BusinessDay 10 Dec 2019

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news you can trust I ** tuesDAY 10 DECEMBER 2019 I vol. 19, no 453

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Record 2018 tax haul not enough to save Fowler’s job

Iheanyi Nwachukwu & Lolade Akinmurele

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Inside Omobola Johnson celebrates FBNQuest Trustees at 40 P. 2

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g L-R: Sola Adepetun, chairman, Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria; Dayo Aderugbo, head, Corporate Affairs, Brand and Marketing, Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria and West Africa; Burna Boy, Standard Chartered Bank Digital Bank Ambassador; Obafemi Hamzat, deputy governor, Lagos State, and Lamin Manjang, chief executive officer, Nigeria and West Africa, during the launch of Standard Chartered Digital Bank at the Civic Centre in Lagos.

…as 2023 permutations take centre stage …scanty information on Nami

resident Muhammadu Buhari on Monday named Muhammad M. Nami as the new chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), replacing Tunde Fowler whose tenure expired on Monday.

Nami’s appointment came barely four months after President Buhari through Abba Kyari, his chief of staff, queried Fowler on a cumulative N3.9 trillion unmet tax revenue target for a four-year period.

Fowler is one of the political loyalists of Bola Tinubu, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The FIRS broke Nigeria’s tax Continues on page 38

fgn bonds

Treasury bills

Eskom vs NEPA: A tale of two power sector reforms ISAAC ANYAOGU

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he South African government will create generation, transmission and distribution companies from its troubled national power company, Eskom, in a plan seen by BusinessDay. A further analysis of the plan reveals lessons that can plug gaps in Nigeria’s power

sector reform efforts.

In the South African plan, Eskom will relinquish its nearmonopoly and compete with independent power producers (IPPs) to generate electricity at the least cost. Nigeria’s 2013 power sector reform removed the natural monopoly of the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA), but inadvertently created a new one by allocating

vast franchise areas to distribution companies (DisCos) who lack the financial and technical competence to manage them.

Last year, Enugu and Eko DisCos sued independent power operators for encroaching on their franchise areas by providing power to communities they left unserved. The Rural Electrification Agency (REA), a government agency set up to en-

sure power gets to underserved communities, kicked against it.

“The franchise areas are assets purchased by the DisCos, and these include the customers, which were valued on the basis of the revenue being generated, but these embedded generations are not factoring in expected tariff loss to the DisCos,” said Chuks Continues on page 38

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news Cooking gas operators to show land title before getting licence …as DPR orders operators out of petrol stations ISAAC ANYAOGU

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he Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR),thegovernment agency that regulates the oil and gas sector, has begun sterner enforcement of its regulationwhichrequiresentrepreneursapplyingforlicencesto openaLiquefiedPetroleumGas (LPG) planttoincludelandtitles as part of their application.

BusinessDay gathers that the agency will soon clamp down on operators who have operated inside petrol stations around the country and compel them to leave and purchase their own land to operate the business.

These operators were allowed to open their plants in petrol stations because they applied for it as add-on facility designated as auto-gas for vehicle use, according to the DPR. But there are too few autogas vehicles and even fewer auto conversion centres in Nigeria.

And so, operators have taken advantage of this seeming gap to open LPG plants inside petrol stations to sell cooking gas. Smaller businesses have also opened shops inside major city centres, including Lagos, which, analysts say, presents safety hazards as these smaller plants are even

set up beside local food vendors who cook with open fire.

Ahmed Damcida, CEO of Energy Culture, said this is another reason for enforcement of the regulation by the DPR as some operators are importing cheap cylinders and skids meant for propane gas into Nigeria when LPG gas used in the country is butane gas.

“This presents safety risk for the country and the DPR should even go a step further to license importers of cylinders,” Damcida said.

The DPR within the last two months has warned it would enforce the rules. In September, during a meeting with the Cooking Gas Skid Proprietors Association of Nigeria, Ogun State chapter, in Abeokuta, Muinat Bello-Zagi, DPR’s controller of operations, warned illegal cooking gas skid operators in the state to either regularise their operations or risk being shut down and prosecuted.

Operators say the DPR now requires them to buy two plots of land to set up an average 20-metric-tonnescapacity LPG plant. Those operating lower capacity of 5.3 metric tonnes are expected to comply with this directive.

•Continues online at www.businessday.ng

N29bn debt: AMCON takes over Cedar Oil & Gas Limited DIPO OLADEHINDE

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he Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) on Monday said it carried out the order of the Federal High Court, Lagos, to take over Cedar Oil & Gas Exploration and Production Limited over a staggering indebtedness of N29 billion.

C. J. Aneke, a Justice of the Federal High Court in Ikoyi, gave the orders following the failure of Cedar Oil & Gas Exploration and Production Limited as well as its directors, Olajide Omokore, Isiaka Mohammed, Joseph Bazuaye, Silas Ode and others, to pay AMCON their admitted sum of over N15 billion out of the total outstanding indebtedness of N29 billion owed to the recovery agency of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Cedar Oil & Gas Exploration and Production Limited’s nonperformingloansobligationwas sold to AMCON by the defunct Skye Bank, now Polaris Bank.

Several attempts by the corporation to explore a peaceful resolution of the outstanding obligation failed.

But the case was eventually brought before the court for settlement and the court ruled in favour of AMCON. In compliance with the court order, AMCON formally and successfully took posses-

sion of all the assets of Cedar Oil & Gas Exploration and Production Limited promoted by Olajide Omokore as ordered by the court through Godwin Nwekoyo, the receiver/manager, who also received protective orders from the court.

The assets which are now under AMCON include Block A, No. 46 Gerrard Road, Ikoyi, Lagos State, comprising 26 flats; Plot 1236, River Niger Street, off River Benue Street, Maitama, Federal Capital Territory, Abuja; and Marion Apartment, Block 8, No. 4 & 5, Onikoyi Estate, Banana Island, Lagos State, consisting of 43 units of apartments.

AMCON is also in possession of No. 33A, Cooper Road, Ikoyi, Lagos State; No. 8, Gerrard Road, Ikoyi, Lagos State, as well as Manson Apartments, No. 6, Gerrard Road, Ikoyi, Lagos State, comprising 60 units of three-bedroom apartments.

“Imagine one company owing N29 billion! We know what N29 billion can do to a country that’s economically challenged. These are guys with private jets, Rolls Royce, yet don’t want to pay back loans they took,” Jude Nwauzor, head, corporate communications at AMCON, told BusinessDay while confirming the takeover.

•Continues online at www.businessday.ng www.businessday.ng

L-R: Olabisi Todafe, CEO; Elizabeth Ebi, director; James Fadel, chairman; Adetumi Uzonwanne, director; Adeola Lawal, director, and Perez Araka, director; all of Four Season Legacy, during the presentation of Nigeria Dream Homes by Four Season Legacy Pic by Olawale Amoo Limited, at RCCG City of David, Victoria Island, Lagos.

Nigerian banks risk share, bond prices decline on Moody’s negative outlook ENDURANCE OKAFOR & OLUWASEGUN OLAKOYENIKAN

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anks in Nigeria are at risk of decline in stock prices as well as increase in yields on existing bonds following the negative outlook for Nigerian and other African banks by Moody’s Investor Service.

The rating review to negative from a stable outlook came barely a week after the New York-based agency changed the outlook on Nigeria from stable to negative.

Aderonke Akinsola, a banking analyst at Chapel Hill Denham, said the impact on banks could be on securities that these banks have, particularly in equity and debt securities.

“Based on the downgrade, what you would expect is that the international funds that have those Nigerian banks

weighted in their fund indices could be rebalancing to reduce their exposures to securities in Nigeria banking securities,” Akinsola said.

“Once that starts to happen, you might start to see their share and bond prices fall.”

The Nigerian banking index which tracks the 10 mostcapitalised and liquid bank stocks shed 1.94 percent after the close of business on Monday, bringing its loss since the start of the year to 12.3 percent and outperforming the broad index of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, which has dropped some 15.1 percent since January.

Analysts said the downgrade was not unexpected as any review of a country’s rating is followed by a review of every company that operates in that country.

The only exception, Akinsola said, is if there is “something exceptionally well the

company is doing that will make it perform better than the broad economy”.

“For Nigerian banks, it was expected that Moody’s will downgrade them having downgraded the country where they operate. If our economy is challenged, it would certainly affect all companies operating here,” Paul Uzuma, managing director, Halo Nigeria Capital Ltd, said.

“The banks will have to pay more interest for Eurobonds they issue in the international market. Likewise local loan notes which they periodically raise would come at a higher coupon,” he said.

While the negative outlook is for all banks in Africa, the projection by Moody’s stated that lenders in countries like Nigeria, South Africa, Tunisia and Angola “will face the greatest challenges; Egyptian, Moroccan, Mauritian and Kenyan banks will be more

resilient”.

According to the report published by Moody’s on Monday, three factors were key drivers of the negative outlook. They include weakening operating conditions, political and social uncertainties, and rising asset quality pressures.

Weakening operating conditions Moody’s said the change of outlook to negative from stable reflects the weakening operating environment for the African banks, even as it noted that the global economy remains sluggish with negative business sentiment and trade uncertainty clouding growth prospects.

The ratings agency said government debt in the continent was high and economic growth, which is forecast to expand by 4.1 percent in 2020, would remain below poten-

Continues on page 38

Omobola Johnson celebrates FBNQuest Trustees at 40 …praises firm’s institutional legacy SEGUN ADAMS

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ne-time communication technology minister, Omobola Johnson, has described FBNQuest Trustees as a legacy that preserves legacies, in an address celebrating the institution’s four decades of existence and highlighting the importance of building institutional legacies.

Johnson, minister of Information and communication in Nigeria from 2011

to 2015, praised the progress made by the trustee symbolized by three name changes – Standard Trustees Nigeria Ltd, First Trustees Nigeria, FBN Trustees Ltd and now FBNQuest Trustees Limited- which showed responsiveness to market need and deemed the institution very wise.

“Each name change came with a re-alignment of the business to changing market conditions; to your customer expectations and of course to your positioning and contribu-

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tion in the FBN Group,” she said.

She noted the growth in share capital from N30 million in 2001 to N3billion, near liquid assets under management at N50billion and estates under management valued at over N2trillion.

“Our profit after tax has grown year on year for the last 20 years,” said Johnson, who serves as NonExecutive Director at the institution.

The erstwhile minister took the occasion to discuss an expanded notion of @Businessdayng

legacy which included institutional legacies as, “the visible outcome of internal processes, systems and behaviours that are deployed to run an organisation on a daily basis,” she said.

As such, institutional legacies could be processes, systems and behaviours which could include; Governance, Profitability, Employee satisfaction, Customer satisfaction, Customer loyalty, Innovation and Industry leadership.

•Continues online at www.businessday.ng

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news

FG, World Bank commission 64kw solar hybrid mini project in Niger KELECHI EWUZIE

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he Federal Government of Nigeria, through the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), in partnership with World Bank’s supported Nigeria Electrification Project (NEP) commissions a 64kw solar hybrid mini grid power plant in Rokota community, Niger State.

The project commissioned is the first to be implemented under the World Bank supported NEP and will provide clean, safe and reliable electricity to an expected 3000 people in the community.

Rokota is a farming community in Edati Local Government Area of Niger State, whose economic activities include shea butter farming and palm fruit. The community is the first beneficiary of renewable off-grid electricity under the Nigeria Electrification Project Mini Grids component.

Damilola Ogunbiyi, managing director, REA, while emphasising the importance of using off-grid electrification technologies to increase electricity access in Nigeria, observes that there are countless investment opportunities in the off-grid market.

“This is why the REA is collaborating with private sector solar developers. We are also committed to using renewable energy in the reduction of annual greenhouse carbon emissions

by 25,0000 metric tons. This is in adherence to Nigeria’s commitment to the Paris Agreement on Climate Change,” Ogunbiyi says.

Shubham Chaudhuri, World Bank Nigeria country director, reassures of the World Bank’s commitment to promoting universal access to electricity.

According to Chaudhuri, “The World Bank is committed to reducing the consumption and use of fossil fuels in energy production through renewable energy investments. Through various renewable energy projects across the world, the Bank ensures that there is an increase in universal access to electricity especially in underserved and unserved communities.”

On his part, Alastair Smith, managing director, PowerGen Renewable Energy Nigeria Limited, says the implementation of the transformation project is made possible by the NEP, under the PerformanceBased Grant “we have been able to deliver this solar hybrid mini grid power plant within two months.

“I am proud to say that the mini grid, with a total installed capacity of 64KW and 360KWh[JE1] of battery storage, was delivered based on international best practice and standards while also using local labour, and provides sufficient power for about 3,000 people,” Smith states.

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Anti-corruption Day: NBA calls on Nigerians to resist corruption Felix Omohomhion, Abuja

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he Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) has called on Nigerians to stand up against corruption in all its ramifications.

Paul Usoro, who spoke on Monday to mark the International Anti-corruption Day, said it was the responsibility of all Nigerians to fight corruption to a standstill.

According to Usoro, “We must refuse to give bribes for favours; we must reject corruptive and corrosive quid-pro-quo proposals and arrangements.

We must blow whistles on bribe-takers and the practitioners of other forms of corruption, to wit, impunity in public service, abuse of prosecutorial powers, intimidation, blackmail and harassment of our judges, administrative malfeasance, political non-accountability and a lack of transparency in the various facets of our country’s administration and management.

“The fight against corruption must not be left to or for our governments alone. We must, as individuals and citizens, also take our stand against corruption in all its ramifications.

Only then can we begin to reap the rewards and benefits of our abundant wealth, both in human and material resources.

God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

According to the association, corruption is multi-faceted even though attention is mostly focused on financial and economic corrupt practices.

The conducts that qualify as corruption, said Usoro, extend beyond financial and economic practices and encompass fraud, embezzlement, illicit financial flows, administrative malfeasance, mismanagement of public resources, political non-accountability, absence of transparency and impunity in public service.

Enumerating the dire consequences of corruption in Nigeria, Usoro said: “We see it in the uncompleted developmental projects that dot our landscape, in all the nooks and crannies of this country, even though the costs of and consideration for those projects had in a number of cases been paid out, sometimes, in full; we see the consequences of corruption in the lack of basic necessities that our citizens should take for granted such as but not limited to potable water, affordable healthcare, particularly given the wealth of Nigeria; we see it in the decay in and of our institutions – educational, infrastructure, health, literally all our institutions – notwithstanding the enormous material and human resources that the Almighty has blessed us with.

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Innovation Sandbox gets Flourish, EFInA, NIBSS, CBN backing SEGUN ADAMS

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he Financial Services Innovators (FSI), a community of fintech enthusiasts passionate about driving innovation in the financial services industry, has announced the launch of Nigerian Industry Innovation Sandbox, at the sidelinesofEFInA’sFinancialInclusion Conference in Lagos.

The effort, which is supported by over N250 million in multi-year grants from Flourish and EFInA, is intended to lower the barriers to innovation within the financial services ecosystem.

“Thetimetochangethenarrative of the financial services landscape in Nigeria is here and I am excited to lead this charge at FSI, whereweaimtobuildaninclusive ecosystem of fintech innovators,” said Aituazobe Omoareloje KolaOladejo, former head of research and development at the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), who was appointed the first FSI executive director.

“I am especially excited for the fintech Industry Innovation Sandbox, which will lower the barriers for early-stage innovators buildingandscalingglobalfintech innovation from Nigeria.

“Like people, countries must evolve. We must create an environment which enables our people, youngandold,aswellasthecountry take control of our tech future,” said Ade Shonubi, deputy governor,

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Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

To participate in the industry innovation sandbox, innovators need to register as members of the Financial Services Innovators at www.fsi.ng and access a sandbox environment where they can build and test fintech products on technical infrastructure from the NIBSS. Before FSI, innovators who needed to access the right technical infrastructure to test the viability of their products were typically required to get a CBN license and spend months in meetings with banks, fintech players, and NIBSS to get pilots off the ground.

With the new industry innovation sandbox, registered members of the FSI can leverage the APIs to build a solution within the sandbox environment before seeking regulatory approval from the CBN or partnering with an existingfinancialservicesprovider licensed by the CBN to take their product to launch.

“Whenregulatorsandstartups engage in meaningful dialogue and mutual support, it is possible to balance innovation with stability and consumer protection,” said Ameya Upadhyay, principal at Flourish, a venture of The Omidyar Group. “Through initiativessuchastheindustrysandbox, FSI will help accelerate the growth of Nigeria’s fintech ecosystem and bring about innovative services that will help improve Nigerians’ financial health.”

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A tangible hope, but figures don’t tally (1) STRATEGY & POLICY

MA JOHNSON

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t the 2019 End of Year Thanksgiving Service which took place at the Aso Villa Chapel, the Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, in his goodwill message to Nigerians drew inspiration from Psalm 65 verse 11. According to the erudite professor of law, he says “God is going to crown this year-the end of this year, with His goodness and with abundance and he will give us the fattest of the land in the mighty name of Jesus. I believe very strongly that God is going to bless this land and prosper the land.” I was motivated by the word prosperity to say a resounding amen at the end of the prayer.

After paying attention to a powerful prayer from the man of God, I saw a ray of hope. A ray of hope because I want to be prosperous. Indeed, all Nigerians wants to be prosperous. It is good to have hope. But I am convinced beyond measure that hope is not a strategy in governance. When I look at the figures provided in the Q3 report of the National Bureau of Statistics, the conclusions drawn from figures contained within do not tally with the assertion that the year of our Lord 2019 will end in abundance in Nigeria. Where will the abundance

come from with an economy struggling to grow at 2.1 percent when the population growth is about 2.6 percent? How are we going to tackle the soaring unemployment rate which is expanding faster than the rate of job creation? So, with these few challenges, how do we expect abundance in the next 21 days when 2019 will come to an end? I know that God is a miracle worker and very glorious, but certainly not a magician.

When one observes nations that understand the mechanism of the world, they do not allow their economies to go out of control. Their leaders know that once an economy goes out of order, controlling it becomes a huge problem. Today, a few nations particularly in Europe, Asia, and America are taking charge of their economies, while most sub Saharan African countries struggle to control their economies. Poor countries are poor not because of their geographies or cultures, or because their leaders do not know which policies will enrich their citizens, according to some political economists. They argue, however that prosperity and poverty are determined by the incentives created by institutions, and it is politics that determines what institutions a nation has.

The first country to experience sustained economic growth was Great Britain. The growth emerged slowly in the eighteenth century as industrial revolution occasioned by technological breakthroughs and their application in industry took root. Industrialisation in Great Britain spread to Western Europe and the United States. Other countries such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand tapped from the anointing of the English prosperity. It was the prosperity of the latter three coun-

tries that gingered Japan, South Korea and Singapore to work towards achieving prosperity. China, India, Taiwan, and Indonesia and a host of other countries in Asia have experienced rapid economic growth.

There is inequality in the world. If you make a list of poorest thirty-five countries in the world today, you will find that almost 80 percent are from sub-Saharan Africa. In that league of poor nations, we have countries like Afghanistan, Haiti and Nepal, though not in Africa, all share poverty with most African countries. If you engage a time traveller who visited these countries fifty years ago on contract to move round same countries today, it is likely that the overall picture that emerged then would almost be the same as what it is currently. But for oil, some Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirate would have been poor. But not as poor as those in sub-Saharan Africa.

So, why has sub-Saharan African nations failed to achieve sustained economic growth seen in Western Europe, while much of East Asia has experienced rapid rates of economic growth? Some leading academics have answered this question. Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson in their book Why Nations Fail- The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty, argue elegantly that for nations to prosper, citizens need “inclusive institutions” which create virtuous circles of innovation, economic expansion and more widely-held wealth. They argue further that tropical diseases obviously cause much suffering and high rates of infant mortality in Africa, but they are not the reason why Africa is poor.

Disease, they affirm, is largely a consequence of poverty and of

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When experts say that Nigeria should carryout political and economic reforms that will delete the name from the list of poor nations, they do so in the interest of the country

government being unable or unwilling to undertake the public health measures necessary to eradicate them. England in the 19th Century was reported to be a very unhealthy place, but the government gradually invested in clean water, in the proper treatment of sewage and waste, and eventually, in an effective health service. Improved health and life expectancy were not the cause of England economic success but one of the fruits of its previous political and economic changes.

When experts say that Nigeria should carryout political and economic reforms that will delete the name from the list of poor nations, they do so in the interest of the country. Has there been any occasion when those in any government- military or civilian- ask why agricultural output per acre is so low in many African countries? Again, experts argue that low agricultural productivity has little to do with soil quality. “Rather, it is a consequence of the ownership structure of the land and the incentives that are created for farmers by the government and institutions which they live.”

Or how can one explain that differences in agricultural productivity is responsible for world inequality.

The inequality we all see today in contemporary world is as a result of uneven dissemination of industrial technologies and manufacturing production. Essentially, inequality in modern world largely results from the uneven dissemination and adoption of technologies.

(To be continued) Johnson is an author and a retired naval engineer who has passion for African development and good governance

Real estate development outlook in 2020

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n recent times, the real estate sector in Nigeria has witnessed tremendous growth and advancement both for investors and service providers in the sector.

Over the years it has advanced into a more institutionalised system wherein several corporate bodies have ventured into the industry as real estate development service providers, also a large number of the Nigerian populace are now well informed about real estate and a lot of people are actively participating for investment purposes.

Though the growth in the sector has not been without challenges, it is expected that the real estate development outlook in the coming year would be more promising. As we all anticipate a prosperous year 2020, the real estate development sector will be at the centre of rapid social and economic growth compared to the past four years. While it was one of the most negatively impacted sectors during the recession, it is set to bounce back after stabilising itself in 2019.

In 2020, there will be a broader range of opportunities with new value drivers as a result of some economic and social policies which the government has started implementing. There will be migration to new areas, new markets and cities especially for the middle class thereby increasing the demand for specific types of real estate.

One of the major government economic and social policies that will attract investment into the real estate development sector is the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) new policy direction instructing Commercial banks to increase lending at lower rates to stimulate aggressive growth of the economy. This effort has given more entrepreneurs and SMEs accesses to funding for their business, which will, in turn, impact their socio-economic status.

This policy by the apex bank will generate more activities and income for the real estate sector from rentals of new business premises to change of accommodation as social status improves when people can easily access funding at competitive rates without stringent and cumbersome procedures.

Another government policy which would greatly and positively impact the Real estate development sector is the recent drop in the Nigerian treasury bills (NTB) rates which was occasioned by the decision of the CBN to restrict participation in its Open Market Operations auctions to just banks and foreign investors. Investors invested in Treasury bills as a result of its relatively high yield compared to other forms of Money Market and even Capital Market investment. Consequently, the current low yield rate of treasury bills would lead investors into exploring other viable investment options and this would, of course, www.businessday.ng

make investments in real estate development a juicy option for investors considering its appreciable and not depreciable.

One of the setbacks which real estate development has experienced over the years is the deplorable state of infrastructure, especially access to roads and interstate highways. However, with the recent infrastructure projects being undertaken by the federal government across the nation, a window has been open for real estate development in Nigeria as there would be increased migration across states leading to the need to rent or own residential apartments and commercial buildings. Thus, with the reconstruction of areas like the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, Ibadan-Ife-Ilesha road, Ibadan-Iwo road, Aba-Owerri Road, Oba-Nnewi-Arondizogu-Okigwe Road, KanoKatsina Road there would be easy ingress and egress to states in the country. Individuals can conveniently own houses in one state and carry out their daily business in a neighbouring state. Also, with the commendable reconstruction of railway service and new rails across the country making it easier for exportation of goods and items across states, people do not need to worry about having access to commodities they would need when they decide to own a property and migrate.

Also, the Federal Mortgage bank recently reduced the equity contribution expected

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AJIBOYE OYELEKE

of persons who intend to access the National Housing Fund loan (NHF) to purchase properties. Thus, with the reduction of the equity contribution to as low as 10 percent for a property of N15 million, it makes it a lot easier for individuals to own houses through the National Housing Fund scheme. Lowincome earners can conveniently invest in real estate and make payment for the property over several years.

The real estate development sector would in the coming year recover from the hardhit of the recession and experience a boom as one of the most sought-after investment options available to both individuals and organisations.

Dr Oyeleke is the group managing director, Efficacy Group. He can be reached at ajiboyeoyeleke@gmail.com

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Culture and African development: Suggestions Rafiq Raji

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learly, culture matters for development. And it is one of the factors that underpin the relative underdevelopment of African countries. Studies show individualist cultures engender higher economic growth relative to collectivist cultures. A high level of trust is a cultural trait associated with rich countries.

Incidentally, African countries are characterised by low trust owing to slavery and colonialism. Institutions, intercultural exchange and cultural entrepreneurship are means by which the negative aspects of sub-optimal cultural practices could be mitigated, reformed or eliminated.

I propose an action-plan that includes critical-thinking in school curricula, laws against negative cultural practices, incentivisation of the arts to promote progressive values, special economic zones in partnership with successful countries, allocation of some senior government positions to citizens in the diaspora, and national orientation programmes to promote

proven innovation-enhancing values.

They are discussed below.

Critical-thinking school curricula for early education Rote-learning remains the dominant teaching method in many African countries. To become innovation-focused, young Africans need to acquire critical thinking skills early on. It is not as difficult as it may seem. Affluent and middle-class Africans already differentiate their kids by sending them to foreign-affiliated “international” schools to learn these critical skills.

While it would be a herculean task to re-orient local teachers towards this type of pedagogy, there are already affordable tech-based solutions. Prerecorded classes by teachers already skilled in critical thinking pedagogical methods abroad could be played to local students. Parents with means, could also stream or download such educational materials for their wards via the internet.

Promulgation and enforcement of laws against negative cultural practices Corporal punishment is unconstitutional in South Africa. It could be so everywhere else on the continent. Female genital mutilation is also increasingly illegal across Africa. These are few examples of how laws could be used to change negative cultural practices.

Progressive and liberalist approach to censorship of the arts As celebrities – artists, actors, etc.

– have a huge influence on African youths, there should be a deliberate effort by African governments to facilitate collaboration between local and foreign celebrities with a view to achieving intercultural exchanges.

Local ones could also be incentivised and encouraged to espouse values that engender innovation in their works.

Governments can signal this intent by how they approve works of art – music, movies, etc. – for airing to the public.

Special economic zones in partnership with successful countries As evidence shows special economic zones have been successfully used to transfer knowledge and technology from developed countries to developing ones, in Asian countries, no less, African countries could easily find in them a quick and effective way of not only acquiring knowledge and technology but desirable work cultures as well.

Allocation of government positions to Africans in the diaspora by statute There are many successful Africans in the diaspora. To succeed, they had to attune themselves to the cultures of the foreign lands they found themselves.

Incidentally, they are also best positioned to bring about cultural change in their home countries. Already familiar with their home cultures, they are likely to be more persuasive in their transmission of their newly acquired innovation-enhancing norms and habits. To be sure, they do not always succeed in doing so. Still, their understanding of

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While it would be a herculean task to re-orient local teachers towards this type of pedagogy, there are already affordable tech-based solutions. Prerecorded classes by teachers already skilled in critical thinking pedagogical methods abroad could be played to local students

“both worlds” makes them compelling advocates of new ways.

National orientation programmes to promote proven innovation-enhancing values In China, patriotic zeal is instilled in citizens at a very early age in schools, at work, and so on. Patriotic songs and messages are aired from speakers on the streets for the continued indoctrination of citizens as they go about their daily businesses. It is not suggested that such extremes should be applied in African countries. Thankfully, there are more creative and effective ways nowadays. For instance, Burna Boy, a popular African music artiste, recently released a song about Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man. In the song, the musician uses the example of Mr Dangote, whose reputation for hard work is well-known, to espouse the virtue of hard work. In a melodious tune now sang by millions, Mr Burna Boy wonders why anyone would be lazy if Africa’s richest man continues to work hard than most people. This is a striking example of the many creative ways that cultural change could be facilitated.

References are available at https:// rafiqraji.com/2019/10/31/culturedevelopment-the-case-of-africa/ “Dr Raji is chief economist at Macroafricaintel.

He was previously an Africa Economist at Standard Chartered Bank, London, UK. (Twitter: @ DrRafiqRaji)”

Now that poverty is newsworthy and front-page story

A

n editor was once quoted as saying that “poverty is worthy, but not newsworthy.” That declaration arose in a debate about what the media ought to do with stories on poverty: give them prominence in the newspapers; tuck them away somewhere inside the papers, or perhaps leave them out entirely.

This mind-set of the media industry for long consigned stories about poverty at best to the “other pages” which often served as continuation pages used to make up the pagination of the newspaper. The practice was also reinforced by the influence of big business, the advertisers whose money sustains the media, and who therefore have some measure of control over editorial content.

For example, an advertiser may insist that his advert of, say a bank must not sit next to a page with pictures of Makoko or Ijora Badia or any of the urban slums that belie claims to prosperity and good life. This shows how much the affluent wants to distance itself from the poor.

This media view of poverty helped significantly in delaying the emergence or elevation of poverty as a critical social condition that needed to be tackled the way epidemics, terrorism, and several other social upheavals have been tackled headlong by the media and subsequently by governments. It symbolised the failure of this industry in two key areas where it must play its role: agenda setting and media framing.

It led to media’s defective framing or portrayal of poverty and consequently robbed the industry of the opportunity to play a critical role in the fight against poverty until recently.

Because of this the media industry was unable to frame stories on poverty in ways that provided the salient issues about this social malaise.

That mind-set is changing, and a couple of events around the world testify to this. Suddenly, poverty is on everybody’s lips – even that of the government. After decades marked by lip service to, or even denial of its existence,

governments have woken to the reality of the enormity of poverty as a social condition calling for urgent actions. This is good news about what was until recently considered as no news.

Poverty is now in the news. Indeed, it is now the news. When President Muhammadu Buhari in his Democracy Day speech on May 29 this year said the government would over the next 10 year lift 100 million Nigerians out of extreme poverty that made front-page news.

Media houses ran with it as breaking news – and indeed, it was.

It was news because it signified admission on the part of the government that poverty has become an issue in Nigeria that needs urgent attention. This was more so against the background of the revelation that Nigeria had overtaken India and won the ignoble garland to become the World Capital of Poverty by having the highest number of the extreme poor people in a single country.

There are different classifications of the condition called poverty. Extreme poverty in quantitative terms refers to the state of those who live on less than $1.90 a day. At the official exchange rate of N305/$, this gives N579.5 as the poverty line. But its real significance comes alive with visits to such places as Makoko, Ijora Badiya, and other urban slums that dot Nigerian cities. The extreme poor do not just lack what to eat; they also lack the basic requirements of life. Their habitation at best is encapsulated in squalor, bereft of meaning and substance. They are just simply in existence.

Government’s declaration was also news because it raised questions around how the government planned to achieve this feat, and relatedly, what was new about the government’s understanding of poverty and the poor.

Poverty bared its fangs on Nigeria once more on December 3, when the World Bank warned that Africa’s most populous nation risked a further descent to the point of harbouring a quarter of the world’s extreme poor by 2030, unless the country undertakes significant reforms.

Without the required reforms, it said, additional

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30 million Nigerians will fall into extreme poverty within the next 11 years. The Bank said its figure was based on a “do-nothing”, “businessas-usual scenario”. With 100 million Nigerians already in extreme poverty, that would raise the number to 130 million! Again, this was a big poverty story, and predictably, made the front pages of our newspapers.

Whether Nigeria eventually falls to that extent is a choice; and no other entity or authority has the power to make it except the Federal Government of Nigeria. The dividing line between prosperous nations and poor ones is simply their choices on management of their economies. Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson in their 2012 book, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty, declare this, citing as notable examples the differences between North Korea and South Korea, and Mexico and the United States of America. They argue that nations are rich or poor depending on the political and economic institutions operating in them.

Similarly, this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics bears testimony to the changing attitude to poverty because it was awarded to three economists – Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer- in recognition of their research work on poverty alleviation. Banerjee and Duflo are currently professors of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

At MIT the duo run the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), which they cofounded in 2003.

Their 2011 book, Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty, captures the essence and the uniqueness of their views on poverty and the way around it.

That uniqueness in part derives from their firm understanding of the popular misconceptions about poverty, a phenomenon that pervaded not only the media landscape but also the academia and policymaking setting.

As they note, often the economics of poverty gets confused with or mistaken for poor economics (italics mine). This is the notion

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Vincent Nwanma

that “because the poor possess very little, it is assumed that there is nothing interesting about their economic existence”.

For as long as such a notion about poverty prevailed, no meaningful steps could be taken to engender sustainable progress against it, whether at the national or global scale.

In their words, “Poor Economics” is a book about the very rich economics that emerges from understanding the economic lives of the poor. It is a book about the kinds of theories that help us make sense of both what the poor are able to achieve, and where and for what reason they need a push”.

Framing poverty stories properly would involve looking beyond the apparent triteness of the state of the poor. Their story is begging to be unearthed and told in fresh ways that can open new vistas for understanding and lead to action – new action.

That is what Banerjee and Duflo refer to as the rich economics of poverty and they border on the creation of a socially shared reality through framing. Journalists and the media industry have the duty to represent poverty – both urban and rural- from perspectives that have been lacking in the narrative so far.

The rich economics of poverty are the salient issues the understanding of which will make a difference in anti-poverty policies and the reforms recommended by the World Bank for Nigeria.

Nwanma, a Knight-Bagehot Fellow and World Bank Scholar, is Online Editor at BusinessDay

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Tuesday 10 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

EDITORIAL Publisher/CEO

Frank Aigbogun editor Patrick Atuanya DEPUTY EDITOR John Osadolor, Abuja NEWS EDITOR Chuks Oluigbo EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, OPERATIONS Fabian Akagha EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, STRATEGY, INNOVATION & PARTNERSHIPS Oghenevwoke Ighure ADVERT MANAGER Ijeoma Ude FINANCE MANAGER Emeka Ifeanyi MANAGER, CONFERENCES & EVENTS Obiora Onyeaso BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER (South East, South South) Patrick Ijegbai COPY SALES MANAGER Florence Kadiri DIGITAL SALES MANAGER Linda Ochugbua GM, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT (North)

Bashir Ibrahim Hassan

A TIN for your bank account

T

he plan by the federal government to link various services to the taxman would have significant consequences for the country in the coming year.

There are many upsides, but even more significant downsides in the socio-economic life of citizens. Government as a critical first step must outline a clear implementation schedule that shows readiness to grapple with the issues it will throw up.

Beginning in January 2020, citizens would no longer be able to operate bank accounts, renew or procure new Nigerian international passports or register new vehicles or renew existing licenses unless they show their taxpayer identification number (TIN). The TIN is proof of registration as a taxpayer.

A new Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) registration system introduced by the Federal Inland Revenue Service in July 2019 is now part of the Finance Bill the Senate passed recently. The two-phased project involves a new Unified Tax

Identification Number (UTIN) and the Integrated Tax Identification System. They seek to assist taxpayers with easy verification of their TIN online, print their tax certificates and send it via email.

An overarching goal is to increase the tax base from 20 million to 45 million persons.

The route is through the amendment of Sections 33, 49 and 58 of the Personal Income Tax Act. Specifically, the Tax Clearance Certificate would now become one of the essential requirements for transactions across banking, immigration, vehicle registration and possible extensions.

Government is deploying the stick to not only grow but double the country’s tax base. Compulsion is the message of the new measures. Citizens must follow the legislation or find themselves out of the financial system.

On the positive side, the measures are likely to register a high degree of success. Compliance will happen even if it comes with grudges and grumbling. The citizen seemingly has no choice.

The first question, therefore, is

whether the federal government and its agencies that would implement the measures are ready and capable? We ask because of the experience with various schemes including the perennially unavailable national ID card or even the new national drivers’ license. The government would boastfully decree ownership of these items as mandatory but then fail in its duty of providing them as and when citizens need them.

The question has even more significance given the dire consequences of the measures. It threatens to cut off many citizens from banking services, deny others access to international passports etc. Should the availability of these essential services be encumbered with inhibiting provisions? Does it not constitute a denial of civil rights due to Nigerians?

The aggressive push for tax enrolment and compliance is commendable. However, taxation is a function of gainful activity. Only citizens who earn income pay taxes. What are the prospects for this tax enrolment against the backdrop of an economy that witnesses daily contraction and

shutting down of big as well as large companies?

Default, unintended, is likely to be high in the immediate period. The burden may fall on the many operators of small-scale enterprises, the mum and pop shops and street-side retailers who run the informal economy.

In the last few years, Nigeria actively pursued financial inclusion with technology aiding the financial system to grow the number of persons utilising the banking system. When you add charges on mobile and online transactions to the demand for TIN or TCC as a basis for banking, we fear the effect on numbers of citizens participating in banking.

The upside is that taxation demands representation. The tax noose will compel engagement by citizens. They will ask questions and demand better answers than the system has offered thus far.

Above all, complete preparation is necessary and critical before the introduction and implementation of these measures. That preparation should include a period of communication, information and education.

GM, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT (South) Ignatius Chukwu HEAD, HUMAN RESOURCES Adeola Obisesan

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Imo Itsueli Mohammed Hayatudeen Afolabi Oladele Vincent Maduka Opeyemi Agbaje Amina Oyagbola Bolanle Onagoruwa Fola Laoye Chuka Mordi Mezuo Nwuneli Charles Anudu Tunji Adegbesan Eyo Ekpo Wiebe Boer Paul Arinze Boye Olusanya Ayo Gbeleyi Haruna Jalo-Waziri Clement Isong

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To whom much is given: Accountability in public life – the public service Last in series The Reformer

JOE ABAH

T

he public service has dual accountability responsibilities. It is accountable to the politician in that it translates the policies and priorities developed by the politician into tangible public goods and services.

The public servant is also accountable to the public in that it is responsible for ensuring that services are delivered impartially to all citizens.

However, according to John Baptiste Moliere, “It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do for which we are accountable.” One thing that the public service does not do well enough, and in some cases, does not do at all, is to explain to the Public what it is doing and why it is doing it.

Reformers are often too busy doing the reforms that they do not spare the time to explain to the public on whose behalf they are doing the reforms what they are doing and how the reforms will benefit them. In my three decades of doing public service reforms, this is a trait that I have seen time and again.

Indeed, those that take the trouble to inform the public are seen as attentionseeking show-offs who try to claim that they are better than everybody else. Some public servants are even so scared that the reforms that they are engaging in may unravel, leading to embarrassment and shame for the reformer. In my experience, there is absolutely no need for this. The reformer has a duty to inform the public of the efforts that they are making. When things go wrong, as they inevitably do, the astute

reformer will admit that something has gone wrong, take responsibility for it, apologise, and set out the steps that they will take to put things right and ensure that failures do not recur.

In my experience, Nigerians actually appreciate this sense of honesty and accountability.

In my interaction with many Nigerians, I have been surprised at how little the general public knows about the workings of government. The things that public servants know intuitively as a matter of course are complete mysteries even to highly educated and informed civil society groups and members of the public. Many do not understand the difference between Capital and Recurrent expenditure. In the quest for more and more capital expenditure, many do not understand that every item of Capital expenditure has recurrent implications. Every new school you build needs new teachers.

Every new hospital you build needs doctors and nurses. Their salaries come out of Recurrent expenditure, which is often demonised by civil society, the media and members of the public. This has meant that many public service organisations simply do not have the minimum resources to run a functional government system with the attendant checks and balances.

Many commentators on the subject do not understand that, with a monoproduct economy and the attendant fluctuations in things like the price of oil, it is not everything that is budgeted that is released and it is not everything that is released that is spent. Once people see an item in the budget, they assume that the money has already been spent (or rather, stolen) by the public servant. The public does not understand the nuances. The public servant does not make enough effort to explain.

Because the resources of the people and their taxes pay the salaries of the public servant, the public servant has a duty to respond to requests for

information about their actions. The public has a right to ask questions.

When government claims that monies have been recovered or ghost workers discovered, the public has a right to demand to know where the money is and what it has been applied to. I have seen many instances where government appears to claim that certain sums have been spent on Capital project, when it actually meant to say that those sums have been released. Therefore, when citizens ask “Where are the projects?”, there is deafening silence. Sometimes, assets that are claimed to have been recovered are still subject to court proceedings and cannot really be treated as income until the final determination of the case. Oftentimes, the public servant does not bother to explain this to the public.

The public service has a duty to inform the media in order for them to inform the public, and also to inform civil society and the general public directly through reports, publications, dialogues and announcements. It should always seek to perform this duty proactively, without waiting for the public to ask for the information. The items of proactive disclosure required of the public service are clearly set out in the FOI Act and the various guidance documents produced to operationalise the Act. They include procurement information, such as requests for expressions of interest, organisations to whom Requests for Proposals have been issued, details of contract awards and details of payments to contractors. They also include organisational structures, responsibilities of key officers, remuneration of staff (which public institutions can show by simply supplying relevant circulars from the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission and the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission), and the publications and reports of the organisation.

In my experience, proactive disclosure lessens the burden of responding

‘

In my interaction with many Nigerians, I have been surprised at how little the general public knows about the workings of government

to FOI requests. The more information you proactively disclose, the less FOI requests you will receive and the less time you will spend responding to them. It is not advisable for the public service Chief Executive to delegate the responsibilities for disclosure of information to a junior officer. The Chief Executive of the public organisation, as the Accounting Officer entrusted with the responsibility of expending public funds, must be the chief FOI officer of the organisation they lead.

The concept of Annual Reports, a perfectly normal practice in the private sector is sorely lacking in the public sector. Government should make it compulsory for all government entities to produce Annual Reports that should be easily accessible to civil society, the media and members of the public. This will provide the basic information with which the organisation can be held to account.

In conclusion, the privilege of exercising state power is one that majority of Nigerians will never experience in their lifetimes. Those that are fortunate enough to enjoy that privilege must be aware that privilege breeds accountability and accountability breeds responsibility. Transparency is the first step towards accountability. Without transparency in policies, actions and expenditure, it is difficult to pursue accountability. As Ralph Nader said, “Secrecy destroys accountability” and the misconception about the application of the Official Secrets Act, 1962, needs to be clarified urgently. However, in my view, the greatest enemy of accountability is impunity, the feeling that you are doing the public a favour and do not owe them any explanations.

If the politician and the public servant is to win the trust of the public, this is something that must change. To whom much is given, much is expected. God bless Nigeria.

Dr Abah is a development practitioner and the immediate past Director-General of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms.

Empowerment is the key to driving financial inclusion

I

met Saratu during one of the outreach activities organised by the Women’s Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative (WRAPA), an organisation that works to protect women’s rights and enhance their inclusion in decisions that affect their lives and communities.

Saratu was a primary-school educated woman without any job or stream of income, who had fled an abusive spouse and was living in Kano State, penniless and jobless, with her four children. After countless months of living hand-to-mouth, she found a job supporting a market woman selling clothes and cosmetics. This gave her a semi-consistent stream of money.

She was approached by agent bankers who convinced her that a savings account was a much safer place for her money than her home. Living in a remote village on the outskirts of the city, far away from any physical bank branches, Saratu found it challenging to manage an account to which her access was significantly limited, especially in her cash-based environment. Her ordinary phone further restricted her from accessing services that a smartphone owner would have been able to access, such as online banking. Saratu’s limited education may well have affected her ability to utilise these services, even if she had access to a smartphone.

Beyond the lack of access and IT skills, the bank’s service charges, at a time when Saratu was barely making ends meet, seemed punitive rather than encouraging. An incident which saw her accidentally withdraw all the money in her account at an ATM, because of a lack of understanding of the ATM withdrawal process, was the last straw – she abandoned the account and returned to keeping her money at home.

Saratu’s experience made me wonder: “Of what use is a bank account to a market woman who is feeding a five-person family on the proceeds of daily trading activities?” This question is the most important question to answer if we truly want to meet Saratu’s needs and create tangible and sustainable impact in the lives of women like her. Saratu’s story teaches us the importance of context. The challenge with today’s financial products in Nigeria is the limit that is placed on personalised services to suit individual needs and circumstances.

According to the 2018 EFInA report, 32 percent of excluded women are willing, but lack product and service knowledge. Empowering these women at the bottom of the pyramid will create a burgeoning femeconomy.

Furthermore, context-relevant educational initiatives can help to create positive perceptions and increase women’s trust and uptake of financial and monetary services. This will inform quality long-term engagements with

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the institutions working as guides and supporters of the well-being of women’s economic inclusion and growth.

Northern Nigeria, where Saratu is from, is a vibrant agricultural region with the potential to provide enough food for a large population of the country. In stark contrast to this potential, it also has a large number of uneducated people as well as a high number of socially-neglected youths and other indigent populations. The situation is exacerbated by the insurgency in the North East, and other conflicts in the North West and North Central zones, which have left a large number of the population internallydisplaced and in penury. These factors are critical considerations for engaging with, and establishing sustainable economic initiatives in the North. It is also reflected in the comparative adoption of financial products and services with an inclusion rate of 60 percent in the South East and South West, against 27 percent rate in the North.

By making assumptions about the needs of Nigerians in the North, many financial institutions have sought to engage them using the same approaches that have yielded success in other regions of the country. This mass approach is often significantly impersonal, and results in solutions that miss the mark in actually addressing their needs.

Tailored strategies are a necessary compo-

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SAUDATU MAHDI nent of truly empowering individuals in the way that they need. It starts with basic education, and evolves into skill-building initiatives and growth-enhancement initiatives; family structure support; general education across various aspects of their lives (from health to finance to business, etc.); and where necessary, financial empowerment can then follow.

This was one of the key highlights from the recently-held Lagos Business School International Financial Inclusion Conference – the need for institutions to adopt improved market research approaches, which can enable them to enhance the effectiveness of financial products and services.

Note: the rest of this article continues in the online edition of Business Day @https:// businessday.ng Mahdi is the secretary general, Women’s Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative, Nigeria

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Tuesday 10 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

COMPANIES & MARKETS

COMPANY NEWS ANALYSIS INSIGHT

Economics

How firms are bearing brunt of Nigeria’s stuttering economy

party, as Evans Medicals shut down its operations some time ago. Till date, pharmaceuticals are struggling with importation of excipients and other inputs as Nigeria does not have a strong petrochemical industry that should produce them.

The manufacturing sector of any country is one of the largest sectors in the economy and as a major driver of economic growth and development, its activity or inactivity determines economic prosperity. Unfortunately, Nigeria’s manufacturing sector which should be one of the active drivers of FDI and economic growth was only able to contribute a marginal 3 percent which shows how low investments are in the sector.

The Nigerian brewery in-

dustry for example recorded so far $1.25 million in the third quarter of 2019 after no foreign investment recorded in the sector two quarters prior Q3. This accounted for a meagre 0.01 percent of total capital importation of $19.67 billion into all sectors of the economy in the first nine months of the year.

To elucidate further, the sector has experienced the biggest slump in foreign investment in the last four years (2016-2019). Our analysis reveals a compounding annual decline rate of about 72 percent during this period on the assumption that the sector may record little or no foreign capital importation in Q4 2019.

This means compared to other sectors, the brewery sector is the least considered.

This is also largely reflected in the stock performance of companies listed in the sector as prices nosedives to their five-year low levels.

What this means is that despite obvious opportunities, foreign capital is not rushing into Nigeria, as the government continues to maintain a stranglehold on sectors that can attract foreign investment at the detriment of the economy and the people.

The oil and gas sector according to analysis of the NBS revealed that since 2016, foreign capital has slumped by 51 percent at an annual average, also accounting for a paltry 0.44 percent of total foreign investment in the first 9 months of 2019. For an industry which is a major contributor and cause of growth to the Nigerian GDP, boosting foreign capital inflow through bold reforms in the sector, is key to unlocking its potentials.

The reality within these industries and foreign exposures into Nigeria further buttresses the dire state of the economy. With ease of doing business still lagging fellow African peers, stock market not looking viable for investment and structural challenges facing the Nigerian manufacturing sector, outlook for capital importation for Nigeria is still bleak unless if potential foreign investors see market moving polices from the fiscal and monetary policy makers.

to expand into other critical sectors of the economy through the deployment of capital into start-ups and high growth business opportunities,” Amzat says.

Amzat is eyeing a customer base growth to over one million customers across Nigeria in the next five years for Zedvance.

While Zedcrest’s securities dealing and proprietary investment firms are among the prime in Nigeria, its Zedvance arm is among the top credit providers in the consumerfinance subsector, improving financial inclusion.

Last year, Amzat announced a new growth strategy targeted primarily at the retail opportunities in the market with the aim of creating more wealth for clients.

“After operating in the market for over five years, the time has come to deepen our market penetration. Our Fixed Income and Currencies (FICC) operations have been primarily driven by a focus on wholesale dealing and brokerage to foreign portfolio investors, local pension fund administrators, asset managers and banks,” he said.

Zedcrest identified High Net-worth Individuals (HNIs) and the retail space as new areas of focus and expansion for its business to unveil bespoke fixed income and wealth management solutions for the HNIs and retail markets through its newly licensed Asset Management subsidiary (Zedcrest Investment Managers) while continuing to serve its wholesale customers through ZedCap Partners, SEC licensed inter-dealer brokerage business.

With a business focus on the retail end of the market, there is an opportunity to improve participation in the capital market and help the case for domestic capital mobilization which is necessary, for unlocking value in the economy.

Zedcrest Capital’s top-notch research is also providing the market with up-to-date information necessary for understanding trends and identifying opportunities with the ultimate aim of aiding informed investor decision making.

The journey for Zedcrest Capital started in 2013 when a 27-year-old Second Class Upper Division graduate of

Industrial Chemistry from the University of Ilorin, Nigeria and an MBA holder from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife quit his job to venture into finance, with his own firm Zedcrest Capital Limited.

To be fair, Amzat, the group managing director of Zedcrest Capital, whose vision birthed the award-winning firm, is a CFA charter holder and has a background in banking, but it has taken exceptional leadership to build what he has built, and Capital Market operators agree.

Amzat started his professional career with the Treasury & Global Markets group of Access Bank Nigeria, where he was in charge of Securities Dealing and Balance sheet management and was an active member of the ALM unit, seeing the Bank through such turbulent times as the Financial Market crises of 2008/09 and through the successful integration of Access Bank with Intercontinental Bank.

He is a Fellow of the Institute of Credit Management (ICA) and a Fellow & Member of Faculty of the Institute of Investment Advisers and Portfolio Managers (IAPM).

DAVID IBIDAPO & GBEMI FAMINU

N

igeria’s economic flip-flop has crippled some sectors of the economy and rendering them unattractive to foreign investors.

According to an economic report compiled by United Capital in October, “Nigeria holds a potentially attractive consumer story. However, weak consumer disposable income and high poverty rates had made the case less compelling. Additionally, the country’s tough operating environment; decrepit infrastructures, porous borders, double-digit inflation and sluggish economic recovery, have further compounded sector players woes as they struggle to break-even.”

The recent capital importation report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), also buttressed this assertion as it shows the persistent decline of foreign investments exposures measured in value in most sectors of the economy however with the exception of Shares, Banking, Financing, and Telecoms sectors.

FDI into Nigeria in 2014 stood at $2.28 billion but five years later, inflows had slowed to $1.19 billion growing at a negative rate of 15 percent as

multinationals moved out of the economy in droves, taking with them long-term capital.

FDI in half-year 2019 fell by 8 percent and in the third quarter of the year stood at $200.08 billion, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

BusinessDay findings revealed that Grief, an American Manufacturer, silently left Nigeria because the company could not get annealed coldrolled steel. Lack of access to its key raw material was an after match of CBN’s 41-item blacklist in 2016. Another industrial company, Federated Steel from China, maker of iron rods, exited Nigeria and sold its assets to MNIL Limited.

Procter & Gamble, a global brand, is part of the exodus

while Lagos-based Kimberly Clark, which produces Huggies, is said to be exiting Nigeria. Truworths International Ltd., a South African clothing retailer, was also reported to have shut down its Nigerian operations in 2006 citing the country’s poor infrastructure and excessive regulation, among others.

Recently Arab owners of then Etisalat had to sell their ownership and exit after a currency devaluation made a dollar-debt too huge to repay.

Also, US-based Exxon-Mobile has shut its downstream operation in Nigeria while the oil and gas sector struggle waiting for reforms to revitalise the sector.

Pharmaceutical companies are also in the shut-down

FINANCIAL SERVICES

The rise and rise of Zedcrest Capital ADAMS SEGUN

F

inancial services firm, Zedcrest Capital, is making waves in Nigeria’s capital market, leaving a trail of awards to attest to a fast rising profile laden with vast accomplishments.

Zedcrest Capital is a full service capital management firm with core interests in fixed income securities trading, asset management and proprietary investments.

The most recent recognition of how Zedcrest is rapidly redefining the narrative in the financial services sector came at the FMDQ Gold Award in November where the company won the Best Brokerage Service award.

Oluseyi Akinbi, the company’s Director and MD of the Securities Brokerage arm, who stepped up to receive the award on a glamorous night at the Lagos Oriental Hotel, credited hardwork, dedication and innovation for the young company’s success.

But of course one factor stands tallest at the heart of Zedcrest’s meteoric rise: An

insatiable passion to help their clients.

These qualities have set the company, established only six years ago, apart in a saturated space.

The award by FMDQ, Africa’s first vertically integrated financial market infrastructure (FMI) group, came barely a month after Zedcrest Capital carted home the Diversified Financial Services Group of the year award at the 7th BAFI Awards.

Both accolades were in turn heralded by a World Quality Alliance’s award for the Proprietary Investment Company of the Year at the International Standard Leadership Summit & Excellence Awards at the beginning of the year, and Best Proprietary Investments Firm in Nigeria by UK’s Global Business Outlook.

Zedcrest Capital was founded by Saheed Amzat, who is also the founder of Zedvance Finance limited, a leading Consumer lending fintech institution in Nigeria.

Amzat graduated from the University of Ilorin of with a degree in Industrial Chemistry and holds an MBA (Man-

agement & Accounting) from Obafemi Awolowo University.

Amzat, who started his professional career with the Treasury & Global Markets group of Access Bank Nigeria and is a CFA charter-holder, says the company’s value proposition is to enhance price discovery and transparency in the markets they play by studying clients’ needs and providing all information and resources required to execute trades in a timely and efficient manner with minimal slippage and market volatility.

Zedcrest’s vision is to be a leading African investment firm with an enviable track record in building wealth across the productive sectors of the economy.

The firm’s approach in every venture is to be steadfastly committed to putting its clients’ interests first, a fiduciary responsibility that defines its relationship with clients and informs the basis of every decision its make, creating value for all its stakeholders.

“Our proprietary investment arm has invested in a portfolio of companies in the financial services and real estate sectors and is ready

Tuesday 10 December 2019

COMPANIES&MARKETS

BUSINESS DAY

Business Event

15

MARKETS

Airtel directors sell N792.8m shares in fourth quarter 2019 TELIAT SULE

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n the last quarter of 2019, persons discharging managerial responsibilities with Airtel Africa Plc sold 2.17 million units of shares worth N792.83 million, according to the notice released by the company to the NSE. The first transaction involved Douglas Anderson Baillie who in October sold 20,000 units of shares at £0.6115 per share worth £12,230. The second transaction took place last week and it involved Bharti Global Limited which sold 2.15 million shares worth £1,681,845. Cumulatively, the total shares executed worth N792.83 million in Nigeria currency.

As at the end of March 2019, nine institutional investors controlled over 85 percent of Airtel Africa’s shareholding structure. Air-

tel Africa Mauritius Limited, the largest shareholder, controlled 68.31 percent while Warburg Group controlled 7.65 percent. Indian Continent Investment Limited, 5.46 percent ; Singapore Telecom International Pte limited, 5.46 percent; Hero Inc. Limited and Qatar Holding LLC, 4.37 percent each; Evans Investment Pte Limited, 2.19 percent; SB Fast Holdings (Cayman) Limited, 2.18%, among others.

Airtel Africa Plc’s half year results ended September 30, 2019 showed strong improvements across the metrics.

Customer base grew by 10.4 percent to 104 million. Revenue rose by 8.4 percent; profit before tax increased by 158.4 percent while PAT increased by 11.9 percent.

On September 9, 2019, Airtel Africa was added to FTSE 250 Index. And another development in this quarter

is that the company partnered Mastercard for the purpose of facilitating payment across African countries.

“On 9 October 2019 the Group announced a partnership with Mastercard which will give Airtel Money customers the ability to make online payments globally via a virtual Airtel Money Mastercard. In addition, Airtel Money customers, even those using a feature phone, will also be able to make inperson payments at outlets via Quick Response (QR) codes. To date, there are over 1 million merchant locations across Africa that accept Mastercard QR payments, approximately 700,000 of which are in Nigeria, Airtel Africa’s largest market and where the company has already applied for a payment service bank license”, Airtel Africa announced in a notice sent to the NSE.

L-R: Hendrick Broering, co-founder/chief operating officer, AMMP Technology; Yewand Odumosu, country manager, Nithio; Thomas Bonnicel, project manager, finance and innovation, Solarplaza; Alistair Gordon, CEO, Lumos Global, and Gbenga Kogbe, managing director, Sunhive, at the Solar future Nigeria conference and exhibition in Lagos.

Pic by Olawale Amoo

L -R: Charles Oyakhilome, chief executive officer, Airopay; Manish Rohtagi, chief executive officer, Simba Group; Adenrele Oni, chief executive officer, Richway Microfinance Bank; Margaret Oni, shareholder, and Tosin Temiye, relationship manager, during the presentation of award to Richway Microfinance as the SME Bank of the year 2019, at the Nigeria Entrepreneurs Award

L-R: Ayokunle Ojo, vice president, Financial Markets Dealers Association (FMDA); Promise Chuksnwabuisi, FMDA governing council member; Mary Gbegbaje, acting executive secretary FMDA; Abubakar Suleiman, managing director/CEO, Sterling Bank Plc, and Adetoun Dosunmu, FMDA president, during the FMDA Annual Financial Markets Conference held in Lagos on Friday, December 6, 2019.

L-R: Samson Akejelu, marketing manager, Spectranet Limited; Ajay Awasthi, chief executive officer, Spectranet Limited, and Jagadish Swain, senior marketing manager, Spectranet Limited, during the launch of Spectranet Car-Fi for seamless internet connectivity on the go in Lagos.

Access Bank: L-R: Christopher Moore, publisher/CEO, EMEA Finance Limited; Amaechi Okobi, group head, Corporate Communications, Access Bank Plc; Omobolanle Victor-Laniyan, head sustainability, Access Bank Plc; and other representative at the 2019 EMEA Finance Awards in London.

L-R: Mojisola Oyewole, company secretary, Sigma Pensions; Arinze Ononwu, chief compliance officer, Sigma Pensions; Afolabi Afolayan, executive director operations, Sigma Pensions; Michael Orekoya, senior vice president, Sigma Pensions, and Nafisah Buba, head business development division (North), during Sigma Pensions ‘Walk to Live’ exercise in Abuja recently...

16

Tuesday 10 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

www.businessday.ng

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@Businessdayng

Tuesday 10 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

www.businessday.ng

https://www.facebook.com/businessdayng

@Businessdayng

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Tuesday 10 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

Media business Marketing research industry seeks collaboration to uncover hidden solutions for companies’ growth Daniel Obi

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arketing research business still struggling for greater acceptance and recognition especially among Nigerian SMEs largely due to strong cultural hold on presumption instead of data assessment, is seeking for deep collaboration among the operators to advance the industry and proffer rich solutions to companies’ growth challenges.

This is the direction the new president of the industry’s body, Nigerian Marketing Research Association, NIMRA, Oluwaseun Oyelaja wants to pursue to encourage market research firms partner to achieve goals which they would not ordinarily achieve individually.

“We will love to see NiMRA that is vibrant and visible, but deep within the profession

of market research, there is disconnect which continues to keep us away from our goal. For us to make this right, I suggest a deep sense of collaboration that helps to quickly uncover hidden solutions we may not have as an individual working on a unique task”,Oyelaja told his colleagues at the inauguration of his executive in Lagos recently.

He said the era of having unique approach of solving solutions can never be substantiated than a collective approach done in a right way.

The association used the

opportunity of the inauguration to discuss ‘Future Success with Data Protection’ in the industry which Oyelaja further maintained that collaboration and alliance cannot be overemphasized as no one entity or unit of research can handle the task alone. “This is why our tenure will be focusing on new ways to change the narrative” Speaking in the same line, the immediate past president of the association, Joy Uyanwune said “as the world becomes smaller and the industry itself widens in purpose and

Study identifies 100 Nigerian companies to work for … Shell, Chevron, Dangote top list delivery, the gains of networking, of forming collaborating teams and partnerships within our country and across borders become even more evident”.

She listed her achievement among which was the hosting of African Marketing Research Association conference in Nigeria which presented profound platform to market research and data analytics practitioners to showcase their specialties and business offers.

Speaking on the importance of data protection, Alexan Carriho, assistant secretary general of NiMRA who said it part of obeying the law said it is to give research respondents confidence to assist in the research work.

Discussants during the panel session, including Lanre Fashaki, CEO of CMRG; Stella Okpalla, CEO of Deep-Dive; Seun Ajay, CEO of SBRC; and Yinka Aderojo, CEO of MK&I advanced researchers to be honest and straightforward in their works to their clients.

Daniel Obi

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atest research by Jobberman, talent recruitment agency, has identified Shell Nigeria, Chevron, Dangote, NNPC and Nestle as top five best companies to work for in Nigeria. Chevron was also voted as the most desired and respected brand.

Jobberman’s 2019 research edition identified a total of 100 companies to work for in Nigeria. Other companies in the first 15 list are Exxonmobil, MTN, Total, Andela, KPMG, Nigerian Breweries, PwC, GTB, Unilever and Google.

First Bank, Zenith Bank, Access Bank, UBA, Airtel, Stanbic IBTC, Deloitte, Nigerian Bottling Company, AB-In Bev, Guinness, Seplat, Citibank, Standard Chartered, BUA Group, Union Bank, Leadway Assurance and Olam also made the list.

Presenting the report Thursday in Lagos, the CEO of Jobberman, Hilda Kabush-

enga Kragha said a total of 3,148 valid responses were used in the final analysis with data from two surveys – external and internal of companies.

The external survey targeted the general public while the internal survey focused on employees working a numerous companies in Nigeria.

“Majority of the respondents were aged between 25-35 and 18-24 live in Lagos and hold a Bachelor’s degree.

“The research was conducted online and the survey was shared out via email to our audience of seekers and employers”, Hilda said.

The respondents were asked to nominate three companies they desire to work for; nominate three companies they admire and respect the most.

Respondent were also asked to rank the intrinsic traits a work place should have in order of importance such as competitive pay package, job security, career growth, financially stable company and welfare benefits.

FairMoney takes customer experience higher, lends money without collateral FairMoney is a licensed mobile banking platform, providing instant loans to private and business borrowers, without collateral.

This is a challenge to banks. Established in 2017, its objective is to empower individuals to meet financial obligations and enable start-ups to grow. Speaking to BusinessDay, the firm’s Head, Direct Marketing, Seun Oratokhai said the whole objective of FairMoney is to be inclusive and also provide individuals with resources to make their lives better. Excerpts How would you assess marketing activities in the outgoing year? he marketing space has changed. Today, brands are very savvy.

Brands and consumers are now content creators.

Marketing activities are heavily focused on digital platforms to connect with consumers. The consumer has changed and the way marketers communicate with them has equally changed.

What are your projections for the incoming year?

In 2020, I am actually looking forward to the continuation of the direction we are going.

I am also looking at engaging consumers as our advocates more deeply. In Nigeria we might be a little bit behind in terms of adopting digital, but marketers are becoming savvy in terms of data and analytics and this is directing a lot of business decisions. Already the tech space is booming in Nigeria; analytics is very key in determining the direction of business. Interaction with customers is becoming more valuable. Brands are not just pushing products to the consumer; instead they are trying to tailor their offering to meet

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the real need of the consumer.

Could you tell me more about FairMoney?

The firm was established in 2017 and the three co-founders have a lot of experience in entrepreneurship, start-ups and engineering. They saw a need in Nigeria to service customers who are either unbanked or under-served by traditional banks, particularly in terms of lending. Nigeria is a big market and they found an opportunity to help the average Nigerian with micro-credit without having to go through the long process associated with banks.

The customers are split between individuals and SMEs. FairMoney is a mobile based platform where customers can carry out payment transactions for airtime and data but can apply for instant loans which are processed within a few minutes. What we are doing is adding additional services as we grow. We will be launching other services such as additional payments, mobile wallet, savings, investments, and so on; so that any person who has the mobile device can actually carry out banking transactions through our platform.

In any lending there are forms of collaterals, how does www.businessday.ng

FairMoney determine who it is advancing loans to?

We don’t collect collateral or documentation. What we base the assessment of the customer on basically is the information they provide on the app, their telephone number and the BVN. They also provide a guarantor. We have a very talented tech team who have created a sophisticated algorithm that scores every customer and determines the

volume of loan we can offer such person and over what period of time. This is based on the activities the customers carry out with their phones; such as data from their banking activity.

How do you assess the activities of customers through their phones?

It is a sophisticated method with a long list of criteria we look for. Our App does the calculation once a customer

Seun Oratokhai https://www.facebook.com/businessdayng

applies for a loan.

What is the loan volume you offer to individuals and SMEs? All the customers are assessed individually and the loan amounts vary from N1,500 up to N150,000. The feedback from our SME customers is how to obtain higher loans for longer periods. This is something we are working on. We have disbursed to over one million people loans since we started and the interest starts from about 12 %, depending on the customer profile based on the information we gathered in the application process. The tenure is from one to three months. And a good number of people are repaying. We are doing a lot of education around repayment and we make options available through our App to make it possible for people to repay easily. We also engage customers one-on-one to make sure the repayment process is easy for them. Sometimes when people don’t repay, it may not be because of fraud but financial difficulties or other challenges.

What other challenges do you face in this business?

It is not different from other @Businessdayng

challenges faced by businesses in Nigeria. When customers apply, the money will be sent into their bank accounts, if the bank is experiencing network issues, that is a challenge to us.

Some of the challenges could be due to other platforms having challenges in their operations. We give a period of time before the first repayment is due.

S o m e t i m e a g o, y o u launched ‘No Excuses’ campaign, could you tell me more about it?

In our environment, we have all been in situations when we needed soft loans from people and some give excuses for not advancing loans to the potential borrower. For traditional banks, they give conditions such as collaterals, asking you to domicile your account with them and they don’t work on certain days or hours but what we are trying to communicate is that FairMoney is a reliable friend without such excuses. Customers can apply for loans 24/7.

What are the expansion plans for FairMoney?

We will be expanding physically into other regions in Nigeria and other markets in Africa.

Tuesday 10 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

19

ADVERTISING Innovative thinking separates managers in changing business landscape – Tejumola Adeola Tejumola is the CEO for Kantar, Insights Division in West, East and Central Africa. He asserts that Kantar is at the forefront in market research, in pursuing thought leadership and entrenching best practices. In this interview with Daniel Obi, he speaks on a number of issues in the marketing research industry; the border closure and its impact on businesses and the present changing workplace which he said is now about understanding work-life balance and managing the business and the people who will help deliver excellence. He said market research is not only growing but changing. Excerpts Could you assess the market research in the outgoing 2019 year? t has been a challenging year in all sectors largely due to what I see as the new norm and ways of doing business. For instance, the forex rate went from N194 to N360 per dollar. What the changes in the economy requires is the need to manage businesses differently, enforce the right business efficiencies, and avoid leakages. But whether there is a down-turn in the economy, recession or depression in the economy, one thing stands business managers out and it is innovation. The new norm comes with new ways of thinking, working and innovative ways of running businesses. It must be understood that a lot of things are evolving, and we need to get used to them and there is no room for complacency in running businesses.

Do you see slowing down of some challenges in the New Year?

One of the things we hope for is an enabling business environment through policies that allow businesses to thrive. I have seen the same trend of business environment across Sub Saharan Africa. I must say that businesses thrive better when there is an enabling environment.

Ensuring an enabling environment starts from the top by making processes easier, clamp down on corruption. I am optimistic going forward.

When I look at Kenya, it has been stable as their forex rate has been stable for several years and this helps entrepreneurs in planning. This is the kind of things our clients look out for. When our clients are affected by unfriendly business environment, we are also affected. Cote D’Ivoire has also been stable both politically and economically.

In Nigeria things are evolving but I believe things can only get better.

On border closure, what do you think as businesses

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Adeola Tejumola

prepare for 2020 and its effects on your clients?

From my opinion, I don’t think any border closure is sustainable for any country.

The whole world is about globalization and open market.

However, I am also not criticising the move in the sense that in very sane climes, open borders mean that things are done properly. There has been a lot of smuggling which has compromised the benefits that could come from open market trade. If this is a means to temporarily reach an agreement with neighboring countries, it is fine, but I do not believe it is sustainable and the government would eventually do what works best in the interest of our national economy.

That much I am sure of.

The new language of marketing research is data analytics, where is Kantar on this?

We consider ourselves to be leading in this area. Kantar is the largest insight business across the world in terms of our clientele and revenues.

The onus of this big size is to be the pacesetter which is what we are doing. Analytics is a big focus for us going www.businessday.ng

forward. I don’t think we are there in some of our African markets.

What is the trend in market research now? What are the clients looking for in market research today?

Every business is trying to grow. Every other company is trying to innovate or outperform the competitor, the reason is for growth. I don’t want us to reduce growth to financial growth only. We work with organisations that are looking at how they grow their people, better their process and provide value for the consumers. These are some of the areas our clients are looking at amongst many.

If you must evaluate research between public and private sectors in Nigeria, what figures do you give them?

It will vary for various research companies. For Kantar we probably do 90% of private sector. This will be different for companies that are solely focused on public sector research. Public sector does not necessarily mean government. Nongovernmental organization like Bill Gate Foundation, World Bank, UNICEF, John

Hopkins University, Clinton Health Access Initiative do a lot in addition to what the government is doing for the country.

You recently consolidated your businesses in Lagos in one building, why this move and what does this mean to Kantar?

This is long overdue. We would like to see how this evolves in the next five years.

In terms of bringing all our business together - Millward Brown, TNS RMS, Kantar World Panel, Kantar Public Sector, Kantar Consultancy business, what we did was to integrate all these experiences in one building. What this does for us is that as a business, we can manage people more efficiently, interact better and leverage all the experiences to the benefit of our clients. Prior to now, in Lagos alone we were maintaining several offices, but with this move we can maintain two offices. It is less about cost for us, but a one-stop shop for our clients and for our people who can leverage the experiences of one another.

How are you impacting your community?

At the minimum, we have about 4,000 permanent and non-permanent members of staff in Nigeria alone. Across Sub-Saharan Africa, it is about 10,000.

We operate in 36 states in Nigeria and in every market, we have supervisors and interviewers. Beyond that, two things have been passionate to us – health and education. We have annual Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives on education and health. In the past two years we have donated books, drugs and provided scholarship for pupils in some communities in Lagos.

We repainted a section of the primary school in Ojodu; donated books and stationaries and for the Khan foundation school in Makoko. We shall do more in the coming years and we promise to be a good corporate citizen of Nigeria.

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Spectranet targets premium internet customers with Car-Fi

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nternet service provider, Spectranet 4G LTE has launched an innovative product for in the country, a Car MiFi (called Car-Fi) to enable internet services/ broadband on the go.

The Spectranet Car-Fi is said to be the first of its kind in this part of the world since the commencement of internet service offering. Spectranet Car-Fi is a thumb-sized, integrated 4G mobile wireless router that takes power from the car lighter socket. Once it is powered, the device can convert 4G signal to Wi-Fi signal, thus connecting up to 10phones, tablets and other Wi-Fi enabled devices. The Car-Fi draws power from the car battery ensuring continuous availability of internet services on-the-move. The occupants of the car can enjoy a seamless internet browsing experience.

Spectranet Car-Fi also comes with standard USB charging interface that can

provide 5V/2.1A output to other devices. It also supports micro USB input interface.

Chief Executive Officer Spectranet, Ajay Awasthi, at the unveiling of the product, according to a statement said ”Spectranet 4G LTE, as a leading Internet Service Provider, always endeavor to launch innovative products and services for its discerning customers.

By staying at the cutting edge of innovation, we ensure that the evolving needs of our customers are addressed well-intime and well ahead of others.

The launch of Car-Fi is going to further endear the Brand Spectranet to its customers and strengthen its position as a leading and an innovative internet service provider.

Project to feed 10,000 Lagos children launched

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project tagged NAIJA Jollof championed

by IAMBRANDNIGERIA has been launched and it is set to break the Guinness Book Record by feeding 10,000 street children in Lagos Revealing this at the 2019 IAMBRANDNIGERIA Award, where Top 50 Most Valuable Brands in Nigeria were honoured in Lagos, Taiwo Oluboyede, CEO of IAM BRANDNIGERIA said, “We are setting a new Guinness World Record for the largest serve of Jollof rice in Nigeria next year.”

According to Oluboyede, “Jollof is becoming the most engaging topic in both Anglo and Francophone African countries, just like football.

Food brings people together,” he said.

“Come next year, sixty

top chefs will be cooking six tonnes of rice in a single pot and we are feeding 10,000 children in Lagos, many of them on the street. This has been described as one of the largest humanitarian endeavours in our country, where many people will be touched in a single day,” Oluboyede disclosed.

He said, “It is a combination of Jollof and the best of Nigerian music in one place.”

Describing the size of the pot, volume of rice and number of chefs to cook the rice, the IAMBRANDNIGERIA CEO said, “The 4.5 diameter pot, one of the largest in the world will be displayed on the street before donation to the museum where people can see and get inspired. One of the exciting things about this project is that the pot is made here in Nigeria.”

Stanbic IBTC shines at PEARL Awards

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tanbic IBTC Group, Nigeria’s end-to-end financial services provider, has added to the number of laurels and recognitions for its contributions and performance in Nigeria’s finance sector. The organization won three awards at the 24th edition of the PEARL awards which held on recently at Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos.

Stanbic IBTC Holdings PLC emerged winner of the 2019 Sectoral Leadership award (Financial Services - Other Financial Institution). Two of the subsidiar@Businessdayng

ies of the company were also recognized for their outstanding achievements in their various sectors. While Stanbic IBTC Capital won the PEARL Issuing House of the Year award, Stanbic IBTC Stockbrokers won the PEARL Stockbroking Firm of the year award.

Funso Akere, Chief Executive of Stanbic IBTC Capital, in a statement said while the awards were evidence of the hard work and the customercentric culture of the Group, it also reflected the transparency and high ethical standards of Stanbic IBTC.

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Tuesday 09 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

property&lifestyle FMBN commits to speedy processing of NHF contributors loan applications … renews call for N500bn recapitalization by FG CHUKA UROKO

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he Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) says it is committed to the speedy processing of qualified housing loan applications in line with its mandate to boost the provision of affordable housing to Nigerian workers that are registered contributors to the National Housing Fund (NHF) Scheme.

The apex bank recently started assessing results of its strategic efforts to clear backlog of housing loan applications; tackle longstanding issues of delays in the treatment of loan applications and disbursement of funds by subscribers to the NHF scheme.

The bank, however, noted that its weak capital base remains a major handicap to its ability to deliver on its social housing mandate. He therefore re-stated his call on the Federal Government to increase the Capitalization of the bank from the meagre N5billion – with only N2.56billion fully paid up – to N500billion as a necessary first step to strengthening the capacity of the bank to meet the housing demands of Nigerian workers.

It is expected that a stronger capital base for the bank

would put it in a better place to leverage more finance from the private sector, capital market and international development agencies for deployment towards the provision of affordable housing for Nigerian workers.

“Our pro-active efforts have led to a 45 percent increase in the speed of processing NHF housing loan applications and as a result we have been able to reduce substantially the huge backlog of loan applications that we met when we assumed office two years ago,” noted Ahmed Dangiwa, FMBN’s CEO. Continuing, he said, “I am pleased to note that we have recorded unprecedented improvement in the turnaround time of NHF loan applications. While before now it used to take an average of two years to process an NHF loan, we have been able to bring this down to four months.

This is a significant improvement. Of course, we are still not where we want to be, but at least we are now moving in the right direction and intend to do more.”

Dangiwa said that from day one, improving the turnaround time of housing loan applications had been the priority of their management because they understood quite early that it haf been a

big issue over the years, leading to the accumulation of huge backlog.

He recalled that from 2017

when they came on board to date, they have been able to process and disburse successfully loans totaling N75.5

billion, including 3,541 mortgages and 25,242 home renovation loans.

They have also financed

Reasons 2% GDP growth in Q3’19 eluded real estate sector ENDURANCE OKAFOR

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he problem load on Nigeria’s real estate sector may have seemed too heavy for the sluggish 2.28 percent GDP growth to carry along as the property industry maintained a negative trajectory in the third quarter of 2019.

The Nigerian real estate sector continued to expand in recession in the third quarter of 2019 after the state data agency, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), reported -2.31 percent growth for the period.

Nigeria’s housing challenge borders on insufficient stock, low ownership level and lack of demand enabler in terms of mortgage or low-rate housing finance.

Individual efforts at increasing the stock by way of developing more houses, coupled with talk shows offering insights into possible solutions, have not helped to reduce the demandsupply gap or increase the ownership level estimated at more than 17 million units and a little above 10

percent respectively Although the fastest growth in six months, the sector’s growth rate in the review quarter remained lower than the first-quarter growth of 0.93 percent, the first positive value it reported since 2016.

The third-quarter contraction of the property industry confirms that yet again the sector has slipped into recession, a cycle of contraction recognized after two consecutive quarters of economic decline.

“Not much progress can be made in this sector with a large portion of Nigeria’s population outside the housing market and mortgage remains too expensive for many people to access and afford,” Adeniyi Akinlusi, CEO, Trustbond Mortgage Bank said.

A breakdown of the Q3 sector growth rate at -2.31percent revealed that it is higher than the growth recorded in Q3 2018 by 0.36percentage points, and 1.53 percentage points higher relative to Q2 2019.

“Globally, the real estate sector trails the overall economy in performance. www.businessday.ng

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@Businessdayng

the construction of over 7,286 housing units within this period, representing a marked improvement in the performance of the scheme since it was established 27 years ago.

Speaking on the backlog of housing loan applications, Dangiwa said FMBN would continue to prioritize the 100 percent clearing of all qualified housing loan applications that have gone through the various stages.

He added that the bank was aware that though it has made significant progress in reducing the backlog and disbursing loans to beneficiaries, efforts would be sustained to ensure that everyone was attended to.

Dangiwa appealed to its partner Primary Mortgage Banks (PMBs) to key into its efforts to improve turnaround time for NHF mortgage loans by ensuring speedy treatment of applications and prompt forwarding to FMBN for approval and disbursement.

Tuesday 09 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

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property&lifestyle Three simple steps to optimizing profit in real estate business

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eal estate business, like any other business, is expected to generate value exchange – in most cases, money (capital + profit). How easy is it to achieve this in the present-day business environment where survival is for the fittest – those who possess the ability to win the hearts of those in need of real estate products?

The middle-income population is believed to be fast declining due to several external factors beyond the control of a real estate business owner or developer. While it is expedient to keep these factors in perspective and do your best to work around them, it is unnecessary to expend your energy in trying to resolve the challenges these external factors pose.

A real estate business is

either growing or dying. It is said to be dying when it lacks sufficient funds for operations and effective service delivery.

Should you wait till your real estate business lacks sufficient funds to operate? I’m sure your answer is no!

With some businesses, a quick adjustment here and there can enhance service delivery and optimize profit.

The nature of real estate businesses, especially the building sector, rarely grants the luxury of quick adjustments.

Again, change can be difficult to accept or adapt to, especially when it is unanticipated and unprepared for. While a real estate business is busy conceptualizing products to meet perceived market needs, the needs are already changing even before the project sees the light of the day.

Just recently, Nigeria’s ranking shot up to 131 on the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business index. The real estate sector needs to promptly reflect that ease before businesses begin to crumble under the heavyweight of bottlenecks and bureaucracies.

My goal with this article is to help you remain in business and optimize income, not to bore you with those challenges you are already familiar with. And, pending the time when this ranking can impact on and translate to profit for a real estate business in Nigeria, a practical way to sustain businesses is to look inward.

Looking inward might mean looking into your business vision, model, processes, structure and values – conducting a business

review. Thriving real estate businesses conduct consistent business reviews. An example is the one recently conducted by UPDC, a sister company of UAC Foods.

The first step to a successful real estate business review is to ask why you set up a real estate business in the first place. What problem did this business set out to solve in the sector? Real estate businesses are rarely set up for charity or philanthropy. Hence, your obvious answer is “to make money while solving real estate challenges.” I hear you!

Secondly, list out the steps you have taken to address the problems your business set out to solve and determine how effective they have been.

On a deeper level, ask if the solutions your business offers are still relevant and effective the way the solutions are cur-

Talking Real Estate

With Oluwakemi Adeyemo rently being offered.

The third step is to check what activities have been most effective and efficient in delivering on client’s anticipated value while generating the highest revenue at a minimal cost. It will also be ideal to check for less efficient activities that currently drain money from the business.

Following these three simple steps by asking the questions above can unearth some uncomfortable facts.

And, unless you are willing to commit to deep thinking and crucial conversations by engaging stakeholders within your organization, it may be difficult to answer the questions in a way that allows for successful business review.

Stakeholders seek professionalism in estate surveying, valuation practice KELECHI EWUZIE

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ue to the vital role professionalism plays in any given field of human endeavour, stakeholders in estate surveying and valuation profession are canvassing for the adoption of global best practice to boost professionalism.

Global best practice, they explain, is a method or technique ofoperationthatoverridesevery other method or technique and is aimed at achieving compliance with laws, regulations and codes of conduct.

“Estate surveyors and valuers are bound to render services in accordance with these laws, regulations and codes of conduct of the profession,” said Ebubechukwu Etudo, an estate surveyor, in Lagos recently.

Etudo was guest speaker at the 2019 induction ceremony of Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV).

He spoke on ‘ International Best Practices for Professionals: Harping on the various best practices estate surveyors and valuers must adopt to remain globally competitive’.

“I enjoin you to go out there and up the scale of estate surveying and valuation practice in Nigeria and globally; in your interaction with your clients, it is advisable that you try as much as possible to keep the relationship official.

Most of your clients are not on the same social circuit with you,” Etudo advised.

He advised further that an estate surveyor and valuer should operate his client’s account distinct from his partnership account. All rents received on behalf of the client should be promptly remitted to his account after agreed out-

goings have been deducted.

“A professional must ensure that his work is carried out with competence, diligence and speed. Reports must be presented and proofread by a partner of a firm or any senior and competent person so delegated.

“In order to protect oneself from civil liability arising from a contract, adequate professional indemnity cover must be taken out and maintained at all times,” Etudo said.

Rowland Abonta, the NIEV President, had in his address at the event where 310 new members were inducted, explained that the induction ceremony was in compliance with the mandate and Acts of the Institution.

Abonta said it was also a mechanism to grow the estate surveying and valuation profession in the country, adding that the induction signified commitment on the part of the inductees to become ambassadors of the profession at all times.

He charged the inductees to uphold the principles, ethics and integrity of the profession in their service to the society urging them to contribute their quota to the move towards ensuring effective management and development of infrastructure and facilities in the country.

The NIESV president emphasised the commitment of the institution to provide the necessary support to ensure smooth operation of the newly inducted members.

“The induction programme provides the opportunity to formally certify estate surveying and valuation professionals who have met the requirements to practice as estate surveyors and valuers. www.businessday.ng

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@Businessdayng

To further enhance the review process, it may be necessary, based on clearly established goals, to bring in an external party to anchor the review. Because of the wealth-generating nature of real estate, it is given to believe that there will always be need for shelter or other forms of real estate for investment purposes.

Regardless, do not be tempted to presume that your real estate product will always be the preferred choice bfor a target market need. It is best and profitable to conduct a business review as often as necessary.

For a free real estate business review session, send “Review” to 07061351530.

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Tuesday 10 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

There are many reasons to admire forthright feedback at work. The trouble is, too many of us do it badly © Getty Images/iStockphoto

The painful truth about feedback at work When done well, radically honest performance reviews tend to produce good results

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magine you are 25 years old and you always wanted to be a playwright and wonderfully, a well-known theatre in your home city has agreed to stage one of your plays.

Your friends and family come on opening night, along with the local newspaper’s theatre critic.

The next morning you rush to read his review. At first you are baffled, because he starts by saying your play was showing at a theatre near a police station. It is just as well, he adds, because last night, “I had to rush out and report that a crime had been committed”. What follows is a review so crushing that you give up writing plays and instead become a journalist.

All this happened to a friend of mine more than 30 years ago.

He became a fine journalist, worked around the world and eventually turned the unkind reviewer into a dinner party joke that usually ends like this: “If that guy is ever found dead in suspicious circumstances, you’ll know where to look.”

I thought of my friend last

week when Ray Dalio, founder of the US hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, put out a media statement to say one of his top executives was leaving. It was an unremarkable press release, except for the bit at the end that explained what Bridgewater was, and how the firm had “a culture of radical truth and radical transparency”. Constant, blunt feedback is a hallmark of Mr Dalio’s singular management style, which has been known to bring employees to tears. It did not stop him creating the world’s largest hedge fund. Equally, a bracing feedback culture at Netflix does not seem to have hurt the online streaming group.

The success of such companies is one reason many business leaders have been drawn to the idea that painful truths equal better performance. There are lots of reasons to admire forthright feedback at work. The trouble is, too many of us do it too poorly, as that review of my friend’s play showed. There is obviously a big difference between a theatre critic and an office manager. The critic has a duty to entertain and let potential audiences know if they www.businessday.ng

should part with their cash.

The office manager does not, but neither has an excuse for gratuitously savaging a 25-yearold, no matter how amusing the savagery.

Luckily, that type of performance review is relatively rare in the office. But there is no shortage of ways in which managers muck up important conversations about what is and is not working. I came across a classic of the genre the other day when an angry, red-faced colleague told me about a meeting she had just had with her boss about progress on a big project.

“She didn’t stop looking at her phone the whole time!” she said, adding the boss could not have conveyed her dissatisfaction more clearly. Assuming the boss was in fact trying to send that message — and was not merely a hopelessly distracted email addict — this was a terrible way to send it.

Apart from being rude it was unproductive: the project might have had genuine problems and the boss might have been trying to discuss them. But behaviour that makes people feel as if they are not being properly listened to is guaranteed to infuriate rather

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The more common crime, in my experience, comes when people giving feedback are not rude, insincere or overly polite, but vague

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‘‘

Pilita Clark

@Businessdayng

than elucidate.

The more common crime, in my experience, comes when people giving feedback are not rude, insincere or overly polite, but vague. “You’re doing really well,” is not helpful. “You’re doing really well because you did that,” on the other hand, is genuinely useful. Likewise, telling someone that what they are doing “doesn’t work” or “needs to improve” is useless. It is always better to have precise examples of why something is not working and what could have been done differently.

Finding a way to do this takes time and effort that pressed managers often lack. Likewise, figuring out how to deliver feedback that is both truthful and kind is not easy. Two years ago, a former Google executive named Kim Scott produced a book called Radical Candor about how to achieve that balance. It is no surprise to me that a new edition has just been published.

Ultimately, people want to hear the truth about their work and managers want to tell them. And I would always prefer to work in a place that tries to do that, radically or not.

Tuesday 10 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

23

To the escape room! How business schools are embracing games Using play in the classroom can help take the anxiety out of stressful scenarios Jonathan Moules

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‘Better than just learning theory’: Ioana Alexandrescu was subjected to a cyber attack threat during an escape room as part of her communication skills course © Peter Jülich/FT

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Escape rooms are often physical spaces decorated to look like prison cells or dungeons, but games are also run online against the clock

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n the last day of her communication skills course at ESMT Berlin, Ioana Alexandrescu, a project manager at Deutsche Bank Wealth Management, was locked in an office with two classmates and subjected to a cyber attack threat.

It was only a game. But it was made to feel real by being operated as an escape room, the hugely popular activity during which a team works together to solve puzzles and find clues before time runs out.

The course was the better for it, Ms Alexandrescu says. “Learning to communicate with your team well in that situation is not easy, but it showed us how it feels in reality,” she says. “It was better than just learning theory.”

Business schools have long embraced the idea of play as a teaching tool. Lego is often featured in management lessons. MBA students at Warwick Business School, for instance, are challenged to build workplace scenes using the bricks to illustrate specific management challenges.

These sessions draw on research from psychologists that suggests the use of hands in the learning process — and actually building the picture in your head — allows things to become clearer and easier to remember, according to Hari Tsoukas, a professor of organisation behaviour at Warwick. “It is a shared experience and breaks habitual thinking,” he says.

Escape rooms go a step further by making the learning immersive, according to Hélène Michel, professor of management and creativity at Grenoble Ecole de Management in France.

She says that defusing tension arising from the act of trying to learn something new is a key part of any teacher’s training.

Play helps in this process: “Part of a role of a teacher is not just to deliver information, but to create an environment where people can learn.”

The idea of solving puzzles to get out of confined spaces dates back to the stories of Greek mythology. But the modern-day escape room concept came from a category of point-and-click video adventure games in which players have to find a way out of a space by exploiting their surroundings.

Escape rooms are often physical spaces decorated to look like prison cells or dungeons,

but games are also run online against the clock.

Not all games have to be escape-room based. Last year Ms Michel devised a challenge for 1,000 Grenoble masters degree and executive education students, called “21 Days, The Innovation Quest”.

Every student was given a box, designed to look like a commercial board game and containing a diary and 21 glass tubes, each housing an instruction sheet for a 15-minute mission.

The aim was to read a diary entry each day, uncork a glass tube and complete the challenge set out within, which was designed to reveal a concept in innovation theory.

“They loved the objective of the game, but they cheated,” Ms Michel says. “They were supposed to play alone and they www.businessday.ng

all decided to play with other people — their team, a colleague or even their kids at home.”

Playing games is a good way for people to open up with a group, which is valuable when teaching about empathy, she says. “Being involved in a game gives you signals that you are protected in what you share.”

She adds that turning situations into a game helps take the anxiety out of what would normally be quite stressful situations, both in real life and the classroom. “In a game you enter into a ‘magic circle’, a protected environment in which you can experiment, fail and improve yourself. It could be a virtual world, such as a business game, a dedicated space such as an escape room, or even a board game.”

The trend for play in busi-

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ness education is being driven by competition between business schools for the best MBA students and most lucrative corporate training contracts, according to Andrew Crisp, cofounder of education research group CarringtonCrisp.

“When programmes tend to look the same from school to school, something like this can help a school stand out and reinforce its brand values,” he says.

“It’s also part of a wider trend among schools to provide a more rounded view of the world and to help students develop skills beyond those traditional technical skills associated with an MBA.” Business school students are increasingly interested in developing their creativity and self-confidence, something that is hard to do through traditional classroom teaching, according to Mr Crisp.

“Historically, leadership might have been developed outside the classroom on some sort of outward bound activity,” he says. “But games provide a different type of experience to develop different types of leaders.”

Creating the kind of escape room facilities people go to for a night out is expensive, so often business schools opt for lowtech versions, using seminar spaces and a few laptops.

The escape game at ESMT Berlin was run on campus and filmed by staff so that the group @Businessdayng

could review their performances. “It was a good idea because it enabled us afterwards to see how we communicated with each other during the challenge,” Ms Alexandrescu says.

Postgraduate students at the UK’s University of Central Lancashire’s School of Business and Enterprise use their class laptops to play a game completely online, so they do not have to leave their chairs to escape.

Instead they work out clues to get codes that enable them to move between rooms virtually.

The games are developed by Emma Thirkell, a senior lecturer in human resource management. She creates one for each of her classes, played at the end of the course term to help crystallise the concepts she has been teaching.

“I have found that student engagement, attendance and teamwork during these weeks when they run shoots up,” Ms Thirkell says.

She is now planning smaller escape room games for individual seminars within the courses she teaches because they are so popular.

“Instead of the traditional approach of lecture and seminar, I can run a lecture and escape room challenge to test their understanding,” she says. “It seems a more fun way to engage with students.”

24

Tuesday 10 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

CEOINTERVIEW Interview with Private Sector Leaders

‘Customer experience is more than smiles, While at MIT collecting data for his research on how to use information to make decisions in remote areas when you have no data, KENFIELD GRIFFITH, CEO and co-founder, mSurvey (now Ajua), went from computer-aided manufacturing to realise a problem: insufficient data to understand context. His biggest epiphany moment was when he saw residents of Kiberia in Kenya giving intense good quality feedback on the platform he created. It challenged everything, from conventional wisdom to World Bank statistics, about literacy. He saw a scalable means to get feedback. In this interview with TAYO FAGBULE, Editorial Board Chairman, Griffith explains how Ajua as an integrated customer experience company helps clients win through a better understanding of their customers.

C

ould you talk about your experience, how you started mSurvey?

We started mSurvey with the impetus to solve the data gap in Africa, and obviously the best way to solve it is to figure out who people really are. And a very old method of doing that is through surveys, which is usually pen and paper in our market; it has its flaws: it’s not scalable, you’re unable to reach the invisible consumer.

Folks are transacting informally in cash. Obviously, they are offline. The best way which was scalable is through mobile in the sense that you can reach anyone whether on a smartphone or a simple phone; that’s why we had to integrate with mobile operators to make that possible.

Today, we can reach anyone in Nigeria, anyone in Kenya, anyone in the market that we are in, anyone who has a mobile phone to give feedback on anything. We started with that to solve that problem.

And then we realised that we’re doing much more than that, especially when you’re seeing a trajectory of business growth. The information we got helped businesses to make better decisions, to win, i.e., create better efficiency, to retain their customers and to find new customers.

We know that markets in Africa are massive, extremely massive, and we believe that opportunity is also massive. As we started looking at getting high-fidelity data for businesses, we realised that we’re bigger than just surveys. We had to rebrand as an integrated customer experience company to capture that.

Because the markets are so massive, one of the biggest hurdles of unlocking these markets is fragmentation.

Everywhere you go across the continent whether it’s Kenya, Nigeria, Democratic Repub-

lic of Congo, you see a lot of things that are fragmented, in silos. How do you really capture an understanding of your customer? If you can’t see them, you can’t understand their lifestyle, you can’t understand their behaviour because the data is fragmented. For the first time we’re bringing all that information together to highlight who your customer is inside the business and outside the business.

How does the rebranding to Ajua from mSurvey define you?

We’re positioning ourselves as world class. Ajua is the oldest in Africa – it’s over 1,300 years old – it has been exported to over 90 countries and has 200 names. We believe what we’re doing is unique to Africa but has the potential to be exported globally because there are new things happening here that are different from elsewhere in the world. We believe there is a trajectory. Ajua was the right name for us because we’re building the foundation of the new technologies that will make that happen. Think of mPesa, think of fintech; Africa is defining a new approach and other countries are going to look to Africa.

Ajua resonated for us in the sense that technology in Africa is going to be different, better.

Africa has unique transactions and people to people connections we must solve.

What would you say is the big change between mSurvey and Ajua?

Before we just captured feedback. Now, a lot of our clients want to know, “Who are those customers from whom I’m getting feedback? I need to understand and segment these customers.” We built more software and products around solving that problem. Rather than just surveys we help you understand your customers inside your operations and www.businessday.ng

outside.

Think of it, a customer experience doesn’t just happen within your business. The customer experience happened way before they even purchase. Whether they’re seeing a billboard about you, or seeing any information about you, that’s your customers experience. We try to capture the best and high-fidelity data to really make good decisions, with precision, about that customer. We’re now in the customer intelligence space whereas before we were just really solving the data acquisition problem.

Do your clients come to you with a specific prob-

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lem or you already have flagship surveys that you carry out which say, “This is what we know about this customer”?

As an integrated customer experience company, we’re helping businesses transform using customer experience or CX as the foundation of transformation. We believe a hypothesis, based on data, that businesses that are customerfocused and customer-centric are going to win. We are using data to help them transform.

We don’t come and say here’s a survey, we come and say this is the best way for you to really understand the customer journey, understand the friction points, under@Businessdayng

stand exactly how to retain your customers and how to acquire new customers.

All the data that we gather through our software is helping them make decisions. One metric we use which is more on the survey end is Net Promoter Score (NPS).

Net promoter score is a proven metric globally, and we’re fortunate to have its founder as a board member and advisor. This is a key metric that’s very simple, but very powerful.

Any business, small or large, can understand the simple metric, it goes from minus 100 to 100. It helps you to know exactly what you’re doing, where you are. We help businesses learn how to use it, and once they understand, leverage it to learn

Tuesday 10 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

25

KENFIELD GRIFFITH

CEO and co-founder, mSurvey (now Ajua)

, it’s about removing frictions’ more of how to use other sources of data, that’s what we bring to the business.

How long were you in Kenya? When did you make the decision to commit to Nigeria?

If you look at our trajectory, we really found product market fit around 2015/2016. We’ve been at it for a while, but we had to do a lot of research, to find market fit. It was around 2015/2016 that we realised we’re solving this big problem. The decision to come to Nigeria was around 2016/2017 when we started thinking about what other markets we could look at. Our customers helped us with that decision; we don’t go into markets if our customers are not there. And obviously Nigeria is an attractive market and not just because of size. Nigerians are very passionate; we need to capture those sentiments. No one is capturing those sentiments. How do we capture those sentiments and lead the way and say this is the brand that Nigerians enjoy?

There’s less talk about demographics and more about psychographics. How does Ajua help its customers do that?

We have our own proprietary data.

We have longitudinal data – we measure the pulse of consumers over time. We take that data and pretty much bring it all together to understand who your customer is.

Looking at customer behaviours within your business, obviously we’re seeing exactly which touch points they are interacting with and their feedback on those touch points. We can also see exactly if their feedback changes, we can correlate that feedback to that experience. We help you segment your customers in real time, for instance, whether they are in bank or mobile bank customers.

You know exactly which segment of your customers is changing over time – remember segments emerge. Think of subcultures.

This is what we help businesses to see. We’re helping them to see the future, to see behaviours, to predict what will happen, to see what’s emerging. It may sound cheeky, but we like to say don’t allow your competition to know your customer better than you do. If your competition has more data on your customer, they are winning. The market is hypercompetitive; who you thought was your competition isn’t. African consumers are making conscious

purchasing decisions every month.

to see different innovations emerge. Modernisation, for instance, is more consumers coming online. They’re not using a computer but mobile phones. That is a way that modernisation is different.

The question is: what is the trajectory, the prediction of the consumer’s behaviour when technology plays a part; specifically, even just mobile?

Look at mPesa in Kenya, it transacts about $40 billion in a year in a population of 45 million. Think of that system being replicated in Nigeria or any place in the world. Nigeria could be transacting $150 or $160 billion dollars per year on a platform like that.

We see that something is brewing. How do you get a better pulse of it? Consumers are becoming more aware; consumers understand more that they have options. We’re trying to tell businesses: ‘Don’t be left behind when the consumer is going to decide.’ The only way you can do that is to have a better relationship with the consumer. Our job is to make sure you are seeing those changes.

Some say the African consumer is modernising, not westernising. Do you see that from your data?

In Africa the relationships or transaction systems are different. And because transaction systems are different behaviours are different. And because the transaction systems are different, you’re going

How have you moved your clients from being data unaware to a data epiphany?

It’s a journey. We start very simple because a lot of these businesses in Africa are going to leapfrog businesses elsewhere in the world. And because you have a clean slate, when you start a business you are ready to start getting

‘‘

We believe a hypothesis, based on data, that businesses that are customer-focused and customercentric are going to win. We are using data to help them transform

www.businessday.ng

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feedback. A lot of businesses in the US are still trying to figure out exactly how to collect that data.

We believe that a simple metric like Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a good start. It’s very simple to understand, anyone can understand it. If my score is 20, I want to improve it to 25. And everyone understands feedback. If someone is telling me I suck, I understand what that means. If someone tells me the service is great, I understand what that means. But more interesting, businesses are beginning to understand how to correlate that data with the different segments.

They know their promoters act like this, they know my detractors act like that, and they know their passives act like this. Once that’s finished – it typically takes about a year to normalise, for them to get used to that – we have other products that we lay on top of that, for instance, customer analytics. They realise these are their promoters, what they look like; how they behave, this is their demographics. It’s @Businessdayng

like a profile. We had clients whose growth tripled because of our platform. Users of Ajua not only transform their business but individuals too.

Our platform really enables individuals to become experts at customer experience; not just customer experience but customer experience with data. We are also removing the historical definition of what customer experience is. Customer experience isn’t when a customer smiles; customer experience is removing friction in that customer’s journey. Bolt exists because it’s removing friction, you don’t have to stand outside to call a cab.

The reason why fintech is hot is because there is a lot of friction in traditional banking. You queue when you get there. When you have the wrong information, you must go back. There’s a lot of friction. Obviously, we’re getting busier. The brands that can remove friction from your life are the ones you’re going to choose. And the younger generation have no time for that.

26

Tuesday 10 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

EDUCATION

Weekly insight on current and future trends in education

Primary/Secondary

Industry, varsities linkage fast-tracks Human capital development for economic growth KELECHI EWUZIE

I

ndustry professionals and operators are optimistic that the huge human capital skills required to drive Nigeria’s overall economic growth in the near future is hinged on sustained Industry- universities linkages in areas of research and infrastructure provision.

Analysts in a chat with BusinessDay observe that the private sector is currently leading the global trend in employment expansion and wealth creation stressing that with government policy support there will be smooth interface for public-private partnerships between the government and the private sector.

Linkages between universities and corporate organisations in the views of Olufemi Bamiro, a professor of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Technology University of Ibadan is a welcome development because when taken in its wider sense, can be enormously helpful in facilitating the manpower development that will lead to employment of graduates.

Among such industry- universities support initiative is Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG) grants to six universities in Nigeria to develop Nigerian human capital and fostering technological advancement.

The initiative analysts observe is important for Engineering Education in Nigeria as the laboratory is equipped

with a modular refinery, the first of its kind in any educational institution in subSaharan Africa.

Olayinka Agboola, an industry expert from Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) is of the view that the nation’s development aspirations can largely be actualised through AcademiaIndustry collaboration and teaching support.

Such an alliance in his opinion will bridge the gaps between the academia and the industry to accelerate the drive towards a sustainable development in the country Agboola opines that universities, with their crop of young people and nimble minds,

when aided properly, are the fertile grounds from which ideas to fast track Nigeria’s progress will spring from.

Omowumi Iledare, a Professor and director Emerald Energy Institute, University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria while observe that the oil and gas industry has contributed tremendously to the overall growth of the Nigerian economy.

Iledare disclosed that the upward expansion trend in the industry has created demand for a wide array of jobs ranging from professionals such as geologists and engineers to skilled blue collar jobs such as technicians, welders and electricians.

He advocates that by grow-

ing investment in technical education, there will be reduction in capital flight by the decreasing the use of expatriate staff as technician stressing that this will lead to increase in the rate of employment of youth, increase in the economic growth regionally which will in turn increase the wealth of Nigeria within her border and grow the economy faster.

On his part, Femi Akintunde, managing director, Alpha Mead Facilities and Management Services observes that a unique advantage any country or organisation has over its competitors is a welldeveloped, skilled, dedicated, committed and motivated human capital.

L-R: Tobechukwu Okigbo, Chief Corporate Relations Officer, MTN Nigeria; Secretary to Lagos State Government and representative of the governor, Sherifat Folashade Jaji; Adeoluwa Ademuwa Ifeoluwa, First MTN Nigeria Kid-CEO and winner, 2019 mPulse Lagos State Private School Spelling Bee; Mohammed Rufai, Chief Technical Officer, MTN Nigeria; and Sean Cryan, Country Manager, Ericsson Nigeria at a programme in Lagos

Education hub to curb huge forex loss KELECHI EWUZIE

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riven by the economic growth prospect that the establishment of an education hub holds for human capital development in Nigeria, educationists have identified the need for a robust public-private partnership to achieve the desired result in knowledge based economy.

Analyst are of the opinion that education hub represents a thriving move for knowledge sharing which is durable, sustainable and profitable and contributes to the process of economic growth.

They observed that Nigeria’s contemporary educational system is yet to fulfill its potential, stressing that education hub driven by an ebullient publicprivate partnership represents an effective and productive alternative.

The infrastructure development and the huge foreign reserve the hub would save the

country is another aspect that analysts are looking at to drive this cause.

Peter Okebukola, former executive secretary Nigeria universities commission (NUC) pointed out that Education Hub is a new, multi-campus township containing a cluster of universities that are supported by complementary activities business parks and scientific facilities that will create great opportunities for employment and economic growth in any region it is established in.

Okebukola observe that the none development of the nation’s education sector especially universities has over the years accounted for the huge capital flight experience on an annual basis owing to the increase in foreign exchange loss to foreign universities.

He insists that a progressive approach towards the entrenchment of adequate and quality education at all level of education in the nation especially the tertiary institutions is for government to throw its www.businessday.ng

weight behind the setting up of education hub, this he believe will nip in the bud the mass exodus of students to foreign land and save the economy of the huge foreign exchange loss.

Making a case for linkages to boost education development through this hub, Adamu Rasheed Abubakar, a professor at Bayero University Kano, opines that there exists a strong relationship between investment in higher education and the creation of knowledge based society specifically stressing that the strong connection between the universities and industries is a step in the right direction.

Abubakar pointed out that developed countries are developed because their economy is knowledge driven while other countries are developing or under developed because they choose to maintain a resource dependent economy rather than one which is knowledge based.

According to him, “we must device all necessary strategies

to make sure knowledge is available and affordable for everyone - this is the only pathway to Nigeria’s sustainable development. Only education and knowledge when acquired and applied can build bridges and erect ladders tall enough to take our collective destiny to the stars.”

The university don observes that there is a tragic gulf between universities and industries-between universities and the private sector in knowledge delivery adding that there must be an all stakeholders’ partnership in education before Nigeria’s educational industry can be salvaged from the doldrums.

He further opines that knowledge derived from establishment of education hub benefits everyone and ensures that industries spend less on training new work force when universities produce quality graduates, which will in turn contribute immensely to the growth and profitability of their organisations.

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Higher

Human Capital

Foreshore School taps into extra-curricular activities to promote total education KELECHI EWUZIE

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oreshore school, Ikoyi has underscored the importance of grooming the 21st century learners by organising extracurricular activities for pupils in defined areas like arts to promote all round educational development.

Oyindamola Egbeyemi, executive director, Foreshore School, Ikoyi observes engaging in extra-curricular activities outside the confines of school exposes children to what they could experience in real life.

Egbeyemi stated this at the 2019 stage performance of The Pied Piper saying that by children getting involved in activities such as play acting; it brings out the creativity in them because they are taking on roles they haven’t taken on before.

According to Egbeyemi, “It is a phenomenal approach because it is important to try and test the limits of children talents. Children at Foreshore School are the bold and confident ones, they are very inquisitive. So by this play, we are taking all that boldness and inquisitiveness outside of the school”.

Egbeyemi further underscores the importance of con-

tinuing the theoretical education of the regular numeracy, literacy, but noted that the 21st century workplace now requires skills such as communication, public speaking, leadership, creative thinking, innovation.

To her “If we don’t expose these children to new environment, they won’t be able to start developing skills”.

Helen Oyewole, head of school Foreshore school on her part noted that the choice of the play ‘The Pied Piper’ was basically about the moral of the story which centers around the importance of keeping to your word, adding that the play is also part of the activities of the school to celebrate Christmas.

Oyewole observes that children have lots of talents beyond academics, saying that the play was an avenue used to showcase that life is not all about academics, but that it there are other gifts the children can display.

On the performance of the children, Oyewole opines that she is always a firm believer in talents of children and not someone to give up on the capability for them to perform when given any task adding that the performance of the children at the stage play have really reaffirm such belief.

14 year-old Ifeoluwa emerges MTN Nigeria One-Day Kid CEO KELECHI EWUZIE

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or 14-year-old Ifeoluwa Ademuwa of Chrisfield College, Ikorodu Lagos it was a thrilling experience as he was announced as MTN Nigeria one-day CEO after emerging winner of the maiden edition of the Lagos State Private Schools Spelling Bee Competition sponsored by MTN Nigeria.

Ademuwa was announced winner following five months of fast-paced competition that attracted participation from 70 secondary schools and over 1,000 pupils in the State.

The highlight of Ademuwa day as he assumed the role of Kid CEO for one day at the company’s headquarters in Ikoyi, Lagos. was when he welcomed dignitaries to the 5G demonstration at the same venue. He was also on hand to receive the Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Folasade Jaji, the Oba of Lagos, His Royal Majesty, Oba Rilwan Akiolu and other dignitaries.

Speaking at the event, Ademuwa shared his excitement; “I didn’t know that the CEO for a day would be this massive. @Businessdayng

The Chief Human Resources officer greeted me outside!

I’ve been sharing and swapping ideas with Mazen, the Chief Operating Officer. Since, I stepped in here, it has been an amazing time. I’m not sure how to thank MTN. This has been an unbelievable experience. Thank you so much.”

The young boy also thanked his school for the chance to live out one of his dreams.

Rahul De, Chief Marketing Officer, MTN Nigeria said, “The one-day CEO experience will open the winner and his peers to an aspect of life that is interesting. I believe the process will enhance their overall development. We are glad to be part of this, which further affirms our commitment to equipping young Nigerians.

This is one of the cardinal reasons we introduced mPulse.”

“With MTN mPulse, we seek to show children and parents that a well-grounded educational and ‘fun-based’ platform can expand the future beyond what we have predicted. I am excited for the thousands of children that have stepped up to the podium to participate since the competition began. They have taken the first steps towards transforming their lives and we are very proud of them.”

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EDUCATION Nigeria’s transport university sparks interests, pessimism STEPHEN ONYEKWELU

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otimi Amaechi, Niger ia’s transport minister recently announced the Federal Government was going site a transport university in Daura, Katsina State. This has sparked some genuine interest among Nigerians but there has also been some pessimism expressed.

The first of its kind in Africa, the university is meant to create jobs and fill the skills, investment, and research gap in Africa’s most populous country’s transport sector.

Amaechi had said the transport university will focus on tackling the challenges that come with developing a functional rail network.

“When established, the university would among other things pave way for (the) domestication of railway engineering and general transportation sciences in Nigeria thereby bridging the technology and skill gap in the railway and ultimately transportation sector,’’ President Muhammadu Buhari said in a statement signed by his senior spokesperson, Garba Shehu.

Universities owned and operated by the Federal and State governments have been renowned for falling standards and Nigerian politicians have also a reputation for inconsistencies and siting universities in places where they are least needed to score political points, experts say.

“Science and technology has not developed sufficiently well in Nigeria to influence national policies and ethos. Our leaders are not thinking in a sufficiently scientific manner to champion technology as a

L-R: Femi Jaiyeola, chairman, finance committee, Compliance Institute, Nigeria (CIS); Pattison Boleigha, president, CIS; Ametekhai Affi, deputy director, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), learning centre, Lagos; Lateef Dabiri, chief compliance officer, Union Bank, and Oluyemisi Olukoya, chairperson membership committee, CIS, at the CIS 3rd investiture and induction ceremony in Lagos.

Pic by Olawale Amoo

vehicle to enhance accelerated national development,” Oyewusi Ibidapo Obe, a distinguished professor of engineering and former vicechancellor of the University of Lagos told BusinessDay in an earlier interview.

Nigeria’s transport university is clearly relevant analysts say, given the massive underutilised transport infrastructure in Africa’s biggest exporter of crude oil. The country has spent an estimated N2 trillion in 20 years to revamp the rail system. But it has achieved less than 1000 kilometres of rail tracks added to the 3000 kilometres of rail tracks inherited from the British.

According to Chidi Izuwah, the director-general, Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), there are about 135,000 kilometres of untarred road network in the country. Izuwah said this in Abuja at the 2017 Otis Anyaeji and Nigerian Society of Engineers Annual lecture under the theme “Transportation Infrastructure as

a Catalyst for Economic Diversification and Inclusive National Development.”

Nigeria has about 195,000 km road network out of which a proportion of about 32,000 km are federal roads while 31,000km are state roads. Out of this, only about 60,000km is paved.

Of the paved roads, a large proportion is in very poor unacceptable condition due to insufficient investment and lack of adequate maintenance, according to the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission.

“I won’t be surprised if students are admitted to this so-called Transport University are given conceptual definitions of vague and obscured concepts and graduated after four years. It is already the case with the education system in Nigeria so I don’t expect this to be different,” Tobias Tseer, a Ghanaian educationist of Nigeria origin told BusinessDay. S ome have accus ed Amaechi of stealing the ceremony that ordinar-

Stanbic IBTC strengthen teaching profession with salary support initiative

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s part of its drive to motivate teachers especially those impacting knowledge to children in poor and underserved communities, Stanbic IBTC Bank PLC with the support of the staff of the Transactional Products & Services unit of the bank donated a year’s teachers’ salary to the management of Comenius Nursery and Primary School, a tuition-free elementary school for poor children.

The school is an initiative of Street2School, an NGO that sponsors and supports the education programmes of poor

and educationally underserved children Inwang Akpan Head, Transactional Products and Services stated that the donation was made to the teachers in appreciation of their dedication to providing quality education to the less privileged children.

He said: “They say that the reward for teachers is in heaven, but pending when you receive that reward in heaven, there is a lot that needs to be done here to support you while we are still on earth. That is the major reason why we decided to support your efforts.”

Speaking in the same vein, Ojinika Shote, Head, Cash www.businessday.ng

Management, Transactional Products and Services added that the essence of the donation was to appreciate the teachers for their tireless efforts in providing quality education to their pupils of Comenius Nursery and Primary School.

She stated: “Without teachers, there will be no school. We decided to work with a well renowned NGO, Street2School, that we know is doing great work and to support them in their quest to run a free school. That’s why we decided to support the teachers under the aegis of the Street2School initiative with one year’s salary’s worth.”

ily should have been organised by the ministry of education and the National Universities Commission in conjunction with the Transportation ministry.

“He boasted about how he forced the China Civil Engineering Construction Company to undertake the project by refusing to sign the contract for Lagos/ Ibadan Rail project and how he also forced the company to take some Nigerians to China for training in railway technology. The minister spent more time justifying the establishment of the university in Daura, than he did on the usefulness of the institution,” Olabisi DejiFolutile a journalist, trainer, public relations specialist said in a recent publication.

There is a school of aviation in Ilorin and Zaria. People familiar with the matter say the transport university needs to drive research and development. Otherwise, it may go down as one of those white elephant projects that abound across the country’s landscape.

Cloud-based technology opens new opportunities for learners in Nigeria STEPHEN ONYEKWELU

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ummy, I find it difficult to understand what our mathematics teacher teaches in class. She is too fast and I find it difficult to follow, I would really like to learn at my own pace” 15-year-old Ramat told her Mum. Ramat’s mother has been particularly worried that her daughter’s interest in mathematics might begin to wane because Ramat’s performance has taken a dip and she does not know where to turn to or how to find help for her daughter.

This is the situation of many parents, who find that it is tough to curate appropriate textbooks or locate tutors who can help improve their children’s performance in school.

Technology is changing the way people live, love, learn and work but the educational sector lags.

Websites such as www.

AfricLearn.com are changing this narrative. AfricLearn aims to improve learning outcomes and promote academic excellence by delivering offline and protected access to engaging learning materials.

AfricLearn is a cloud-based e-book and digital learning management system solution driven by a vibrant and innovative company which applies cutting edge technology to, e-book content distribution, schools and other education settings.

It is underpinned by a flexible digital technology which enables e-books and contents to be easily aligned with the requirements of individual readers, teaching establishments and various curriculums. It provides access for publishers of Educational and Non-Educational (Fiction & Non-Fiction) e-books to distribute and sell their books digitally via a secure platform with piracy protected DRM technology.

“Nigeria and Africa stand to benefit a lot from this because it is not just a technology solution but one that is aligned with the curriculum. AfricLearn is the first solution that is bringing the content that is flexible

enough, for students, teachers, and school frameworks. It allows the government to know in which areas they need to intervene” Femi Sanusi, chief executive officer of AfricLearn said in an interview.

“AfricLearn is cloud-based and this makes it very flexible. It is a bring Your Device Pedagogy (BYDP), it means you don’t have to install any hardware.

If you have a mobile phone, a PC, tablet; all you need to do is login and access the AfricLearn platform on the go” Sanusi said.

AfricLearn’s e-books and educational textbook resources can be accessed by users across the following types of personal devices: iPhone and iPads via IOS reader apps, smartphone and tablets via android reader apps, laptops, and Windows PC via browser and web access including reader app for windows PC to enable offline activities.

Users no longer need to buy customised tablets in order to access e-books or educational textbooks or contents, they can now use their personal devices to access their purchased books that come with a bank of assessment exam questions.

This would ride on Nigeria’s growing internet penetration, which stands at about 98 million; meaning 50.2 percent of Nigerians are online. Nigeria is ranked tops in terms of social media usage with over 17 million users and the 2nd most-active Twitter users on the continent.

“The technology itself is not transformative. It’s the school, the pedagogy, the policy, the parents, the buying power, the teachers, the community involvement that is transformative” Elvis Boniface, Chief Education Officer of Edugist, an educational advocacy company said.

E-Books simply mean electronic books. These are printed books that appear in electronic format. Although sometimes defined as an electronic version of a printed book, many ebooks exist without any printed ebooks can also be books originally published in a traditional way and then digitised for use as an e-book or they can be books written directly for the digital market.

ASUU faults FG claim on IPPIS enrolment REMI FEYISIPO, Ibadan.

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cademic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has faulted the Federal Government’s claim that it has enrolled over 39,000 lecturers on the controversial Integrated Personnel Payroll and Information System (IPPIS).

ASUU described the story as fraudulent and fictitious asking government to stop fooling itself.

The ASUU chairman, University of Ibadan, Deji Omole, stated that the Union recorded

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over 90 percent compliance from her highly focussed, dedicated and loyal members.

Omole, a professor, who stated that it was also laughable that a government agency could go on air that it discovered 100 fake professors in Nigerian universities when it still needed verification of the names from university administrations.

According to Omole, a government run on deceit and falsehood is an enemy of growth and development.

The Union advised Federal Government to stop breaking the law in the name of fighting @Businessdayng

corruption and offer to help government in anti-corruption fight without breaking the law.

The professor of Forest Engineering stated that University Lecturers are different from University workers which the government claims it enrolled.

While congratulating the first lady, Aisha Buhari on the graduation of her daughter from a foreign university with First Class, Omole asked the first lady to use “the other room strategy” to make her family give Nigerian children the kind of education her daughter enjoyed abroad.

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BUSINESS DAY

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BUSINESS DAY

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E-mail: jumoke.akiyode@businessdayonline.com

Stakeholders move to curb DDos cyber attacks in Africa …As 21st Century Technologies, Nexusguard provide scrubbing centre for mitigation Jumoke Akiyode-Lawanson

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s both government and private business enterprises continue to lose huge amounts of revenue due to malicious cyber attacks such as distributed denial-ofservice (DDoS) attacks which seems to be the most common, cyber security experts have thought it necessary to collaborate in finding solutions to curb such attacks in Nigeria, and Africa as a whole.

DDos is a malicious attempt to disrupt normal traffic of a targeted server, service or network by overwhelming the target or its surrounding infrastructure with a flood of internet traffic.

21st Century Technologies Limited, ICT service provider in Nigeria has recently partnered with Nexusguard, a DDoS security solution provider to build infrastructure and provide optimal security to fight against cyber attacks.

While speaking at an event organised in Lagos, to unveil the new solutions to banks and business organisations, Wale Ajisebutu, chairman, 21st century Technologies, said that the company had opted to partner with Nexusguard to collectively unleash a DDoS scrubbing center in Nigeria to provide a DDoS mitigation service to enterprises and government agencies in Africa.

“More to this, the partnership was because of their global reach

and robustness of their platform. We have helped many companies and governments globally, defend against cyberattacks. Nexusguard is consistently recognised by analysts such as Gartner and Forrester as a market leader, and ustomers that choose to take advantage of our new compelling cybersecurity solution will surely capture enormous opportunities for unlimited growth,” Ajisebutu said.

With DDoS risk increasing worldwide, service providers are updating their capabilities to provide not only

bandwidth and subscriptions, but also cybersecurity.

Transformation, known as Telco 5.0, demands the methodology and mechanics to shift platforms, people and processes to provide optimal security. Nexusguard fulfils that need with its global scrubbing cloud.

Paired with 21st Century Technologies’s local capacity, the companies are now prepared to provide a seamless “global+local” scrubbing network that detects and mitigates both international and local DDoS attacks, si-

multaneously.

Also speaking, Jeremy Lee, vice president, sales at Nexusguard said, “We have exclusive partnership with 21st Century Limited in Nigeria. This is a strategic technology alliance in which we are going to integrate our technology to the 21st Century’s. The Company will provide all the local skills to tackle all the issues within the country while Nexusguard will be on the backend supporting them in terms of zeroing the attacks. So, we are offering them supports to meet

L-R: David Isiavwe; president, Information Security Society of Nigeria, Uche Olowu; president & chairman of council, Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria, Wale Ajisebutu; chairman, 21st Century Technologies, Niyi Ajao; deputy managing director, Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc., Jeremy Lee; vice president, sales at Nexusguard and Wale Obadare; co-founder & chief operating officer, Digital Encode, at the ISSAN cybersecurity workshop on DDoS attacks and protection, held in Lagos recently.

the market needs.”

On effects of DDoS attacks to businesses and countries, Lee said, “DDoS is becoming a global problem. More countries are faced with DDoS attacks at the national level. So, in Africa, we observed that South Africa was under attack last month. One of the telcos was brought down for about 10 days.

So, with partnerships of this nature we will be able to assist service providers to take care of (potential) attacks, clean the traffic and then protect the business from going down.”

He said that businesses, especially banks that subscribe to services and applications should be able to get on-premise firewalls, subscribe to secured internet links like the services that 21st Century provides. They have to stay ahead such that when attacks occur they can be able to mitigate it before it gets to their data centre.

Lee advised companies to be prepared at all times for possible DDoS attacks by carrying out route configurations of their systems and put their website on monitoring mood “so that any time there is an attack they can detect and clean the traffic thereby preventing the systems from total shutdown”.

Also speaking, Peter Obadare, cofounder/COO Digital Encode, a key cybersecurity partner to 21st Century Technologies said that dealing with today’s massive and complex multi-vectored threats requires a robust defense strategy, a portfolio of leading-edge network resources, and battle-tested expertise.

Smile Communications launches new season campaigns to reward customers

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mile Communications, 4G LTE Broadband service provider, has introduced another set of customercentric campaigns that will ensure a fruitful and memorable Yuletide celebration for all its customers and consumers.

The two campaigns have been carefully created, organically related and united in the objectives of delighting customers on the Smile network.

The “Perfect Gift” campaign and the “TRUE UnlimitedPremium” campaign. Each of these two campaigns muster enough benefits for

consumers to stand on its own steam but the desire to delight customers at this Yuletide period has made Smile run the two campaigns concurrently.

The “Perfect Gift” campaign includes two offers. The first is available at the cost of N12,000 and includes 25GB with a new SMiFi device. The 25GB is valid for 30 days. Also included is a 100 percent bonus on recharge for the first three months. The bonus data will have higher priority of use over paid data and will be valid for seven days. In addition, customer will enjoy 10 minutes local voice calls and unlimited on-net calls and SMSs.

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The second offer give customers, at the cost of N14,500, 80GB with a new SMiFi device. To extend the data into the new year, the 80GB is split into 50GB on activation and 5GB every month following, for 6 months, upon recharge of a minimum of a N3,000 data plan. Both the 50GB and the 5GB monthly bonus data is valid for 30 days. This offer also includes 10 minutes local voice calls and unlimited on-net calls and SMSs. The telecommunications service provider has revealed that for a limited period, its customers that currently subscribe to the Smile UnlimitedPremium plan will experience true

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unlimited internet with “No Limit”.

Akin Alayoku, Ag. managing director of Smile Communications assured that the UnlimitedPremium plan embodies all the intrinsic elements that are the hall mark of Smile’s customer-centric value.

These include great products offerings, extensive usage and unrestricted choice.

“The market is moving much faster in the broadband direction and we want Nigerians to maximize the benefits of the broadband revolution by offering them true unlimited internet with no limit,” said Alayoku.

Designed to delight its subscrib-

@Businessdayng

ers, the UnlimitedPremium plan is believed to be “Nigeria’s only TRUEUnlimited internet” and is available to customers on Smile’s 4G LTE network for only N19,800.

While observing that the state of the economy poses enormous challenges to many Nigerians, Alayoku surmised that the TRUEUnlimited internet offer is partly to help cushion the effect of the inclement economic situation. He invited existing customers, who are on the Smile network, as well as new customers to take advantage of the TRUEUnlimited internet offer and to have a very blissful Yuletide.

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E-mail: jumoke.akiyode@businessdayonline.com

Smartphone competition deepens, as new entrants flood Nigeria with cutting edge technology Jumoke Akiyode-Lawanson

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espite economic lull and consumer income contraction in Nigeria, smartphone manufacturers still find the country attractive, as they scramble to outdo each other, introducing state of the art technology in the market.

Nigeria has over the past few years become home to smartphone giants such as Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Tecno, infinix, LG, HTC and Nokia lumia among others, and the the last one year, the country has welcomed a number of new smartphone entrants like Vivo, Oppo and Xiaomi amongst many others into its budding market.

Interestingly, in only a short time, these new brands have already stiffened the competition and increased consumers’ expectations.

Analysts say the smartphone companies are attracted by Nigeria’s demography of mainly young people,as well as technology gaps in the country and huge market size.

To many, smartphone is companionship – in fact your smartphone is an extension of you.

These days, we literally grind to a halt when our phones go dead or even worse, when it’s stolen. This explains why the smartphone mar-

ket might never reach its limit no matter how many mobile phone brands emerge annually.

Vivo smartphone brand although new to the Nigerian market has been in existence since 2009.

Over the years, the brand has built a name for itself in the corridors of innovation and premium quality with the launch of its different products/features including being the first smartphone brand to launch the in-display fingerprint on a smartphone as well as the first to introduce the dual pop up elevating camera ahead of other older and popular brands.

Its entrance into the Nigerian market came with the launch of its flagship product-V17Pro. This stylish device dons amazing features that will not only compete with flagships from competitors but may displace them.

Vivo V17 Pro comes with six high-end cameras and debuts the first ever Elevating Dual Pop-Up Front Camera of 32MP and 8MP (Wide Angle Camera). This front camera also comes with a Selfie Softlight which makes pictures captured in low light environments very clear.

The rear of the V17 Pro is home to an AI Quad Camera and each of the four cameras have distinctive features, ranging from a 48MP main camera which comes with a Sony IMX582 sensor at a 1/2” size, 0.8 micrometer pixels and a large

F/1.8 aperture to the 8MP Wide Angle Camera that expands landscape shots further.

9mobile partners Google, Transsion to boost affordability of smartphones, high-speed internet Jumoke Akiyode-Lawanson

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o further demonstrate its commitment to providing high-speed data experience and deepen mobile broadband internet access, 9mobile has collaborated with technology company, Google and mobile devices manufacturer, Transsion, the parent company of Tecno, Infinix and Itel brands, to roll-out an offer that puts smartphones in the hands of more Nigerians.

Through this latest initiative, both new and existing customers of 9mobile can own select Transsion

smartphones that run on Android’s optimised Go version which focuses on speed, storage, data management and security, bundled with an exciting data bonus from 9mobile.

According to 9mobile, the partnership will allow its customers make a choice from any of Tecno, Pop 2 and Pop 2 Power, as well as Itel A33, P33 Plus and S15, or the Infinix Hot 8 Lite.

Commenting on the offer, Layi Onafowokan, acting director, marketing for 9mobile, said users get an exciting and affordable data offer upon purchase of any of the smartphones.

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“Customers who purchase select Tecno and Itel phone models (Tecno, Pop 2, Pop 2 Power and Itel A33, P33 Plus and S15) will enjoy 2G free signup data bonus upon activation and also receive 100 per cent bonus on all data plans purchased from N1,000 and above for the first six months plus 50 per cent data bonus on all data plans from N1,000 and above from the seventh to twelfth month,” Onafowokan said.

Speaking further, he added that Customers who purchase Infinix Hot 8 Lite are not left out of the fun as they get up to 4Gb free sign-up data bonus upon activation plus 100 per cent bonus on all data plans purchased from N1,000 and above for the first six months, while 50 per cent bonus on all data plans purchased from N1,000 and above will apply from months seven to twelve.

9mbile says that the key objective of this latest offer is to enable both new and existing customers on its mobile network, own quality smartphones and browse seamlessly.

“This offer exemplifies the premium we place on our customers that motivates us to continue to explore partnerships that deliver true value for their money while delivering exceptional internet browsing experience,” the company stated.

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Also, there is a bokeh and macro camera in which, the macro camera helps capture every detail

in close up images taken four centimeters away. To complete the professional shot options, the V17 Pro features two impressive beautifying features, namely the “Pose Master” feature which offers cool and natural poses to match a variety of photo scenes, and the “Super Night Mode” feature that enhances clarity even for late night shots. One more fascinating thing about the vivo V17 Pro camera is the way the dual pop-up retracts automatically when the device is in free fall.

Due to the peculiarity of the camera, many would assume there would be a notch on the phone to accommodate all of these, but surprisingly, vivo has found a way to brilliantly conceal the camera, earpiece and sensor, in order to allow users to enjoy a fantastic visual experience, and the V17 Pro is supported by Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 AIE processor with 8GB RAM + 128GB ROM which ensures performance for applications and enhances system performance. The 4100mAh battery allows the phone to last all day long even with heavy usage.

Despite the continuous inflow of smartphones into the Nigerian market, brands like vivo are obviously making a conscious effort to provide consumers with mobile innovations that would improve their lifestyle and meet their mobile technology needs.

IT Horizons paves way for new wave local software

...rebrands to further drive innovative transformation BUNMI BAILEY

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T Horizons Limited, an indigenous Information and Communications Technology (ICT) company has rebranded and created a new subsidiary company with solutions insight that is set to birth the new wave of software solutions called ‘Zojatech’.

Zojatech is a software solutions company that helps with building custom application and provides ready-made solutions that elevate technology and people to reach new heights.

The company which recently celebrated its 7th year anniversary is a top provider of network, collaboration solutions, data center transformation, cyber security, managed and outsourced services delivering expertise through a team focused on customer satisfaction. It has greatly contributed to Nigeria’s ICT eco-system by driving transformation through innovation.

Speaking during the anniversary event, Olusegun Dada, the managing director of the company appreciated the company’s clients for their loyalty, patronage and commitment to the New IT Horizons “Firstly, it is through handwork that we got to seven years; secondly, we are also celebrating our amazing clients. We cannot talk @Businessdayng

about progress without appreciation to the people who have kept us in business,” he said.

Dada further said “Celebrating the unveiling of our rebranded company which we are reintroducing to you called “New IT Horizons”. The New IT Horizons is all about harnessing the chain reaction of ICT transformation and what this means for the clients is an invitation to be part of a transformation experience that yields tangible, on-going value, high –energy and emotionally exciting,” The federal government recognizes the ICT sector as the enabler for developing other critical sectors including agriculture and manufacturing. Thus, in its drive to diversify the economy from oil and gas, the government is encouraging partnerships between local ICT companies and multinational/foreign investors.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the contribution of the ICT sector to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) rose to 11.34 percent in the third quarter which is lower than 14.55 percent in the preceding quarter, but higher than 10.55 percent in the same quarter of last year.

Industry stakeholders say that New IT Horizon, which is a key player in the sector, is a contributor to the increased positive impact of ICT to Nigeria’s economy.

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INSIGHT

A Legacy that preserves legacies A Keynote address delivered by Dr. Omobola Johnson, at FBNQuest Trustees 40th Anniversary

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any congratulations to FBNQuest Trustees on your 40th anniversary. I note that FirstBank of Nigeria (FBN), celebrated 125 years a few months back so you were born in your parents old age which makes you very wise, and wise you are indeed.

You have been through three name changes – Standard Trustees Nigeria Ltd, First Trustees Nigeria, FBN Trustees Ltd and now FBNQuest Trustees Limited. But these are not changes for changes sake. Each name change came with a re-alignment of the business to changing market conditions; to your customer expectations and of course to your positioning and contribution in the FBN Group.

Today, your share capital has grown from N30m in 2001 to N3bn, your near liquid assets under management stands at N50bn and you are managing estates valued at over N2trillion naira. Our profit after tax has grown year on year for the last 20 years.

Which brings me to the substance of this keynote address.

A closer and deeper look at the construct of legacies.

A legacy is something that is left behind when someone passes; with this definition we tend to think of the ‘something’ left behind as a thing of financial or monetary value and this is where Trustee businesses such as FBNQuest Trustees come in. A legacy is also defined as something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past.

Sometimes this could be financial and sometimes not.

But there is broader definition of legacy that I came across that I really like and it reads ‘ a legacy is more about sharing what you have learned, not just what you have earned, and bequeathing values over valuables, as material wealth is only a small fraction of legacy” I like this definition because I have some personal experience of it.

We can also think about the legacies that famous people have also left – Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela and Marie Curie. The theory of relativity, non-violent protests, love for the poor and downtrodden of the earth, tolerance and forgiveness, the invention of penicillin. Impactful legacies that have transcended their

lives from people of little to moderate means.

And then there are the legacies that have been left through the significant wealth that individuals earned in their lifetime.

The Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and in the Nigerian context, foundations like Dangote, TY Danjuma, Tony Elumelu, Aigboje Aig Imokhuede to name a few; all focussed on moving the needle on what they are most concerned and passionate about. These are all individual legacies, driven by the passions, interests and concerns of the individual.

But because we are celebrating an institution today we must expand the notion of legacy to talk about institutional legacies.

What exactly is an institutional legacy? An institutional legacy is the visible outcome of internal processes, systems and behaviours that are deployed to run an organisation on a daily basis. These could be processes, systems and behaviours which could include; Governance, Profitability, Employee satisfaction, Customer satisfaction, Customer loyalty, Innovation and Industry leadership.

An institution could choose to build a legacy of good governance possibly evidenced in a strong and deep leadership bench and succession plan that facilitates smooth and non-disruptive transitions at the board

or management level.

An institution could also choose to build a legacy of employee satisfaction by focussing on exciting career opportunities for young people, a transparent meritocracy for career progress within the organisation, competitive compensation.

These are just examples and this is not to say that one must choose to build only one type of legacy. Indeed, one company can choose to build legacies in all of the areas and examples I have just mentioned.

Now I don’t think that any institution or individual ever sets out to build a bad legacy.

But the truth is that there are many examples of institutions and individuals who have left bad legacies.

Let me use the notion of profitability and the history of corporate America to illustrate this point.

In the 1800s in America, companies were run on the basis of creating value for all stakeholders. This approach to running a company was apparently quite inefficient and the financial owners of the companies felt that they were being short-changed. This ushered in the era of efficiency and profitability – where satisfying the shareholder became the sole purpose of an organisation; the implication being that profitability and dividend distribution should be the focus of the company. This era justified

the short termism of processes and systems – companies lived from quarter to quarter. Hitting or missing quarterly profitability targets was a death knell for company share price and the CEOs compensation. The general belief then was that if a company focussed on profit then everything else would fall into place. This was a widely held belief. Management and Boards across the nation relentlessly pursued profitability and they genuinely thought that were building great companies and great legacies that would last forever. The global financial crisis of the 2000’s demonstrated quite painfully that this was not the case. It was clear that profitability was a necessary but not sufficient goal for an organisation. In the meantime, these bad legacies resulted in spectacular failure of companies with substantial collateral damage as well.

For individual legacies, there is the story of Alfred Nobel whose obituary was erroneously published instead of that of his brother who had just passed.

It read ‘The merchant of death is dead….Dr Alfred Nobel who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday’. This was because Alfred Nobel was a chemist and innovator who invented dynamite. Alfred Nobel was devastated that this was the legacy that he would leave behind when he passed and so

in his last will and testament he set aside the bulk of his estate to establish the Nobel prizes.

Now he is mostly remembered for the Nobel prizes and not the invention of dynamite.

So how does one go about leaving a good legacy. One school of thought says that you should have the end in mind and then live your life to work toward the end that you want.

Defining what impact you want to have on the world and then going out and doing it. Some schools of thought say you should first of all decide what is important in your life, what you care about and then focus on and prioritise those things.

That will be your legacy.

These are very valid ways to being purposeful about leaving a legacy and you can’t fault them. But the truth is that life happens and sometimes focussing on only what you think you care about could end up with you leaving a lesser legacy and not living as impactful a life as you could.

It’s one thing to be purposeful about having the end in mind and thinking through what impact you want to make in the world. It is not enough to shout it from the rooftops; one has to be very deliberate about it as well.

May we as individuals and owners and employees of institutions live to leave good lasting legacies.

Thank you.

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Investments

ENERGY INTELLIGENCE

Market Insight Companies Commodity Tracker Policy

OIL

GAS

PETROCHEMICALS

POWER

NLNG considers supplying liquefied natural gas to domestic market

Nigeria nears publication of beneficial ownership

ISAAC ANYAOGU

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he Nigerian LNG is considering supply liquefied natural gas to the Nigerian market to help Africa’s largest economy dent an acute energy poverty that sees industries spend over a quarter of their revenue on power generation.

BusinessDay gathers that this initiative was discussed recently at an exploratory meeting in Lagos recently with stakeholders in the LNG value chain. The company sees this move as a possible catalyst for industrial growth in the country.

According to a WorldBank study, erratic power supply in Nigeria results in over $29billion loss to the economy. This has given rise to different businesses seeking opportunities to address this energy gap. It has spawned the off-grid sector with new investors moving to supply power to rural communities.

NLNG, by this initiative could allow power plants comatose due to abscence of gas feedstock come on stream. Power plants built over ten years ago are not operational because they are located far away from gas sources.

The NLNG plan to supply local market LNG may just be what

ISAAC ANYAOGU

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is required to galvanise these plants into action.

LNG is a super-cooled natural gas, chilled to -160 degrees Celsius to condense and reduce the volume which allows for cost-effective transportation over long distances. The company produces around 22 million tonnes per annum of LNG from its six-train plant on Bonny Island.

LNG buyers take delivery of their volumes in receiving facilities spread across the Atlantic Basin in countries such as Spain, France, Portugal and Italy. Now the company is considering producing volumes of the LNG for domestic consumption.

In the past, the company has supplied natural gas liquids

including LPG a by-product of natural gas liquefaction process to the domestic market. It commenced supply of LPG to the Nigerian domestic market in 2007.

According to the company information on its website, it has signed Sales and Purchase Agreements (SPAs) with 15 offtakers (all Nigerian companies) in which the company is committed to deliver up to 250,000 tonnes of LPG into the Nigerian market annually, in line with the commitment to grow the domestic LPG market in Nigeria.

“When operational, it has the potential to stimulate the economy through increased industrial activities in line with NLNG vision of helping to build a better Nigeria,” an official of the

company said.

However, this will require the construction of receiving facilities for the gas before they are used to produce power.

Under the arrangements such as the Eligible Customer, power producers have the ability to sell power directly to electricity consumers especially large industries, estates and educational facilities.

Nigeria’s power generation has lagged its peers with average power available on the national grid for distribution hovering between 3000 and 4000MW. Industries have had to depend on private power generation to remain competitive while others run diesel-powered generators which pollute the environment and raise cost.

OML 113: PetroNor’s agreement with Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum creates Aje Petroleum DIPO OLADEHINDE

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he separate investment and shareholders agreement concerning OML 113 between two Lagos based companies PetroNor E&P and Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum(YFP) has created a joint Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) called Aje petroleum, to further develop the oil and gas field.

According to the details of the contracts seen by BusinessDay, the ownership of Aje Petroleum is to be shared between YFP and PetroNor on the basis of a 55percent and 45percent shareholding respectively.

The contract established a board consisting of five directors with two nominated by each of YFP and PetroNor and one independent director and one of YFP’s nominated directors will be the Chairman.

Jens Pace, Chief Executive Officer of PetroNor said the agreement with YFP is a key step in establishing a means to create partner alignment around PetroNor proposed concepts for the future development of the Aje Field.

“Following government approvals, the Company will advance plans for increasing liquids

production, and developing the discovered gas resources,” Pace said in a statement.

The Aje oil and gas field began producing in May 2016 with oil processed and exported from a leased FPSO, the Front Puffin. It has produced a cumulative of 3.6 million barrels of oil and condensate as of August 1, 2019.

Aje has multiple oil, gas and gas condensate reservoirs in the Turonian, Cenomanian and Albian sandstones with five wells drilled to date. It currently has two producing wells, Aje-4 in the Cenomanian and Aje-5 in the Turonian both producing about 3000 bpd. The field’s proven reserves are 82.4 million barrels of oil equivalent, while proven,

probable and possible reserves are estimated to be 220.8 million boe.

“We are very happy working with YFP and their advisor Redcliff Energy Advisors in the joint effort to finalise this agreement.

We look forward to aligning with rest of the licence partners and the government of Nigeria for the future development of the Aje Field,” Eyas Alhomouz, Chairman of Petronor and incoming board member of Aje Petroleum said.

Knut Sovold, Chief Operating Officier of PetroNor and incoming Technical Manager for Aje Petroleum, said the fundamentals of the Aje Field have being very encouraging and “we are looking forward to working closely with

our partners on the licence to review and approve these plans.”

The YFP agreement sets out the contribution by YFP and YFP Deep Water (YFP DW) of their shareholding in the companies holding the YFP and YFP DW participating and economic interest in OML 113 to the partnership and the SPV. Similarly, PetroNor will contribute its shareholding in companies holding its participating and economic interest in OML 113, which is being acquired from Panoro Energy.

Following completion, Aje Petroleum w ill hold a 7 5 . 5 p e rc e n t p a r t i c i p a t i n g interest and an average economic interest in the order of 38.7percent in OML 113, with an initial 29percent economic interest at the onset of the transaction.

The Aje field was discovered in 1997 and is 24 kilometres offshore Nigeria located on oil mining lease (OML) 113 in water depths of about 1,476 ft.

Aje field is reputed as the first and only oilfield in Nigeria where exploration and appraisal activities have been undertaken solely by indigenous Nigerian companies without the direct involvement of an international oil company (IOC).

he Department of Petroleum Resources, (DPR) a regulator of the upstream sector says that it close to completing a framework for the disclosure and publication of owners of companies in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry.

Sixty one years after crude oil was discovered in Nigeria, a record of the true owners of oil acreages remains illusory helping to keep the sector opaque and giving room for corruption.

According to the DPR, it is creating the framework along with the Extractive Industry Transparency International (EITI). The organisation said it will make it public on January 1, 2020.

“The joint committee of DPR and NEITI, with their consultant, working on beneficial ownership register, has worked so hard on the target. It has developed a framework for the register itself,” said Ahmad Rufai Shakur, acting director, DPR Shakur further said, “We have done a test-run and we are 80 per cent ready to get the register in place,” he said, adding, “it is going to be a very tasking work, because we shall keep updating as the farming-in and farming out continue.”

Earlier this year, the European Commission added Saudi Arabia, Pnama, Nigeria and twenty other countries to a blacklist of nations that pose a threat because of lax controls, terrorism financing and money laundering and a key reason is the lack of transparency over the beneficial owners of companies and trusts.

Inclusion in this list indicates reputational damage to the country and further complicates financial relations with the European Union. this means that banks in the EU will have to carry out additional checks on payments involving entities from listed jurisdictions.

Though the government of President Muhammadu Buhari has made fighting corruption a key pillar of its government, it has often been criticised for tardy response to corrupt government officials with ties to the president and lack of political will to carry out legal reforms that could check corruption as indicated by the President’s refusal to assent the Audit bill which demands greater accountability from government’s ministries and agencies.

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ENERGY INTELLIGENCE Natural gas complementary transition fuel to support renewables - Sylva ISAAC ANYAOGU

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atural gas can become important complementary transition fuel to support renewable energy in the short‐ and medium‐term transition phases thus a revaluation of the goal of zero fossil fuel as a short‐ and medium‐term solution is now required, Timipre Sylva, minister of state for Petroleum Resources has said.

The minister who was represented by Justice Derefaka, technical adviser, gas business and policy implementation, to the minister of State, Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva on his behalf in Port Harcourt at the 2nd edition of the Power to Power summit which held December 6 and 7, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, organized by the Society for Petroleum Engineers (SPD) argued that it was not in Nigeria’s interest to completely discard fossil fuels.

Sylva said that in a world of surging energy demand, Nigeria will need to mobilise the nation’s entire mix of energy sources “unless we want to risk condemning millions of Nigerians to energy

poverty. And in that mix, natural gas, as the cleanest burning fossil fuel, will play a prominent role in the decades to come.”

The minister acknowledged that energy consumption is changing as more emphasis is now geared towards cutting carbon emissions and safe-

guarding the planet for future generations. A decline in renewable energy costs has led to exponential growth of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. More attention is paid to energy efficiency and smarter and sustainable technologies are being deplored

Market

Charging industries N80/Kwh will inject N400 bn annually into power sector -PwC DIPO OLADEHINDE

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ultinational consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has said the power sector could see injection of estimated N400 billion every year if industries pay a tariff of N80/Kwh rather than the current average rate of N52.4, Speaking at the yearly power and utilities roundtable organized by PwC, themed “Financing the Power sector: The facts, fiction and the future”, Andrew Nevin, partner and chief economist at PwC Nigeria, advocated for improved revenue collection, metering of consumers and review of energy tariff to check losses suffered by value-chain operators.

“We assume the average charge of N80/Kwh at 50percent electricity supplied to industries while other consumer categories maintain the current Multi Year Tariff Order charges will inject an estimated N400 billion into the power sector annually,” Nevin told the audience.

At tariff charge of N80/ Kwh, Nigeria’s electricity tariff is still below most developed industrialized countries such as Finland with an electricity tariff of $314.96, Germany with an electricity tariff of

$142.94 and Japan with an electricity tariff of $120.48.

According to PwC, the effect of charging industries a tariff of N80/Kwh and supplying 50percent of electricity received by DisCos to industries at a constant time will have a spill over effect on the economy and increase the level of manufacturing GDP from N6.4 trillion to N13.3 trillion.

Nevin said electricity distribution companies in the country posted a total loss of N931billion from 2014 to 2017, adding that a minimum estimated revenue of N1 trillion was required by DisCos to break even.

“Discos in Nigeria continue to report losses; hence, they pay only an estimated minimum tax, based on turnover instead of the 30 per cent company income tax, which is higher and would have resulted in significant tax revenues for the government,” Nevin said.

Other stakeholders in the power value-chain noted that consumers only pay for about 1,000MW of the average 3,500MW energy distributed daily, hence causing a dislocation in the value chain.

Ebipere Clark, senior special assistant on Energy and Power to the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, said

some of the interventions in the power sector have been repaid, adding that focus should be on revenue collections for viability in the sector.

“It has been observed that maximum demand on the grid is at 9 pm, showing that many households use energy at that time. There should be transparency in consumption billing and collection, rather than focusing solely on the tariff”, Clark said.

On his part, Chiedu Ugbo, managing director/CEO of Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), in his keynote address advocated for the need to explore alternative financing models that would spur economic growth and revitalise the power sector.

Citing various models that have been adopted in the country, Ugbo noted that private investment remains the future power financing in Nigeria in view of the huge capital requirement of the sector.

He, however, identified the need for the government to play its role in the market with the well-coordinated policy as it is currently doing under the Power Sector Recovery Plan – with Payment Assurance Facility (PAF) of N701billion and N600billion as precursors.

www.businessday.ng

yet fossil fuel need to be play complementary roles.

“Sustainable development is a contested concept and varies with priorities attached to social, economic, and environmental goals. Hence, the one‐ size‐fits‐all type of solution model needs to be widened, to speed up action in the short to medium term.

“Whilst we are looking at the transition to renewable based clean energy systems for the future, we should not forget that to get out of oil and gas, we need oil and gas,” the minister said.

Sylva said that natural gas, as the cleanest burning fossil fuel, will play a prominent role in the decades to come based on Nigeria’s rising population projected to be world’s third largest by 2050 and the abundance of natural gas in Nigeria.

“And despite the critical role of renewables, they cannot provide all the world’s energy needs. Renewables chiefly power electricity, which only meets around 20% of global energy demand,” the minister said.

Meanwhile analysts say Ni-

geria is not creating the needed policy environment to tap into its vast gas resources. Nigeria is yet to encourage exploration for gas through setting up competitive fiscal terms for gas.

A regulated gas pricing also impedes investments and gas flaring is yet to be eradicated even though the ministry has created a plan to tackle it.

“Will we invest in our gasbased industry and future and prepare for it judiciously – in a way that avoids unnecessary interruption? I will leave you to decide that,” says the Minister. But only forward-looking regulations can attract much needed investments.

The organisers say the summit provides a platform for stakeholders to find solutions to the most important issues in the sector. This year’s summit was intended to deepen symbiotic engagements between the Petroleum and Energy Industries to discuss the future of Energy Utilization with a focus on solutions and technologies that will aid the transition to renewable based clean energy systems with zero carbon emissions.

Natural gas can be key driver in West Africa’s industrialisation - Axxela ISAAC ANYAOGU

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xxela Limited, a gas & power portfolio company, has underlined its commitment to the region’s industrialization through the build out of its natural gas infrastructure.

Speaking at the recently held Ghana Gas Forum (GGF) in Accra, Ghana, Tunde BabaAgba, Axxela Head of Sales and Marketing, said: “Natural gas is now highly regarded as a key resource of the energy sector, and a key component geared towards value creation for West Africa’s economies.

“We’re confident that our strategic initiatives and the expansion of our operational footprint particularly within the virtual pipeline, gas processing and distribution, and embedded power spaces will help unlock the vast potential within important economic clusters across the region.”

A Helios Investment Partners LLP portfolio company, Axxela is a designated natural gas shipper on the West African Gas Pipeline (WAGP). The company is also the pioneering private sector-led developer of natural gas distribution in Nigeria, delivering at peak 80 million standard cubic feet per day to over 175 industrial and commercial customers via a vast network of gas infrastructure.

With over 280km in gas pipeline infrastructure built,

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Axxela provides unique energy solutions primarily through its main subsidiaries: Gaslink Nigeria Limited, Gas Network Services Limited, and Central Horizon Gas Company Limited.

Across our operations, the company has implemented Remote Monitoring and Control Systems, a robust security and real-time flow monitoring system across the network, which integrates software and hardware components for remote monitoring of the gas pipelines and manages gas distribution.

The system controls processes remotely, retrieves and processes data into useful information in seconds. It is able to process data faster for billing and invoicing. It also detects a shortage, absent supply or a pipeline that has been vandalised and can communicate this processed information in the form of reports, alarms, and alerts. It can manage these reports for speedy decision making and it is compatible with state-ofthe-art gas distribution equipment. The company said it is developed to help serve its industrial customers.

Addressing regional collaboration and integration, Senam Gbeho, head of the executive committee, The Gas Consortium, organizers of the event, said: “By implementing the right policies and decision-making structures, @Businessdayng

the region’s gas resources can be the catalyst that eliminates the continent’s distressing poverty levels. With the combined population and market size of the respective countries within the region, a real opportunity exists to collectively leverage existing gas resources, pursuant of an industrialization for economic transformation and social welfare.”

Held annually, the Ghana Gas Forum is an indigenous knowledge resource suited to players in the natural gas industry with shared interests in policymaking and gas monetization efforts within Ghana and the sub-region.

This year’s forum was themed ‘Promoting Dynamic Policymaking towards the Optimization of Regional Gas Resources’, with discourse centered on relevant gas policy issues that impact the sustainable development of the gas sector by promoting a crossdisciplinary understanding of policy tools and options.

“It is important that we preserve the value proposition of gas as a relative cheaper fuel compared to other alternatives. Consequently, our active participation in roundtables and continuous engagement with governments across the West African corridor is critical in the development of dynamic markets with proper commercialization framework and reliable gas supply in place,” remarked Baba-Agba.

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Tuesday 10 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

OFFGRID BUSINESS

Why we succeeded at providing power for millions without energy access – Ogunbiyi ISAAC ANYAOGU

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amilola Ogunbiyi, CEO/managing director at Rural Electrification Agency (REA) is taking a position next year as a special representative for Sustainable Energy for All and Co-Chair of United Nations-Energy. Under her leadership, the REA has driven private sector participation in the off-grid energy space and is perhaps the sector attracting top talents and foreign direct investments.

Ogunbiyi attributes the organisation’s success to having a committed team, superiors who believed in her vision giving her a free hand to operate and the dogged determination to achieve the organisation’s goals.

As part of the programme of Solar Future Conference which held in Lagos from December 5 and6, Ogunbiyi had frank onstage discussion with Frank Aigbogun, Publisher/ CEO of BusinessDay as she answered questions including from the audience about her role at REA. For Ogunbiyi, the pay was always going to be challenge. She left a job with a foreign organisation to ac-

Damilola Ogunbiyi and Frank Aigbogun at Solar Energy Conference in Lagos, December 5.

cept the role of running... under Fashola as governor of lagos where the salary of special assistant was N80,000.

She encountered the same problem trying to bring on a team when she was running REA. She had to rely on donor funding and integrating them into the civil service to hire quality hands.

But in the main, this was a sacrifice because, the poor remuneration aside, working in Nigeria’s public service

presents challenges from expectations that appointments be made on the basis of federal character rather than competency and even citing projects where they may not make the most impact to achieve national spread.

“There is a pivotal moment when you sacrifice for the nation, if I didn’t make the sacrifice including receiving much lower pay, I won’t be able to make a difference now,” Ogunbiyi said.

Aigbogun was keen to know what her biggest accomplishments are and Ogunbiyi ranked the training of young women to be the next generation of entrepreneurs and installers as her most rewarding success.

“Next is show people that in Nigeria you can have 24 hour power. it is happening in hospitals and schools and homes. Power is not a nice to have is a difference between life and death. You’re likely to

die from even malaria without power.

Ogunbiyi said the world cannot achieve any of the other SDGs without SDG7 which address energy poverty. “I feel that a lot of people do not know there is need for emergency, we run the risk of actually going backward because of our population growth if we do not treat energy access as an emergency,” Ogunbiyi said.

According to the REA boss, her next most rewarding accomplishments is enabling private sector to drive the growth in the offgrid sector leading to significant progress in mobilising international support for this sector.

To avoid the same challenges in the on-grid space, Ogunbiyi said the agency emphasised the use of data to drive policy decisions and this helped to attract private sector support. One example is in metering, all consumers in the off-grid energy space are metered allowing for fairness.

Several visits to mini-grid projects and even solar home system solutions deplored in rural areas show that they pay at least two times what consumers who rely on the national grid for power pay as tariff. Asked how she was

able to convince government officials to allow this when they are kicking against tariff increase in the ongrid sector, Ogunbiyi said she was deliberate about insisting that market contracts determine transactions between power producers and consumers in the off-grid energy space. “ I said from the onset that If we can’t agree on willing buyer/willing seller tariff, I wasn’t going to do it. We can’t cap a tariff for mini grid. If the customer and community are willing to pay, that is what we do. At the beginning of a sector boom, you can’t cap the tariff, otherwise you can’t get the investment,” Ogunbiyi.

Yet according to her, she counselled the president against raising tariff in the ongrid space until two criteria said were prevalent in other jurisdiction where tariffs have gone up had been met – universal metering and service improvement.

“We haven’t had these in Nigeria. Many people do not have a meter and someone is telling them I am going to double your tariff, it doesn’t go down well with them. I have seen some improvements but I think that tariff should go up in such a subtle way to avoid backlash from the public.”

Renewable off-grid solutions solve electricity, employment problems in Nigeria, Kenya STEPHEN ONYEKWELU

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ccess to energy represents one of Nigeria’s and many other African countries greatest obstacle to social and economic development; this has also affected job creation. Renewable off-grid solutions are changing this.

Few indicators are sufficient to draw a picture of a continent where the energy sector is dramatically underdeveloped, at a time when growing populations and prospects of economic growth would require more energy.

However, the rise of decentralised renewable energy as a solution to electrification rates across Africa—the slowest growing globally—is also bringing with it a solution to high unemployment.

As startups in the space continue to prove the viability of their services as alternatives to traditional power grids, they are starting to create direct jobs at a scale that is already compa-

rable to local utilities.

According to a job census by Power for All, in Nigeria and Kenya the impact of renewable energy jobs are significant and still growing. Renewable energy companies in Kenya account for 10,000 jobs, only 1,000 fewer than the national utility, while in Nigeria the sector employs 4,000 in formal jobs compared to 10,000 employed across the country’s traditional energy sectors.

The mini-grid renew-

able the sector also relies heavily on informal work, employing twice as many people in the informal sector - 15,000 in Kenya, and 9,000 in Nigeria. “In terms of monthly earnings, the survey data does not provide a full picture of an informal worker’s total monthly income across various income streams,” the report stated.

With the growth in market adoption and investment-fueled expansion is expected to continue to

grow, so will the sector’s job creation impact: renewable energy jobs are projected to grow by 70 percent in Kenya and over 100 percent in Nigeria over the next four years. The impact is also much wider once you factor in both informal jobs in the sector as well as jobs created thanks to improved electricity supply and access.

Decentralised renewable energy is also creating jobs in other parts of the world. In densely populated countries like China, Brazil, United States, and India the rise of decentralised renewable energy as a solution to electrification problem is also bringing with it a solution to high unemployment.

According to a 2019 report by International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) China remains the clear leader in renewable energy employment as 39 percent of renewable energy jobs around the world are in china with a total of 4.1 million jobs created

ANALYSTS: Isaac Anyaogu (Team Lead), Stephen Onyekwelu, Dipo Oladehinde

in the first quarter of 2019.

China’s 2018 wind employment is estimated at 510 000 jobs, roughly the level of the previous year while solar Photovoltaic (PV) generated 2.2 million jobs.

In Brazil, the biofuels sector remains the most important renewable energy employer generating over 832,000 jobs. IRENA’s employment factor calculations suggest that Brazil presently has close to 15,600 jobs in solar PV, mostly in construction and installation while wind energy has generated 34,000 jobs.

In the United States, the liquid biofuels, solar, and wind industries are the largest employers in the renewable energy field. IRENA’s 2019 report reveals biofuels has generated 311,000 jobs while solar and wind energy has generated 242,000 and 114,000 jobs respectively.

Globally, IRENA said renewable energy sector employed 11 million people in 2018 compared with 10.3 million in 2017 although employment remains con-

centrated in a handful of countries, with China, Brazil, the United States, India and members of the European Union in the lead while Asian countries’ share remained at 60percent of the global total.

“Several factors including national deployment and industrial policies, changes in the geographic footprint of supply chains and in trade patterns, and industr y consolidation trends — shape how and where jobs are created,” IRENA’s 2019 report noted.

IRENA’s report noted that increasingly diverse geographic footprint of energy-generation capacities and, to a lesser degree, assembly and manufacturing plants has created jobs in a rising number of countries.

Also, IRENA’s report acknowledged that rising offgrid solar sales are translating into growing numbers of jobs in the context of expanding energy access and spurring economic activities in previously isolated communities.

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email: isaac.anyaogu@businessday.ng, stephen.onyekwelu@businessdayonline.com, oladehinde.oladipo@businessdayonline.com

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Tuesday 10 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

Live @ The Exchanges Investors lose N85bn Infrastructure fund will aid development – SEC as profit taking actions continue

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Stories by Iheanyi Nwachukwu

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quity investors at the Nigerian Bourse lost about N85billion on Monday December 9 as the market continues to record significant profit taking action. Investors’ decisions to sell down stocks that had moved higher in previous trading sessions are impacting on pricing.

This development on Custom Street further creates fear on the possibility of witnessing Santa rally in next two week.

Snapshot of the market shows the value of listed stocks on the Bourse which opened the trading week at N12.962 trillion decreased to N12.877trillion at the sound of closing gong.

GTBank Plc shares recorded the highest price decline from N29.9 to N29, losing 90kobo or 3.01percent. Cadbury Nigeria Plc also decreased from N9.9 to N9.05, losing 85kobo or 8.59percent, while Berger Paint Plc dropped from N7.5 to N6.75, losing 75kobo or 10percent.

On the gainers table, Eterna

Plc advanced most, from N2.8 to N3, adding 20kobo or 7.14percent, followed by Masard which moved up from N1.65 to N1.8, adding 15kobo or 9.09percent, while Cornerstone Insurance rose from 63kobo to 68kobo, adding 5kobo or 7.94percent.

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All Share Index (ASI) which opened at 26,855.52 points decreased by 0.65percent to 26,681.31 points.

The market has decreased by 1.19 percent this month while this year’s negative returns increased to 15.11percent.

Market watchers observed more profit taking activities on Banking and Industrial stocks that hitherto benefited the most during the previous short rally.

In 3,594 deals, equity buyers exchanged 192,684,587 units valued at N3.547billion. Zenith Bank, UACN, Dangote Cement, FBN Holdings, FCMB were actively traded stocks on the Bourse.

“We however believe that current price levels remain attractive for new mid/long term investors to take position thus”, said Lagos-based analysts at Vetiva Securities Limited, who also expect to see some bargain hunting on Tuesday.

he Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has said that the establishment of an active infrastructure fund via the capital market as being pursued by capital market stakeholders would be immensely beneficial in closing the infrastructure gaps in the country.

Mary Uduk, acting Director General of the SEC stated this at the annual conference

of the Capital Market Correspondents Association of Nigeria in Lagos.

Represented by the Head External Relations Department of the SEC, Sufian Abdulkarim, Uduk said international capital markets are the largest and deepest pool of financing in the world, and in conjunction with local capital markets, which represent an essentially untapped source of funds for

infrastructure projects, they can make a huge contribution to economic development, if effective transaction structures are developed. Uduk said the government cannot be the sole provider/promoter of infrastructure projects, adding that private sector investment in infrastructure sector is also required.

According to her, “Given the need to bridge the infrastructure

HASAL MFB Board appoints NjoelEzeugo as managing director

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he Board of HASAL Microfinance Bank Limited has appointed Nwanna NjoelEzeugo as the new Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the bank.

The change in leadership position in the MfB is in line with industry regulatory guidelines, which require that a Chief Executive Officer of any of the lenders should not hold office more for than 10 years.

Njoel-Ezeugo, a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) and certified a Microfinance expert, takes over from Rogers Augustine Nwoke, the founder a n d p i o n e e r Ma na g i n g Director/CEO of the bank who, during his 11 years tenure, grew the MfB then from a unit MfB to a state MfB, with its current capital base standing at over N2 billion.

Nwoke, a Fellow of ICAN a n d a n aw a rd - w i n n i n g banker with over 26 years of cognate experience spanning the broad spectrum of the banking industry, positioned

HASAL MfB from one of the least players to become, through huge investments in technology, human resources and critical infrastructure, one of the 10 leading MfBs in the country today.

For instance, HASAL MfB is the first microfinance bank to integrate into InterSwitch network and commenced debit card issuance in 2010 and the first to introduce Point of Collection terminals to drive savings in rural areas and has today commenced Internet and USSD code banking processes Speaking about the change in the bank’s leadership, Nwoke, who is also the President of National Association of Microfinance Banks (NAMB), expressed satisfaction with the performance of the bank’s board and management over the years and charged the staff to support the new MD so that “our dream of making HASAL MfB the foremost player in the microfinance sub-sector and chief driver of financial inclusion in the country can be achieved soon.” www.businessday.ng

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deficit and the challenges of financing it, the county needs to leverage on alternative sources of infrastructure financing, such as the capital market. In view of the government’s bid to reverse the current growth trend, diversify the economy and develop infrastructure, there is no better time than now to leverage the capital market for sourcing of infrastructure development financing.

Tuesday 10 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

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NNPC calls for synergy among stakeholders to curb pipeline vandalism Olusola Bello

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orried by the monumental economic loss and health hazards associated with pipeline vandalism, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has called for collective efforts from all Nigerians and security agencies toward curbing the menace of oil pipeline vandalism in Nigeria.

Two unidentified individuals were burnt to death in the pipeline explosion in EgbeIdimu Local Council Development Area last week, while around 70 were said have sustained various degrees of injuries.

Adeyemi Adetunji, chief operating officer, Downstream operations, NNPC, made the call during an inspection visit to the site of a recent pipeline fire incident at Peace Estate, Baruwa, in Idimu axis of Lagos on Monday.

Adetunji said: “We are here this morning from NNPC to access the fire of December 5 at Baruwa village and what we see is that the fire has been contained and was put out within 24 hours.

“We thank the various agencies of government, the

Lagos State Fire Service, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Nigeria Police and Oilserv, our contractors on the line.”

He said everybody joined hands together to put off the fire, stating that company resumed pumping of products to Mosimi and Atlas Cove on Sunday.

According to Adetunji, everything is under control with enough products so there is no fear of any scarcity during the Yuletide and beyond.

He disclosed that some arrests have been made and investigation was ongoing, noting that the particular location had become notorious for pipeline vandalism.

“Last year, there was fire outbreak twice in this Baruwa area. And this year, we have had incidences in November and December. So, this area is prone to pipeline vandalism and we are doing our best in NNPC to ensure we have security, adequate maintenance and look at our right of way in terms of pipeline integrity.”

He appealed to the residents here, community leaders and religious leaders to ensure that they also protect our pipelines.

Renewable energy solutions dent electricity, employment challenges in Nigeria, Kenya STEPHEN ONYEKWELU

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ccess to energy represents one of Nigeria’s and many other African countries greatest obstacle to social and economic development; this has also affected job creation. Renewable off-grid solutions are changing this.

Few indicators are sufficient to draw a picture of a continent where the energy sector is dramatically underdeveloped, at a time when growing populations and prospects of economic growth would require more energy.

However, the rise of decentralised renewable energy as a solution to electrification rates across Africa - the slowest growing globally - is also bringing with it a solution to high unemployment.

As start-ups in the space continue to prove the viability of their services as alternatives to traditional power grids, they are starting to create direct jobs at a scale that is already comparable to local utilities.

According to a job census

by Power for All, in Nigeria and Kenya the impact of renewable energy jobs are significant and still growing. Renewable energy companies in Kenya account for 10,000 jobs, only 1,000 fewer than the national utility, while in Nigeria the sector employs 4,000 informal jobs compared to 10,000 employed across the country’s traditional energy sectors.

The mini-grid renewable the sector also relies heavily on informal work, employing twice as many people in the informal sector - 15,000 in Kenya, and 9,000 in Nigeria. “In terms of monthly earnings, the survey data does not provide a full picture of an informal worker’s total monthly income across

various income streams,” the report stated.

With the growth in market adoption and investmentfuelled expansion is expected to continue to grow, so will the sector’s job creation impact: renewable energy jobs are projected to grow by 70 percent in Kenya and over 100 percent in Nigeria over the next four years. The impact is also much wider once you factor in both informal jobs in the sector as well as jobs created thanks to improved electricity supply and access.

Decentralised renewable energy is also creating jobs in other parts of the world.

In densely populated countries like China, Brazil, United States, and India the rise of decentralised renewable energy as a solution to electrification problem is also bringing with it a solution to high unemployment.

According to 2019 report

by International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) China remains the clear leader in renewable energy employment as 39 percent of renewable energy jobs around the world are in china with a total of 4.1 million jobs created in the first quarter of 2019.

China’s 2018 wind employment is estimated at 510 000 jobs, roughly the level of the previous year while solar Photovoltaic (PV) generated 2.2 million jobs.

In Brazil, the biofuels sector remains the most important renewable energy employer generating over 832,000 jobs.

IRENA’s employment factor calculations suggest that Brazil presently has close to 15,600 jobs in solar PV, mostly in construction and installation while wind energy has generated 34,000 jobs. www.businessday.ng

L-R: Grace Omo-Lamai, human resource director; Adora Ikwuemesi, director/founder, Kendor Consulting; Emmanuel Michael, head of human capital, Letshego Microfinance Bank; Lola Esan, director, People Advisory Services, Ernst and Young, West Africa, and Julia Esezobor, head, group human resources, Honeywell Group Limited, during the seventh Human Resources Bootcamp conference held in Lagos.

Africa calls for more financial support for climate adaptation at COP25 Josephine Okojie, Madrid

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s extreme weather conditions continue to wreak havoc and put pressure on the ecosystem, Africa is asking for more financial support to easily adapt to threats posed by changing climate.

African Ministers made the request at a briefing at the ongoing 25th Conferences of Parties (COP25) taking place in Madrid, Spain, to demand more climate adaptation support and benefit from the carbon market.

Barbara Creecy, president, Africa Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN), says the Madrid conference has come at a pivotal time when science is sending

a clear message that the world faces a climate emergency that requires every individual to act with a renewed sense of urgency.

“The market must benefit Africa and help finance our adaptation efforts,” Creecy says.

“Africa also requires the Madrid conference to recognise the special needs and circumstances of African countries and to advance work towards achieving the Paris Agreement’s global goal on adaptation, review the work f Warsaw Mechanism on Loss and Damage and the Gender Action Plan,” she states further.

Creecy, who is also leading the South African delegation to the conference, says the impact of climate change is real on the

Student beats off competition to win UBA Foundation’s N2m educational grant KELECHI EWUZIE

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14-year-old pupil of Louisville Girls’ High School Ijebu Itele, Ogun State, Oluwatoroti Jolaosho, has emerged the overall winner of the 2019 UBA Foundation’s National Essay Competition, and with it an educational grant worth N2 million to study in any African university of her choice.

Jolaosho’s essay was adjudged the best from 11 other finalists selected from over 5,000 entries received by the UBA Foundation from students of senior secondary schools across Nigeria.

Bola Atta, managing director/CEO of UBA Foundation, while congratulating the winners Monday commended them for their exceptional brilliance.

Atta state d that U BA Foundation, being the corporate social responsibility (CSR) arm of UBA, makes it a point of duty to give back to communities where UBA operates, adding that the increase in the price money is due to the rising cost of education.

According to Atta, the bank remains committed to programmes that will help students strive for excellence.

Kennedy Uzoka, managing director/CEO of UBA, said UBA as a bank was happy that it was touching lives and making a solid impact through this competition and the grant it gives out annually to those who emerge winners.

Uzoka added that the competition winners would be announced also across 20 other African countries as part of the bank’s effort to give less privilege Africans the opportunity to university education.

Jolaosho, while speaking with journalists, said she was excited to have come top in the competition, adding that the experience had given her the confidence that she could face great challenges and emerge a winner.

She lauded UBA and the Foundation for this huge opportunity, adding that the grant would go a long way to support her bid for quality education.

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continent and it is impacting mostly the poor and vulnerable groups in the society.

She notes that over the years, every region in the continent has experienced wild spread impact of climate change, and therefore requires a commitment from the international community to address the issues.

She calls for a clean set of goals with timelines and targets for responding to climate change adaptation issues on the continent with regards to Article 6.

She also requests for a fair share of profits from article 6.2, noting, “We need adequate finance and technological transfer. We believe that ambition for action must be matched with ambition for response.”

Similarly, Mohammad Mah-

mood Abubakar, Nigeria’s minister of the environment, states that sub-Saharan Africa has not got enough finance for adaptation measures, adding that it is imperative that the continent get enough from the developed countries who are major polluters of the ecosystem.

“We have not gotten enough finance for adaptation and we need to get enough. We are the one really getting the short end of the stick,” Abubakar notes.

“A number of financial pledges that were signed or undertaking have not come through yet so far and we are calling on the developed countries who have been majorly the polluters to come through and make their promises come through,” he says.

‘Palliative work has saved Tin-Can port operations’ AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE

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ort manager of the Tincan Island Port, Umar Garba, says the ongoing palliative work along the Tin-Can – Mile 2 end of the Apapa-Oshodi Expressway will be a huge relieve for operations at the nation’s second busiest port.

According to Garba, the situation of the road started having greater effect on port operations around October this year such that the state of the road threatened to ground port operations.

Garba said the situation made him to contact the Presidential Task Team on Decongestion of Apapa and the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, seeking for their interventions. “At that time, taking delivery of consignments from the port as well as trucks getting access into the port became almost impossible,” he said.

He pointed out that if the palliative work, which started over the weekend, had not commenced, operations would had been completely grounded at the @Businessdayng

Tin-Can Port, saying, “The state of road affected our port, such that it was almost about to shut down. That was why I have to call on the task team to hold on to release of trucks.”

He however noted that Kayode Opeifa, chairman of the Task Team, was able to connect the management of the Tin-Can Port to a director, South-West in the Federal Ministry of Works, who inspected the road.

“We insisted that the ministry must do palliative on the road before starting the main work on the ApapaOshodi Expressway and that was why they decided on the partial closure of the road,” he noted.

Recall that earlier, Adekunle Oyinloye, group general manager of SIFAX Group, owner of Ports and Cargo Handling Services Limited (PCHSL), had blamed the bad state of access roads to Nigerian ports, which makes it difficult to gate out enough laden containers in order to receive empties that are littered on the roads, as one of the challenges facing port operations at Tin-Can.

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news Eskom vs NEPA: A tale of two power...

Continued from page 1

Nwani, an energy lawyer.

Damilola Ogunbiyi, REA’s managing director, in an interview said the communities cannot be held to ransom because the DisCos are unable to serve them.

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) overruled the DisCos allowing for IPPs like the Sura Market and Ariaria Market power projects to proceed to completion.

NERC is now enacting a new franchising regulation that will allow third-party investors to distribute power within a franchise area earlier ceded to a DisCo but the investors would need to do this in concert with the DisCos. Unlike the Nigerian plan, where the utilities created out of the holding company of NEPA were privatised with the exception of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), the South African government will keep Eskom’s three new units within a state-owned Eskom holding company to reassure a people distrustful of privatisation.

However, in Nigeria where the power sector was supposedly privatised, operators say the regulator is not independent. Electricity pricing in Nigeria does not guarantee commercial returns but the regulator, until recently, has embargoed raising tariff since 2015 even after all the assumptions that went into fixing tariffs – including gas price, inflation rate and foreign exchange – have changed.

South Africa’s Eskom reform plan did not contain detailed information on how the company will repay its crippling 440 billion rand ($30 billion) debt burden. In Nigeria’s case, the government simply warehoused NEPA’s debt, removing all encumbrances to investors in acquiring the assets.

These operators have failed to make the needed investments to improve the distribution network.

Rather, they are piling on new debt.

A BusinessDay analysis of the 2017 financial statements of 10 DisCos in June showed combined accumulated losses or retained earnings of N713.63 billion, from N288.85 billion as of December 2016.

In accounting, a firm with negative retained earnings has recorded more losses than it has made a profit since its existence.

A BusinessDay investigation also showed that the Federal Government has approved N1.623 tril-

lion on various intervention funding since it privatised the power sector in 2013, which is over three times what it earned selling them to investors.

Chinwendu Enechi, senior manager, oil, gas, and power at Anderson Tax, told BusinessDay that giving out these bailouts without evaluating their impact is like pouring water into a bottomless pit.

It also raises the question: why bother with privatisation at all?

Under the Eskom plan, one or more Eskom generation units will be created to compete with IPPs and the distribution model is structured so that power can be purchased from small-scale producers.

In Nigeria’s power reforms, the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trader (NBET) buys electricity from the generating companies (GenCos) through Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) and sells to the DisCos through Vesting Contracts.

But the DisCos have been remiss at settling market invoices. The regulator says they barely pay back half of the market invoices they receive for energy supplied.

While the regulation does not prevent them sourcing power through alternative sources, some DisCos have been unwilling to explore other means, including embedded generation, to increase their electricity allocation. GenCos accuse them of load rejection. Nigeria’s Electricity Reform Act lacks an instrument to compel them to compete as the Eskom plan does.

Eskom generates more than 90 percent of South Africa’s power with a total nominal capacity of around 44,000 megawatts (MW) with 36,500 MW of that coming from 15 coalfired plants. In the new plan, 11,000 MW of power from coal will be decommissioned; around 2,500 MW of hydro generation will be added, including 6,000 MW from solar PV, 14,400 MW from wind, and 3,000 MW from gas and diesel plants.

The Nigerian government says it wants to generate 30 percent of its power from renewables by 2030. Currently, gas accounts for 75 percent of power generation, the rest is from hydro. Solar power generation is still insignificant and even though it is attracting the most investments, the Nigerian government has introduced policies, including a bruising 10 percent duty on solar panels, to further cripple the industry. www.businessday.ng

L-R: Seye Awojobi, registrar/chief executive, The Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN); Deji Olanrewaju, national treasurer, CIBN; Bayo Olugbemi, 1st vice president, CIBN; Uche Olowu, president/chairman of council, CIBN, and President Muhammadu Buhari, during the CIBN stakeholders’ engagement with the Presidency in Abuja.

Record 2018 tax haul not enough to save...

Continued from page 1

collection history after

recouping as much as N5.32 trillion in 2018 but it wasn’t enough to save Fowler’s job.

This is the highest revenue the agency has generated in history and is coming on the heels of turbulent economic times that have crimped company profits and adversely affected the government’s tax take.

“Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) is now a victim of political power play other than where professionals should be allowed to showcase their skills for a better Nigeria. As the immediate past chairman, Fowler, was politically favoured in his appointment, the decision that led to not renewing his appointment is also political just as it has happened,” said a tax US-based tax consultant who spoke to BusinessDay. Nami, the new FIRS boss, is a tax consultant and graduate of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State.

Before his appointment, he was the managing consultant of Manam Professional Services (chartered tax practitioners and business advisers) with operations in Kaduna, Abuja and Niger State.

In November 2017, Nami was appointed a member, Presidential Committee on

Audit of Recovered Stolen Assets by President Buhari.

According to Garba Shehu, the president’s spokesperson, Nami is a “renowned” tax consultant, but a quick Google search on the new FIRS chairman brought out scanty results.

The president’s decision is perceived by some tax professionals as a form of political atonement ahead of 2023 interests.

The closest the FIRS has got to the amount collected in 2018 was in 2012 after some N5.07 trillion was reported.

Consistent target shortfalls have been the trend since 2015.

Since 2000, data available on the FIRS website show that the President Buhari-led Federal Government has witnessed tax revenue shortfalls since inception in 2015.

In 2015, the agency set N4.5 trillion as target and made about N3.7 trillion and has been experiencing a shortfall of about N2 trillion yearly.

Prior to 2015, the tax agency surpassed its revenue targets except in 2006 where it made a projection of N3.05 trillion and made N1.86 trillion for the year.

The FIRS generated the sum of N4.012 trillion between January and September 2019, according to data

Nigerian banks risk share, bond prices...

Continued from page 2

tial and insufficient to boost per capita income levels or increase economic resilience.

Banks in Nigeria would maintain high exposures to their respective sovereigns, linking their credit profiles to those of their government, the ratings agency said a statement.

“Weakening operating conditions are pressuring governments’ credit quality leading to a knock-on effect on banks through reduced business generation, slower credit growth and rising asset risk,” said Constantinos

Kypreos, senior vice president at Moody’s.

Political and social uncertainties Moody’s said political and geopolitical risks remain downside risks to economic growth and the business environment in Africa. Also, it noted that the trade tension between the United States and China could impact commodity prices, a situation that could weaken Africa’s exports to China and challenge the ability of exporters and their suppliers to service their bank loans.

However, it maintained

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provided by the commission.

That works to around half of the full-year projection of N8 trillion.

To achieve the target, the FIRS would need to raise N4 trillion in three months, as much as it raised in nine months.

Fowler only recently set a target for the commission last month when he said the plan was to see non-oil revenue contribute 80 percent to total government revenue in three years.

Scanty information on Nami Muhammad Nami is the man who has just taken the job of Babatunde Fowler as the new head of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the body charged with the responsibility to collect taxes on behalf of the federal government.

Nami’s educational background and work experience litters the internet but there’s one thing there’s hardly sufficient information on and it’s the company where he currently works as management consultant- Manam Professional Services.

There is no website for Manam and the only place where the company shows up in is a business directory called Manpower.ng.

The only information provided on Manam Professional Services on Manpower is that

the firm houses Chartered Tax Practitioners and Business Advisers based in Kaduna, Abuja, Niger State.

Here’s what you can easily find on Nami.

He is a tax consultant who renders advisory support services to investors in respect of new business start-ups and management of existing businesses.

His educational background also litters the internet. He attended Bayero University Kano and Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria where he obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology (1991) and a Masters of Business degree (2004) respectively.

He is a fellow of Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria, Institute of Debt Recovery Practitioners of Nigeria and Associate Member of Nigerian Institute of Management (Chartered) and Association of National Accountants of Nigeria.

He started his career with PFK in 1993 and rose to the position of a senior Consultant in charge of Tax management and advisory services.

Muhammad has served, and is still serving, on many companies’ Board and Statutory Board Audit Committees. He was appointed as a member, Presidential Committee on Audit of Recovered Stolen Assets in November, 2017 by President Buhari.

that the new African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) could create new business opportunities for banks once non-tariff barriers are removed.

Rising asset quality pressures A n o t h e r re a s o n f o r Moody’s downgrade of African banks is the problem loans which it said was primarily driven by rising government arrears, deficiencies in risk management practices, high loan concentrations, and borrower-friendly legal frameworks which could keep asset risk high.

“Importantly, banks will maintain high exposures to their respective sovereigns,

which links and caps their credit profile to that of the government,” Moody’s stated.

“Many rated banks will, however, maintain good capital buffers, and good access to local currency funding and liquidity. These attributes will allow them to withstand the rising risks identified above,” it said.

Specifically, Moody’s expressed fears that even though non-performing loans were declining in Nigeria, they would remain high while banks continue to tackle legacy issues. Also, it noted that the three-year transition for IFRS 9 adoption would keep capital moderate for most banks.

@Businessdayng

Tuesday 10 December 2019

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news

Buhari charges African leaders to tackle corruption, internal conflict for integration Felix Omohomhion, Abuja

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resident Muhammadu Buhari has charged African Union (AU) and stakeholders in the development of Africa to vigorously pursue the processes of surmounting the challenges posed by corruption and internal conflict for a regionally integrated Africa as envisaged in the next 60 years.

President Buhari, who spoke at Africa’s Presidential roundtable tagged “The next 60 years in Africa: Looking for Wins” held at Intare Conference Arena, in Kagali, the Rwanda capital, identified corruption and internal conflicts within the African region as the major challenges that should be tackled in a bid to actualise the 60-year dream of a regionally integrated Africa.

President Buhari identified knowledge economy, artificial intelligence and delivery of ideas as well as serene policy environment as answers to Africa’s quest for development.

President Buhari was represented at the occasion by Abubakar Malami, AttorneyGeneral of the Federation and minister of justice.

“If we are talking of having a road network project infrastructure, for example, passing through Nigeria, Chad and perhaps down to Southern Sudan, a project which may take two to three years to complete may

end up taking up to 15 years to complete, arising from the conflicts making access and penetration to projects areas impossible,” the president said.

In a statement issued by Umar Jibrilu Gwandu, media assistant to Malami, on Monday, quoted Buhari as saying: “To my mind, I think there are major issues that constitute hindrance to Africa’s integration despite having in place a policy environment that will allow integration in Africa.

“I find the issue of corruption and prevailing conflict as serious set-back militating against the development and integration of Africa. Conflict and corruption within the region hinder policy environment and delivery of ideas.”

President Buhari said a project of $1 billion would at the end of the day consume much more resources due to multiplicity of chain of corruption with the resultant effect of poor quality work.

“What are we doing to address these challenges? I think these are the major components that constitute impediment to the realization of issues related to the delivery of ideas, knowledge economy couple with infrastructural development. We must never underrate the negative effects of corruption and the prevailing conflict situation that are prevalent within Africa,” he said.

Dangote to partner government in building inclusive economy Adeola Ajakaiye, Kano

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angote Group has reiterated its commitment towards partnering various tiers of government in Nigeria in building sustainable and inclusive economy for the benefit all.

In this regard, the company says it has concluded plans to scale up investment in the agricultural sector, in response to the ongoing public policy focus of the present administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

The company made this disclosure in Kano, at a ceremony organised to mark it ‘Special Day,’ at the ongoing 40th Kano International Trade Fair, noting that it particularly intends expanding its sugar industry.

Mansur Ahmed, group executive director, strategy and governmental relations, who represented the management of the company at the Special Day, said as part of the company’s support to the development of agric sector, the 3 million ton per year fertiliser plant it was developing was set for commissioning early next year.

The company also intends kick-starting the developing of six large scale rice milling plants to be situated in six northern states of: Kano, Jigawa, Zamfara, Niger, Kebbi, and Sokoto, with a combined total milling capacity of 1.5 million per year, Ahmed said.

He recounted that the company’s growing investment in the agric sector was geared at complementing the existing and continuing investments

being made in other sectors, such as: cement, salt and other consumer products.

“We are also, as some of you may be aware, significantly involved in the Oil and Gas sector, with an on-going construction of one of the World`s Largest Petroleum Refinery which we hope to commission within the next 12 to 15 months.

“This will not only put an end to the embarrassing importation of products into our crude oil rich country, but will also significantly boost our intra-African trade position,” Ahmed told large gathering participants at the event.

Also expressing what seems to be his personal view on some of the recent policy moves by the Federal Government and Kano State, as regard the economy, he described the policy moves as efforts to bring

Nigeria back on track, adding that such policy initiatives were necessary if the nation was to attain sustainable economic development and poverty alleviation.

“I must also commend the leadership of KACCIMA for the very apt theme of this year’s edition of the Fair: Promoting Agricultural Value Chain for Nigeria`s Sustainable Economic Development.

“Clearly, given the current focus of both the Federal Government and the Kano State and indeed most other states in the country on the Agricultural Sector as the only incontestable route for the revival and sustained growth of the Nigerian Economy, there can be no more pertinent subject matter to which we should direct the attention of all the participants at this Fair.

New financial transparency policy to deepen fight against corruption Cynthia Egboboh, Abuja

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resident Muhammedu Buhari on Monday launched the financial transparency policy and open treasury portal to deepen fight against corruption in Nigeria.

According to the president, the policy is in furtherance of his commitment to improving governance and his presidential mandate to facilitate the fight against corruption.

“In facilitating the fight against corruption, it is crucial that transparency is not only encouraged but also enforced at all levels. In order to demonstrate transparency and accountability to the public and its cooperating partners and build trust in government,” he said.

According to Tayo Alasoadura, minister of state for Niger Delta Affairs, representing the president at the launch of the Federal Government financial transparent policy in Abuja, the policy is aimed at enabling timely availability of financial information to the civil society organisation and the public at large by all MDAs of the Federal Government.”

Policy requires the office of the Accountant General of the Federation and all MDAs to publish the daily treasury statement, daily payments report, and monthly budget

performance reports within seven days of the end of the month, quarterly financial statements by MDAs, he said.

“The financial transparency policy publication requirements and transparency thresholds includes; audited financial statement for the federal government and all public sector entities within a month or the end of the first quarter of the following year.

“The policy applies to all MDAs including nonbudget based MDAs and all arms of government,” he said.

Mohammed Tahir Monguno, chief whip, House of Representatives, in his remark, said the importance of the policy cannot be overemphasised as it seeks to address the issue of corruption especially among government officials.

Monguno, who represented the Femi Gbajabiamila, speaker of the House, said there was need for collaboration between the executive and the legislative arms of government to ensure effective implementation and transformation of policies into laws.

“There is need for collaboration between the executive and the legislative to avoid policy somersault, and promote sustainability,” he said.

L-R: Olurotimi Williams, member, board of trustee, Capital Market Solicitor Association (CMSA); Oladipo Odujurin, chairman, board of trustee; Bismarck Rewane, MD/CEO, Financial Derivatives Company Limited/guest speaker; Benjamin Obidegwu, chairman, CMSA; Anthony Idigbe, member, board of trustee, CMSA, and Chike Obianwu, vice chairman, at the 2019 CMSA end of the year dinner in Lagos, at the weekend.

Pic by OlawaleAmoo

Air traffic engineers call for training on cyber security across airports IFEOMA OKEKE

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ir Traffic Engineers in Nigeria have called on aviation authorities in the country to invest more in building capacity of members in the area of cyber security in order to forestall cyber-attacks on the Communication Navigation and Surveillance/Air Traffic Management (CNS/ATM) domain.

Speaking at the 2019 annual general meeting of the National Association of Air Traffic Engineers (NAAE), which held at the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) Conference Centre, Abuja, Ishaya Dung, president of the association, said as a key link in the aviation safety chain, the onus was on the aviation authorities to ensure that Air Traffic Safety Electronics Personnel (ATSEPs) were properly equipped to mitigate the challenge of cyber security, he said had become a major threat globally.

According to Dung, “International Federation of Air Traffic Safety Electronics Associations (IFATSEA) raised concern over cyber-attacks in the CNS/ATM domain with her working paper ‘WP 105’ presented during the recently held 40th triennial as-

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sembly.

“The approval of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) for cyber security to be included in the competencybased training for ATSEP in document 10057 was a remarkable achievement in the best interest of safety and security of evolving digital interoperable complex CNS/ATM systems.”

He also appreciated the effort of the Africa Civil Aviation Commission (AFCAC) in the presentation of a working paper for the harmonization of personnel licensing at the regional level, as according to him, it would help facilitate the implementation of personnel licensing in states that have been reluctant, owing to its non-inclusion in ICAO Annex 1.

Meanwhile, Dung has been re-elected for his second term in office as president of the NAAE. The election, which was the high point of the AGM, also saw most of his executive being re-elected for their second and final term. A mechanical engineering graduate of the University of Lagos, Dung, who joined the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) in 2002, is a deputy general manager, Electromechanical Services department in the agency.

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Construction of roads in Ugbowo to commence soon, Obaseki assures

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do State governor, Godwin Obaseki, has reaffirmed his support for the new Vice-Chancellor of the University of Benin (UNIBEN), Lilian Imuetiyan Salami, assuring that the construction and rehabilitation of roads in Ugbowo area of Benin City will commence soon.

At a reception in honour of the newly appointed ViceChancellor in Benin City, Obaseki said the construction would ease movement of students and staff of the university.

The governor had last week disclosed that the state government was set to commence the construction and rehabilitation of 16 Kilometres of roads within the Ugbowo area, which houses the institution.

Describing her appointment as well deserved, Obaseki said, “Edo people are really proud and happy to have produced the second female vice chancellor; not only that, we are glad that we have produced a very competent, well-bred, distinguished personality. She has all the positive attributes needed to succeed. Hence, we can’t accept less from her.

“God giving me another term, we will have five years @Businessdayng

to work together. I assure you of my relentless support as we strive to grow and revamp our state’s education sector.”

The governor continued, “I want to congratulate you and your family on this great feat.

You will definitely not have any problem with the Government of Edo State. Whatever you require within the confines of the law to make your work easier, we will support you.

“I have approved the construction of roads within the university; I assure you that construction works will start soon, especially in all areas around Ekosodin. Also, for every other thing you requested, we will put machinery in place to attend to them.”

Earlier in his opening remarks, the chairman of the occasion, the Esama of Benin, Gabriel Igbinedion, thanked the governor for making out time to honour the new vice chancellor despite his busy schedule.

According to Igbinedion, “The governor over the years has shown he is a great man and we are glad to have him around here today. May God continue to bless him; no obstacle will block his way.”

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POLITICS & POLICY 2020 Budget prepared to tame corruption - Abiodun Razaq Ayinla

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he Ogun State government has said that its 2020 Budget has been prepared to block leakages and systemic corruption within the civil bureaucracy and governance process.

It said that it has put in place institutional frameworks to checkmate efforts at perpetrating financial malfeasances that may compromise due process.

Governor Dapo Abiodun made this known on Monday when hosting the Transparency and Accountability Network (TAN) and other civil society groups at the Governor’s office in commemoration of the International Anti-Corruption Day. Speaking through his Chief Economic Adviser, Dapo Okubadejo, Governor Abiodun said through the introduction of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), State Fiscal Transparency Accountability and Sustainability Programme for Result (SFTAS) and the introduction and application of the Public Procurement Law, official corruption and sharp practices in public financial

management in the state would be curbed.

Abiodun, who said these m e c ha n i s m s a re f o o l proofed, added that they also form part of international best practices and his government determination to ensure accountability and zero-tolerance for corruption.

Okubadejo, on behalf of the governor said: “We have zero tolerance for cor-

ruption. Some of the things this administration is doing to ensure zero tolerance for corruption include the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), which is the process for budgeting and planning. It is one in which plans are done over a medium term and from which the annual budget is derived”.

“The governor is committed to financial transparency

and accountability. We are also adopting what is called SFTAS- State Fiscal Transparency Accountability and Sustainability Programme for Result. What it means is that all the activities of government are put in public domain. We are also implementing the Public Procurement Law. Through the Procurement Law, we are going to ensure that we get real value for projects, the

Seyi Makinde (m), Oyo State Governor; his Ondo counterpart, Rotimi Akeredolu (2nd r); Munta Abimbola (r), Chief Judge of Oyo State; Oyelowo Oyewo (2nd l), Oyo State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, and John Akintayo, Chairman, Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Ibadan Branch, during the 65th anniversary and 2019 Law Week of NBA, Ibadan Branch held at Afe Babalola Bar Centre, Iyaganku, Ibadan.

process for contract awards, procuring resources for the benefit of the state is done transparently and in line with global best practices,” he further said.

The Chief Economic Adviser also disclosed that the present administration in ensuring a corrupt-free state has introduced the Government Delivery Unit.

The unit, he said, would at all times ensure that all projects embarked on by the state government are done on time and on budget.

Okuboyejo, who also said that government was in the process of implementing the Fiscal Responsibility Commission, added that the commission would ensure prudent financial management of state resources.

He added that the Monitoring and Evaluation Unit of the Ministry of Budget would be strengthened to ensure that all monies allocated to Ministries, Departments and Agencies are judiciously spent. He contended that the present government in the state is fully committed and aligned with a journey to expose corruption and kick it out of the governance process.

Earlier the convener, TAN-Ogun State, Adebanke

Akinrimisi disclosed that the commemoration of the year 2019 International Anti-Corruption Day is an important event designed to raise awareness on the risks associated with different forms of corruption, adding that the day is aimed at promoting a better understanding of the values and rewards of resisting corruption as an investment in long term personal and societal prosperity.

The state chairman, Nigeria Labour Congress, Emmanuel Bankole noted that labour was aware that if leakages in the system are properly blocked, government would be able to perform its responsibilities to the people, adding that rooting out corruption is a collective task.

Performing her first assignment since she was appointed the State Head of Service, Ajibola Chokor, assured that corruption would be wrestled to the ground in the state civil service and brought to the barest minimum.

She pledged that the Ogun State workforce would support the administration of Abiodun to accomplish the task of ridding the state of corruption.

Makinde joins EFCC in anti-corruption road walk, rallies support for campaign REMI FEYISIPO, Ibadan

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o fight corruption which has become a cankerworm that has eaten deep into all sectors, Seyi Makinde, Oyo State governor, on Monday, joined officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC), Ibadan zonal office, in a road walk to commemorate the International Anti-Corruption Day. The governor, who used the occasion to mobilise the people of the state in the fight against corruption, noted that no meaningful development can take place in a society that fails to curb corruption.

He described the fight against corruption as duty in which all citizens must partake to secure better life and atmosphere for good governance.

“Do you want good road?

Do you want stable electricity? Do you want security? Do you want good

healthcare? Do you want free education for children?

We must all rally against corruption,” he declared.

Makinde was accompanied by the Secretary to the State Government, Olubamiwo Adeosun; Deputy Chief of Staff, Mojeed Mogbojubola, and other top government functionaries.

The Ibadan zonal head of the Commission, Friday Ebelo, had earlier addressed journalists to intimate them on the essence of the day and why the EFCC was marking it with a road walk.

“Corruption remains the most potent threat to human existence. It is at the root of every tragedy that ever befell mankind. It has also been identified as the ultimate potential impediment to the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals proposed for full actualisation by the year 2030,” Ebelo said.

According to him, “It is the realisation of these www.businessday.ng

threats and the need to nip them in the bud that countries of the world came together under the auspices of the United Nations to pass the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) in December 2003. As of today, 186

member-states are parties to the treaty. The document currently has 140 signatories and 30 ratifications.

Those are in addition to the full involvement of notable Non-Member states of the global body.”

Ebelo reeled out to the

press some of the successes of the zone for the year.

“In the last one year, particularly from January 2019 till date, the zone received 691 petitions. 213 of these were returned unapproved as issues raised therein did not fall under the purview of

R-L: Mojeed Mogbojubola, Deputy Chief of Staff to Oyo State Governor; Governor Seyi Makinde; Olubamiwo Adeosun, Secretary to the Government; Friday Ebelo, Ibadan Zonal Head, Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and Dolapo Dosumu, Oyo State Director, National Orientation Agency, during a walk to mark International Anti-corruption Day by the EFCC in Ibadan. https://www.facebook.com/businessdayng

@Businessdayng

our mandate.

“In the course of investigations, the zone arrested 878 persons. Out of the 268 prosecuted, 171 have been convicted. Our investigations also led to temporary fixing of 1,044 bank accounts, while 56 automobiles and 14 houses were impounded. We equally have several laptops, android phones and many other electronic devices confiscated in compliance with court orders,” he said.

The rally took off from the premises of the Ibadan zonal office, through Dugbe, and came to a halt at the take-off point.

Officials of sister security agencies including the Department of State Service, Nigeria Police Force, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Federal Road Safety Corps, Nigeria Immigration Service, among others, as well as members of nongovernmental organisations participated in the road walk.

Tuesday 10 December 2019

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‘Nigeria will compete better in digital journalism, e-vending of newspapers’ … Governor Abiodun asks Senate to review death penalty for hate speech RAZAQ AYINLA, Abeokuta

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former managing director of defunct Daily Times and ex-governor of Ogun State, Segun Osoba, on Monday said the era of hardcopy newspaper circulation was gone, not only in Nigeria but also all over the world, as digital journalism paywall and e-vending had taken over the media world.

Osoba, who is one of second generation media practitioners in the country with the defunct Daily Times in 1964, noted that the newspaper platforms like Financial Times, BusinessDay Media Nigeria and others that had embraced digital print journalism and e-vending of newspapers were better positioned to offer a quick information dissemination and could be easily accessed by anybody that paid online anywhere in the world.

The former governor, who spoke at the celebration of 160 years of journalism in Abeokuta, Nigeria, put together by the League of Veteran Journalists in Ogun and Oyo states, said the print media platform could only do well in the highly saturated and competitive media world if the owners could switch to

modern trend and technologies offered by digital print journalism and e-marketing strategies.

He said, “I want to appeal to you all to imbibe modern day technologies in our profession as any journalist that does not know how to use the internet or is not vast with the use of modern technologies is not a journalist.

“My own admonition is that we must re-orientate ourselves. The first is the idea of circulating hardcopy newspapers in this country is gone. Hardcopy news is dead all over the world. In my days, Daily Times circulation in a day was an average of 250,000 copies. I doubt if the circulation of all the newspapers in this country is up to 250,000 copies in a day. ‘’The modern day situation is that the publishers should start e-vending. Evending is when you subscribe and the entire paper is accessed on the internet.”

Also speaking at the symposium, which had in attendance the Alake of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Gbadebo, whose his forebear was the king in 1859 when Iwe-Irohin, the first Nigerian newspaper, was established by Henry Townsend, Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State said

the death penalty proposed by the Senate for hate speech at the National Assembly was uncalled for.

He however urged the Senate to review the penalty as the media practitioners remain important to any society, saying: “We have to give a win-win to the nation and the idea should not be to gag the media in any way or manner and the issue of death penalty is forbidden and uncalled for.”

Corroborating Osoba’s stance on digital print journalism and e-vending, Governor Abiodun explained that Nigerian media would thrive in digital print journalism, online publication and evending in order to compete favourably with their peers in the world, but caution must however be taken not to take advantage of it to turn Nigerian media to a yellow journalism. ‘’Things have gone from analog to digital, and everything has become digital. Today, most people don’t really buy newspapers anymore; they prefer reading online and on social media.

“But, people have also taken advantage of that revolution, and it has just allowed some people to just write anything they like without verification,” he said.

Air Peace to commence flights into Ibadan, bags Excellence Award IFEOMA OKEKE

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ir Peace will soon commenced flights into Ibadan, the Oyo State capital. This is as the airline bagged the Corporate Award of Excellence at the 2019 edition of the University of Ibadan (UI), Alumni Association Luncheon and Awards.

The event held recently at the International Conference Centre, UI. Delivering a lecture titled “Nigeria and the Rise and Rise of Ethnic Nationalism,’ Onyema explained that our bane as a nation is our inability to live beyond the prisms of ethnicity.

He noted that Nigeria’s multi-ethnicity is supposed to be strength but it has become an albatross.

The UI alumnus, who bemoaned how Nigerians whip up ethnic sentiments in salient national discourses, remarked that ‘we must make a resolve to start harnessing the powers that lie in our ethnic composition and leverage them for the development of the country’.

While re ceiving the

awards, Allen Onyema, chairman, Air Peace, thanked the Alumni Association for honouring him and his airline, Air Peace.

According to him, “My joy knows no bounds today. I appreciate this academia because it contributed to making me who I am today. I love my country and will continue to live a life of selflessness.”

He urged his fellow alumni to toe the same path by giving back to the University and the larger society. Onyema revealed that, as par t of giving back to the University and the city of Ibadan which shaped him, Air Peace would commence flights into Ibadan from Kano, Owerri and Abuja.

He said: “ Very soon, we shall start flying Abuja-Ibadan-Abuja daily, Kano-Ibadan-Kano and Owerri-Ibadan-Owerri 3 times a week. This is part of our no-city-left-behind initiative and our plan to interconnect various cities of Nigeria, giving our esteemed customers more seamless connections. It will be recalled that just last month, the airline announced the commencewww.businessday.ng

ment of Kano-O wer r iKano flights.

The University’s Alumni Association specially celebrated the Air Peace boss in this year’s homecoming. Speaking, the ViceChancellor of UI, Professor Idowu Abel, described him as a detribalized Nigerian who has shown strong commitment to the advancement of the nation through his various humanitarian initiatives and socio-economic interventions, like the creation of massive jobs, peace missions and philanthropy.

In the same vein, Elsie Adewoye, the President of the Alumni Association, expressed gratitude to Onyema for accepting to be part of the homecoming and serving as the guest lecturer.

Adewoye, who acknowle dg e d t h e u n e q u a l l e d strides of Onyema in his chosen turf, added that the institution was proud of him and implored him to keep impacting lives.

She noted that the CEO was being honoured because of his historic evacuation of 503 Nigerians from South Africa during the xenophobic onslaught. https://www.facebook.com/businessdayng

@Businessdayng

Tuesday 10 December 2019

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Police unveil identities of attackers of Maersk MD, deceased wife … as company grieves JOSHUA BASSEY & AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE

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he Lagos Police Command has revealed the identities of the two suspects that launched an attack on the family of Gildas Tohouo, managing director of Maersk Nigeria, a multinational shipping company, with vast operations in Nigeria.

The two suspects whom the police confirmed have confessed to the crime are Olamide Goke and Ade Akanbi.

Tohouo and his family were attacked on Sunday evening, December 8, 2019, at their Lord Lugard, Ikoyi, Lagos residence, resulting in the death of his wife, while leaving him critically injured, and now receiving medical attention in a hospital.

The attackers were said to have gained entrance to the victims’ home with the help of an electrician known to the victims.

They were said to have arrived the Lord Lugard, Ikoyi residence at the time an expatriate who lives in the same building was having a party. They were said to have first stabbed Tohouo’s wife fatally before turning to also stab the MD, before the police mobilised to the scene where the suspects were arrested.

Bala Elkana, spokesperson of the Lagos Police Command, told BusinessDay on Monday that

two suspects were currently in the custody of the police.

“Two suspects, Olamide Goke and Ade Akanbi, have been arrested. They have confessed to the crime. Two knives used in the attack were recovered. Suspects will be charged to court,” said Elkana.

Meanwhile, A.P. Moller – Maersk has confirmed the attack on Tohouo and the murder of his wife. Tohouo is a Cameroonian.

“We are very sorry to confirm that a colleague and his family have been attacked in their residence in Lagos, Nigeria during the evening of December 8, 2019,” said Richard Smith, in a statement signed for Maersk Nigeria.

According to Smith, “tragically, the wife of our colleague passed away at the scene. Our colleague is in the hospital, where his condition is critical, but stable. The three children are all safe and accounted for.”

“Our thoughts and deepest sympathy goes to the family.

We will do whatever we can to support them in this tragedy,” says David Williams, regional managing director of Africa for A.P. Moller - Maersk.

According to the statement, the relatives of the family were in the process of being notified while the relevant authorities are investigating the incident and Maersk is supporting the investigation in every possible way.

INEC begins e-collation, transmission of election results in 2023 James Kwen, Abuja

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ndependent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says the Electronic Collation of Results (E-Collation) and Transmission of Results (E-Transmission) are possible and achievable in the 2023 general election.

Festus Okoye, INEC national commissioner and chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, stated this Monday at a seminar on: ‘The Imperatives of Electoral Reforms’ organised by the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC) in Abuja.

Okoye assured that INEC would continue to improve the electoral system through the adoption of new election technologies, where feasible

and relevant, and would, in all cases, examine the viability and relevance of such technologies before adoption.

He said in order to achieve this the legal framework for the adoption of such technologies would be the first most important step before any other steps, and acknowledged the introduction of a bill to establish an Election Offences Commission and Tribunal.

While stressing that the Electoral Body would fully support the establishment of Election Offences Commission and Tribunal, Okoye said the country must break the cycle of impunity in the electoral process and bring to justice the violators of the sovereign right of the people to clean elections.

The INEC Chief Spokesman urged PLAC to critically examine aspects of the Constitution and the Electoral Act, 2010 (as amended) so as to strengthen the electoral legal framework and enhance the power of the vote.

“It is also important to emphasise the collective nature of electoral reform, and draw attention to the fact that electoral reforms should not end at the level of retooling the legal framework, but should also extend to attitudinal issues bordering on curbing impunity and the development of a culture of tolerance and sportsmanship”, he said.

On INEC’s efforts toward electoral reforms, Okoye assured that, “the Commission will work assiduously with the critical stakeholders in the

electoral process in providing clarity, removing ambiguities, plugging existing loopholes and lacuna in our laws and firmly and constitutionally implementing those aspects of the law that guarantees the credibility of elections.

“The Commission will definitely send its proposals to the National Assembly to clearly state aspects of the existing Law it supports, aspects that need further retooling and new proposals that will strengthen the electoral process and the regulatory functions of the Commission.

To this end, the Commission will pay close attention to the proposals and recommendations from this programmes and beef up its own proposals and recommendations to the National Assembly.”

Travelstart to power Jumia Travel across Africa Obinna Emelike

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ravelstart has entered into a distribution and commercial agreement with Jumia Travel to power the latter’s pan-African online travel booking portal, Travelstart said Monday.

Under the agreement, Travelstart will take control of the sales, fulfilment and customer service aspects of Jumia Travel online booking websites in all its operating territories.

“We have a strong belief in the potential of the online travel industry and travel portals in Africa and have

built a strong platform across our markets to address this opportunity. In Travelstart, we have found the perfect partner to build on the success Jumia Travel has achieved so far. While we will continue to promote the travel category, Travelstart will be responsible for the operational side of the business. The travel ecosystem in Africa will be further energised by this partnership,” said Joe Falter, executive vice president, Jumia On-Demand Services.

Jumia Travel operates in several African countries where it counts Kenya and Nigeria as its largest markets.

Maltina celebrates optimistic Nigerian spirit, unveils 1,000 smiles across country

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altina has released 1,000 smiles captured during its tour across the country with the Maltina ‘1000 Smiles’ campaign.

Launched in partnership with media entrepreneur and blogger, Noble Igwe, the campaign was re-launched in August 2019 with the ‘Happiness Team’ – which includes the Maltina brand team and celebrity blogger; Nobe Igwe visiting several Nigerian cities including Wadata, Nnewi, Keffi, Abuja, and others to share happiness with consumers.

According to Ngozi Ngonadi-Nkwoji, portfolio manager, Nigerian Breweries plc, “A smile has the potential to change moments in people’s lives, can improve the moods of those that we meet daily,

and can inspire communities – thereby changing the world one person at a time. We believe that smiles can inspire the world, which influenced our mission to share happiness, while also emphasising Maltina’s position as the No.1 nourishing malt drink, specially made from natural ingredients to give the complete richness of malt to Nigerians.

“Regardless age, gender, or background, the ‘Maltina 1000 Smiles’ campaign was an opportunity to share exciting experiences with many consumers that we met, giving us a chance to create happy moments and share happiness.”

The tour details unique stories, photos, videos, including other fun activities with participants in several cities, while sharing cans of Maltina drinks. www.businessday.ng

L-R: Oluseun Mabogunoje, husband of president, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI); Babatunde Ruwase Paul, immediate past president, LCCI; Toki Maboguje, president, LCCI; Saratu Aliyu, national president, Nigerian Association of Chamber of Commerce Industry Ministry and Agriculture (NACCIMA ), and John Odeyemi, past president, LCCI, during the Investiture of Toki Mabogunje as the president of LCCI, in Lagos.

Edo inaugurates EIRS, EDOSACA, Waste Mgt boards, charges them on quality service

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ov e r n o r G o d w i n Obaseki of Edo State has inaugurated the newly constituted boards for the Edo State Agency for the Control of HIV/AIDs (EDOSACA), Waste Management and the Edo State Internal Revenue Service (EIRS).

He also swore-in the new chairman for Etsako East Local Government Council, Benedicta Ebuehi.

Addressing members of the boards at Government House in Benin City, Obaseki described their inauguration as a call to service to assist his administration in deepening the dividends of democracy.

He charged the board members for EDOSACA to ensure the HIV prevalence rate in the state was drastically reduced below the national average of 1.4 percent, noting, “I will like it to be below 0.5 percent and that means you have to intensify your efforts and focus on continued advocacy, access to relevant informa-

tion, access to HIV testing services and treatment, care and support for people living with the virus.”

He tasked members of the Waste Management Board to work hard in ensuring Edo State is the cleanest in the country, adding that cleanliness is a priority, as focus should be on maintaining a hygienic environment in cities outside Benin such as Auchi and Ekpoma.

In his remark to board members of the EIR S, Obaseki noted that if the state must survive, emphasis must be on local revenue generation, adding, “The amount of traffic in the state shows that economic activity is booming, hence the agency should be able to generate revenue in the state.”

While addressing the new chairman of Etsako East LGA, the governor said the council must be efficient in its resource management to be at par with developments across the state.

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Why FG, ASUU should resolve impasse on IPPIS - NECA JOSHUA BASSEY

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igeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) has urged the Federal Government and the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to resolve their disagreement over the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS) so as not to disrupt academic at the tertiary level.

ASUU is against the enrolment of universities into IPPIS, arguing among other things, that it would restrict the university system and make it unable to accommodate financing of certain programmes, such as the visit of professors from other institutions, in and outside Nigeria for academic programme.

If the disagreement is not resolved and the members of ASUU go on strike, it will negatively impact on the system, as academic progress will be disrupted and students likely to spend longer years than they should spend on their various courses.

“Our educational system needs to be protected against @Businessdayng

unwarranted disruption. The interest of the students and the society should also be considered,” said Timothy Olawale, director-general of NECA. Olawale urged on the Federal Government and ASUU to find a common ground on the issue, noting that both parties should not allow it degenerate into an industrial action that would further cripple and slow down the education sector of our dear country.

“There are procedures to resolve disagreements in our Industrial Relations System and either party can initiate the process,” he said.

He said although both parties had their respective views and positions, which is understandable, but it was critical for them to find a meeting point.

While appreciating the importance of implementing IPPIS, the NECA boss also stressed the peculiarity of the university system, particularly, the nature of the work of academics as it might not be suitable for IPPIS, which, therefore, calls for further consultations between both parties in order to resolve the issue.

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FINANCIAL TIMES

World Business Newspaper MARTIN ARNOLD

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he last time the European Central Bank conducted a review of its monetary policy strategy the euro was only four years old, no country had ever experienced negative interest rates and Christine Lagarde was running a US law firm.

Now Ms Lagarde, who has been in charge of the ECB for just over a month, is preparing to launch the central bank’s second strategic review in its 20-year history. It is set to trigger a series of bruising debates on some of the most divisive issues in central banking, from negative rates to climate change.

The Frenchwoman, who will face questions about the review at her debut press conference on Thursday, aims to use the process to put her stamp on the central bank and to address the divisions that opened up under her predecessor as president, Mario Draghi.

Most central banks carry out strategic reviews regularly; the ECB is unusual in having waited since 2003. The US Federal Reserve is in the middle of such an exercise, as is the Bank of Canada, while the UK Treasury’s review of the Bank of England is a year overdue.

The ECB’s governing council is yet to formally discuss the planned review and it is likely to be the new year before it has time to approve it. Ms Lagarde told the European Parliament last week that it “will be guided by two principles: thorough

Christine Lagarde prepares sweeping review of ECB’s strategy Process will put her stamp on the central bank and seek to resolve recent divisions

Christine Lagarde: ‘Every stone will have to be turned and every option will have to be examined’ © AFP via Getty Images

analysis and an open mind”, while adding that “every stone will have to be turned and every option will have to be examined”.

The Financial Times has spoken to several senior officials involved in preparing the review and identified three key areas where debate is expected to be most intense.

Taking stock The 16-year period since the last review was dominated by the 2008 financial crisis and the eurozone’s subsequent debt crisis, which led

Anti-doping agency bans country from major sporting events for four years

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ussia will be banned from participating in major international sports events for four years, including the Tokyo Olympics next summer and the 2022 football World Cup in Qatar, after the World Anti-Doping Agency voted to exclude it.

Wada ruled on Monday that Russia’s anti-doping agency had failed to comply with anti-doping rules by tampering with test result data before handing them over for compliance checks earlier this year.

The ruling means Russia’s flag and anthem will be banned from all sporting competition, though clean athletes will still be able to compete.

Russian officials will also be banned from attending sporting events and the country will be ineligible to host them. The latter ban does not apply to four matches of next summer’s European football championship in St Petersburg, because organiser Uefa is not considered a “major event organisation”.

“For too long, Russian doping has detracted from clean sport,” Wada president Sir Craig Reedie said in a statement. “Russia was afforded every opportunity to get

its house in order and re-join the global anti-doping community for the good of its athletes and of the integrity of sport, but it chose instead to continue in its stance of deception and denial.

Sir Craig added that Wada had “responded in the strongest possible terms, while protecting the rights of Russian athletes that can prove that they were not involved and did not benefit from these fraudulent acts.”

Switzerland-based Wada reinstated Russia in 2018 after a threeyear ban during which the country was not allowed to test its own athletes or participate in the Olympic Games under its own flag.

The ban was based on a report that revealed that Russian antidoping officials helped athletes take performance-enhancing drugs over several years and that government and security officials assisted in the cover-up of failed tests.

Wada passed the first ban following the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, where Russia won 33 medals. Russia was stripped of four medals won in Sochi and a further 13 from the 2012 summer games in London. After the ban, 168 Russian athletes competed under neutral flags at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. www.businessday.ng

or the result of more long-term structural factors such as digitisation, globalisation or demographics.

The assessment of how well its policies have worked is likely to prove contentious; some policymakers are likely to call on the ECB to study the negative side-effects and reconsider their use.

“In an extreme case, if a policy has become detrimental, reversing it should be a net positive for the economy,” said Mark Wall, chief economist at Deutsche Bank.

Abiy Ahmed must try to separate ethnic from electoral politics

Russia banned from the Olympics and football World Cup MAX SEDDON

to its embrace of unconventional monetary policies — including cutting the deposit rate into negative territory and purchasing more than €2.6tn of bonds.

Despite the vast amounts of cheap money injected into the economy the ECB has struggled to achieve its inflation objective of below but close to 2 per cent.

The review is likely to require more research into the causes of low inflation to examine whether this is a short-term cyclical phenomenon

Primary purpose One of the most important questions for the review is how the ECB defines its main mandate of achieving price stability. In 2003 it tweaked its medium-term inflation objective from between zero and 2 per cent to a narrower objective of “below but close to 2 per cent” to guard against the risk of deflation.

Klaas Knot, president of the Dutch central bank and ECB governing council member, argued in a speech last week that the central bank should accept it could not achieve its inflation aim and change it into a band — such as between 1.5 and 2.5 per cent — or allow more time to achieve it.

“Both approaches would buy us time and flexibility in responding to forces we simply cannot control,” he said.

Philip Lane, ECB chief economist, said recently the objective should be symmetrical — indicating it would be as worried about inflation being too low as being too high. This principle was adopted by Mr Draghi shortly before he stepped down as ECB president in October.

A more aggressive way to tackle persistently low inflation, which is being considered by the US Fed, is a “make-up strategy” that commits to overshooting a target for a period to compensate for any time spent below it.

Ethiopia’s challenges are much like those I faced when I became president of Liberia ELLEN JOHNSON SIRLEAF

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ight years ago, I was where Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s prime minister, will be on Tuesday: accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. I said then, and it is still true now, that history will judge us not by what we say in this moment in time, but by what we do next.

Mr Abiy, who has been in office for 20 months and will face his first national elections next year, has come to embody an Africa that is hopeful for a future that lifts up all of its people. At 43, he is the youngest leader on the world’s youngest continent: the median age of its 1.2bn people is just 19. He has made peace with Eritrea, ending a conflict that lasted 20 years and killed 70,000 people. He freed political prisoners and supported the creation of a reconciliation commission to address human rights abuses. Half of Ethiopia’s ministerial portfolios are held by women. The president, Sahle-Work Zewde, and the head of its election board are women.

Some 60 years after independence, Africa’s 54 postcolonial nation states are experiencing a triple transition, building national identities, democracies and market economies. They aspire to more prosperous lives equivalent to those of their peers in more developed countries. Mr Abiy is

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putting Ethiopia on a path to be a genuine leader of this broadranging change.

Ethiopia’s triple transition is complicated by economic inequality and unequal access to opportunity, much like the challenge I faced when I became president of Liberia in 2006. Our war-torn country was facing total economic collapse, with destroyed infrastructure, dysfunctional institutions, staggering external debt, a bloated civil service, and a culture shaped by decades of desperation, violence and dependency. We understood then that the newly consolidated peace was fragile and would have to be strongly linked to inclusive growth, tolerance and freedom.

When Liberia made a successful democratic transition, with the election of my successor in 2018, we were proud that our country had made progress in every category of the Ibrahim Index of African Governance. Much of our success stemmed from changes introduced as soon as we took office. The Abiy government has similarly announced far-reaching reforms designed to accelerate inclusive economic growth. Telecoms reform and digital innovation will enhance public debate, media freedom, and spur challenging conversations about the status and welfare of refugees.

Ethiopia has experienced impressive economic growth in the past 10 years but it has not led to a @Businessdayng

substantial improvement in living conditions. Only 30 per cent of the population has electricity and 18 per cent can access the internet, well below the continental average.

More needs to be accomplished, more quickly.

When the economic dividends of reform take longer than expected to appear, citizens often revert to what they know — religious, ethnic and political affiliations. I faced such discontent when we were unable to meet the high expectations of a people too long subjected to the poverty trap. One of Mr Abiy’s most immediate challenges is to manage this pressure in the lead up to national elections. A key ingredient for success would be to separate ethnic politics from electoral politics. That requires unwavering commitment to transparency and democratic reform.

Yet the global environment is unforgiving. Brexit and US-China trade tensions could slow global growth and erode multilateralism.

I faced the challenge in Liberia of dealing with Ebola, and I fear global warming and climate change will present an even bigger challenge over the next generation.

Ethiopia is a test case for African countries seeking sustainable inclusive growth that embraces individual cultural and ethnic origins.

Mr Abiy has proposed a realistic and forward-looking programme. I call on Africa and the international community to back him.

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Brussels asks news groups to describe data deals with Google

Questionnaire to publishers is part of wider competition probe JAVIER ESPINOZA

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he European Commission has sent detailed questionnaires to news publishers as it tries to understand whether the way Google collects data from their websites allows it to stifle competition in online advertising.

The questionnaire, seen by the Financial Times, asks news publishers to explain how Google tracks user activity and browsing data from their sites in order to subsequently personalise adverts.

“Describe any agreements . . . based on which Google collects data from your company or is allowed to obtain data from users of your websites or apps,” said one question, asking the publishers to describe the scope, duration and rationale for their deals with Google.

The commission’s antitrust investigators also ask whether Google provides any technical support or compensation in exchange for the data.

The questions to publishers are part of a wider look by the commission at the implications for competition of Google and Facebook’s data collection practices,

announced just days after Margrethe Vestager started a second five-year mandate as competition commissioner.

Ms Vestager is also in charge of shaping European digital policy.

Antitrust lawyers expect these investigations will lead to new cases being opened against Google in Brussels and may influence tougher rules on how Big Tech should treat data when it comes to its agreements with rivals.

The questionnaire also focuses on how news websites themselves collect and use different types of data.

“Please explain how your company collects data from users ( . . . ) data you collect when users are setting up accounts on your websites/apps, when they are signing in for a newsletter,” reads one of the questions.

The European Commission declined to comment on the questions sent to Google’s competitors on Friday.

But in the past, the commission has said that the questionnaires on the search giant’s collection and use of data constitute part of an ongoing preliminary investigation.

Fund managers spy opportunity as distressed debt grows Pimco, CQS, Hayfin all have plans to launch funds investing in crumbling companies JOE RENNISON

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hree investment managers that specialise in the riskiest corners of the corporate bond market are planning to launch new funds, hoping to take advantage of a rising share of junk-rated debt trading at a level that signals severe financial distress.

Bond giant Pimco is marketing a fund that will bet on company restructurings, non-performing corporate loans and distressed debt — together known as “special situations” — according to people with direct knowledge of the plans.

Sir Michael Hintze’s $18bn London-based hedge fund CQS is in early conversations about the possibility of raising a similar global fund, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Hayfin Capital Management is also looking to extend its “special opportunities” investment strategy, raising a Europe-focused fund to add to the $2.2bn it raised in 2017, according to people familiar with the planned launch. The new fund will invest in European private credit, including nonperforming loans, restructuring and distressed debt.

In each case, the fund managers are looking to lock up investor money for multiple years before redemptions could occur — a structure more typically associated with private equity firms.

They will have plenty of places to invest. More than 200 bonds in the benchmark Ice index were trading at yields of more than 10 percentage points above equivalent government bonds, a commonly used definition of distress, last month. It was the highest pro-

portion of the index in three years.

The new funds would enliven what has been a quiet market for raising money. This year is on course to deliver the fewest distressed debt fundraisings since 2009, at just 16 so far, according to data from Preqin. That is down from 25 last year. At just $16bn, it is the lowest aggregate capital raised since 2014.

The biggest year for fundraising since the financial crisis was in 2016, as the fallout of a dramatic decline in oil prices created opportunities for distressed debt investors to buy up bankrupt energy companies.

The past year has seen investors in distressed assets struggle as the global economy has trundled on, while a few high profile company defaults have caught out some managers. That could make raising fresh capital harder, said Rishi Goel, head of distressed debt at Aegon Asset Management.

“A lot of the distressed guys have had poor performance this year, beaten up by energy, telecoms and utilities such as PG&E,” he said. “The performance has not been compelling and that makes it a more challenging environment to raise a fund.”

However, recent performance has also created more opportunities to bet on distressed assets.

“There’s been an awful lot of landmines out there,” said Jason Mudrick, founder of distressed debt manager Mudrick Capital Management.

“But the market is more interesting today than it was 12 months ago. We are not at the end of the cycle yet but underneath the surface you are starting to see trouble.” www.businessday.ng

Anna Lindstedt, Sweden’s ambassador to Beijing until February, faces charges © Leif R Jansson/AP

Sweden’s former China envoy charged over detained HK bookseller Anna Lindstedt alleged to have held unauthorised negotiations with foreign power

RICHARD MILNE

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weden’s former ambassador to China has been charged with unauthorised negotiation with a foreign power in the latest twist in the deteriorating relationship between the two countries.

Anna Lindstedt, Sweden’s ambassador to Beijing until February, was reported to Swedish prosecutors by the country’s security services in connection with a meeting over detained bookseller Gui Minhai, a Hong Kongbased Swedish citizen.

“A charge of arbitrariness during negotiations with a foreign power is unprecedented in modern times,” Hans Ihrman, deputy chief public prosecutor in the national security unit, said on Monday.

The indictment comes as the case of Mr Gui causes increasing tensions between Stockholm and Beijing.

China’s outspoken ambassador to Sweden threatened the Scandinavian country with unspecified “bad consequences” and “countermeasures” after Mr Gui was awarded a Swedish literary prize by Sweden’s culture minister last month.

The charges against Ms Lindstedt stem from claims made by Mr Gui’s daughter, Angela Gui, that the then Swedish ambassador told her

to travel to Stockholm at the end of January where she met two Chinese businessmen. Ms Gui called the meetings “a very strange experience” and said the two businessmen allegedly hinted that they could have her father released if she complied with their demands to stop talking publicly about the case.

Sweden’s foreign ministry said at the time that it had no knowledge of the meetings and recalled Ms Lindstedt from Beijing shortly afterwards.

Swedish prosecutors said on Monday that Ms Lindstedt was “in contact with persons representing the interests of the Chinese state” at the meeting.

Mr Ihrman added: “An ambassador is the head of a public authority with a far-reaching mandate to represent Sweden; nonetheless, even ambassadors must adhere to certain guidelines and instructions issued by [the government]. In this specific consular matter, she has exceeded her mandate and has therefore rendered herself criminally liable.”

Ms Lindstedt’s lawyer told the Financial Times: “Anna Lindstedt is very clear that crime has not been committed. Arbitrary conduct in negotiation with a foreign power has a series of prerequisites. None of these are met.”

Mr Gui, a Swedish citizen who fell foul of Beijing for selling politically sensitive books, is being held by China in an unknown location on unspeci-

fied charges.

China’s embassy in Sweden has been unusually critical of its host country in recent years, lashing out at what it termed the “brutal abuse” of Chinese tourists last year and rebuking Swedish journalists for their coverage of China.

But the rhetoric has sharpened over Mr Gui, especially after he received the award from the Svenska PEN, a non-profit literary organisation. The Chinese embassy in Stockholm accused Mr Gui of committing crimes in China and Sweden.

“Giving an award to such a criminal is an outright political farce. It is instigating crimes and sheltering criminals. It also constitutes a gross interference in China’s judicial sovereignty,” it added.

Gui Congyou, China’s ambassador, last week told the GoteborgsPosten newspaper in Gothenburg: “The Swedish government’s cultural exchanges with China will of course be affected. Our economic and trade relations will also be affected.”

Sweden is home to one of China’s largest ever overseas acquisitions as carmaker Zhejiang Geely owns Gothenburg-based Volvo Cars.

But there have been signs of mounting unease among policymakers in Stockholm over Chinese ownership of Swedish technology companies.

HSBC reshuffles top team ahead of restructuring Interim chief Noel Quinn plans big overhaul of group to slash costs in Europe and the US DAVID CROW

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SBC has announced a reshuffle of its top executives and hired a new chief operating officer, as its interim chief executive Noel Quinn makes his mark on the bank ahead of a big restructuring.

The bank, which is due to unveil the restructuring in February, said on Monday that Marc Moses, its chief risk officer, would be replaced by Pam Kaur, head of wholesale market and credit risk, from January 1. Mr Moses will continue to “provide support” to Mr Quinn until next December, when he will formally retire, HSBC said.

The executive reshuffle comes as Mr Quinn prepares to unveil a big overhaul of the group to slash costs and reduce the size of the balance sheet in Europe and the US, where the Asia-focused bank makes subpar returns. The overhaul is likely to result in thousands of redundancies.

HSBC also announced it would

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replace its existing chief operating officer with John Hinshaw, formerly executive vice president of Hewlett Packard, where he oversaw a radical reduction of costs. Andy Maguire, who currently holds the role, will retire in June next year following the completion of his six months’ notice period, the company said.

HSBC confirmed that Samir Assaf would step down as the head of its investment bank, known internally as global banking and markets or GBM, in March to take on a new role as chair of corporate and institutional banking. He will be replaced by two co-heads: Georges Elhedery, who runs the bank’s markets business, and Greg Guyett, head of banking.

The bank said the management changes would “position the group for the next phase of its strategy”.

The FT recently reported that HSBC’s cost-cutting drive threatened up to 10,000 jobs. People working on the plan say that the reduction to @Businessdayng

the bank’s 237,000 headcount could be even larger when accounting for the balance sheet reduction and the sale of assets including its French retail bank.

Mr Quinn was appointed interim chief executive in August following the ousting of his predecessor John Flint, who had lost the confidence of the board of directors in part because he had dithered in the face of a deteriorating outlook for the bank.

In October, Mr Quinn announced his intention to “remodel” large parts of HSBC as the lender reported a 24 per cent decline in third-quarter net profit and abandoned its main financial target.

Some investors have been surprised by the scale of the changes instigated by Mr Quinn given that he holds the job on an interim basis. He has applied for the permanent role and is the only internal candidate, although the board has also started a search for external contenders.

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Global investor group urges action on climate change More than 600 asset managers call for end to fossil fuel subsidies BILLY NAUMAN

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nvestors with $37tn in assets have banded together to urge for action against global warming as world leaders gather in Madrid for the UN’s COP 25 conference on climate change.

The group of investors, which includes big names such as UBS Asset Management and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, want an end to fossil fuel subsidies, the phasing out of thermal coal used in power generation and a “meaningful” price for carbon.

More than 600 asset managers and asset owners have signed the initiative, but the world’s two largest investors — BlackRock and Vanguard — have not.

UN secretary-general António Guterres warned last week that “life itself” is in danger if the world does not step up its efforts to combat climate change. Some investors foresee a similarly apocalyptic future for the financial markets.

Until regulators hammer out a plan for an orderly transition to a low-carbon economy, investors cannot know what their investments are worth, and that creates a “catastrophic” risk to global financial stability, said Helena Viñes-Fiestas, deputy global head of sustainability at BNP Paribas Asset Management.

“The last financial crisis will look like a kid’s game compared with what could happen.”

One of the biggest worries for investors is the treatment of “stranded

assets”, such as oil, coal and gas reserves, which could become unusable depending on climate legislation.

The UK, France and a handful of other countries have announced they will achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, but almost none have enacted policies to reach that goal. The Trump administration’s decision to pull the US out of the Paris climate accord, the main multilateral drive to tackle global warming, further muddies the waters for investors.

The investor group said that to help mitigate this problem, governments should throw their full weight behind the Task Force on Climaterelated Financial Disclosures, an initiative backed by Bank of England governor Mark Carney that outlines how companies should measure and disclose the risks they face from climate change.

Incoming regulation could wipe as much as $2.3tn, or 4.5 per cent, off the value of global stock markets, the Principles for Responsible Investment, a UN-backed sustainable finance network, has predicted.

“We think there is widespread underpricing,” said Nathan Fabian, chief responsible investment officer for the PRI. Of the nearly 2,600 signatories to the PRI, Mr Fabian believes only about 2 per cent are currently prepared for how climate policy could affect their investments.

However, he stressed it was not too late and there is still time for investors to act and reposition their assets.

Pound continues to push higher in election week Some warn of undue confidence in opinion polls and in longer-term outcomes EVA SZALAY

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terling traders are poised for potential drama this week as the results of the UK’s general election will confirm on Friday whether the recent strong gains in the currency are justified, or heading for a nasty unravelling.

The pound has muscled 8 per cent higher against the dollar since early October, pushing above $1.31 as opinion polls have consistently showed a clear Conservative lead in the final week before the vote. The currency has also made similar gains against the euro and surged to its strongest since May 2017 against both its peers.

A clear Conservative majority would “set the stage for a likely swift Brexit resolution early next year as well as more expansionary fiscal policy”, said Zach Pandl, a currency analyst at Goldman Sachs.

Measures of expectations for large price swings in the pound in the next four weeks climbed on Monday, as traders braced themselves for the results of the December 12 election, which will trickle in through Thursday night and early on Friday. If the Conservative party ekes out a majority win, the pound could see further gains, but other outcomes could prove punishing for the currency by opening up yet more uncertainty around the next steps in Brexit.

Michael Metcalfe, head of global

macro strategy at State Street Global Markets, said the pick-up in the pound in recent weeks was a “puzzle”.

The only way to explain it, he said was that markets were brushing off the vote shocks from the referendum and 2017 general election, and showing “unencumbered confidence in the polls, as well as what will happen after”.

This could easily prove faulty, he suggested, as investors were anticipating “a lot of certainty into what could still be very uncertain times”.

If the results are consistent with opinion polls, the pound could strengthen to $1.35 and €1.21, Goldman Sachs said, indicating about 2 per cent gains. Barclays analysts also expect the currency to notch up immediate gains of up to 1.5 per cent if there is a clear Conservative majority, but said that if voting results did not show a decisive win by 3am on Friday, a hung parliament would become a likely outcome.

“A hung parliament or Labour majority . . . would catch markets completely by surprise,” the UK bank said in a note.

A hung parliament would be likely to weaken the currency to below $1.27 while a Labour majority could whack the pound to trade as low as $1.25, Barclays said. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised that if his Conservative party wins, the UK would leave the EU with an “ovenready deal” on January 31. www.businessday.ng

A teenager watches someone else playing Fortnite on the live-streaming video platform Twitch © Frank May/dpa/Alamy

Twitch shows how hard it is to foresee the jobs of the future

How can we best prepare workforces for the unforeseeable new roles created by tech?

JOHN THORNHILL

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any teenagers dream of being paid a fortune to play computer games from the grungy comfort of their own bedrooms. Parents may scoff. But the Twitch video platform has turned that escapist fantasy into an improbable reality.

Launched in 2011, Twitch attracts 15m viewers a day to its site to watch the world’s best players live-streaming their games of Starcraft or Fortnite for others to learn from and enjoy. Some 3m players create content for the site.

Tens of thousands of Twitch’s most successful “partners” make money.

“Some of them make millions of dollars streaming video games,” Kevin Lin, Twitch’s co-founder recently told the Slush tech conference in Helsinki.

Gaming is “no longer a hidden-in-thebasement nerdy thing. It is something that people socialise over.”

Playing games for a living may sound like fun, but making money from streaming is not for the indolent, says Mr Lin. “Like any other job, it is a huge commitment. You cannot just be the best player in the world and stream. You have to engage with the audience. It is a lot about reliability and content.”

Not so long ago it would have been impossible to imagine that people could earn money this way or that playing computer games could ever be described as a job. Twitch may be an edge case, but its experience goes to the heart of the debate about the labour market of the future. While it is all too easy to see the jobs that will be destroyed by the latest technological revolution, it is hard to foresee the types of jobs that will be created.

The whole computer games industry is an example of changing consumer demand fuelling new employment opportunities. The games market is worth $120bn a year, bigger than the television, music or film industries and growing a lot faster, according to Mr Lin. Streaming has also become a brutal battlefield for Big Tech. Twitch, now owned by Amazon, recently lost a star streamer “Ninja”, and his 41m social media followers, to Microsoft’s rival platform.

The bigger question for society is whether on a net basis more jobs will be created by technology than destroyed. And how can we best prepare the workforce for unforeseeable new roles?

To some extent, the labour market is permanently adjusting and people are spontaneously finding opportu-

nities for themselves, as is the case with Twitch’s streamers. The rise of crowdfunding sites such as Patreon, which allow individual patrons to support their favourite creative artists, is also enabling an emerging workforce to finance their lifestyles in more flexible ways.

Some educational institutions are catering to these changing demands.

For example, eCampus, an Italian online university, is offering a three-year programme in social media influencing focusing on fashion psychology, semiotics and information technology. Its students aspire to become the next Chiara Ferragni, the Italian influencer who has 17.8m Instagram followers.

Established companies face a tougher challenge retraining their employees for such a fast-changing world.

Irene Petrick, Intel’s senior director of industrial innovation who has co-written a forthcoming report on employment in the US manufacturing sector, is blunt in her analysis. “The training system is broken in the US,” she says. Ms Petrick, who previously taught information technology at Penn State university, says she used to tell her students: “Here are the top 10 careers for you. Five years ago, six of them were not on the list.”

Central bankers must beware the political ‘lower bound’ Monetary policy risks losing public support in perceived clash with national values KARSTEN JUNIUS

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olicy rates of less than zero seem to work more smoothly than many had feared. Even in countries such as Switzerland — where the benchmark deposit rate is minus 0.75 per cent — rates remain more than the much-discussed “lower bound”, below which their economic disadvantages start to outweigh their advantages.

However, central banks have underestimated the political lower bound, under which public support erodes. At this point, pension funds and households might not withdraw cash from their commercial banks but rather their political support for their central bank.

Over the long term, this will threaten central bankers’ standing in the political arena. If governors want to use negative rates for longer or lower them even further, they must better explain their rationale.

For about five years, several cen-

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tral banks have been setting policy rates at less than zero. This practice provoked a few big concerns among investors. First, money markets might not work properly below zero. Second, investors and households might withdraw their deposits and store them in their vaults or under the mattress. Third, economic disadvantages could outweigh their advantages if rates fall below the so-called reversal rate or lower economic bound.

Money markets are still working smoothly. Deposits in the banking system have also remained stable, indicating that the economic lower bound has not yet been reached.

This supports the argument made by the Swiss National Bank and the European Central Bank that deposit rates could be lowered even further.

The negative side-effects feared by critics included accelerating inflation, financial market instability, and even a zombification of the corporate sector. Some also criticise the distributional consequences, @Businessdayng

as debtors benefit and creditors lose out.

However, it seems that negative rates have served their purpose. In the euro area this was to strengthen domestic demand and inflation expectations by complementing other monetary policy measures such as forward guidance, asset purchases and targeted long-term refinancing operations.

Credit growth to households and companies has recovered since the crisis, non-performing loans have fallen and banks’ balance sheets have benefited from higher asset prices. Even better, unemployment rates have fallen significantly.

Despite this record, negative rates continue to be heavily criticised in public. In mid-November, a poll in Germany found that 58 per cent of those surveyed preferred higher interest rates even if that meant higher borrowing costs, while 32 per cent preferred lower interest rates.

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BUSINESS DAY Tuesday 10 December 2019 www.businessday.ng

Babatunde Popoola: CEO providing direction in Nigeria’s untapped credit system DIPO OLADEHINDE

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he journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. Babatunde Popoola Chief Executive Officer of CRC Credit Bureau is embarking on a voyage in changing the narrative in Nigeria’s credit system by providing leadership and excellence in an underutilized lending space.

There is no doubt that a strong credit system is desirable in an economy as it promotes credit to SMEs and invariably promotes production and economic growth. The drivers of such a phenomenon are credit infrastructure of which the credit bureau is on top of the list.

Generally, the underlying principles for credit bureau in an economy is to encourage and promote information sharing among lenders, and as well reduce the incidence of information asymmetry between lenders and borrowers or creditors and debtors.

Presence of a good credit bureau ranges from providing social impact by shaping the behaviour to engendering, contracts agreement and obligations, a development Tunde Popoola remains committed to.

Established in 2008, CRC Credit Bureau Limited is a premier credit bureau established by 11 foremost Nigerian banks in association with a worldrenowned risk management solutions company, Dun and Bradstreet, to assist in providing financial infrastructure to revolutionize access to finance especially by individuals and small businesses.

“We devoted our time and energy to put together all the ingredients required to have a licensed credit bureau and a sustainable company,” Babatunde Popoola Chief Executive Officer of CRC Credit Bureau said in a statement.

CRC Credit Bureau was incorporated in 2006 as Credit Reference Company Nig. It changed its name to CRC Credit Bureau in line with the guidelines to obtain a credit bureau license from the CBN. However, CRC was licensed and commenced full live operations in 2009.

Under the leadership of Babatunde Popoola, CRC set for itself the vision “to set standard for financial empowerment and informed decision making” and a mission “to deliver innovative products and services that enable our stakeholders to make informed decisions and build credible profiles that enhance access to credit for strategic growth”.

The company set as its core objective “to generate and supply reliable and accurate credit information on borrowers in the

Babatunde Popoola

consumer and corporate sectors for permissible purposes only”.

CRC is a neutral third-party service provider to its subscribers.

“We have improved access to credit for consumers and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Since it commenced live operations in 2009, CRC has never looked back,” Tunde Popoola said.

In June 2009 under the leadership of Babatunde Popoola, CRC went live, six commercial banks submitted 1,525,228 credit records but only 154,030, representing about 10 per cent passed validation process due to the bad quality of the data. Today, CRC has over 1,300 institutions with about 30 million credit records successfully processed.

Unlike 10 years ago, now over 1,300 corporate entities use the services of the company, cutting across all types of financial institutions, insurance, telecommunications, electricity distribution (discos), cooperative societies, pharmaceuticals, retailers, conglomerates, travel and hospitality businesses, etc Unlike the whole of that year

(June – December 2009), CRC sold only 503 credit reports; today, millions of searches are conducted on the platform of the company through various mediums such as web, direct connection via API and batch processing. The company now also rewards its investors with dividend payment.

Under the supervision of Tunde Popoola, CRC set out to energize, enable and build the capacity of lenders and creditors while the value proposition to its customers include assisting them in identifying credible customers to grant loans or sell to on credit, manage existing credit facilities or receivables, and manage collections and bad debts.

Also, the company set out with only Credit Information Report (CIR) to help profile potential borrowers and debtors while also introducing over thirteen products including credit information report, credit scores, portfolio monitoring report, prospecta, self-enquiry, dud cheque verification platform.

Today, through its API devices

and credit scoring solutions, institutions are connected to CRC and they can make lending decisions in seconds and for several customers.

This phenomenon has democratized access to credit, take away emotions from lending decisions and make it possible to grant credits in few seconds all the year round. In addition, it is now possible to trace and track old customers with bad or abandoned facilities.

“Effectively, we are assisting to address the challenges of adverse and haphazard selection,” Tunde Popoola said.

Beyond Nigeria, CRC leverages and partners with the best solution providers in the world such as US-based Dun & Bradstreet (DnB), a global risk management solution company with over two hundred years’ experience in the provision of data management and analytics.

While its credit scoring solution is powered by California based Fair Isaac Corporation (FICO), a pioneer and global leader in credit scoring solutions.

Just recently, CRC also partnered with Nova Credit, to facilitate Nigerian emigrants to the United States, Canada and some other advanced countries to access their data in our repository in Nigeria.

“With the partnership, these emigrants can now use their international credit history to apply for credit products,” Popoola said.

The partnership enables creditworthy Nigerian newcomers to gain access to credit opportunities previously unavailable to them because of a lack of credit history in the US, Canada, etc.

The whole idea is to assist more than 16,000 Nigerians who move to the US and Canada each year to pursue new opportunities to settle down faster and have access to credit to continue their lives and lifestyles. The newcomers often encounter a common challenge when they reach the US and Canada: access to credit, which is fundamental

to basic tasks from getting an apartment lease to obtaining a cell phone plan or securing student loan.

“Our pride is the influence we have had on lending in Nigeria. We have changed the way lending is done. We have democratized access to credit.

We have further de-risk lending and make lending in the dark a thing of the past in our country,” Tunde Popoola said.

Today, virtually all the commercial banks have developed protocols and products for retail and consumer loans. Most of them also have special desks or unit and department for SMEs lending.

CRC provide relevant data and information that enable banks lend through software applications to thousands of people daily at any time of the day. The lending process has been automated and human interference has been reduced to the barest minimum.

In effect CRC has assisted in generating growth in loans both to consumers and commercial entities and stimulate the emergence of new loan products and services. “We have improved the quality of credit booked and loan processing through the introduction of customer profiling and loan monitoring, we have impacted our environment. We have made substantial contributions to access to credit and the change in the business models of lending in Nigeria,” Tunde Popoola said.

On February 14, 2010, the company led the credit bureau industry players to spearhead the need for a unique identifier for all banks customers. Today, BVN has been adjudged as successful and impactful, thanks to the proactive thinking of CRC. CRC’s leadership position in the industry has been attested to by a number of awards and recognitions. For example, in 2014, the Corporate Finance Magazine awarded it the best loan application service provider in Nigeria. This has been followed by other recognitions and awards to date.

“While we celebrate our milestones and achievements, we realize that the journey has just started. The first ten years of our existence represents laying the foundation for an enduring sustainable institution,” Tunde Popoola said.

Popoola concluded, “With our pedigree in terms of our owners, technology, products and services, culture and governance, the day has just broken.

We have our eyes on the future.

We know that data and analytics will be the oil of the immediate tomorrow. We are positioning ourselves to be able to play in the space, not just as a player, but as the industry leader.”

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