent to 13.9 percent of revenue in 2013 and 2017 respectively.

• Total debt stock rose from 103.8 percent of revenue in 2013 to 153.5 percent in 2017.

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understanding the economy of nigeria’s 36 states

Niger Niger State Summary • Economy Niger’s GSP was 3.02 percent of Nigeria’s GDP in 2017, 2nd in the North-Central, 3rd in the North and 6th among the 36 States and FCT. Agriculture was 77 percent, Services, 16 percent and Non-Oil Industry, 7 percent. Niger is Nigeria’s largest crops producer.

• Endowments The State’s Land Area is 7.57 percent of Nigeria’s land mass, 2nd in the North-Central, the North, and in the country. Niger is landlocked, shares a boarder with Niger Republic and is surrounded by six States; three from the North-West (Kebbi, Kaduna, and Zamfara) and the other three from its region (Kwara, Kogi and FCT).

in North-Central, 8th in the North and 19th in Nigeria.

Inter-State Comparisons With a Gross State Product (GSP) of N3.4 trillion or 3.02 percent of the gross outputs produced in the country, the 2nd in the North-Central, 3rd in the North and 6th among the 36 States and the FCT. 5.6million Population in the State is 2.8 percent of national population, the 2nd among the States in the North-Central, 8th in the North, and 13th in Nigeria. Niger’s 68,900/ km2 Land Area is 7.57 percent of Nigeria’s land mass2nd in the North-Central, the North, and in the country. Niger’s Revenue of N55.5billion was 1.8 percent of all States’ total revenue, the 4th in the North-Central, 13th in the North, and 24th among the 36 States and the FCT.

• Wellbeing Population of the State is 2.8 percent of national population, the 2nd in the North-Central, 8th in the North, and 13th in Nigeria. Niger is the 34th most densely populated, 27th in literacy and has the 6th life expectancy of 50 years in the country. Per Capita GSP of N609 thousand in the State is the 2nd in the North-Central and the North after FCT, the 6th in the country.

• Budget Niger retained 1.8 percent of Stats’ revenue in 2017, 24th in the country; expended 1.3 percent of States’ outlays, 33rd in the country, maintained an overall surplus and held 1.2 percent of States’ total debt, 29th in the country.

1. Economy Structure Niger’s estimated Gross State Product (GSP) in 2017 was N3.4 trillion or 3.02 percent of Nigeria’s GDP, 2nd in the North-Central, 3rd in the North and 6th in the country. Agriculture was 77 percent, Services, 16 percent and Non-Oil Industry, 7 percent.

2. Endowments Niger State was created in 1976 with division of the old North-Western State into Niger and Sokoto States. Niger State has no coastline, boarders with Niger Republic to the West and is bounded by six States, Kebbi (carved out of Sokoto State in 1991) and Zamfara (further carved of Sokoto State in 1996) to the North, Kwara and Kogi to the South, and Kaduna and FCT to the East.

The State’s 68,900/km2 land area is 7.57 percent of Nigeria’s land mass, 2nd in the North-Central, the North, and in the country. Major towns and cities are; Tafa, Bida, Minna, Rafi, Lavun, Borgu, Agwara, Bosso, Kontagora, Katcha, Lapia, Chanchaga, Mokwa, Paikoro, Suleja, Rijau, Gbako, Magama, Edati, Shiroro, Mariga, Munya, Mashegu.

* N2.65 trillion Agricultural output in the State was 11.08 percent of all agricultural output in the country, the largest agricultural economy in the North-Central, in the North and in Nigeria.

• N2.58 trillion in crops was 98 percent of the State’s agricultural output,

• N61.7 billion in livestock was 2 percent and

• N2.0 billion in fishery was 0 percent/negligible.

• Forestry is Nil. * Niger’s N222.5 billion 2017 Non-Oil Industrial output was 1.5 percent of the gross Non-Oil Industrial output in Nigeria, 4th among the North-Central States, 16th in the North and 29th in the Country. Utilities (mainly Electricity and Water) was 87 percent of the State’s non-oil output. * The State’s N558.1 billion Service output was 0.9 percent of Nigeria’s Service output, the 3rd

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understanding the economy of nigeria’s 36 states 3. Wellbeing

4.1.2.1 Revenue 2017 Actual total revenue of N55.5 billion in Niger State was 1.8 percent of all States’ actual total revenue, the 4th in North-Central, 13th in Northern Nigeria, and 24th in the country. The revenue components in 2017 were: • Statutory Allocations of N33.6 billion was 2.3 percent of the total allocations to all States and the FCT, 2nd in the North-Central, 7th in the North and 14th in the country.

• Internally Generated Revenue of N5.7 billion was 0.7 percent of total, the 6th in the North-Central, 14th in the North and 29th in Nigeria.

• Value Added Tax of N10.7 billion was 2.26 percent of States’ total, 2nd in the North-Central, 8th in the North, and the 16th among the 36 States and FCT. 4.1.2.2 Spending Niger’s actual total expenditure of N48.4 billion in 2017 was 1.3 percent of actual total spending by all States, the 7th in the North-Central, the 20th in the North and 33rd in the country. The spending components in 2017 were: • Recurrent Spending of N43.6 billion was 1.6 percent of the recurrent outlays of all the States and the FCT, the 5th in the North-Central, 14th in the North, and 23rd in the country.

• Capital Spending of N4.8 billion in the State was 0.46 percent of States and FCT’s total capital outlays, 7th in the North-Central, 20th in the North, and the 36th in the country.

4.1.2.3 Deficits Niger State is one of the 11 States that had surpluses in 2017. The State made an overall surplus of N7.1 billion, the highest among the 2 States in the North-Central that had surpluses and among the 3 States in the North that had surpluses, 8th among the States that had surpluses in the country.

4.1.2.4 Debt Total outstanding debt of N57.4 billion in the State was 1.2 percent of the States and FCT’s total debts, 6th in the North-Central, the 14th in the North and 29th in the country.

• Domestic Debt of N40.0 billion in December 2017 was 1.2 percent of States and FCT’s domestic debts, the least in the North-Central, 16th in both the North and 31st in the country.

• Foreign Debt of N17.3 billion in December 2017 was 1.4 percent of the total foreign debts of the States and FCT, 2nd in the North-Central, 7th in the North, and 21st in the country.

4.1.3 2013-2017 Trends Niger’s Total Revenue: Total Revenue declined from N66.3 billion in 2014 to N55.5 billion in 2017.

The decline in revenue came from gross statutory allocations (GSA) while internally generated revenue and value added tax proved resilient in the face of global oil price slump and concomitant recession in the national economy.

Niger State’s Population of 5.6 million is 2.8 percent of national population, the 2nd in the NorthCentral, 8th in the North, and 13th in Nigeria. With a land area of 68,900/km2, density in Niger State is 82 people per km2 compared to the country average of 219/km2, the most sparsely populated State in the North-Central, 17th in the North and 34th among the 36 States and FCT. Niger is the least literate in the North-Central, 10th in the North and 27th in the country. The State’s life expectancy of 50 years is the 3rd in the North-Central region, 5th in the North and 6th in Nigeria. Female life expectancy of 54 years is 3rd in the North-Central and the North, 7th in Nigeria. Male life expectancy of 48 years is 3rd in the North-Central, 5th in the North and 16th in the country. Per Capita GSP of N609 thousand in the State is the 2nd in the North-Central and the North after FCT, the 6th in the country.

4. Budget

Niger’s Total Spending: Total Spending fell from N88.4 billion in 2014 to N48.4 billion in 2017, with Recurrent spending falling from N55.9 billion in 2014 to N43.6 billion in 2017, while capital spending fell more steeply from N32.5 billion in 2014 to N4.8 billion in 2017.

4.1.

Fiscal Realities of Niger 4.1.1 2018 Aspirations Niger State’s 2018 budget of N134 billion is 1.4 percent of all States’ and FCT’s 2018 budget, 5th in the North-Central, 14th among the 20 Northern States, and the 29th among the 36 States and FCT. 4.1.2 2017 Realities Revenue Use: Niger has kept current surpluses since 2014 and posted overall surpluses since 2015, in the face of steep decline in capital outlays.

Financing: • Revenue financing: overall deficits of 33.8 percent of total revenue in 2014 gave way to an overall surplus of 5.8 percent in 2015 and 12.7 percent in 2017.

• Spending finance: overall deficit of 25 percent of total spending in 2014 gave way to an overall surplus of 5.5 percent of total spending in 2015 and 14.6 percent in 2017.

• Capital budget finance: overall deficits of 68 percent of capital budget in 2014 gave way to an overall surplus of 5 percent of capital budget in 2015 and 147.9 percent in 2017.

Niger’s Debt • Domestic debt stock grew from N29.7 billion in 2013 to N40.0 billion in 2017; from 34.4 percent in 2013 to 72.1 percent of revenue in 2017.

• Foreign debt stock grew more than threefold from N4.9 billion in 2013 to N17.3 billion in 2017; from 6.9 percent of revenue in 2013 to 31.3 percent in 2017.

• Total debt stock rose from 41.4 percent of revenue in 2014 to 103.4 percent in 2017.

For enquiries, please call Teliat 08098710024, Chuks 08116759816 or teliat.sule@businessday.ng

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BUSINESS SOUTH-SOUTH

COMPLETE COVERAGE OF SOUTH-SOUTH / SOUTH-EAST

Academy mulls introducing anti-corruption studies in tertiary institutions GODFREY OFURUM, in Calabar

S

ola Akinrinade, a professor and provost of AntiCorruption Academy of Nigeria, has revealed that the academy was working with the National Universities Commission (NUC), National Board of Technical Education (NABTEB), among others, to introduce anti-corruption studies in the curriculum of all tertiary institutions in the country.

Akinrinade made this known in Calabar, Cross River State capital, at the 20th Bassey Andah Memorial lecture, held at the University of Calabar International Conference Centre.

Delivering the main paper at the event titled, “Corruption and the Development of Nigeria,” which he slightly adjusted to “Corruption and the Underdevelopment of Nigeria,” Akinrinade explained that educating Nigerians on how to behave

correctly will reduce corruption in the country.

He attributed the underdevelopment of the country to the devastating consequences of corruption and corrupt behaviours, on the part of those entrusted with the citizens’ commonwealth. He observed that corruption was one of the most prominent elements militating against the proper sharing of resources in Nigeria; noting that the incidences of corruption permeate almost every space in Nigeria, and has made the country and its system unhealthy.

He explained that Nigeria is one of the countries with the largest number of legislations for combating corruption, stressing that the existence of multiple acts and agencies to implement the provisions of the acts is evidence of the multidimensional nature of corruption in Nigeria; and possibly of the weakness of legal response to the problem.

“The question is, why is it that one anti-corruption legislation and body after the other, the phenomenon, rather than abating keeps intensifying?” he queried.

Some of the legislations put in place to tackle corruption in Nigeria include: the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal (CCB&T) Act, the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences (ICPC) Act 2000; the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (Establishment) (EFCC) Act 2004, the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) Act 2007; the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) Act, 2007, and the Fiscal Responsibility (FRA) Act 2007.

“Observers of the Nigerian political process will attest to the fact that there has been a lot of investment of efforts during the

past several months in the anti-corruption drive, particularly on exposing corrupt officials of the past administrations and recovering of stolen funds. We have heard stories of former officials of the previous governments being accused of stealing huge sums of money that generations yet unborn cannot finish spending. There are official statements that as soon as investigations are completed, the alleged crooks would be taken to court. Certainly, arresting, prosecuting and jailing of offenders cannot be discarded as a means of tackling corruption and deterring others,” said Akinrinade.

But he argued that without enforcing the law, there is no basis for condemning corruption; noting that as we cannot stop people from stealing in ordinary life, it is

futile to expect corruption to disappear completely in public life. So, the legal route for seeking societal redress must continue.

He suggested solution to winning the fight against corruption, to include going beyond arrest and jailing of offenders to prevention of corruption. “Beyond the legal route, it was time the country explored building the structures for a sustainable long-term response that would transcend regimes and administrations in the country”, he said.

He observed that the cost of enforcement, including cost of investigations and prosecution relative to the value of recoveries, point squarely to the need to take corruption prevention seriously.

“If history has any message for us, it is that enforce-

ment has never provided a failsafe solution to the challenge of corruption in Nigeria.

“Nigerians are usually tantalised by stories of former officials and/or their cronies caught and being placed in handcuffs or sentenced to jail. But let us ask ourselves, how many of those paraded in the past have ended up in prison, serving jail terms commensurate with their crime?

He noted that the foundation of long-term sustainable war against corruption and development of the country laid in attitudinal change. Enlightenment promotes attitudinal change, and in turn, encourages prevention.

He suggested that it was time we put the “public” back into public service in the country.

Ugwuanyi asks pregnant mothers, children to use government health facilities REGIS ANUKWUOJI, Enugu

E

nugu State governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi has advised especially rural dwellers in parts of the state to effectively access health facilities provided by the state government in their communities across the state.

Ugwuanyi stated this while commissioning a modern six-bedroom health centre equipped the latest health equipment at Ihe Community in Awgu Local Government Area of the state.

The governor who was represented by the state commissioner for Health, Fintan Ekochin emphasised on the state government’s free medical care for children and pregnant mothers in the state; and called on pregnant mothers to stop patronising traditional birth attendants (TBAs) to avoid complications in child birth.

He however, frowned at the low patronage of the state health facilities, despite all efforts made by government to equip

them with drugs and other equipment.

The governor said the state government has priority in development of primary healthcare centres (PHCs) in both rural and urban areas for the health of children.

He commended the traditional ruler of the community, Martins Ibeziako, Oka-Oburuzo of Enugu Ihe-Oke, who ensured that the community used the N5 million of the N10 million given to every autonomous community in Enugu State to construct any project of their choice, based on the state’s Visit Every Community (VEC) recommendation.

“We are very happy about community efforts.

It is a sign of community ownership. When a community is proud about something, they will use it well and protect it,” the governor said.

The traditional ruler, Ibeziako commended Governor Ugwuanyi for the health project and other work in Ihe, particularly University of Education just approved to be cited in the community.

Officers from the 6 Division of Nigerian Army, parading suspects for election violence before handing them over to Rivers State Police Command in Port Harcourt on Tuesday. NAN

NGO seeks inclusive governance to facilitate economic prosperity ANIEFIOK UDONQUAK, Uyo

K

ebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre (KWDRC), a NonGovernmental Organisation (NGO) focusing on critical women’s voices, their issues and actions tied to anticorruption and accountability has called for inclusive governance to fast track economic prosperity.

It also observes the connection between corruption and women’s lack of access to public services, includ-

ing access to healthcare, access to education, water, transportation, agriculture, as well as participation in decision making.

Emem Okon, executive director of Kebetkache, stated this at a town hall meeting in Eket, Akwa Ibom State, stressing that inclusive governance would ensure that women have access to employment and support for their businesses.

The town hall meeting which was part of the 16 days of activism against Gender Based Violence,

noted the significance of the day; saying that it helps to create tools to pressure governments to implement promises made to eliminate violence against women.

According to her, it would also help to establish a link between local and international work to end violence against women. She called on the society to respect the human rights of women; adding that when there is equality, justice and freedom, it would prevent violence.

She pointed out that whenever and wherever humanity’s

values are abandoned, we all are at a greater risk; we need to stand up for our rights and those of others.

In his presentation, Tijah Bolton Akpan, speaking on open government partnership, identified corruption as the major obstacle to development in Nigeria over the years; noting that transparency, accountability, citizen participation, as well as technology innovation were the four principles of open governance partnership which the country had signed.

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Live @ the Stock exchange Prices for Securities Traded as of Thursday 07 March 2019 Company

Market cap(nm)

Price (N)

Change

Trades

Volume

Company

Market cap(nm)

Price (N)

Change

Trades

Volume

PRICES FOR MAIN BOARD SECURITIES (Equities) BANKING ACCESS BANK PLC. 173,567.83 6.00 -1.64 194 29,212,240 UNITED BANK FOR AFRICA PLC 265,045.52 7.75 0.65 180 14,415,591 ZENITH BANK PLC 772,353.75 24.60 0.41 569 34,809,317 943 78,437,148 OTHER FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS FBN HOLDINGS PLC 292,546.64 8.15 -0.61 205 28,979,816 205 28,979,816 1,148 107,416,964 BUILDING MATERIALS DANGOTE CEMENT PLC 3,322,898.94 195.00 -0.76 63 201,309 LAFARGE AFRICA PLC. 112,754.57 13.00 -0.77 36 642,659 99 843,968 99 843,968 EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION SEPLAT PETROLEUM DEVELOPMENT COMPANY PLC 351,242.56 596.90 - 19 4,491 19 4,491 19 4,491 1,266 108,265,423 REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUSTS (REITS) SKYE SHELTER FUND PLC 1,900.00 95.00 - 0 0 UNION HOMES REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST (REIT) 11,300.89 45.20 - 0 0 UPDC REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST 15,876.20 5.95 - 0 0 0 0 0 0 OTHER FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS NIGERIA ENERYGY SECTOR FUND 411.91 552.20 - 0 0 VALUEALLIANCE VALUE FUND 3,312.39 103.20 - 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 CROP PRODUCTION FTN COCOA PROCESSORS PLC 440.00 0.20 - 2 8,700 OKOMU OIL PALM PLC. 76,312.80 80.00 - 6 27,550 PRESCO PLC 75,000.00 75.00 - 10 8,100 18 44,350 FISHING/HUNTING/TRAPPING ELLAH LAKES PLC. 511.20 4.26 - 0 0 0 0 LIVESTOCK/ANIMAL SPECIALTIES LIVESTOCK FEEDS PLC. 1,770.00 0.59 - 12 595,859 12 595,859 30 640,209 DIVERSIFIED INDUSTRIES A.G. LEVENTIS NIGERIA PLC. 900.08 0.34 - 3 1,046 JOHN HOLT PLC. 202.36 0.52 - 2 9,723 S C O A NIG. PLC. 1,903.99 2.93 - 0 0 TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATION OF NIGERIA PLC 52,029.43 1.28 1.59 71 5,414,929 U A C N PLC. 22,906.31 7.95 -1.85 61 1,035,512 137 6,461,210 137 6,461,210 BUILDING CONSTRUCTION ARBICO PLC. 711.32 4.79 - 0 0 0 0 INFRASTRUCTURE/HEAVY CONSTRUCTION JULIUS BERGER NIG. PLC. 36,300.00 27.50 - 12 29,337 ROADS NIG PLC. 165.00 6.60 - 0 0 12 29,337 REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT UACN PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT COMPANY PLC 4,729.08 1.82 - 7 100,700 7 100,700 19 130,037 AUTOMOBILES/AUTO PARTS DN TYRE & RUBBER PLC 954.53 0.20 - 0 0 0 0 BEVERAGES--BREWERS/DISTILLERS CHAMPION BREW. PLC. 12,135.72 1.55 - 2 1,487 GOLDEN GUINEA BREW. PLC. 242.22 0.89 - 0 0 GUINNESS NIG PLC 147,084.21 67.15 - 26 16,931 INTERNATIONAL BREWERIES PLC. 232,088.27 27.00 - 3 11,000 NIGERIAN BREW. PLC. 624,957.90 78.15 - 43 122,542 74 151,960 FOOD PRODUCTS DANGOTE FLOUR MILLS PLC 56,750.00 11.35 4.13 130 6,379,174 DANGOTE SUGAR REFINERY PLC 175,200.00 14.60 -0.34 43 644,156 FLOUR MILLS NIG. PLC. 77,907.21 19.00 -4.76 44 444,459 HONEYWELL FLOUR MILL PLC 10,229.95 1.29 -0.77 39 1,832,464 MULTI-TREX INTEGRATED FOODS PLC 1,340.10 0.36 - 0 0 N NIG. FLOUR MILLS PLC. 766.26 4.30 - 3 1,600 NASCON ALLIED INDUSTRIES PLC 52,988.77 20.00 - 24 988,530 UNION DICON SALT PLC. 3,676.41 13.45 - 0 0 283 10,290,383 FOOD PRODUCTS--DIVERSIFIED CADBURY NIGERIA PLC. 20,660.22 11.00 7.84 20 258,880 NESTLE NIGERIA PLC. 1,196,910.94 1,510.00 - 38 19,511 58 278,391 HOUSEHOLD DURABLES NIGERIAN ENAMELWARE PLC. 1,680.31 22.10 - 2 40 VITAFOAM NIG PLC. 5,003.38 4.00 - 24 575,686 26 575,726 PERSONAL/HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTS P Z CUSSONS NIGERIA PLC. 44,072.30 11.10 -8.26 49 893,008 UNILEVER NIGERIA PLC. 222,331.71 38.70 - 32 259,692 81 1,152,700 522 12,449,160 BANKING DIAMOND BANK PLC 56,279.75 2.43 -2.41 89 4,992,690 ECOBANK TRANSNATIONAL INCORPORATED 256,893.72 14.00 2.19 53 2,596,402 FIDELITY BANK PLC 66,352.29 2.29 0.44 123 13,016,757 GUARANTY TRUST BANK PLC. 1,108,083.90 37.65 -0.79 314 22,540,576 JAIZ BANK PLC 17,678.55 0.60 -4.76 15 1,346,565 SKYE BANK PLC 10,687.83 0.77 - 0 0 STERLING BANK PLC. 71,400.24 2.48 - 17 459,259 UNION BANK NIG.PLC. 202,389.23 6.95 -0.71 33 404,715 UNITY BANK PLC 10,871.08 0.93 - 8 136,929 WEMA BANK PLC. 32,788.30 0.85 - 26 1,321,825 678 46,815,718 INSURANCE CARRIERS, BROKERS AND SERVICES AFRICAN ALLIANCE INSURANCE PLC 4,117.00 0.20 - 0 0 AIICO INSURANCE PLC. 4,989.75 0.72 -1.37 26 1,587,628 AXAMANSARD INSURANCE PLC 23,100.00 2.20 - 4 21,300 CONSOLIDATED HALLMARK INSURANCE PLC 2,276.40 0.28 - 4 35,750 CONTINENTAL REINSURANCE PLC 19,811.94 1.91 - 0 0 CORNERSTONE INSURANCE PLC 3,387.79 0.23 -8.00 2 121,739 GOLDLINK INSURANCE PLC 2,001.98 0.44 - 1 2,925 GUINEA INSURANCE PLC. 1,228.00 0.20 - 0 0 INTERNATIONAL ENERGY INSURANCE PLC 487.95 0.38 - 0 0 LASACO ASSURANCE PLC. 2,270.26 0.31 -6.06 12 1,054,136 LAW UNION AND ROCK INS. PLC. 2,234.09 0.52 - 4 105,209 LINKAGE ASSURANCE PLC 5,040.00 0.63 - 4 207,500 MUTUAL BENEFITS ASSURANCE PLC. 1,840.00 0.23 -8.00 12 1,517,271 NEM INSURANCE PLC 12,831.62 2.43 - 10 202,950 NIGER INSURANCE PLC 1,780.08 0.23 - 3 93,749 PRESTIGE ASSURANCE PLC 2,906.58 0.54 - 1 10 REGENCY ASSURANCE PLC 1,733.88 0.26 -7.69 5 513,450 SOVEREIGN TRUST INSURANCE PLC 2,001.80 0.24 -4.00 10 590,410 STACO INSURANCE PLC 4,483.72 0.48 - 0 0 STANDARD ALLIANCE INSURANCE PLC. 2,582.21 0.20 - 0 0 SUNU ASSURANCES NIGERIA PLC. 2,800.00 0.20 - 4 940,050 UNIC DIVERSIFIED HOLDINGS PLC. 516.46 0.20 - 0 0 UNIVERSAL INSURANCE PLC 3,200.00 0.20 - 0 0 VERITAS KAPITAL ASSURANCE PLC 3,189.33 0.23 -4.17 2 500,000 WAPIC INSURANCE PLC 5,353.10 0.40 - 35 5,218,517 139 12,712,594 MICRO-FINANCE BANKS FORTIS MICROFINANCE BANK PLC 11,799.67 2.58 - 0 0 NPF MICROFINANCE BANK PLC 3,384.22 1.48 - 12 159,000

12 159,000 MORTGAGE CARRIERS, BROKERS AND SERVICES ABBEY MORTGAGE BANK PLC 4,116.00 0.98 - 0 0 ASO SAVINGS AND LOANS PLC 7,370.87 0.50 - 0 0 INFINITY TRUST MORTGAGE BANK PLC 5,922.05 1.42 - 0 0 RESORT SAVINGS & LOANS PLC 2,265.95 0.20 - 0 0 UNION HOMES SAVINGS AND LOANS PLC. 2,949.22 3.02 - 0 0 0 0 OTHER FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS AFRICA PRUDENTIAL PLC 9,220.00 4.61 -1.71 99 3,427,502 CUSTODIAN INVESTMENT PLC 35,291.19 6.00 2.56 11 302,363 DEAP CAPITAL MANAGEMENT & TRUST PLC 660.00 0.44 - 0 0 FCMB GROUP PLC. 41,783.72 2.11 2.43 94 12,918,456 ROYAL EXCHANGE PLC. 1,646.52 0.32 -8.57 4 400,000 STANBIC IBTC HOLDINGS PLC 491,546.54 48.00 3.00 47 1,347,892 UNITED CAPITAL PLC 18,000.00 3.00 -9.09 115 4,834,557 370 23,230,770 1,199 82,918,082 HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS EKOCORP PLC. 1,680.29 3.37 - 0 0 UNION DIAGNOSTIC & CLINICAL SERVICES PLC 1,030.41 0.29 -3.33 8 1,000,000 8 1,000,000 MEDICAL SUPPLIES MORISON INDUSTRIES PLC. 544.04 0.55 - 0 0 0 0 PHARMACEUTICALS EVANS MEDICAL PLC. 366.17 0.50 - 0 0 FIDSON HEALTHCARE PLC 7,425.00 4.95 - 2 3,100 GLAXO SMITHKLINE CONSUMER NIG. PLC. 13,752.58 11.50 - 12 33,696 MAY & BAKER NIGERIA PLC. 4,140.56 2.40 - 5 50,286 NEIMETH INTERNATIONAL PHARMACEUTICALS PLC 1,329.41 0.70 - 8 100,892 NIGERIA-GERMAN CHEMICALS PLC. 556.71 3.62 - 0 0 PHARMA-DEKO PLC. 325.23 1.50 - 0 0 27 187,974 35 1,187,974

COMPUTER BASED SYSTEMS COURTEVILLE BUSINESS SOLUTIONS PLC 710.40 0.20 - 1 2,000 1 2,000 COMPUTERS AND PERIPHERALS OMATEK VENTURES PLC 1,470.89 0.50 - 0 0 0 0 IT SERVICES CWG PLC 6,413.06 2.54 - 0 0 NCR (NIGERIA) PLC. 648.00 6.00 - 0 0 TRIPPLE GEE AND COMPANY PLC. 381.11 0.77 - 0 0 0 0 PROCESSING SYSTEMS CHAMS PLC 939.21 0.20 - 1 50 E-TRANZACT INTERNATIONAL PLC 11,088.00 2.64 - 1 100 2 150 3 2,150 BUILDING MATERIALS BERGER PAINTS PLC 2,391.04 8.25 - 4 2,500 CAP PLC 23,800.00 34.00 - 14 33,910 CEMENT CO. OF NORTH.NIG. PLC 249,726.52 19.00 - 26 115,142 FIRST ALUMINIUM NIGERIA PLC 612.00 0.29 - 3 102,200 MEYER PLC. 286.87 0.54 - 1 1,455 PORTLAND PAINTS & PRODUCTS NIGERIA PLC 1,999.41 2.52 - 0 0 PREMIER PAINTS PLC. 1,279.20 10.40 - 1 300 49 255,507 ELECTRONIC AND ELECTRICAL PRODUCTS AUSTIN LAZ & COMPANY PLC 2,256.91 2.09 - 0 0 CUTIX PLC. 3,962.97 2.25 - 10 95,500 10 95,500 PACKAGING/CONTAINERS BETA GLASS PLC. 39,497.79 79.00 - 1 2,295 GREIF NIGERIA PLC 388.02 9.10 - 0 0 1 2,295 AGRO-ALLIED & CHEMICALS NOTORE CHEMICAL IND PLC 100,754.14 62.50 - 2 56 2 56 62 353,358 CHEMICALS B.O.C. GASES PLC. 1,577.57 3.79 - 0 0 0 0 METALS ALUMINIUM EXTRUSION IND. PLC. 1,803.64 8.20 - 0 0 0 0 MINING SERVICES MULTIVERSE MINING AND EXPLORATION PLC 852.39 0.20 - 3 11,000 3 11,000 PAPER/FOREST PRODUCTS THOMAS WYATT NIG. PLC. 50.60 0.23 - 0 0 0 0 3 11,000 ENERGY EQUIPMENT AND SERVICES JAPAUL OIL & MARITIME SERVICES PLC 1,315.17 0.21 4.76 26 2,332,150 26 2,332,150 INTEGRATED OIL AND GAS SERVICES OANDO PLC 69,615.91 5.60 -1.75 58 1,886,128 58 1,886,128 PETROLEUM AND PETROLEUM PRODUCTS DISTRIBUTORS 11 PLC 61,301.19 170.00 -5.56 29 84,274 CONOIL PLC 15,960.90 23.00 - 12 82,178 ETERNA PLC. 5,738.24 4.40 - 10 135,403 FORTE OIL PLC. 36,469.47 28.00 - 22 41,609 MRS OIL NIGERIA PLC. 6,354.80 20.85 - 3 7,080 TOTAL NIGERIA PLC. 67,904.37 200.00 - 29 40,927 105 391,471 189 4,609,749 ADVERTISING AFROMEDIA PLC 2,219.52 0.50 - 0 0 0 0 AIRLINES MEDVIEW AIRLINE PLC 16,576.10 1.70 - 0 0 0 0 AUTOMOBILE/AUTO PART RETAILERS R T BRISCOE PLC. 411.72 0.35 - 0 0 0 0 COURIER/FREIGHT/DELIVERY RED STAR EXPRESS PLC 2,947.48 5.00 - 1 763 TRANS-NATIONWIDE EXPRESS PLC. 304.75 0.65 - 0 0 1 763 HOSPITALITY TANTALIZERS PLC 642.33 0.20 - 1 300 1 300 HOTELS/LODGING CAPITAL HOTEL PLC 4,801.22 3.10 - 1 1,210 IKEJA HOTEL PLC 4,427.84 2.13 - 1 30 TOURIST COMPANY OF NIGERIA PLC. 7,862.53 3.50 - 0 0 TRANSCORP HOTELS PLC 45,222.40 5.95 - 7 42,089 9 43,329 MEDIA/ENTERTAINMENT DAAR COMMUNICATIONS PLC 4,800.00 0.40 - 0 0 0 0 PRINTING/PUBLISHING ACADEMY PRESS PLC. 241.92 0.40 - 3 2,600 LEARN AFRICA PLC 1,118.60 1.45 -0.68 4 1,001,755 STUDIO PRESS (NIG) PLC. 1,183.82 1.99 - 0 0 UNIVERSITY PRESS PLC. 875.76 2.03 -9.78 4 217,500 11 1,221,855 ROAD TRANSPORTATION ASSOCIATED BUS COMPANY PLC 895.16 0.54 - 0 0 0 0

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Opinion A tale of two titans of Nigerian health: Emmanuel Adeyemo Elebute (1932- 2019) HUMANANGLE

FEMI OLUGBILE

T

oday – Friday 8th March, Nigeria is laying to rest one of the giants and exemplars of excellence in the field of Healthcare in the nation.

The story of Adeyemo Elebute – in a literary sense, could be applied to the whole of the Medical Profession in Nigeria, despite its present gloom, and titled ‘We have been great before and can be great, yet again’.

He is – it is difficult to write about him in the past tense, a man with two extremely distinguished careers – one in public service, and one in the private sector, seamlessly interwoven. Either one of the careers would ordinarily have been enough to earn him immortality.

He studied Medicine at the University of Dublin, Ireland. He graduated with BA, MB BCh, BAO degrees in 1956, racking up a string of prizes and distinctions, including the prize for best performance in professional examinations throughout the duration of his stay in the medical school.

He went on to train as a surgeon, becoming a Fellow of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons of Edinburgh and England in 1960.

He worked at a number of notable institutions in the UK. Back home, he worked at the University College Hospital, Ibadan until 1962 when he left for Lagos to join the foundation staff of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH).

He became a Professor of Surgery in 1969. He was President of Nigeria Medical Association from 1968 to 1970.

He became Provost of the College of Medicine in 1977 and held the post till 1980. From 1978 till 1980, he was also Chief Medical Director of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital. During his tenure as CMD, he was appointed Chairman of the World Health Organization’s Committee of Heads of Medical Schools in the Africa region. He served on many local and international bodies.

He served as President of National Postgraduate Medical College and was c Chairman of the Health Group of Vision 2010 Committee.

His research led to marked improvements in the care of critically ill patients in the tropical environment, including the creation of a ‘Sepsis Score’ for assessment and follow-up of patients with severe sepsis.

Sitting with Professor Elebute some time ago in his expansive Surulere residence, you were struck by the unaffected candour of the man as he reminisced. He was trying to explain to you how, after his career at the Teaching Hospital, a career interspersed with several short stints in gold-standard training establishments in different parts of the world, he was at a loose end, wandering what to do with the rest of his life, since he was ‘retired but not tired’. One of the options he considered was to offer his surgical skills free of charge to Lagos State wherever they felt they might be useful.

As he was mulling this, it came to him that his driving passion for the health of Nigerians had crystallized over the years into two critical issues – Access (most Nigerians did not have access to good healthcare because it was not available or they could not afford it) and Quality (virtually all the healthcare facilities available were of unstandardized poor quality). The question arose in his mind –should he not put his money where his mouth was, so to say?

This worry, shared with his equally concerned wife, Professor Oyinade Elebute, herself a notable physician, researcher, and a Professor of Physiology, would lead to the birth of Hygeia Nigeria Limited in 1985. Hygeia would create and practicalise in Kwara state and elsewhere, with international support, a workable model of community-based health insurance, a concept that would, several years later, be incorporated into Nigeria’s National Health Act as a way of providing access to health for the masses, and also be replicated with modifications by Lagos and several other forwardlooking states in the federation.

Hygeia would also birth Lagoon Hospitals, a hospital group which would become the first Nigerian health facility – public or private - to obtain international accreditation from Joint Commission International (JCI), the gold standard for quality in healthcare all over the world.

In addition, Hygeia would provide impetus for the formation of Society for Quality Health in Nigeria (SQHN), a body set up to pursue the cause of quality improvement in healthcare in Nigeria, and to create a local capability to assist Nigerian health facilities to carry out quality improvement and obtain accreditation as quality institutions. Quality improvement, focused on using best practices and standardizing procedures, was necessarily an expensive journey. The accreditation would be rendered less expensive and daunting if Nigerians learned, under the guidance of the international body ISQua (the International Society for Quality

Femi Olugbile is a Writer and Psychiatrist.

Comments to synthesiz@gmail.com’

Emmanuel Adeyemo Elebute

The case for a new development strategy THE NEW WEALTH OF NATIONS

OBADIAH MAILAFIA

N

igeria does not have a development strategy. For a country not to have a development strategy is like the captain of a ship setting off from Apapa to New York without a navigating compass. We have had very good economic development plans in the past, including such tactical schemes as Vision 2020, the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS), the Seven-Point Agenda and the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP). But they do not constitute a

development strategy.

A development strategy is a long-term perspective framework on how to take a national economy from one stage of development to the next. It begins with an economic philosophy, by which we mean a country’s definition of the Good Life and what it regards as the proper balance between the state and market and the institutional set-up required to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number.

There are those who believe in the pure market liberal ideology associated with the Austrian School of Economics, in which even the idea of a central bank is considered a threat to economic freedom.

Austrian economists believe that private banks are best placed to issue legal tender currencies and that, through competition the best currency will emerge as the most widely accepted in the country. On the other extreme we have the socialist market system, in which the state controls the means of production and “the commanding heights” of the economy.

The market is reduced to the margins of economic activities.

in Healthcare), to do it themselves, as has been done successfully in South Africa by COHSASA (the Council for Health Service Accreditation of Southern Africa).

There are subtle, unstated, perhaps even unintended implications and overtones to the preoccupations and accomplishments of the last years of Adeyemo Elebute’s life. One of these is that medicine is a social service and a humanitarian calling, but it should also be seen as a business.

Nigerians have, for too long, failed to accept and develop properly, the reality and possibilities of the business proposition. This has led to a situation where medical practice is not seen as bankable, and very few businessmen are ready to invest their money in building medical facilities or resources. It is, of course, a situation that is now in the process of change following the advent of the Lagoon group which has demonstrated that not only local but even international finance can be accessed if appropriate business standards and practices are met.

Another glean of wisdom derivable from Elebute’s foray into the private sector could be traced to his experience when he was a public servant.

You would recall the story as he told it to you in that memorable meeting in Surulere even as he handed you an autographed copy of one of his books ‘Worthy in character and Learning’. When he became Chief Medical Director of LUTH, he realized he had no Management training, and had to learn on the job. Professor Adeoye Lambo was Deputy Director in the WHO.He had his ears to the ground in Nigeria and recognized his compatriot’s plight. There was no management training in medical school. A great doctor was not necessarily a great manager. Lambo proceeded to organize a crash training for CMDs in the WHO’s Brazzaville office, and arranged for Elebute to be the chairman of similarly challenged brilliant doctors from all over Africa who suddenly found themselves shoved into management to sink or swim.

Nowadays, private establishments built to drive towards becoming centres of excellence, and even the better public hospitals, are arming themselves with a good business case and a strong management base as standard survival necessities, with the Lagoon group as a powerful model.

Providing access to Healthcare for Nigeria’s teeming millions and ensuring that they receive good quality healthcare grew to become Professor Adeyemo Elebute’s overarching mission in life. They constitute the enduring legacy he is bequeathing to his profession, and his nation.

May his soul rest in peace!

In-between we have mixed-economy models in which states and markets participate in economic activities while the government assumes the role of umpire to ensure a stable eco-system and levelplaying field. The United States is closer to the far right of the spectrum while Sweden and the Nordic countries, with their hightax and high-welfare economies are closer to the left. Germany’s social market model is closer to the centre.

We in Nigeria have long operated in approximation to the “mixed-economy” model. In the sixties and seventies, the state had the upper hand, as public enterprises proliferated in industry, banking, finance and agriculture. With the structural adjustment programmes of the 1980s, the pendulum shifted towards markets. There was a spate of privatisation, commercialisation and liberalisation, with varying degrees of success. There was a determination that the state will be restricted to its area of comparative advantage while the private sector will be the driver and locomotive of economic growth.

Ever since the Great Session of the last

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Economists are broadly agreed that the minimum precondition for a middle-income status is a 70 percent literacy rate

decade, there is an international consensus that ideological dogmatism is folly and that both extremes of the pendulum are illusory. Rather, the ideal lies somewhere in the Aristotelian Mean. Emerging and developing countries have a freer policy space to define a system that best works for them, in accordance with the temperament of the people, their historical experience, unique set of conditions and long-term development trajectory.

The 1999 Constitution states that “The security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government”.

Section 16 (1) requires government to: (i) utilize the resources of the country to advance the collective prosperity; (ii) Secure the economy such that the welfare, freedom and happiness of every citizen Continues on page 35

Dr. Mailafia is a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, a development economist and public finance expert with a DPhil from Oxford obmailafia@gmail.com; 08036590990 (text messages only)

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