BusinessDay 17 Dec 2019

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Sokoto’s ghost teachers, corrupt school principals stealing FG’s N-Power funds Like other hardworking teachers, they’re on the Sokoto State government’s payroll. Dozens of them are being paid millions of naira for jobs they never do — they’re ‘ghost teachers’ scattered all over the north-western state and operating in cahoots with principals and headmasters of disadvantaged schools. In the same state, pupils show up in schools only to fill their bellies and disappear after guzzling government’s free food, reports IBRAHIM ADEYEMI, who was under cover for two weeks at seven government-owned schools in Sokoto.

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school.

From his crummy office, Abubakar Yusuf, the headmaster, ventured out to put the pupils in order. He was disappointed

to meet only a handful of them.

“These children have formed the habit of sneaking out of school after eating free food,” said Yusuf, his face wrinkled with

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BD Investigative Series

he early-morning sun rayed on the pupils through the windows and tattered roofs of Gidan Yaro Primary School in Wammako Local Government Area of Sokoto State.

The pupils sat in no particular order in their dilapidated classroom where a horde of them were crammed. A few yards away was a girl lying on the bare floor in deep sleep; another was peeking through the windows while others in the classroom ran after one another. It was a regular Monday morning in the school.

A few minutes past 9am, two elderly women served bean cakes and steamy pap to the pupils, courtesy of the Federal Government’s School Feeding Programme — a social investment programme pioneered by the Muhammadu Buhari administration to tackle poverty and improve health and education of children and other vulnerable groups. Within half an hour after the meal, a large number of the pupils had vanished from

fgn bonds

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displeasure.

Beyond the pupils’ disappearance, the headmaster was apContinues on page 2

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After BusinessDay investigative story, LASAA summons officer for disciplinary action ODINAKA ANUDU

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he Lagos State Signage and Advertisement Agency (LASAA) has summoned the officer in charge of the agency at Isolo Local Council Development Area (LCDA) for questioning and possible disciplinary action after a BusinessDay’s undercover story exposed how the agency’s rates and fees were paid into the officer’s private account.

In an undercover investigative story, BusinessDay, last Thursday, exposed how LASAA rates and fees were paid into the Zenith Bank account of Assumpta Omozejele rather than the agency’s, as well as how the officers of the agency in Isolo LCDA collected cash contrary to what the agency stated on its website.

In a statement signed by Temitope Akande, acting general Continues on page 38

Inside Court grants Rivers ownership of Soku Oil Wells P. 2 L-R: Dare Art Alade, chief creative director, Livespot360; Roosevelt Ogbonna, group deputy managing director, Access Bank plc; Herbert Wigwe, MD/CEO, Access Bank plc, and Amaechi Okobi, group head, communications and external affairs, Access Bank plc, at the Born in Africa Festival (BAFEST) in Lagos.

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news E-hailing war: OCar takes on Uber, Bolt for market share ENDURANCE OKAFOR

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Pay, a Chinesebacked start-up, is bringing keener competition into the Nigerian e-hailing market with its recent launch of OCar. The launch of the e-hailing OCar into the Nigerian market is hinged on creating stiff competition for the American-owned Uber and Estonian’s Bolt (formally Taxify), as it’s dragging market base with the already established companies.

“These two key players in the ride-hailing business would face strong competition from OCar due to pricesensitivity of Nigerian consumers,” Ayorinde Akinloye, a consumer goods analyst at Lagos-based CSL, said.

OCar is taking the same trend as OPay’s ORide, the bike-hailing service, and the company hopes the car-hailing brand will be as popular as the bike subsidiary.

OCar is the latest in a string of verticals that already include offerings for food (OFood), classifieds (OList), three-wheelers (OTrike) and bus-hailing (OBus), Okash, and OWealth.

Before OCar, the taxihailing space in Nigeria was dominated by Uber and Bolt.

Over the last five years, both companies have had the biggest market share with a combined presence in cities like Lagos, Abuja, Ibadan, and elsewhere.

But the coming of OCar is changing that narrative.

“OPay has successfully disrupted many spaces including the ride-hailing industry.

Recall it still has its ORide business running which is significant competition for Uber and Bolt,” a driver who identified himself as Josh said.

Since the advent of the ehailing industry in Nigeria in 2014 when Uber made its entry into the country, competition has swiftly followed, with apps like GidiCab, InDriver, Oga taxi, PamDrive, Easy Taxi, Rideshare, among others. But of all the newcomers, only Bolt has managed to grab considerable market share.

While both Uber and Bolt have competed based on pricing, their market strategies have mainly been around promos, infrequent discounts and availability of drivers.

However, the real challenge of ride-hailing as explained by industry experts is the need to provide a demand-supply balance.

OCar started with a mouth-watering discount, charging N200 for trips within Lagos in its first week of operation and later increased to N250 charge.

The company currently offers its first-time users a 50 percent discount on their first three trips while 30 percent is offered to existing customers.

While the hailing company has been incentivising customers through its discounted fares, OCar also pays the riders the full fare and rewards them with bonuses for trips.

•Continues online at www.businessday.ng

Sokoto’s ghost teachers, corrupt school...

Continued from page 1

parently unhappy about the poor condition of the

school he’s made to head.

It’s a decayed primary school populated by pupils averse to learning and ghost teachers – mainly N-Power volunteers – who abscond permanently from their place of primary assignment (PPA) but regularly earn their monthly stipends.

N-Power was conceived by the government as a youth empowerment scheme aimed at fostering productivity through skill development and valuable knowledge sharing and acquisition for economic growth and social development. In 2016, the N-Power was introduced as part of the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP).

Although NSIP has five components – N-Power Teach, N-Tax, N-Health, NAgro and N-Build – the NPower Teach seems to be most popular because a large number of Nigerian youths have shown interests in it.

The scheme was designed to support regular elementary school teachers in educating young minds. Thus, the Federal Government pays

the programme’s volunteers a monthly stipend of N30,000 and gives them tablet computers. However, shoddiness, ghost working and other forms of official malfeasance continue to blight the N-Power Teach scheme in schools across the country. Public schools in Sokoto State are not exemption.

A school without teachers Yusuf, the headmaster at GidanYaro Primary School, would not have divulged information if he had any idea he was speaking with a journalist. The poor condition of the school bothered him a lot and he was not masking his feeling. Although 294 pupils are enrolled in the school, Yusuf was the only active teacher.

The only other complementing permanent teacher comes on and off to work.

“And there is nothing I can do about that,” Yusuf said.

The N-Power programme should have done something about it. Under the scheme, 11 teachers were deployed to the school to aid teaching and learning. Records provided by the headmaster of the school show that the 2018 beneficiaries of the N-Power Teach programme who were deployed

Continues on page 38 www.businessday.ng

L-R: Paul Gbededo, GMD, FMN; Adam Nimo, factory manager, Sunti Golden Sugar Estates (SGSE); Niyi Adebayo, minister of industry, trade and investment; John Coumantaros, chairman, FMN; and Anlo Du Pisani; GM, SGSE, during the minister’s working visit to Sunti Golden Sugar Estates, Flour Mills plc’s N64bn investment in local sugar production.

Court grants Rivers ownership of Soku Oil Wells … orders map error correction, judgment service on revenue commission, AGF FELIX OMOHOMHION, Abuja & DIPO OLADEHINDE, Lagos

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Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday ruled that the disputed Soku Oil Wells/Fields located in Akuku-Toru Local Government Area belong to Rivers rather than Bayelsa State.

Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court declared that after examining all the documents from relevant government agencies and facts before the court, the Soku Oil Wells/ Fields belong to Rivers State.

Soku Oil Field is located within the OML 23. It is the only producing field with substantial reserves of gas and liquids, and is a key supplier to Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG). The field is located in expansive swampland, just about 24 miles from Port Harcourt, and is only accessible by water or air (helicopter).

The Soku gas processing plant worth N25 billion is a vital feeder plant for NLNG.

The tussle for ownership of the field, located between Bayelsa and Rivers, which used to be one state (Rivers) before October 1, 1996 when Bayelsa was created, has been raging for years.

The judge noted that the issue of contention arose from an error in the boundary demarcation between the two states and ordered the National Boundary Commission (NBC) to rectify the error in its 11th Edition of Administrative Map which designated San Bartholomew River as the boundary between the two states, instead of River Santa Barbara.

Justice Ekwo declared that the continued reliance on the saiddefective11thEditionofthe Administrative Map of Nigeria by the other government agencies/statutory bodies, especially the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation, and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) and the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), in the computation of revenue accruable to Rivers State from the federation ac-

count has resulted in the continued unjust denial of derivation funds accruing from the Soku Oil Wells/fields situate within Rivers State to the detriment of the state government.

The error was said to have surfaced in the 11th Edition of Administrative Map produced by the National Boundary Commission in 2002.

In its letter dated July 3, 2002, in response to Rivers State government’s protest, the National Boundary Commission was said to have admitted the mistake and promised to rectify it in the 12th edition of the administrative map.

However, following the failure of the National Boundary Commission to rectify the mistake as promised earlier, the Rivers State government then proceeded to file a suit against the Attorney-General of Bayelsa State and the Attorney-General of the Federation before the Supreme Court in 2009.

Delivering judgment in the matter in 2012, the apex court granted the prayers of

Rivers State and ordered the rectification of the error.

Again, the National Boundary Commission failed to rectify the error as ordered by the Supreme Court, forcing the Rivers State government to file a fresh suit before the Federal High Court in Abuja solely against the National Boundary Commission in August 2019.

The suit specifically prayed the court for an order of mandamus compelling the National Boundary Commission to correct its error.

However, delivering judgment on Monday, Justice Ekwo while granting the reliefs sought by the plaintiff, ordered the commission to immediately produce the 12th edition of the Administrative Map restoring River Santa Barbara as the interstate boundary between Rivers and Bayelsa States as it was in 1996 when Bayelsa State was carved out of Rivers State.

•Continues online at www.businessday.ng

Hate speech, social media bills face imminent death …as Lawan throws passage to Nigerians ...says NASS’ll okay Buhari’s N29.9bn loan request Solomon Ayado, Abuja

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enate President Ahmad Lawan on Monday said the Senate would not pass the hate speech and social media bills proposed by the National Assembly if they are overwhelmingly rejected by Nigerians.

Lawan, speaking during a luncheon and media briefing with newsmen in Abuja, assured that a public hearing on the bills would be conducted to allow Nigerians present their perspectives and submit their inputs on the bills.

But public affairs analysts

who spoke to BusinessDay on the matter said the Senate’s stance is an indication that the twobillsmaydieanaturaldeath.

“Most Nigerians see the two bills as a drift towards authoritarianism and an attempt to muzzle free speech,” said a publicaffairscommentatorwho does not want his name in print.

“If the opinion of Nigerians will truly determine whether the bills are passed or not, then the bills are as good as dead.”

The bills, especially the hate speech bill, have generated a lot of controversy since they were presented, with many Nigerians saying the bills are targeted

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at infringing right of freedom of speech of the citizenry.

Lawan, however, said the 9th Senate holds the interest of Nigerians supreme and would not in any way do anything that could derail or undermine that interest.

“The hate speech bill to me has enlarged democracy in Nigeria. Nigerians of all persuasions have one thing to say and this is what democracy is all about,” Lawan said.

“The hate speech bill is not going to be passed without a deserving public hearing so that Nigerians will have opportunity to be there with their @Businessdayng

arguments, whether we accept it or we don’t want it. But I want to assure you that the preponderance of opinions of Nigerians will determine the way hate speech bill goes and of course any other bill in the National Assembly,” he said.

Revealing that Buhari has submitted to Senate the details of the N29.9 billion loan request, Lawan said the request would only be approved if the money is tied to critical projects that would impact positively on lives of Nigerians.

•Continues online at www.businessday.ng

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news

NEPC urges Abia, others to assist farmers produce quality cocoa beans GODFREY OFURUM, Umuahia

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xecutive director/CEO of Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Olusegun Awolowo, has appealed to relevant government agencies, including the Ministry of Agriculture in Abia State, to assist farmers with relevant extension services, necessary to produce quality cocoa beans for the export market.

This is as he promised that the NEPC, the country’s nonoil export promotion outfit, will continue to facilitate market linkages and provide market information to exporters, in addition to product development efforts, in line with its mandate.

The NEPC boss in a keynote address presented to stakeholders at a capacity-building workshop on “Cocoa Value Chain”, organised by the Aba Smart Office of the Council, in Umuahia, the Abia State capital, described the workshop as a perfect action towards increasing cocoa production in Abia State.

Represented at the forum

by William Ezeagu, director, product development, NEPC headquarters, Abuja, Awolowo stated that the overseas market for cocoa was competitive, as buying countries stipulated stringent quality requirements for exporters to meet quality requirements such as certification in sustainability, fair trade, organic, among others.

… promises to provide market linkages to exporters He noted also that the issue of integrated pest management is of paramount importance in managing cocoa beans.

“As most of you here are aware, NEPC organised a programme in early 2018 on “Increasing Cocoa Production” which was held in Umuahia, Abia State. At that event, the Council distributed farm inputs such as cocoa seedlings, cocoa spray equipment and good agricultural practices (GAP) quality chart, to farmers in Abia and Akwa Ibom States.

It is gratifying to note that some of these seedlings are doing well in the field”.

He urged farmers to use approved pesticides in production. “Farmers and local buying agents must therefore ensure proper cocoa grading, quality analysis and regulations in line with Federation of Cocoa Commerce (FCC) rules”.

Michael Okeniyi, head of station, Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria, Ibeku, Umuahia, in a paper titled “Good agricultural practices in the production for export of cocoa and its derivatives”, stated that Nigeria is currently losing its global ranking in cocoa production due to poor production practices and non- compliance with importing countries’ requirements, among other issues.

“As at 2015, while Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana boasted of production levels of about

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1.7 million metric tons and 800,000 metric tons, respectively, Nigeria’s production still hovers around 250,000 metric tons yearly,” he noted.

To intensify cocoa production, he urged farmers, governments and the private sector (cocoa buying companies, input dealers, banks, and credit institutions) to make some changes.

He advised farmers to run cocoa farming as a gainful business, plant improved materials (hybrid cocoa), use approved inputs (fungicides, insecticides) at recommended dosages and follow best management practices (for example, land preparation, nursery establishment, planting requirements, pruning, weeding, fermentation etc.).

He also urged them to use fallow for new farm instead of forest, be experts on their own farms and provide assurance to the buyer and to the consumer of sustainable production and consumption.

On the side of government, he advised that government should provide a reliable source of improved planting materials and support the setting up of seed distribution systems that reach the majority of farmers, find ways to lower the price of inputs, employ an efficient input delivery system and increase support to cocoa research, among other recommendations.

Nigeria needs political will, funding for successful identity management – NIMC DG Jumoke Akiyode-Lawanson

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espite the billions of naira spent on the National Identity Management System (NIMS), the process remains inconclusive. The slow and w inding onboarding process is hindering the ability of government to carry out adequate planning, which was one of the intended reasons for the commencement of the compulsory registration for National Identity Numbers (NIN).

Although stakeholders have unanimously agreed that all hands must be on deck in an intensified effort to enrol as many people as possible, Aliyu Aziz, director-general, National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), says the programme will not succeed unless there is strong political commitment on the part of the Nigerian government backed by adequate funding.

Speaking at the sixth General Assembly of the Northern Traditional Rulers Council (NTRC) held in Kaduna recently, Aziz

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states: “Like any government reform, political will and strong leadership are required to implement the national identity project.”

In his paper titled ‘Importance of National Identity to Nation Building,’ Aziz notes: “Without strong political leadership and commitment, financial resources and stakeholder collaboration, the national identity programme will not be successful and sustained.”

The NIMC has always blamed the snail pace enrolment on lack of adequate funding. The director-general said in 2017 that, ‘Nigeria needs about N65 billion more to reach the remaining population yet to be enrolled in the programme.’

This is in addition to the estimated N121 billion gulped in this project over the last five years, with contracts for registration, data processing and card production, issued out to various foreign and local companies.

In a statement signed by Abdulhamid Umar, general manager, operations and corporate communica-

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tions, NIMC, the commission acknowledges that “for Nigeria to enhance governance, help its people rise out of poverty, restore growth and participate in the digital economy, we need a unique digital identification platform that is linked to functional identity registries for accessing services.”

A robust digital identity for Nigeria will lead to access to finance, gender equality and empowerment, access to basic health and educational services as well as child protection. Other benefits include migration and labour market opportunities, reduction in the cost of governance, better government service delivery and improvement in the enforcement of law and order, thereby leading to improved security.

While bemoaning some of the challenges NIMC is facing in executing the national identity project to include poor funding, inadequate mobilisation and limited awareness, among others, Aziz appealed for more awareness and mobilisation.

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How Nigeria wants terrorism tackled in African, Pacific, Caribbean nations Innocent Odoh, Abuja

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igeria, which has been battling terrorism at home for over a decade, has advocated a multilateral approach to combat the scourge in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States.

President Muhammadu Buhari made the call during the plenary of the 9th Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the ACP Group of States in Nairobi, Kenya.

The Buhari, who was represented by Geoffrey Onyeama, minister of foreign affairs, said terrorist activities continued to cause serious threats to both human security and international

peace, pointing out that without an assurance of global peace and sanctity of lives and property, the ACP will be impossible.

Since 2009, the Islamist group, Boko Haram, has waged a war against the Nigerian state, and has killed at least 36,222 people, according to Nigeria Security Tracker. The war has also displaced over 3.3m Over 3.3 million people, including over 2.5 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in north-eastern region of the country, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

In a statement issued by the Sarah Sanda, special assistant on media to the minister of foreign affairs, at the weekend, the

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President said: “Today, terrorist activities continue to pose serious threats to human security and international peace. Without assured global peace as well as sanctity of lives and properties, the ACP of our dreams would be a mirage.

“The ACP Group of States is well-positioned to recommend multi-lateral deterrent measures and future readiness mechanisms that would discourage the spread of terrorism through advancement of the rule of law, human rights, democratic values, tolerance and inclusiveness as articulated in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 10 and 16 in the Post- Cotonou Agreement.”

The President further said the ACP Group of States must take the measures since the ACP nations and neighbourhoods are most vulnerable to terrorism.

According to the President, “It is only within a peaceful environment that our economic cooperation and national development can thrive.”

The President also stressed the issue of illicit financial flows in relation to human development and the achievement of the SDGs, adding that it was imperative that measures are included in the Post-Cotonou Agreement to curtail illicit financial flows and promote the fight against corruption and recovery of stolen assets.

“This is the way to minimize

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the negative impact of illicit financial flows on the economies of ACP States. ACP States will also be better served if we embrace and implement crossjurisdictional instruments and bilateral agreements on illicit financial flows,” President Buhari also said.

Speaking on behalf of the African Group, the Minister said for terrorism to be defeated in Africa, there was the need for a holistic and well-funded approach.

The minister noted that terrorism and violent extremism have had adverse effects on the economy, culture, psychology and social life of the African people.

The minister also said unfor-

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tunately, the African continent had had to wrestle with different forms of terrorism and terrorist actors such as Al Qaeda, Al Shabaab, Boko Haram, and the Lord’s Resistance Army.

He added that as a result of the terrorist activities, Africa has had to actively engage in efforts to prevent and combat terrorism by strengthening regional frameworks, as well as to put in place a coordinated response mechanism to counter terrorist threats.

“However, significant challenges still abound which require that we all continue to work together to strengthen our capacities and resilience against terrorism.

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A tangible hope: But figures don’t tally (2) STRATEGY & POLICY

MA JOHNSON

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s prayers are offered for abundance and prosperity, statistics from media organizations, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and other reputable financial institutions do not show that Nigeria can be one of the prosperous countries at the end of the year 2019. Take for instance the BusinessDay Headline, 05 Dec 2019, “Nigeria’s macro indices set to underperform forecasts by year-end 2019.

“Nigeria’s economy barely trudged along in 2019, with data likely to confirm another lack lustre year for Africa’s most populous nation. Chances are that the economy, tipped to grow 2.1 percent by year-end, expanded below population growth for the fourth straight year while foreign direct investment slumped to a six-year low of $848 million....” “…. According to the World Bank’s latest economic report, over five million Nigerians entered the labour market in 2018, with 4.9 million joining a growing army of unemployed people compared to the preceding year.”

“The last unemployment report by government-funded data agency, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), showed 23 percent of the labour force was unemployed while 43 percent were either unemployed or underemployed in the third quarter of 2018, a 22 percent increase compared to the comparable period of 2017.”

“More Nigerians were probably

rendered jobless in 2019, with unemployment rate likely to have topped 30 percent, going by the trend over the past two years. That will set a record for the highest unemployment rate in over a decade and pushes the country’s misery index to a new high.”

For millions of Nigerians who are poor and miserable, their hope of having abundance and prosperity by the end of the year 2019 appears exceedingly bleak. Their fate appears signed, sealed and delivered with an adverse report by the World Bank projecting that more people will be drifting down the poverty lane if necessary, reforms are not embarked on.

World Bank had earlier stated in its 2019 Nigeria Economic Update Report that more than 30 million Nigerians may slide into poverty by 2030. This prediction may come to fulfilment as an interesting part of the report lay bare the mess the country is currently going through. “Nigeria’s labour force is growing rapidly,” it stated. Although the federal government created jobs for many Nigerians, those who lose their jobs are more than those employed within the same period. This happens in an economy where almost 4.9 million new entrants arrived into the labour market yearly, according to the report.

Stories emanating from the 36 states are not encouraging. Out of Nigeria’s 36 states, only 10 attempted to create jobs of any kind or provide an enabling environment for private entrepreneurship to thrive. This writer was not expecting fantastic reports from the states irrespective of the political party in power because for many decades, most states have not industrialized but depended on oil money from the federal government to meet their respective needs.

How millions of people living in misery (see Hankes Annual Misery Index 2018) will have abundance and prosperity by the end of the year 2019 remains unclear. Many Nigerians can barely eke

out an existence as visibly seen in many parts of the country visited in the last 12 months. The message of hope coming from the federal government’s pulpit is encouraging but it will not provide abundance and prosperity.

How much has the country invested in its people? With poor social investment, the country’s human development indices are among one of the worst in the world. In particular, quality health and education facilities are not easily accessible to a vast majority of Nigerians. Electricity supply, roads and rail transport are in a state of acute shortage for an estimated population of 200 million. All of this are impediments to economic growth.

To avert the prediction of the World Bank coming to pass, the country’s leadership should adopt new strategies devoid of verbosity and half measures.

Those in the government must not be impervious to change. Without a radical reform of the economy, more problems lie ahead for the people and the country.

It is imperative for Nigeria to urgently reform. The government must open up the economy. An economy operating in a closed loop cannot solve many economic challenges Nigeria face today. In a recently published article, “Failure to Reform will Deepen Extreme Poverty in Nigeria.” (See BusinessDay, 09 December 2019). the author is of the view that “In Nigeria, it is talk and no action. Trade and macroeconomic stability are the key drivers of growth and productivity, the main antidote to poverty.”

I have stated in this column a few years ago, that the disorder we currently experience in our economy is as a result of financial irresponsibility on a massive scale by those who have led the country for decades. It is a deep-rooted problem caused by those privileged few reaping from an over-leveraged economy. An economy that has always

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The disorder we currently experience in our economy is as a result of financial irresponsibility on a massive scale by those who have led the country for decades.

It is a deeprooted problem caused by those privileged few reaping from an over-leveraged economy

been fed by proceeds from sale of crude oil and gas as well as domestic and foreign loans. Economists are already debating whether to borrow or not to borrow. I share the same sentiment with one of our renowned development economists (See “To Borrow or Not to Borrow,” Punch Newspaper, 09 December, 2019) who is of the view that “if we must borrow at all, let’s borrow with wisdom and prudence.”

This is not the first time Nigeria is borrowing majorly from foreign institutions. When one looks back in history, it seems our policy makers always find ways and means of making decisions that complicate our lives and bring financial distress into the country after borrowing. Yet, our Creator neither slumber nor sleep. He is always there to redeem our negative circumstances provided those in the corridor of power do the needful- doing right things at the right time- and spending borrowed funds wisely.

For the country to have abundance and prosperity, it is the government’s responsibility either at federal or state levels to spring into action. But if their actions don’t live up to their words, those in authority do not have nothing to say. When one looks at prosperous countries, Adams Smith’s prescription for prosperity readily comes to mind namely, “Peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice,” all of which must be provided by the government. The secret to fostering growth and reducing poverty is in strict adherence to the rule of law in which people are treated fairly and equally, while maintenance of stable laws and regulations will allow entrepreneurs and investors to make long term investment decisions. Thank you!

Concluded Johnson is an author and a retired naval engineer who has passion for African development and good governance

Nigeria and contracts

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he Latin legal maxim, “pacta sunt servanda” meaning “agreements must be kept” is a foundational principle of commercial law. In its most common usage, with regard to private contracts, it simply means that the terms of a contract are considered to be law between the parties to that contract, and must, therefore, be adhered to in good faith. This principle has served to undergird the international financial system as it provides comfort and certainty to parties involved in contracts.

One of the cornerstones of economics and indeed politics, Nigeria has to realise, is respect for the sanctity of contracts, and Nigeria has two fairly recent examples where our attitudes to contracts, especially from the government side, has cost us or is in the process of costing us, dear.

This attitude is what gave us the P&ID debacle, from which allegations have now arisen that the contract was entered into with the full expectation that the Nigerian government would default at some point and the firm was only waiting for the opportunity to sue Nigeria in arbitration court and split the awarded damages with some local partners!

A few weeks ago, it emerged that the Chinese government had in September told the FG that it would not provide funds for the Mambilla Power project until Nigeria settles a $5.8 billion legal dispute. In 2006, the Gezhouba Group Corporation of China (CGGCC) and the China Geo-Engineering Group Corporation (CGGC) won the bid for a joint venture to execute the hydro-power project, potentially the

single biggest power plant in Nigeria. But in a separate deal three years earlier, Nigeria had awarded a build, operate and transfer contract of the project to Sunrise Power and Transmission Company, a local content partner.

In November 2017, the ministry signed another engineering, procurement and construction contract with Sinohhydro Corporation of China, CGGCC and CGGC to form a joint venture for the execution of the project — excluding SPTCL. As a result, SPTCL sued the FG and its Chinese partners at the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris for breach of contract. Leno Adesanya, SPTCL’s CEO claimed the company had spent millions of dollars with financial and legal consultants to raise almost $6 billion for the project’s execution but the company has been bogged down “through improper administrative interruptions and interventions”. Looking at their options, the Chinese appear to have backed down from Mambilla, at least until this matter is resolved.

It is important to note that the day after this report came out, the following ministers - Power, Power (State) and Water Resources - visited the Chinese ambassador, Zhou Pingjian, who, somewhat undiplomatically, said that his government would not push the Exim Bank to expedite the funding of the Mambilla power plant despite the three ministers’ request and the fact that Mambilla represents one of President Muhammadu Buhari’s legacy projects.

Successive Nigerian governments have failed to grasp the concept that agreements cannot be tossed aside willy-nilly and continue www.businessday.ng

to act as though contracts of previous administrations are not meant to be honoured. In fact, many new governments routinely cancel existing contracts to pander to their political base.

It is an extremely destabilising practice and as this case has shown, can derail important projects. For instance, following the 1983 coup which brought then-General Muhammadu Buhari to power, the new administration unilaterally cancelled the intra-city rail contract entered into by the Lagos State government of Lateef Jakande on spurious grounds. The contracted firm sued and won a hefty settlement, and the ripple effects of this decision are still being felt today. Lagos is easily one of the most gridlocked cities in the world, and the state government is even now struggling to complete the very same intra-city rail project to ease pressure on its choked roads.

The attitude of the Nigerian government to contracts can also be seen in the manner it treats collective bargaining agreements entered into with labour unions in the country.

The government routinely signs agreements, then refuses to carry out its agreed obligations.

The unions are then left with the options of either accepting the intransigence of the government or going on strike. More often than not, they choose to strike, and the government comes back to the negotiating table to reach a new agreement, which it may or may not honour for a brief period before reneging again. It is a cycle of disruption which does not portray the country as a stable place in which to conduct business.

The attitude is also demonstrated in the

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way the Nigerian government’s treats court orders as it only obeys orders it agrees with.

As such, most international firms seeking to do business in Nigeria include clauses in their contracts placing the forum for the resolution of any disputes in foreign lands, such as the United Kingdom. They are fully aware that the Nigerian government will at some point fail or refuse to carry out its contractual obligations, and as there is almost no chance that it will honour a decision of a Nigerian court ordering it to pay damages in the event of a breach, the best thing to do is take the option of refusing to obey out of the government’s hands.

The simple fact of the matter is that when a country has a well-established history of unilaterally abrogating binding contracts for no discernible cause, the sort of international investors it attracts will be those looking to make a quick buck and flee, and not long-term partners capable of bringing about sustainable development.

Cheta Nwanze is the lead partner at SBM Intelligence and heads the company’s research desk.

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Culture and doing business in Africa (1) Rafiq Raji

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present a cultural framework for investing in Sub-Saharan Africa. If you are looking to invest in Africa, it is important to be aware of the cultural characteristics of the various countries and how they affect the likelihood of success. In general, most African countries have collectivist cultures. Still, there are differences.

South Africa ranks relatively high for individualism, for instance.

I rely on the 2019 soft power rankings by the Nanyang Centre for Emerging Markets (CEM) Singapore for a quantifiable proxy for culture.

Thereafter, I juxtapose this culture proxy with the 2019 World Bank Doing Business rankings to identify countries with cultural characteristics and business environments likely to make investing in them worthwhile endeavours. And for the selected countries, I identify the sectors that are best suited to these characteristics.

The framework differentiates between investments aimed at production, consumption or both. Because even when the production of a good or service may not be ideally suited for some countries, consumption via importation may be viable. So, for instance, high-end goods, which may not be ideally suited for production in many African countries ex-South Africa, in light of the individualisminnovation nexus, may still do very well if imported, since collectivist face-saving cultures make even those not well-to-do aspire to the consumption of high-end goods.

Based on CEM’s 2019 Emerging Market Rankings, I identify the following top 2-3 countries for each region as ideal investment destinations. Botswana is the only African country in the rankings’ 2nd-level “accelerating” EM countries. South Africa and Namibia are the only SSA countries in the 3rd-level “intermediate” EM countries category, while the remainder Ghana, Senegal, Rwanda, Uganda, and Kenya form part of the penultimate 4th level “early” EM countries category of the rankings.

These choices correlate with the cultural thesis of my prior “culture and development” paper, which put Southern African countries on top.

The CEM 2019 Soft Power Ranking

similarly identifies South Africa, Namibia, Ghana, Senegal, Kenya, Rwanda as the top 5 SSA countries with soft power. I recommend the top 2 countries in each region based on these indices. They are thus Botswana & South Africa (Southern Africa), Ghana & Senegal (West Africa) and Rwanda & Kenya (East Africa).

Thus, my framework relies on these factors – culture, doing business ranking, EM status, & soft power ranking - to recommend sectors in Africa that are likely to be successfully tapped by foreign investors. I rely on the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) in this regard.

The sectors considered are as follows: energy, materials, industrials, consumer discretionary, consumer staples, healthcare, financials, information technology, communication services, utilities & real estate.

‘

If there is no prospect of finding oil & gas resources in a jurisdiction, it does not matter what cultural variables there are. But in areas where exploration does take place, culture does matter

Energy - Oil & gas exploration decisions are not primarily culturebased If there is no prospect of finding oil & gas resources in a jurisdiction, it does not matter what cultural variables there are. But in areas where exploration does take place, culture does matter. The pervasive and entrenched corruption in the Nigerian oil & gas industry has cultural under-

pinnings, for instance. There is also a cultural element to why a robust indigenous value chain around oil & gas exploration has been elusive in Nigeria, the continent’s top oil producer.

Government-owned refineries, the only ones in any case, are moribund or underperforming. Instead, fuel is largely imported.

Would it be profitable for a foreign investor to invest in a refinery in Nigeria, say? It is highly unlikely without local support. But a local investor like Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man, who is currently building a refinery in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, is incidentally likely to be successful, however. This is because in addition to his having access to foreign capital, he is also fully enmeshed in the political, social and cultural fabric of Nigerian society. A foreign investor looking to invest in the sector would thus be well-advised to invest through such an influential local investor; if at all.

References available at https://rafiqraji.com/2019/11/10/culture-doingbusiness-in-africa/ “Dr Raji is chief economist at Macroafricaintel.

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

Adaptation of Nigeria’s transportation sector to climate change

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ransportation systems are structured and designed to withstand all types of weather and climate change and is the reason transportation engineers refer to historical records of climate and extreme weather conditions when designing transportation structures such as ports, airports, railway tracks, bridges, roads to withstand severe weather conditions.

The effectiveness of environmental sustainability policies in Nigeria and other African countries, as well as their potentials to support adaptation and mitigation measures is yet to be fully realised because most of the policies remain very broad and are not in position to provide the required focused response to climate change concerns.

While climate change is mentioned in some key government policies, there is yet to be specific policies or strategies for climate change adaptation and mitigation sector activities especially in relation to the country’s transportation sector and also the policy framework for aligning human development and climate change management which remains largely undeveloped.

Although the government has recognised the need to adapt existing national policies, strategies and plans to address climate change concerns and to ensure that climate change adaptation and mitigation concerns are properly integrated into its current national development plan, known as Vision 20:2020, experts believe the government and policy makers needs to put more efforts.

Nigeria’s total Greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in 2014 were 492.44 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e), totalling 1.01 percent of global GHG emissions. In Nigeria, 38.2 percent of GHG emissions came from the land-use change and forestry sector, followed by the energy, waste, agriculture and the industrial processes sector which contributed 32.6 percent, 14.0, 13.0 percent and 2.1 percent respectively to GHG emissions.

According to CAIT data, (a suite of online data and visualisations tools that support the many dimensions of climate policy making and provides free, open, user -friendly access to world-class climate data from a desktop, tablet or mobile device, enabling analysis whenever it’s needed) Nigeria’s GHG emissions increased by 25 percent (98.22 MtCO2e) from 1990 to 2014. The average annual change in total emissions was 1 percent.

In its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), Nigeria pledged to unconditionally reduce GHG emissions by 20 percent by 2030, compared to business as usual (BAU) emission levels. It aims to achieve this goal by improving energy efficiency by 20 percent, providing 13 GW of renewable electricity to rural communities that are currently not connected to the electric power grid, and by ending the flaring of gas.

Greenhouse gas emissions from the conventional energy sources used for transportation are known to be the main reason for the global warming which started changing the climates and posing serious threat to the planet and has now become very crucial to find new ways of integrating sustainable energy in the strategic implementation of the automotive infrastructure development plans in order to minimise the emission of these gases into the atmosphere which encourages sustainable environment.

Also, as a whole, countries that belong to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have already decoupled their economic growth from emissions. From 2004 to 2014, OECD countries grew their economies by 16 percent all together, while cutting fossil fuel consumption by 6 percent and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 6.4 percent. Results of international energy association study shows that global emissions remained flat in 2014 while GDP rose marking a historical milestone.

It is worthy to point out that extreme weather and events such as hurricanes/cyclones and floods have the potentials of disrupting transportation routes such as inland and coastal transport systems. Although there are other climate

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factors that may affect transportation such as climate change-driven changes in temperature, humidity and precipitation, coastal transportation infrastructure, such as seaports, will also be impacted by sea-level rise, which will exacerbate coastal flooding during extreme storm events.

Transportation has been traditionally looked upon as a challenge in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and a lot of effort has been rightly directed at solving this issue such as providing guidance on the use of indicators for sustainable and liveable transportation planning. In addition with the Sustainable Development Goals and the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, parties to the UNFCCC reached a landmark agreement to combat climate change and to accelerate and intensify the actions and investments needed for a sustainable low carbon future that is increasingly recognised as vital to the continued success of mobility, global trade and development.

What’s new is the growing realisation that individual transport modes and their infrastructure such as seaports, airports, rail routes, roads, inland waterways have a collective interdependence on each other because transportation is a “system of systems” and resilience of each transport mode to the impact of future weather patterns along the entire network of global supply chains warrants consideration so that impacts, risks and vulnerabilities across transport modes are identified and addressed.

The environmental impact of transport is very significant because it is a major user of energy that burns most of the world’s petroleum products responsible for a lot of air pollution such as carbon dioxide emission, nitrous oxides and other particulates which is a significant contributor to global warming.

Sustainability is an innovative process of development to meet the present needs by valuing a desirable state of equilibrium and by respecting the ability and opportunity of future generations to meet their needs. In general, sustainability may have different interrelating

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Festus Okotie dimensions such as economic, environmental, ecological, political, and cultural. The environmental sustainability of transportation mainly involves the energy consumption of the various forms of transportation and the pollution from the system in general.

Although, in the last few decades the growth of the transport industry has been very significant because overall assessment shows that the industry as a whole has been actively involved in enhancing sustainability performance through efforts such regular workshops, research, development and other stakeholder forums.

Sustainable energy consumption in transportation mainly involves efficiency improvements in energy consumption, alternative fuel technology and optimised transport movements. In addition greenhouse gases create the greenhouse effect which changes the earth’s climate.

Carbon dioxide is a key greenhouse gas that drives global climate change and has continued to rise thereby trapping heat from the sun which has kept the earth’s climate habitable for humans and other species. Despite atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide which is the most dangerous and prevalent, greenhouse gas are presently at the highest levels ever recorded.

Note: the rest of this article continues in the online edition of Business Day @https:// businessday.ng Okotie, a maritime transport specialist, writes via fokotie. bernardhall@gmail.com, Fokotie@bernardhallgroup. com

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Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

EDITORIAL A political Chief Justice of Nigeria?

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

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ucking precedent and tradition, the Chief Justice of Nigeria Ibrahim Tanko Muhammed on 12 December took to advocacy in religion and politics. He called for broader teaching of Sharia Law in the universities and conducting such education in the Arabic language. Then he went political, asking for a constitutional amendment for his proposed changes because Moslems “have the numbers” to make the changes happen.

The CJN’s call is a surprising and significant departure from the best practice traditions of the judiciary. It quickly brought the highest court of the land into the arena for a disputation with various groups. More significantly, it raised questions of the capacity of the court under the direction of the CJN to resolve issues before it in a non-political, non-religious and unbiased manner.

It was a surprise and significant departure from the best

practice traditions of the judiciary. The CJN has since brought the court into the arena for open disagreements nay confrontation with various groups and individuals. Some of the groups have called on him to step down, or the government should compel him to do so.

CJN Muhammed spoke at the 20Th Annual Judges Conference with the theme of “Documentation of Contracts in Islamic Law: Procedure, Sample Precedents and Practice”. The conference held at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. Justice Muhammad Danjuma, Grand Khadi of Niger State, represented the chief justice.

Justice Muhammad wants universities to create faculties to teach sharia law. He is unhappy that the constitution currently allows only “the implementation of sharia personal law and apart from that we cannot do more.”

He then dropped the clincher.

“However, we have the number to amend the constitution to suit our own position as Muslims”.

Then he delved into the equally

contentious matter of language and its geopolitical and religious sensibilities.

“The Shari’a law should be taught in Arabic not English.

There is no university in Nigeria that runs Shari’a in Arabic; they all teach Shari’a in English. So, academicians let’s also look into this issue,” he said.

The Chief Justice of Nigeria heads the judicial branch and steers the highest court of the land. He superintends over the four legal systems in Nigeria.

These are the English Law, Common Law, Customary Law and Sharia (Islamic) Law. English Law derives from Nigeria’s colonial history while Common Law developed over the years of independence. Customary Law used across the country draws from indigenous jurisprudential traditions. Sharia Law is active in Northern Nigeria. From the commencement of the Fourth Republic, proponents of Sharia Law expanded its scope to full sharia law incorporating civil and criminal sections.

Justices of the court in Nigeria

follow a hallowed tradition of non-involvement and non-interference in critical areas such as religion and politics. Justice Muhammed’s ABU speech shocked the system as it runs contrary to this tradition. It is negative.

The Chief Justice of Nigeria cannot be an advocate for preference for any system of justice.

Nor for any religion. It is not his call. As it were, Justice Ibrahim Tanko Muhammed has brought himself out as a partisan. He has diminished his capacity for fairminded adjudication. No one within and outside the system can trust him henceforth to act justly and without bias on any matter brought before the court that has elements of religion.

Mr Justice Ibrahim Tanko Muhammed by going political has compromised his position and the neutrality of the bench. He has besmirched the reputation of the court. Reputation matters in justice administration as judges must, like Caesar’s wife, be above reproach. Nigeria is best without a political Chief Justice.

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

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20 years of unbroken democracy in Nigeria: Challenges and prospects (1) The Reformer

JOE ABAH

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he 2019 elections marked 20 years of unbroken democratic rule in Nigeria, the longest in its history. Beyond the well-worn definition of democracy as the rule of the people, by the people, and for the people, the American political scientist Larry Diamond posits that democracy has four key elements: a political system for choosing or replacing the government through free and fair elections; the active participation of the people, as citizens, in politics and civil life; protection of human rights; and the rule of law, in which laws and procedures apply equally to all citizens. A cursory review of Nigeria’s progress against these 4 core elements paints a mixed picture.

Starting with elections, Paul Collier of Oxford University argues that for elections to meet the threshold of democracy, there must be rules for the conduct of those elections, including a lack of intimidation and violence, a process for punishing cheating, and checks and balances for the government that is elected, including constraining it from crushing the opposition. In the last 20 years, Nigeria’s performance against these criteria have been variable. For the first 16 years out of the 20 years of continuous democratic rule, one political party was dominant. However, in 2015, for the first time in Nigeria’s history, an opposition party defeated the incumbent at the center to become the ruling party and then went on to hold on to power in 2019.

This is evidence that the opposition was not crushed. The judiciary has played its role in punishing cheating in elections, sometimes nullifying elections that it deems have not been properly conducted. However, very few people have ever been prosecuted for

electoral violence. Recent elections have also witnessed the new phenomenon of vote buying and selling. Condemnable as this is, it is perversely an indication that votes may now be beginning to count in a way that it didn’t in the past.

If politicians could sit in hotel rooms and write fictitious election results, as they used to, why would they bother to buy votes? We could, therefore, score Nigeria a “Pass” on this one.

On Larry Diamond’s second element of the active participation of the people, as citizens, in politics and civil life, again the story is mixed. The high cost of nomination forms and the delegate system in use in the major political parties automatically exclude people without deep pockets. However, the passage of the “Not-too-young-to-run” Act in 2018 lowered the age for political participation and opened the door for more young people to seek elective office. Participating in politics and civil life goes beyond standing for elective office though. It requires the citizenry to truly own Section 14(2)(a) of the Constitution that says: “Sovereignty belongs to the people of Nigeria from whom government through this Constitution derives all its powers and authority.” It would mean that citizens can ask tough questions of their government and demand answers. It would mean that citizens will monitor and report on government actions and participate in the development and implementation of government policy. Given that Nigeria was under military rule for more than half of its existence as a sovereign nation, this aspect of our democracy is evolving rather slowly.

A number of Civil Society Organisations are now beginning to track government budgets, expenditure, constituency projects and decisions. However, the citizenry at large does not yet seem to be fully aware of its own powers. The Freedom of Information Act of 2011, through which citizens can request information about government activities, is still grossly underused. I have often argued that this law is the second most powerful law in Nigeria. Save for security information and personal information such as health status, it is only the Constitution that a public official can rely on

to deny a citizen of information about government activity.

Of course, the ultimate power of the citizen in a democracy is the power to remove an existing government and replace it with another one. This is a power that it has exercised several times at state level and most significantly at federal level in 2015. There, however, remains huge scope for greater participation of citizens in national life. Still, we can score Nigeria a borderline “Pass” here too.

Nigeria does not score very highly on the protection of human rights. The country has consistently ranked very low on the Freedom Index published by Freedom House. The police are famous for constraining citizens’ rights by illegally demanding for permits before they can protest and parading suspects in contravention of the Constitution and the rulings of the Supreme Court. There are many cases where governments at all levels have been accused of arbitrary arrest, non-compliance with court orders, intimidating citizens and trying to crush dissenting public opinion. Young Nigerians are particularly susceptible to harassment by the State and a painfully slow judicial system also means that citizens often suffer irreparable damage before they are able to assert their human rights. I would score Nigeria a ‘Fail’ on this criterion.

On Larry Diamond’s final criterion on the rule of law and equal application of laws and procedures to all citizens, the story is not such a good one. Most Nigerians would not believe that laws and procedures are applied equally to all citizens. Indeed, becoming a member of the elite in Nigeria appears to give you an entitlement to break the law and get away with it. You are able to drive against traffic, not have to queue for services, pay minimal taxes, and be given personal protection by 20 policemen by a grossly understaffed police force. Having said that, there have been a few cases where members of the elite have been made to answer for wrongdoing, particularly with regards to corruption by politically exposed persons. Still, I would score Nigeria a ‘Fail’ on this criterion.

Overall, it is fair to say that Nigeria’s democracy is still maturing. There have been some areas of encouragement but

‘

The positive correlation between democracy and economic growth has long been established.

Save for very few countries, the most prosperous nations on earth practice democratic rule. The G7 countries and all the richest countries in the world all practice democratic rule

also many areas where more needs to be done. As Professor Wale Adebanwi of Oxford University recently said: “Regardless of which government is, or has been, in power, there is consensus that we have not built the country that we have the capacity to build.” The opportunities that exist for more to be done sometimes leads to frustration, with some people advocating a return to military rule, balkanization of the country and even fascism. I think that it is important that we address this: Is democracy better for economic growth and prosperity or are dictatorship and fascism better?

The positive correlation between democracy and economic growth has long been established. Save for very few countries, the most prosperous nations on earth practice democratic rule. The G7 countries and all the richest countries in the world all practice democratic rule. This is not to claim any sort of causality and it would be imprudent to claim that democracy causes economic growth. Such a claim is easy to disprove by looking at China.

While Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea are democracies today, they were not democracies at the time that the foundations for their development were being laid. This has led many to advocate for the benefits of a “benevolent dictator.” The little problem with that is that not many of Africa’s dictators have ever been “benevolent.” Most have been megalomaniac kleptocrats that became richer than the countries they rule, while brutally suppressing dissent. As Winston Churchill said in 1947: Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…”

It is for this reason that I have often argued that, of all the freedoms we must protect, the two most important ones are the freedom to speak our minds freely and the freedom to choose our leaders in free and fair elections.

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

Lagos and the prospect of a waste free future

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ust recently, we introduced the Blue Box initiative – a waste collection programme designed to help residents’ sort recyclable waste from the source, that is, at the point where an item or material is considered waste. This eliminates the landfill process for recyclables, and we see this as a long-term step by step and collaborative approach, to engage with the everyday Lagosian in our journey to a sustainable waste free environment.

Waste management is generally an inclusive practice which requires active participation and cooperation from individuals and the government, both driving a 2-way agenda to ensure a cleaner Lagos. It is important for people to understand the consequences of uncontrolled waste, as it could be very costly to both the society and the economy with significant health and environmental impacts linked to air, soil and water contamination.

The global waste management outlook report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) identifies waste as a global issue which concerns everyone and also studies how society consumes and produces waste especially in the urban areas. Here, effective waste management is seen as a basic human need, sitting alongside the provision of potable water, shelter, food, energy, transport and other social amenities. This lays emphasis on how important the effective man-

agement of waste can greatly impact productivity and economic prosperity both from global and local levels.

According to research, Nigeria is one of the largest waste producers in Africa, with an annual waste generation of more than 32 million tons. For Lagos state which is highly industrialised and one of the fastest growing cities in Nigeria and Africa with about 22 million people, we generate about 10,000 metric tons of waste daily, which makes an average of 3.65 million tons per year. This means that more than any other state in Nigeria, the Lagos State Waste Management Agency (LAWMA) has a responsibility to ensure that waste is managed appropriately, especially starting from the household and family levels. Till date, we have increased private sector participation (PSP) by 32 percent, expanding access in the waste collection and transportation systems across Lagos state.

Looking at the direct impact of improper waste management, this can be linked to two major aspects - public health and environmental pollution. Accumulated waste encourages organisms to breed, causing infectious and bacterial diseases especially for children. It also affects drinking water and can cause a widespread cholera outbreak, popular in some of the rural areas within Lagos.

For the environment, this poses a serious threat

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to surface and groundwater, investors and tourist activities.

Effective waste management collection, transportation and disposal processes, with the help of LAWMA and the PSPs, have become a very simplified procedure. First and most importantly, residents are encouraged to reduce activities associated with waste production, so that we can see a significant decrease in the amount of waste generated daily. Then it is also necessary for accumulated waste to be properly sealed and disposed in the waste storage materials provided by our agency across Lagos. Once this is done, the collection and transportation by the PSPs to the local landfills becomes a very straightforward and effective process and the cycle continues.

While we continue to work to ensure our environment is clean and healthy, we must emphasize the need for an urgent shift in attitudes towards waste disposal by residents across Lagos state. Indiscriminate refuse disposal practices have proven to cause severe problems in our efforts to sustaining a waste free society. In managing this, we have involved in several educational waste management programs like the Community Advocacy and CDA/ CDC Interaction, to create awareness on how we all have a role to play in keeping the environment healthy. The state of our environment is an integral

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MUYIWA GBADEGESIN part of the quality of life we receive as humans. A cleaner environment inherently contributes to better livelihood for us, our children and many generations to come.

As an organisation, our mandate is to ensure a more secure, clean and prosperous state. Our vision is to build a smart city which was a strong objective in the development of this initiative with components such as Residential Waste Collection and Processing, Commercial/ Industrial Waste Collection, Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Drainage Maintenance, Provision of Engineered/ hazardous Sanitary Landfill and Manual/ Mechanised Street Sweeping.

Note: the rest of this article continues in the online edition of Business Day @https:// businessday.ng Gbadegesin is the Chief Executive Officer, LAWMA

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Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

COMPANIES & MARKETS

COMPANY NEWS ANALYSIS INSIGHT

Manufacturing

Exposed: Misleading data shows Nigeria manufacturing exports at 4-yr high LOLADE AKINMURELE

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he biggest takeaway from Customs data published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on foreign trade in the third quarter turned out false and misleading.

The report showed manufacturers in Nigeria exported the most goods in four years in the third quarter of 2019, a trend that implied an expansion in manufacturing activity and perhaps the biggest sign yet that the government was making progress in diversifying the country’s foreign exchange earnings.

Further analysis showed that manufacturing exports accounted for 10.85 percent of total exports in the first nine months of 2019.

With the exportation of some N1.5 trillion worth of manufactured goods in the nine-month period under review, it implied manufacturers had exported a larger amount of goods compared to previous years, despite being three months short of a full year.

It’s also the first time

since the NBS started publishing data that manufacturing exports as a percentage of total exports were in double-digits. Manufacturing exports were equivalent to 3.48 percent of total exports in 2018, which means it has tripled this year. It was 1.71 percent in 2017 and 2.15 percent in 2016.

The biggest jump came

in the third quarter when manufacturers are reported to have exported N996 billion worth of products, which marks an increase of 839 percent compared to the second quarter of 2019 and represents 18 percent of total exports in the period.

There was a 1000 percent jump compared to the third quarter of 2018.

A rude awakening is what follows an attempt to uncover the particular manufactured items that were being exported.

Rather than a jump in exports of locally made goods, the increase was due to the re-exports of high value cable sheaths of iron, submersible drilling platform, vessels and other floating

structures.

Re-exports are foreign goods exported in the same state and form as previously imported from a particular country.

In this case, Nigeria had basically imported these items, mainly from Ghana, and re-exported to same Ghana.

The NBS said at the foot

L-R: Seyi Olanrewaju, chairman, Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) Nigeria Branch; Florence Lawal, wife of Razak Lawal, Fellow of CIMA; associate director, CIMA Nigeria, Ijeoma Anadozie; Dan Akujobi (ACMA CGMA); and vice chairman, CIMA Nigeria, Femi Adebayo, at the centenary dinner of CIMA, in Lagos.

of the data page that “It is recommended that they (re-exports) be recorded separately for analytical purposes.”

When re-exports (worth N951 billion in the third quarter of 2019) are backed out from manufacturing exports, it leaves a value of N45 billion rather than N996 billion.

Rather than the 18.85 percent reported, manufacturing exports as a percentage of total exports in the third quarter shrink drastically to 0.85 percent of total exports.

“It’s wrong to lump reexports with manufacturing exports as it gives the false impression that the goods were made in Nigeria and exported when that is not the case,” said Muda Yusuf, director-general at the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), a trade advocacy group that draws membership from over 2000 companies including manufacturers.

“Manufacturing exports are not on the rise as the headline figure suggests and the country is still largely a mono-export economy,” a stunned Yusuf said.

FUNDS

Here’s where pension funds parked cash in October LOLADE AKINMURELE

T

he assets under management (AUM) of the Nigerian pension industry increased by 16.1 percent in October 2019 to N9.81trn (US$32 billion) compared to the same period last year. That’s only 7.7 percent of 2018 GDP. On a monthly basis, Pension assets rose 2.4 percent.

The latest figure for Kenya, for instance, is 14.0 percent in December 2018, and its asset structure is diverse: 39.4 percent of the total in government paper, 19.7 percent in real estate and 17.3 percent in listed equities.

The focus of Nigerian PFAs however is concen-

trated on Fixed Income products.

Their holdings of FGN paper totaled 69.5 percent of AUM in October, compared with 70.9 percent one year earlier.

This masks, however, a shift in their exposure to Treasury Bills, the share of which rose from 19.6 percent to 22.8 percent of the total in the period.

The PFAs are core participants at the monthly auctions held by the Debt Management Office. Their holdings of FGN bonds at end-October represented 47.3% of the stock of the instruments at end-June.

For the first time in three months, both sales and the total bid were the strongest

for the long bond (Apr ’49) at the auction in November.

“It is generally seen as the favourite of the PFAs for the matching of their assets with their liabilities,” analysts at FBN Quest said in a note to clients.

The proportion of AUM invested in domestic equities has declined over the past 12 months from 7.1% to 4.9%. It’s however important to note that the NSEASI fell by 18.8 percent over the same period.

The pension funds are over concentrated on fixed income government securities but where else could they go is the question analysts ask.

“Politicians and other interested parties like to

suggest alternative investment strategies. Although well-meaning, this over-

looks the principal function of the PFAs to maintain the value of their stakeholders’

pensions for retirement,” the FBN Quest analysts added.

L-R: Simen Abutu, managing director, Greensphere Nigeria Limited; Fabeke D Douglas, president, Ogoni Liberation Initiative and Babatunde Abolori, program manager, Global Entrepreneurship City Network, at a press briefing and presentation of the book, “The Issues of Ogoni People” in Lagos recently.

Tuesday 17 December 2019

COMPANIES&MARKETS

BUSINESS DAY

15

OIL & GAS

NNPC boss tasks Brass Fertilizer board on technical competence, funding OLUSOLA BELLO

T

he Group Managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mele Kyari, has called on members of the Board of Director of the Brass Fertilizer and Petrochemical Company Limited to resolve issues of gas supply, technical capability and funding confronting the company and come up with viable bankable options that could help drive the project to fruition.

Kyari made the call Friday while inaugurating the Board of the company at the NNPC Towers in Abuja.

He said the Brass Fertilizer

and Petrochemical project, when completed, would lead to sustainable prosperity for Nigeria.

“I know that this project is important to all of us. Monetizing gas for us is everything because this is a gas country.

There is huge potential in gas development and our focus is to add value to gas locally. That means deepening the utilization of gas in-country. Our interest is always on things that will add value to our local market and local economy”, he said.

The NNPC boss pointed out that the project had potential to boost the nation’s economic growth due to its methanol and fertilizer components which he

said could facilitate growth in the agricultural sector.

In his acceptance speech, the Chairman of the Board and NNPC Chief Operating Officer, Gas and Power, Yusuf Usman, said that the project was important for both the corporation and the country.

He assured that the Board will deliver on its mandate with the cooperation of all stakeholders.

Earlier in his remarks, the Chairman of DSV Engineering, a partner in the project and member of the Board,. Ben Okoye, expressed delight that the Board had finally been inaugurated, adding that his company was fully committed to the project.

L-R: Muyiwa Ebitanmi, director mobile financial services at Airtel Nigeria; Nath Ude, executive director service and technology, Union Bank; Carlos Wanderly, Aurthor of “ A Smarter Way to do Business”; Emeka Okonkwo, executive director corporate banking and treasury, Union Bank, and Olu Akanmu, executive director retail, FCMB, at the book launch of A Smarter way to do Business’ in Lagos.

COMMODITIES

Vitol signs 10-year deal to buy Nigeria’s LNG from 2021 REUTERS

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ommodities trader Vitol has signed a 10-year deal with Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) to buy 500,000 tonnes of LNG per year, ramping up its long-term presence on the market.

Commodity houses, including Vitol rivals Trafigura and Gunvor, are increasingly expanding their traded spot cargo volumes with multi-year LNG deals as a global push for cleaner energy helps the market grow and mature.

“The agreement underscores NLNG’s drive...to deliver LNG on a global scale in a low carbon world where gas/LNG will continue to be the preferred

complementary energy source alongside renewables,” Vitol said in a statement.

The deal also helps NLNG remarket volumes from existing production lines at its Bonny Island plant with a number of contracts due to expire.

Vitol said it would purchase volumes from Trains 1, 2 and 3 of a six-train NLNG production facility on Bonny Island under the sales and purchase agreement, which was signed on Dec. 11 and will start in October 2021.

NLNG’s contracts with Turkey’s Botas, Portugal’s Galp Energia, Spain’s Naturgy and France’s energy major Total for a total of 2.67 million tonnes per year will expire in 2020 and

2021, according to the International Group of LNG Importers (GIIGNL).

NLNG has also been looking for buyers for volumes from a yet-to-be-built Train 7.

Vitol will purchase volumes on an delivered-ex-ship basis, meaning NLNG will provide shipping for the cargoes.

The price of LNG purchased under the deal has not been disclosed but spot Asian LNG and European gas prices are trading at their lowest level in at least a decade this winter.

Vitol has also been buying long-term volumes from U.S. producer Cheniere and the trading arm of Russia’s Gazprom, Gazprom Marketing & Trading, since 2018.

L-R: Victor Odumuyiwa, acting director, centre for information technology systems, University of Lagos; Mr John Che; global president and founder, ZKTeco; Afolabi Abiodun, CEO, SB Telecoms & Devices,; Chief Lecturer, Department of Elect Elect, Yaba College of Technology, Olufunmilayo Mafimidiwo; HOD, mechanical engineering, University of Lagos, Ajiboye Joseph Sehinde; and Even Wang, vice-president, ZKTeco, at the press conference organised by SB Telecoms to announce ZKTeco’s plans for the Nigerian market over the weekend in Lagos.

L-R: Seindemi Olobayo, chief solutions officer, Softcom Limited; Oluwakemi Aro, ICT head, Elias International School, Alimosho; Oyin-Adejobi Morayo R., senior education officer, Abesan Comprehensive Jnr. College, Ipaja; Olalekan Akinsande, technical delivery lead, Data Science Nigeria, at the Softcom-sponsored AI Masterclass for Teachers in Lagos

L-R: Sade Morgan, corporate affairs director, Nigerian Breweries Plc; Princewill Akuma, community marketing lead, Jobberman; Grace Omo-Lamai, human resource director, Nigerian Breweries Plc, and Uaboi Agbebaku, company secretary/legal director, Nigerian Breweries Plc, during the presentation of award to Nigerian Breweries Plc as one of the Top 20 Best Places to Work by Jobberman research held in Lagos

L-R: Olawale Adediran, president/chairman of council, CIPM; Bunmi Oni, past president, and Olu Onakoya, former chairman/managing director, Mobil Oil Nigeria Plc/special guest of honour, at the CIPM awards night in Lagos. Pic by olawale Amoo

L-R: Tunde Kelani, award-winning cinematographer; Hadiza Isah, MultiChoice Nigeria, Branch Manager, Kano; Abdulkareem Mohammed, Managing Director, Moving Image Limited; Femi Odugbemi, MultiChoice Talent Factory Academy Director, West Africa and kannywood Actor, Umar Gombe, during the Masterclass Series on Cinematography, Sound and Storytelling held at GK Guest Palace, Kano State

L-R: Dayo Aderugbo, head, corporate affairs, brand, and marketion, Nigeria and West Africa; Lamin Manjang, CEO, Nigeria and West Africa, and David Idoru, head, retail banking, Nigeria and West Africa, all of Standard Chartered Pic by Olawale Amoo Bank, at the launch of Standard Chartered digital bank in Lagos.

16

Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

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BUSINESS DAY

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18

Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

Media business Why MultiChoice chose Ibadan city for its first unique service centre Daniel Obi

I

badan, an ancient city with many first historical accounts, recorded another first last weekend as MultiChoice, owners of DStv and GOtv located its first state-ofthe-art service center in the city, home to three million people.

To MultiChoice, Ibadan which is the third largest city in Nigeria after Kano and Lagos and where the first TV station opened in 1959, is also an entertainment hub.

MultiChoice deliberately chose the city to site its first ultra-modern service centre to consistently improve customer satisfaction and further its business as the Chief Executive Officer of MultiChoice Nigeria, John Ugbe said “Africa Magic Yoruba is one of the biggest channels we have in the platform”.

The ‘signature branch’ located on Kudeti Avenue, Onireke Road, Ibadan North

West, with new design and new technology installed will serve as a customer touch point for subscribers of DStv and GOtv services. Other services such as purchase of decoders, paying for subscriptions and resolution of issues are available at the center.

The office was commissioned by Olubadan of Ibadan, Oba Saliu Akanmu Adetunji in company of Oyo State Commissioner for Information, Wasiu Olatunbosun and management staff of MultiChoice Nigeria.

Ugbe who recalled that it was in Ibadan that MultiChoice had the first base station for GOtv said MultiChoice is delighted to be in Ibadan and the management is proud to commission the service centre for customers in the city and its environs.

“The people of Ibadan have been supportive all the years and to compliment that support we have to bring the signature branch here. It allows us to offer much faster service with newer technology we have installed and gives us the opportunity to

serve more people.

“For us we always promise excellent service and putting a new branch in Ibadan underscores that believe. What we have is completely new technology to make it easier to deliver the best customer service”, he said.

Also speaking, Oyo State commissioner for Information said the state government is proud to associate with MultiChoice. “We have enabling environment to attract many investors. We are redoubling what we met on the ground to create conducive atmosphere to ensure investment thrives in Oyo State”, he said.

He appealed to investors to assist the state government in the development of tourism.

In his speech, the Olubadan of Ibadan appreciated MultiChoice to siting the first ultra-modern customer service center in Ibadan and promised that the indigenes will cooperate to the success of the center.

X3M Ideas, Noah’s Ark, DDB, SO&U win big at 2019 LAIF Awards Daniel Obi

X

3M Ideas, Noah’s Ark, DDB Lagos, SO&U won the highest number of awards at the 2019 Lagos Ideas Festival, LAIF Awards held last weekend in Lagos.

It was gathered that Insight

Publicis, one of the largest advertising agencies in Nigeria and West Africa did not participate in the competition this year. The agency last year won total 24 medals- five gold, 10 silver and nine bronze medals. There was no immediate reason for pulling out of the competition this year.

Insight Redefini Group had early this year appointed Tendai Mhizha, a Zimbabwean as Managing Director of its flagship creative ideas hub, Insight Publicis in place of the former Managing Director, Feyi Olubodun, who left the services of the foremost agency.

In the keenly contest 2019 award, X3M Ideas won a total of 11 medals- three gold, 2 silver, five Bronze medals. The agency run by Steve Babaeko that has taken clients such as 9Mobile, Glo and others to greater heights also won the Grand Prix award.

Noah’s Ark won a total of 21 medals – Five gold, six silver and 10 bronze medals; DDB won 14 medals – three gold, four silver and 7 bronze medals while SO&U won 11 medals – three gold, five silver and three bronze medals.

Other winners on the night of Tori Tori award, an event to celebrate Nigerian culture and narrative were Isobar with two gold, three silver and three bronze medals; BBDO won two gold, one silver and five bronze medals; Seven Interactive won one gold, six silver and four bronze medals. Ogilvy Nigeria won a total of 6 medals made up of - one gold, four silver and one bronze medals; Leo Burnnet won a total of 8 medals – one gold, three silver and four bronze medals while TBWA Concept run by Kelechi Nwosu won one gold, one silver and six

bronze medals.

The jury for the award this year comprises veterans and young advertising practitioners with officials from Ghana and other parts of Africa.

This year’s Lagos Ideas Festival, Laif awards, in its 13- year history was amazing with full of glitz and glamour as everything around it this year was celebration of Nigerian culture. The dress code for the award with the theme: ‘Tori Tori of Laif’ was purely Nigerian as Ad men were seen in their traditional Nigerian attire.

It is expected that this cultural identification and celebration will be sustained in the industry to deepen the knowledge of Nigerian culture.

LAIF awards is one of the most consistent pillars of the milestone achievement of Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria, AAAN.

Zola Electric opens first experience centre in Nigeria

Z

ola Electric, the renewable energy brand in Africa has opened its first experience centre in Nigeria.

The Experience centre, which is located at the Fezel Plaza, Alfred Rewane Road, Ikoyi, Lagos would serve as the retail

footprint for ZOLA in Nigeria as part of its commitments to provide 24 hours reliable, renewable and clean energy solutions to its customers.

The company also unveiled the limited edition of its flagship renewable power solution product, ZOLA Inwww.businessday.ng

finity to the first set of 100 customers who pre-ordered the innovative renewable energy product at a grand event held in Lagos Speaking during the unveiling of the Experience Centre, the Chief Executive Officer, ZOLA Electric, Bill Lenihan ex-

plained that the Centre would serve as a retail hub for the business ensuring seamless interactions with customers on the innovative power solutions that is aimed at bringing a permanent solution to the energy needs of Nigerians and businesses.

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UpBeat marks second of doing business, urges Nigerians to focus more on fitness

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s Nigerians get set for the yuletide and holiday season, the management of UpBeat Recreation Centre has called on Nigerians to pay more attention to their health by staying fit before, during and after the festive season, as the company celebrates its second anniversary in Lagos.

“Upbeat was conceived to fill a gap in the market, establishing a world class fun sports and fitness recreation center in Africa for the benefit of all in the community,” said Siamanta Van-Labeke, the operation manager, UpBeat Recreation Centre, Lekki.

According to her, the UpBeat second anniversary carnival is likely to be the largest Christmas activation in Lagos, to create an opportunity for Lagosians to come together, have fun, eat, shop and play during the festive season.

She opined that it is an

experiential event designed to attract energetic individuals who are looking for fun and fitness in the spirit of the merry season. “This year we will be hosting the Happy Kids Party on 27th December to end the Christmas carnival and. We kicked off by hosting a fun party on the 7th of December with three iconic DJ’s and the creme de la creme of Lagos and carry on with a carnival every weekend for the entire month of December,” Van-Labeke said.

According to Van-Labeke, UpBeat in its corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative supported the Happy Kids- Promising Purpose initiative, a non- profit organization in Lagos. She stated that Happy Kids has supported orphanages in Lagos in the last four years by hosting an annual Christmas Funfair party as well as helping them financially where needed.

Festive season: FoodCo creates consumer traction with Christmas sales promo

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oodCo Nigeria Limited, a diversified consumer goods company with interests in retail, quick service restaurants, manufacturing and entertainment, has announced the commencement of a special 12-day Christmas sales promo commencing from December 11 to 22.

According to Solomon Huesu, Marketing Manager, FoodCo Nigeria Limited, in a statement, customers shopping at FoodCo Supermarket outlets during the period will enjoy discounts on a wide variety of products including groceries, toiletries and other household items.

Huesu further stated that the promo, which will run concurrently across all FoodCo outlets in Lagos and Ibadan, Oyo State, will avail FoodCo customers the op@Businessdayng

portunity to purchase hampers at specially discounted prizes, starting from as low as N6, 000.

He said: “As a customercentric brand, FoodCo is always seeking for opportunities to connect with the passion points of our customers. Christmas is denoted by spreading happiness and giving and we are keying into the spirit of the season to create an unforgettable shopping experience for our customers where they can shop high quality products at the best prices in town via the promo.”

While restating the company’s commitment to provide top quality products at pocket friendly prizes, he expressed gratitude to loyal customers for standing by the brand through its 37 years of existence.

Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

19

ADVERTISING National Advertising Conference, action plans missing About 250 advertising practitioners comprising delegates from all sectoral groups converged on Abuja between November 25 and 27, 2019 where they identified growth limitations for the industry. In this report, Daniel Obi suggests how they can achieve the objectives of the successful conference.

N

o one pretends that organising any conference and achieving the objective is that easy. That is why vehicles are put in motion to achieve the results after conference.

Late last month, Ijedi Iyoha, first female Acting Registrar/ CEO of the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria, APCON, the apex regulatory body of the advertising and marketing industry in Nigeria did the extra-ordinary. Imbued with comprehensive knowledge and experience, she galvanized practitioners in the industry who are challenged by the environment to discuss solutions and a growth path.

They headed to Abuja for the maiden National Advertising Conference, principally to get the attention of the government that is equally central to the solutions. At the conference held in conjunction with all the sectoral groups in the advertising industry, many issues besetting the industry came up. In as much as they were not discussed in details, perhaps due to the limited time, it was significant they were tabled in such a combined stakeholders meeting.

The organisation of the conference was successful as the advertising practitioners were excited that the pains limiting their survival and growth were diagnosed. But what is left is the right cure and the ‘physicians’ to administer medications.

Among the issues which came up was according the industry the deserved relevance.

It was indeed surprising that the industry which has operated for over 80 years is still seeking for significance, especially with government which is a signpost that something is definitely wrong somewhere.

For instance, government has for six years deliberately denied the industry the necessary supervisory board in spite of the major roles APCON plays in the economy. This is an indication that government does not either understand what the industry does or wants to politicize the organization by appointing a politician to head the board against the law.

At such unique forum in Abuja, Lai Mohammed, the minister of Information who oversees APCON sent his Perm Sec, Grace Ekpe and his speech failed to address the important issues around APCON board.

Ijedi Iyoha, Registrar of APCON

Ikechi Odigbo, President of Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria, AAAN

The forum however demanded for immediate constitution of APCON council to enable it play its statutory roles. But the over 6 years neglect by government pushed the forum to begin to seek for alternative in self-regulation for the industry.

Among the plethora of ailments touched at the conference include inconsistent policies by government, industry debt, lack of research among players, poor human capital, poor agency capitalisation, coping with digitization, multiple taxations, especially in Outdoor sector by various arms of government, effects of 2015/16 economic recession, budget cut by clients and competition from clients who set up their own marketing communication shops.

All these have combined to create cloudy and dark days for the industry operators.

The forum also discussed that the Federal Government should consider the establishwww.businessday.ng

ment of a Federal Ministry of Public Communication to coordinate and manage centrally all government communication with the public.

It was also tabled that government should make deliberate effort at economic policy stability through extensive stakeholders’ consultations that includes practitioners in the marketing communication industry as a solution to the declining fortunes of the marketing communication industry.

The conference with central theme ‘Advertising in the Post Digital Age: The Profession, the Business and Nigeria’s Socio-economic Development’ afforded the players the opportunity to collectively take a critical re-assessment of the industry, its relationship with government, how to promote its economic impact that is downplayed and operating in digital era.

Though the conference was the maiden edition, but there

was no actual steps taken at the end of the two-day conference to concretely resolve or attempt to tackle the issues raised. For instance, there was no agreement on a figure for agency capitalization, there was no action plans and steps to compel government to constitute APCON council and there was no plan to follow through on Biodun Shobanjo, chairman of Troyka Group’s suggestion of 60 days on media contract payment by clients and other issues around resolving industry debt challenges.

Shobanjo, chairman of Troyka Group, who spoke at the conference with about 250 delegates had proposed 60 days duration for payment of media contracts by clients perhaps through legislation.

This is as an option of saving the media business as debt within the industry between clients, service providers, media owners and advertising agencies, with its implications, need to be checkmated.

On adequate regulation within the industry, Shobanjo whose presentation addressed contemporary issues in the industry further called on APCON to play its regulatory functions without fear or favour. “A situation where interlopers are allowed to infiltrate the business as the case in many sectoral sectors must be stopped”.

For instance “where the law prescribes that foreigners acquire not more than 25 percent equity in Nigerian advertising companies but this is circumvented by using unscrupulous Nigerians, must be stopped and reversed”.

After the two-day conference, most of the delegates who were largely from Lagos were in a hurry to catch their flights back to their destinations with no action plans or committees set up to map out solid steps to tackle the issues raised for the growth of the industry.

To some analysts, the forum made far-reaching suggestions for the survival of the industry that should not end at talking only. To concretely achieve the objective of the conference, what is left now is to set up a standing committee that will look at the issues raised and map out solid strategies and steps the industry must follow collectively and religiously to resolve the issues.

Without this, the conference would have ended up as normal talk-shop.

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Aimart International unveils new brand identity, rewards customers

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s part of the efforts to offer cutting edge services and give Nigerians worry-free land ownership and housing scheme, Nigeria’s real estate company, Aimart International has consolidated its subsidiaries Aimart Realtors, Logistics Express Ltd and others under a new brand identity - Aimart International.

The company also rewarded customers with cars and other household items after the draws for the special season’s promotion.

The company, which has promised to refresh its business operations across the value chain and focus on adding real time value to the customers, also hinted that lots of new ideas and directions will be revealed in the first quarter of the New Year.

Speaking at the event, Managing Director, Bukola

general growth and development in Nigeria.

Iluyomade, while explaining the new logo, said that the enclave image represents, simplicity, transparency, stability, trustworthiness, reliability and shows that there are other bags of ideas that will be added to the company’s operations across the group.

He also assured teeming and potential customers that the company has not changed its commitment to total quality but it is undergoing refinement to give added satisfaction to consumers .

It would be recalled that the real estate arm of the business started a special season’ promotion about two months ago with the aim of offering parcel of land across her various estates at discounted prices as well as reward customers for patronage as they celebrate the Christmas and new year.

Iluyomade, revealed that the new brand identity connote freshness of ideas and explains the authencity and increased sharpness of the company’s focus to offer and promote a business that is not just for profit making, but supports

Customers that made initial deposit of N250,000, N150,000 and N50,000, respectively were drawn for brand new Toyota Camry, deep freezer, generator and other items including bags of rice, cooking oil and live turkey.

Chivita 100% wins Brand of the Year at Global Quality Excellence Award

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s part of this year’s World Quality Day celebrations, fruit juice brand, Chivita 100%, emerged as the Brand of the Year at the recently held Global Quality Excellence Award in Lagos. This represents another milestone for a brand that has continually grown its mindshare through innovative quality, effective communication and consumer satisfaction.

The award which was organized by the World Qual-

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ity Alliance recognizes excellence in quality conformance to customer needs and promotes awareness of the important contributions that quality makes toward a nation’s growth and prosperity.

According to Ifeoma Esorougwe, the Executive Director, World Quality Alliance, “the Global Quality Excellence Brand of the Year Award is an opportunity for Chivita 100% to be recognized as the number one fruit juice in Nigeria and the responsibility to ensure that it continues to deliver superior quality that consistently exceed consumer expectations.”

Speaking on the award, Managing Director of Chi Limited, Deepanjan Roy, stated that the award was a welcome development and underscores the organization’s commitment and passion to creating the highest quality fruit juice available in the market today.

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Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

Kindness in the workplace too often goes unrewarded Being considerate and caring towards others is wrongly characterised as a dull trait

T

he other day a colleague arrived at work looking unusually pleased.

“You wouldn’t believe what just happened to me,” he said, and before I could stop him he had launched into a peculiar story about a suitcase.

He had a quite expensive one that he could not use any more because it had lost a wheel. He had found a new wheel on the internet but did not have the tools to attach it. Eventually he found a shop that could do the attaching, if he didn’t mind waiting 20 minutes, so he went off to a nearby pub where he was struck by a ghastly thought: in his excitement at finding the thing could be fixed, he had forgotten to ask how much it would cost.

Braced to be billed a stonking sum, he returned to be told something you do not hear every day in the middle of London: No charge. “Just put whatever you like in there,” said the man at the counter, pointing to a cancer charity box by the till. It turned out the charity had looked after the man’s late father and as a

result, customers were often asked to donate instead of paying for smallish jobs, so much so that the box took in about £2,000 a year.

Listening to my colleague gush about that small act of generosity at this time of year reminded me that kindness in business is oddly complicated.

We delight in it on a personal level, yet we are unsure it is a good or even necessary quality in the workplace. If we were surer, the business psychologist, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, might have struggled to write one of 2019’s most popular business books — Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders — a guide to the overconfident, reckless narcissists who so often end up in charge.

So are we hard-wired to prefer charisma to humility and kindness? Or are we entering an age of rising demands for better business behaviour in which the modest achiever will triumph?

The research certainly seems clear : humble, unassuming bosses spur more collaboration which often improves company performance in the long run. Yet I fear that finding an effective www.businessday.ng

version of that leader or manager can be tricky.

Many years ago, I had a job that involved stretches of stressful editing in between periods of intense boredom. To pass the time, my colleagues and I would occasionally resort to gossiping about who was the best-looking person in the office. We found this inordinately diverting but one day, someone suggested we try a new question: if Jesus were working among us, who would that person be?

We looked at each other blank-faced. A few of us made a stab at it and were quickly shouted down until eventually it was

agreed there was probably only one person who could plausibly fit the bill. He managed a team of people so considerately that he inspired a lot of loyalty. He listened to his underlings’ gripes and made sure higher-ups knew of their feats. He never lost his temper. He worked as hard as anyone and very often harder.

As it happened, none of this held him back from promotion, nor others of a similar ilk I have worked with since then. Yet it might have, because this sort of behaviour regularly goes unrewarded and in certain circles it is deemed to be something more dire: fatally dull. I still

‘‘

Listening to my colleague gush about that small act of generosity at this time of year reminded me that kindness in business is oddly complicated

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‘‘

Pilita Clark

@Businessdayng

remember how the writer, Sam Leith, described the influential British literary agent, Deborah Rogers, when she died in 2014.

“She had the unusual combination of being both very kind and not boring or pious,” he wrote in the Evening Standard. If you were interested in gossip about writers, “she was the one to corner”. I never met Ms Rogers but I recognised what Mr Leith was saying at once. I know kind people and exciting, charismatic people, but few who manage to be both. I do like to think they exist, though.

On the way into work one day last week, I dropped into Alba Luggage, the family business in Marylebone that fixed my colleague’s suitcase. Danny Barkany, one of the owners, looked embarrassed when I asked about his non-charging policy.

“I don’t think we’re being kind,” he said, adding it did not make sense to charge for jobs that cost almost nothing. “Perhaps I’m a very bad businessman,” he added. “But I don’t care.”

Nor should he. Alba Luggage has been going for more than 40 years and if there is any justice, it will go on for 40 more.

Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

21

Why business schools blend ancient and modern design Campus expansion in Europe often has to accommodate history and nature Jonathan Moules

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‘‘

French building codes are very demanding, so it helps that we are doing some positive things, not just trying to fit within the constraints of historic buildings

‘‘

everence for the past in Europe can be both a blessing and a curse for business schools in their quest to build facilities that will appeal to present and potential students.

Many European business schools are blessed with some of the continent’s most interesting yet neglected historic buildings, which can be adapted for teaching. But they are often also cursed with complex negotiations with local residents and official bodies to ensure they do not ruin the character or ambience of a structure or its location.

In southern England, the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School is raising £60m to convert the city’s first electricity plant, Osney power station, into an executive education suite.

The plans, approved this year, would turn a derelict Victorian brick building on the banks of the river Thames into something reminiscent of a boutique hotel.

To get this far, however, the school had to run two informal consultations, meet-and-greet sessions with the architect, three formal public consultations, two Oxford Design Review Panels (an independent evaluation process) and six pre-application reviews with planning officers before the designs were approved.

“Executive education keeps us relevant and gives us impact,” says Sara Beck, Saïd’s chief operating officer, adding that while the process is lengthy, it is worthwhile for the presence the school gains in Oxford.

Meanwhile, on the outskirts of Paris, Insead is spending €100m expanding its original campus in the town of Fontainebleau to increase capacity by a fifth. The school has employed Jacques Herzog, the Swiss architect whose practice’s portfolio includes the Tate Modern gallery in London and Beijing’s National Stadium.

Fontainebleau has a rich history, as a home to French monarchs up to the time of Napoleon Bonaparte. This must be respected, says Peter Zemsky, Insead’s dean of innovation and the project’s sponsor. The expansion will replace some structures built in the 1960s and 1970s, not long after Insead was founded, and will halve energy consumption, he adds.

“French building codes are very demanding, so it helps that we are doing some positive things, not just trying to fit within

the constraints of historic buildings,” he says. “It also helps that we are one of the major employers locally.”

Another factor is the need to maintain the local forest area, an attraction to students who live on campus. “When you build buildings nowadays, it is about two things: people and the planet,” Prof Zemsky says.

Back in England, Durham www.businessday.ng

University Business School is spending £71m on a new home in the heart of the medieval city.

The development is on a partly derelict plot, which includes a car park and an abandoned public bath. So far, it has required 14 months of planning and negotiation with local residents and environmental agencies to ensure the new buildings do not harm views of the city, whose castle

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and cathedral are a Unesco World Heritage Site.

This process has already led to a significant rethinking of the design, lowering the building by a storey and a half to ensure it sits below the tree line. Sections of the business school will stand on stilts above an artificial pond designed to reduce the impact of flooding. The pond will provide “opportunities for ecological enhancements” with the planting of insect-friendly trees and shrubs.

“The planning of a building like this takes a long time because there are so many stakeholders we need to bring in,” says Susan Hart, dean of the business school.

The amount of money available for a project makes a big difference to its ability to construct bold new campus designs. This is where US business schools often have an advantage over their European counterparts, says Nigel Dancey, senior executive partner at London-based archi@Businessdayng

tects Foster + Partners, whose projects include Yale University’s School of Management in the US and Aberdeen Business School in Scotland.

“American schools are better at going back to their alumni for donations, and those former students tend to give more back to their colleges,” he says.

But big construction projects can run into obstacles wherever they are. Concern about the history of a place might be a particularly European concern, but the US presents its own problems, as Insead’s Prof Zemsky discovered in the school’s project to build a small teaching facility in San Francisco. The problem here has not been planning restrictions but the challenge of getting power to the site from local utility Pacific Gas and Electric.

“California has been a more complicated environment for us to do real estate than France,” Prof Zemsky says. “A whole construction project can get bunged up if you can’t get electricity.”

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Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

EDUCATION

Weekly insight on current and future trends in education

Primary/Secondary

Why Nigerian varsities need periodic STEM curricula review KELECHI EWUZIE

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wing to the everchanging needs of society, industry professionals have called on Nigerian universities to undertake periodic review of science, technology; engineering and mathematics (STEM) related curricula.

Educationists are of the views that three to five years review is ideal to prepare a critical mass of youth with the skills needed to promote research and innovation for the country’s industrialisation.

They observe that despite some investments in STEM research and education, Nigeria has a critical shortage of highly trained scientists, technologists, engineers and innovators with enrolments in STEM programmes and falls behind global averages.

Peter Okebukola, Chairman of Council, Crawford University and Chairman, Board of Trustees, Caleb University says it is only through a welldeveloped science, technology and innovation capabilities that Nigeria’s industrialisation can be realised.

Okebukola opines that for the country to fully benefit and cope with technological transformation, universities must adopt research-based education to improve the quality and

Felix Meduoye, visitor to McPherson University presenting plaque to the 2019 Convocation Guest Lecturer, Pat Utomi while the Vice-Chancellor, Adeniyi Agunbiade (middle) looks on

quantity of STEM education, systematically scale up support to STEM disciplines, maximise the use of digital technology, and create innovation hubs.

He insists that managers of universities need strong resolve to improve the integration of information communication technology in university teaching.

“Nigerian Universities requires blended learning such that will allow traditional faceto-face teaching and also adopted e-learning in teaching,” he said.

Nigeria Universities needs to amplify linkage with industry to strengthen curricula and research programmes, thereby making them more

relevant to the needs of society, says Tolu Odugbemi, former vice chancellor, University of Lagos Ibilola Amao, principal consultant of Lonadek maintains that universities need to improve the participation of girls in STEM subjects and reverse current trends which see boys dominate in STEM enrolments, as well as improving the quality, access and relevance of teaching.

“We need girls to understand that STEM education is not for men alone. This is why those of us, who are already there and have achieved something, needs to support others by exposing them to the opportunities in various

industries where we work including energy, power, infrastructure, oil and gas and manufacturing,” Amao said.

Educationists observe that while Nigeria has made significant achievements in promoting technological innovation and productivity in different sectors, and recorded achievements in assimilating emerging technologies, the country is still lagging far behind when compared with technologically advanced nations.

They maintain that bridging this gap will require concerted efforts to reform Nigeria’s innovation system and STEM education by making it more entrepreneurial and market oriented.

Higher

Human Capital

We will do our best to offer holistic varsity education – Babcock VC KELECHI EWUZIE

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demola Tayo, ViceChancellor, Babcock University, Ilishan Remo, Ogun State has stated that the management of the university will not relent, but do their best to offer holistic education to students.

Tayo while reacting to an online story tagged ‘Four Worst Universities to Beware of in Nigeria’, where Babcock University was named the third described it as a sponsored campaign to smear the image of the institution.

Speaking in a meeting with journalists at the institution recently Tayo opines that many say we are glorified university because we monitor our students, but to say that out of 172 universities in the country, Babcock should be listed as one of the worst, is a campaigns aimed at smearing the institute.

“I know the university is envied by many, particularly when we matriculated almost 3,000 students when some private universities do not have even 100 students” “I believe that when you pull somebody down, you are also going down with the person.

We are not resting our oars despite the media onslaught in recent times which has painted

Greensprings School advances students career option with new ACT center KELECHI EWUZIE

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Utomi advocates entrepreneurship as option to save Nigeria’s economy KELECHI EWUZIE

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at Utomi, Professor of Economics, has urges youths to embrace the spirit of entrepreneurship to save the country from its dwindling economic growth.

Utomi observes that the situation in Nigeria today can be likened to that of the United States of America of old where graduates particularly youths help the country become present-day America.

Utomi while speaking at the 4th convocation lecture of McPherson University on the topic: “Saving capitalism from the capitalists” stated that graduation should be the beginning of a positive new life after several years of preparation on campus, The founder of the Centre for Values in Leadership, charged the graduates to carry out their God-given task of

using available resources to create new enterprise.

Adeniyi Agunbiade, vicechancellor of the university in his welcome address at the event said a total of 92 students from the institution graduated with different hon-

ours while 15 had first class.

He added that the overall best graduating student, Sunmisola Ibukun Osasona from the Department of Accounting with CGPA of 4.91, bagged eight awards and N310, 000 in prize money.

The institution also recognised the duo of Wilson Badejo, the University’s visioner and Israel Adu, its pioneer Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Governing Council, with Honorary Degree awards.

Hadiza Bala Usman (m), managing director, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) receiving a plaque in honour of her Late Father, Bala Usman from AlHassan Mohammed Gani (r), vice chancellor, Federal University of Kashere, while Garba Aminu (l), registrar of the university looks on. www.businessday.ng

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the university black.”

The vice chancellor was also on hand to explain why the institution expelled a 300level Accounting student seen in a viral video having sex with a former student in a facility outside the campus.

He said the university had to expel the girl to protect the institution and its alumni, rather than being dragged in the mud or tagged derogatory names.

Tayo further announced that he was close to tears signing her expulsion letter, while expressing hope that the student will turn a new leaf, graduate and be celebrated in the near future.

“Anywhere our ladies go, we don’t want them to be tagged prostitutes and face all kinds of ridicules. If we keep mute, the public will think anything goes in the university. We have to make a statement through the discipline. I signed the expulsion letter with tears in my eyes as a responsible father.

“Babcock is based on love, but love has two sides, discipline and mercy. If we overlook some things that the students do, our children will not be the same. Some parents have called to commend me for the stand I took and that they would have withdrawn their children if they feel they are not safe on campus.”

etermined to help students make informed decisions during their career selection, ACT has unveiled a new center in Greensprings School, Lagos.

ACT is a standardised test that evaluates a student’s skills in five core areas.

Simmy Ziv-el, vice president international markets and global business development says there is need for the inclusion of career, college and university readiness centres in schools.

Ziv-el further said the center will not only help students develop their career paths intelligently, but will also expose them to a wide range of other new professions aside the popular law, medicine, engineering, and other mainstream courses.

He described Greensprings school as open-minded and progressive, adding that the centre also has an ACT corner, where students could also be tutored.

Berney Wilson, deputy director of education, Greensprings School said with the centre, students would get one on one counseling as regards their career. @Businessdayng

Wilson opines that it is imperative for schools to have career readiness centers, as it would benefit them and the nation in the long run. He noted that more than 200 students have signed up already and would benefit because there was no limit and they can even operate it from home.

Soluzo Ekenta, a Guidance and Counselor expert, while speaking at the unveiling of the newly introduced career, college and university centre of Greensprings School, said such institutions will help groom students and guide them to pick subjects they are very good at.

Ekenta said it is very imperative for schools to hone students’ skills and give them opportunities that would help them streamline their career choices with their innate abilities in order to achieve their dreams.

On the challenges most students face when making a career choice she said, “One of the challenges is that most of them have dreams that they are not ready for, while some have very unrealistic dreams.

But what I try to do is work with them. For instance, they want to play football, but they are not training enough, we encourage them to train with professionals.

Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

23

EDUCATION Nigerian students study abroad to have best shot at global opportunities …with hidden costs, benefits STEPHEN ONYEKWELU

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t is probably no longer news that Nigerians who can afford it are leaving the country in flocks, protesting against what teachers, parents, and educationists have referred to as the deteriorating state of Nigeria’s education system.

The labour market has become both global and borderless; this means a student studying computer programming (coding) in Nigeria competes not only for jobs in Nigeria but also for those that may be found in India or Australia. To compete favourable, this student needs the requisite skills.

Nigeria’s education system has been failing to prepare these students for such a world and many Nigeria’s a seeking to study abroad to a have a better chance at competing favourably in this global, borderless labour market.

Nigerians studying in tertiary institutions in the USA rose by 5.8 percent to 13,423 in the 2018/19 academic year from 12,693 in the 2017/18 academic year, according to the latest Open Doors report by the Washington-based Institute of International Education (IIE).

Students from Nigeria study primarily at the undergraduate level: 50.80 percent undergraduate; 35.60 percent graduate; 11.50 percent, Optional Practical Training; and 2 percent non-degree programmes or short-term studies.

“The education sector is

facing the problem of incompetent teachers and unserious students. It is also facing the problem of dilapidated infrastructure,” Peter Okebukola, former executive secretary, National Universities Commission, said.

However, some of the concerns that have been raised by experts in education and keen observers of this trend is that Nigeria loses its youth and workforce to host countries because many of these students do not return and the second generation borne of those who do not return have a tendency of not remitting part of their earnings home, since they have no strong family ties in Nigeria. It also leads to disconnect among family members.

A report released by PricewaterhouseCoopers, a professional consulting firm, titled ‘Strength from Abroad: The Economic Power of Nigeria’s diaspora’ revealed that migrants remittances were 77.2 percent of the

federal government budget in 2018 and more than 10 times the foreign direct investment (FDI) flows in the same period.

The report estimates that migrant remittances to Nigeria could grow to $25.5bn, $29.8bn and $34.8bn in 2019, 2021 and 2023 respectively.

Some of the benefits from the rising number of Nigerians in the United Kingdom and the United States of America are a growing market for export of Nigerian culture and food and a support system for new arrivals.

Recent trends of immigration to the USA from Nigeria was driven by family reunification. Family reunification refers to the ability of US Citizens to sponsor family members for immigration. Sponsoring family members and other family preferences led to 45 percent and 10 percent of all African immigration in 2016 respectively.

Interestingly, the top five institutions that have received the most Nigerian students are all located in the state of Texas: Houston Community College, the University of Houston, the University of North Texas, Texas Southern University, and the University of Texas at Arlington.

Of the ten countries with the most students in the U.K. Nigeria ranked sixth.

The other five countries are China, Malaysia, USA, India, and Hong Kong. In 2015/16 there were 16, 100 Nigerian students in UK universities.

This fell by 27.12 percent in the academic session of 2016/17 to 12, 665.

Since the 1960s there has been a sizeable Nigerian expatriate community in the UK. Prior to independence (1960), many students would go to the UK for university then return to Nigeria after graduation.

Civil and political unrest in the ’60s led to a large number of refugees and skilled

workers immigrating.

Then there was another spike in 1980s after the collapse of the petroleum boom. This was followed by a peak in refugee applications in the mid-1990s due to the dictatorship of Sani Abacha. Even with all of the social unrest and economic draw, the Nigerian-born population of the UK in 2001 was a little over 88,000.

In 2011, the Nigerian-born population was 200,000 and 88,000 migrated in a 40 year period, over 125 percent of that number migrated in the following 10 years.

Nigerian pupils are some of the best-performing students, with those earning five General Certificate of Secondary Education at a rate of over 20 percentage points higher than the average for England. Nigerians, as a group, are net contributors to the nation. But, the actions of the government from 1997 to 2010, which quadrupled net immigration, explain why the number is high enough for some keen observers to ask how many of them to come back to Nigeria?

“I think the numbers of those who come back are more than those who stay in the Diaspora. We were about 95 Nigerians at the University College London at some point and about 80 percent of us are back to Nigeria,” Majiri Otobo, CEO KuiCare said on a phone interview.

“The truth is, when you are in the UK you are not British, except you have a passport, and there is a ceiling to how much you can achieve.

You literally live from hand to mouth; taxes will almost

take away everything. Yes, there are more opportunities to make it big in Nigeria, but the reality is that the environment is so tough that you sometimes regret coming back,” Otobo said.

In the USA 4 percent of Nigerians hold the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) compared to 1 percent of the general US population, according to the United States’ Census Bureau. Similarly, 17 percent of Nigerians hold the Master degree and 37 percent have the Bachelor’s degree. In the 1960s and 1970s after the Biafra War, Nigeria’s government-funded scholarships for Nigerian students, and many of them were admitted to American universities. During the mid to late 1980s, a larger wave of Nigerians immigrated to the US. This was driven by political and economic problems exacerbated by military regimes of self-styled generals Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha.

Since the advent of multiparty democracy in May 1999, Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria’s former head of state made numerous appeals, especially to young Nigerian professionals in the United States, to return to Nigeria and help in its rebuilding effort.

The 2016 American Community Survey estimates that 380, 785 US residents report Nigerian ancestry. The 2012 – 2016 ACS estimates 277, 027 American residents were born in Nigeria. It also estimates that top five states with the highest Nigerianborn population are Texas, 60, 173; Maryland 31, 263; New York, 29, 619; California 23, 302 and Georgia, 19, 182.

preneurs. According to him, this is the missing link in the country’s business/entrepreneurship education.

He said: “The culture of business schools is to have successful entrepreneurs tell their stories, highlighting their experiences, challenges and what they have done differently that have made them successful. This is what happens all over the world.

“Unfortunately, in Nigeria, we cannot even tell

the stories of successful entrepreneurs. A lot of them do not have track records.

There are no much records about the majority of those who really worked hard to attain success. People know that they are successful. But when you research into their life stories, you really do not see much. We should begin to document our journeys all the way. We do not have to wait to achieve success to do this. This is the only way we can break this jinx,” he said.

CEIBS Alumni Association Inducts 47 Members

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hina Europe International Business School (CEIBS) Alumni, Nigeria Chapter, has inducted 47 new members into its fold.

The induction was done at it’s a general annual meeting and charity dinner held in Lekki, Lagos.

The inductees, who came from different parts of the country, undertook various programmes at the school in the past few years.

Sunday Agboola, Presi-

dent of the association while speaking at the event charge the inductees to reflect on their positions in the society with a view to providing support to the less privileged members of the society and cause the much-needed social transformation.

According to Agboola, “As an association, we strive to make a difference in our society, and we believe this is a perfect vehicle for achieving that. I encourage those www.businessday.ng

who hold positions in the society to uphold good morals and act as an inspiration to others,” Agboola stated that the charity dinner was an opportunity to raise money to support the less privileged people in the society and continue the social intervention programme the association is known for.

The president noted that the association has done much to uplift the standard of education of Nigeria. He

pointed out its school rehabilitation programme as a cardinal intervention in the country’s education.

According to him, the organisation will be more visible in partnership, trade collaboration, networking and charity in the coming year.

Agboola also charged individuals to imbibe the culture of proper documentation of their life stories and milestones for the purpose of inspiring young entre-

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24

Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

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Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

AVIATION GUIDE

25

in association with

Three years after, NCAT records huge success in building human capacity development in aviation Stories by Ifeoma Okeke

T

he International Civil Aviation Organization, (ICAO) recently released statistics indicating that in the next 20 years, airlines will have to add 25,000 new aircraft to the current 17,000-strong commercial fleet.

By 2026, global aviation will need 480,000 new technicians to maintain these aircraft and over 350,000 pilots to fly them.

With Nigeria’s Murtala Muhammed International Airport ranking as one of the 10 busiest airports in Africa, these figures are significant to Nigeria and therefore there is a need to bridge gap of impending shortage in human capital in the aviation sector.

In a bid to address this challenge, the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Zaria, the foremost aviation training institution in Nigeria has risen up to this challenge and has continued to expand its horizon to train skilled personnel in various fields which are very relevant in the country’s aviation sector.

The aviation training institution located in Zaria, Kaduna State was established by an Act of Parliament and charged with the responsibility of training pilots, air traffic controllers, aircraft maintenance engineers, aeronautical telecommunications Engineer personnel and several aviation specialists for the Nigerian college and African aviation industry.

It is a foremost aviation training institution in the west African sub region and ICAO Regional Training Centre of Excellence (RTCE).

NCAT under the leadership of Abdulsalami Mohammed, has continued set an international standard for the institution since he assumed office as the rector in 2017.

Almost three years down the line, NCAT, the institution has increased its number of courses to 380, recorded 2577 graduated students and trained 20 foreign students from various countries some of which include Thailand, Kenya, Togo, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Gambia and

Abdulsalami Mohammed

Sierra Leone.

NCAT Instructional Systems Design Unit (ISDU) has developed eight Standard Training Packages (STPs), and as qualified three ICAO validators amongst its course developers to retain and maintain RTCE Status. The institution is also in the process of developing an ICAO Training package (ITP).

Award/Recognition The institution has trained the highest number of instructors between 2015 and 2018 and has recorded the highest number of ICAO courses conducted in 2015 & 2016. The institution is a member of the ICAO TRAINAIR PLUS steering committee.

Off – Site courses centers The institution’s off-site courses centre include Lagos- Post Graduate Diploma in Aviation Mgt, license preparatory course for aircraft, maintenance engineers, first aid course for FAAN, aircraft wheels and brake course, aircraft battery maintenance refresher course, training instructors course for Caverton Helicopters and Aero Contractors.

Other courses include Abuja-Crew Resource management for presidential air fleet, cabin crew executive course for PAF, human factor for Julius Berger, first aid course for FAAN. Some newly introduced courses include Jet Orientation Course (JOC), Multi Crew Cooperation Course (MCC), Airline Transport Pilot Course (ATPL), Customized Commercial Pilot License Course (A- CPL), Air Traffic Safety Electronics Course (ATSEC)and CNS Diagnostic/ Test Instrument Course.

Certifications/Accreditations The college has maintained the following certifications: - ICAO TRAINAIR Plus full membership/ ICAO Regional Training Center of Excellence (RTCE), NCAA ATO certificate, IATA Authorized Training Center, fully certified non-accredited educator member of the Aviation Accreditation Board International (AABI) and council member of the Association of African Aviation Training Organization (AATO) The institution is accreditation by the National Board of Technical Education (NBTE). It is fully accredited for issue certificates in HND Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Technology (Airframe and power Plant), HND Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Technology (Avionics) and ND Electrical/Electronic Engineering Technology.

For interim accreditation, the institution grants ND in Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Technology and HND in Aviation Management.

Completed Projects The institution has completed various projects, some of which include procurement of biometric attendance system machine, installation of the GARMIN ELITE PI-1000 trainer simulator, procurement of advance guard security system for airfield, rehabilitation/construction of college road networks site 1 and establishment of airport/airfield sign and marking laboratory, Other completed projects include the purchase of computers, photocopiers, scanners and printers; establishment of MINI-LED airfield lighting laboratory, construction of security complex, classroom standardization;

and installation of intercom security/ safety, Technology, closed circuit Television (CCTV) and public address system.

Some of the on-going projects of the institution include the supply and installation of Boeing 737NG full flight simulator, supply and installation of aircraft fire simulator, supply and installation of CVOR/ DME for maintenance training, supply and installation of DVOR/DME & ILS for flight training, provision of water treatment plant, automation of flying school flight programme, extension of wireless hotspot to site 1 and 11 through fiber optic cable, supply and installation of electrical and mechanical laboratory equipment for AME school,supply and installation of electrical and mechanical laboratory equipment for AME school, supply and installation of machines for electrical power laboratory, supply and installation of mechanical workshop equipment and re- fleeting of trainer aircraft with Diamond type 6 DA-40 NG aircraft on order with delivery expected in February.

Signed MOU NCAT has in the last three years signed Memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Nigerian Airforce, Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, Sierra Leone Civil Aviation Authority, BAGASOO (Banjul Accord Group Safety Oversight Organization) and Aero Contractors Company Nig. Ltd. Publicity The Rector/Chief Executive has expanded on the visibility of the college activities by introducing road show. This way, NCAT outreach team are reaching out to stakeholders around the country and the West- African sub- region.

The institution also put together open day programme which invites secondary school students and stakeholders to the College to witness our day – to- day activities. The institution has placed adverts in ICAO and related Magazines and Journals and has regularly interacted with the press.

Last line No doubt, NCAT has continued to maintain her position as the foremost aviation training organization in Africa and beyond.

Arik Air resumes services to Asaba, Increases frequency to Owerri

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rik Air, Nigeria’s leading airline has announced the resumption of flight services to Asaba Airport in Delta state.

Starting from Wednesday, December 18, 2019, Arik Air will be operating daily flights from Lagos to Asaba.

The resumption of flights to Asaba is coming

at a time when people are looking for seamless travel during the yuletide.

Arik Air’s return to Asaba is nostalgic as the airline was the first to commence commercial flights to Asaba when the airport was inaugurated in 2011.

Similarly, Arik Air, in the spirit of the yuletide

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season, will be increasing its frequency from Lagos to Owerri to thrice daily. The additional flights will operate at 7:00am daily in addition to the 1:00pm and 4:30pm departures.

Speaking on the latest development, Roy Ilegbodu, Arik Air Chief Executive Officer, said: “The resumption of flights to Asaba is a promise

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kept as we had assured our esteemed customers that we will be back on the route before the Christmas festivities.

“We once again assure our customers of a high operating safety standards and exceptional customer service during the yuletide and beyond.”

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26

Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

Investments

ENERGY INTELLIGENCE

Market Insight Companies Commodity Tracker Policy

OIL

GAS

PETROCHEMICALS

POWER

Frequent national grid collapses re-echo sector’s investment shortfalls …2013 privatisation process failings still haunt …electricity market still uncompetitive due to pegged prices STEPHEN ONYEKWELU & DIPO OLADEHINDE

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ive days ago, Nigeria’s electricity workers called off of a nation-wide strike that had lasted for twenty-four hours and led to a national grid collapse leading to total darkness across the country – the twelfth of such collapse in twelve months.

On one hand, the national grid collapses occur often in Nigeria. The country’s Electricity System Operator said the national grid collapsed four times in January, once in February, twice in May, twice in November and during the National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE) strike action, making a total of 12 times the country has been thrown into complete darkness in 2019. The collapses are largely due under investment in critical transmission and distribution infrastructure.

On the hand, the electricity employees’ strike is as a result of fallout from Nigeria’s 2013 privatisation process. Some of the issues that needed attention were enumerated

by Joe Ajaero, President of the NUEE. These included an allegation against the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) for failing to address and pay over 2000 disengaged Power Holding Company of Nigeria since 2013.

Ajaero also alleged underpayment of severance of over 50,000 ex-PHCN staff and illegal transfer of schools built by the union to investors.

This looks like a simple poorly managed labour case. But investors, analysts and engineers in Nigeria electricity industry and market say the sector is highly inefficient and price regulation is stifling it. From generation to distribution, companies are unable to sell electricity at a profit. Prices at which electricity distribution companies sell are below what it costs to generate and

distribute electricity.

This has made the sector unattractive and led to investment shortfalls.

As a consequence lack of investment in critical infrastructure, power evacuation has been inadequate which is largely responsible for the recurring supply shortages in the nation.

“Two mistakes have been made in the past; one of them is not managing expectation and not implementing the master plan as it was designed originally so with these challenges it’s possible for Nigerians to grow impatient,” Valentine Ozigbo, the current President and CEO of Transcorp PLC said in an recent interview with BusinessDay. Ozigbo noted that just a few people are paying for power which is inadequate to cater for the value chain.

At every point along the power chain, Nigeria suffers from lack of investment; also, it does not have adequate pipeline infrastructure to transfer some of the world’s largest

natural gas reserves to power plants.

“So to cover for this gap we need serious investments in transmission and distribution. We need good policies to solve this problem,” Ozigbo said.

Also, the distribution companies are so deeply indebted and underpaid to the tune of nearly $4 billion, according to their trade association that they do not invest in plants or meters that would enable them to collect from customers and improve collection rates of about 60 percent.

“We have to look at the entire value chain issues together not in part and solve the problem holistically. There are many reasons why it’s unable to fix the power sector because there is no enough alignment in technical, commercial and political level,” Ozigbo told BuisnessDay. Nigeria has the capacity to produce 13,000 megawatts of power, compared with more than 50,000MW for South Africa, which has a similarsize economy and a quarter of the

population. But Nigeria’s ageing grid delivers only about 4,000MW of power to its 200 million citizens — roughly what the city of Edinburgh provides for 500,000 residents.

Emmanuel Eru, technical solutions engineer at A1 Power Technologies Limited, an energy services and solutions provider said there are many inefficiencies in the power network from generation to distribution, which leads to these national grids collapses.

“Distribution companies reject load because they lack the capacity to take them and there is theft along the value chain too,” Eru said.

In solving the problem, Emmanuel Eru noted that smart metering can help resolve these challenges and it’s already working very well in South Africa.

“It will provide real-time feedback regarding what is happening in the system and this will help with problem shooting,” Eru said.

Efforts to reach TCN for reaction on the latest collapse proved abortive. Neither a text message nor a call made to the company’s spokesperson was successful.

The TCN had, in a statement, said the incessant system collapse was due to high voltage following a massive drop in load by the electricity distribution companies.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that Nigeria’s economy loses about $29 billion a year because of electricity supply problems.

Ninety percent of industry provides its own power. The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) says that roughly 40 percent of the cost of production goes to power.

Diesel generators are the staple coping mechanism not just of Nigerian ministries, but of industrial estates, housing developments and shopkeepers, spewing pollutants while costing more than twice what power from the national grid would.

Since Nigeria privatised the power sector in 2013, the price set for electricity is not yet market reflective even as the naira has fallen by half against the dollar and inflation have hit double digits. The current price is so low that distributors operate at huge losses, according to the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors.

This year, Tony Elumelu, one of Nigeria’s richest men, announced plans to invest $2.5 billion in power.

His company Transcorp won a $293 million bid in May for a second power plant, in which it plans to invest $190 million, roughly doubling the firm’s capacity to about 2,000MW. Nigeria’s ministry of power has partnered with the private sector to electrify markets containing tens of thousands of family-run shops and secured $550 million in funding from the African Development Bank and the World Bank for rural electrification.

Cash-strapped FG to struggle as oil supply outstrip demand early next year ISAAC ANYAOGU

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he International Energy Agency(IEA) said in its latest monthly oil market report that despite deeper supply curbs by Organisation of Petroleum Exporting countries (OPEC) and its allies including Russia, global oil inventories may accumulate by 700,000 bpd in the first quarter of 2020.

OPEC and its partners led

by Russia agreed last week to cut their combined production by another half a million barrels daily. OPEC members will shoulder the bulk, at 395,000 bpd, while Russia and the rest of the non-members will take on an additional 105,000 bpd in cuts.

The cartel said it will meet to finalise any proposed measures, including how any cuts will be implemented by countries. To cushion impact on members,

the group said that condensates will no longer be quoted as part of output for countries.

Saudi Arabia, in the meantime, agreed to continue to over comply with its quota, cutting 400,000 bpd more than agreed in December 2018. The agreement, however, did not have the full desired effect of pushing prices higher and keeping them there, not least because of a history of cheating among OPEC members on their oil production quotas.

But the EIA says it will not be enough. “Despite the additional

curbs and a reduction in our forecast of 2020 non-OPEC supply growth to 2.1million bpd, global oil inventories could build by 0.7million bpd in 1Q20,” said the Paris-based energy think tank.

It reached this conclusion based on rising supply outside the group led by shale producers in the United States which continues to grow much faster than demand. Three months ago, the United States became the net exporter of crude oil and it is not slowing down.

On the demand side, the IEA also revised down its earlier estimate, which saw global growth of 1.1 million bpd in the third quarter of the year. Now, the IEA has revised this down, too, to 900,000 bpd. The agency noted, however, that this growth rate was the strongest year-onyear increase in 12 months. The demand growth outlook for full-2019 and 2020 remained

unchanged, at 1 million bpd and 1.2 million bpd, respectively.

Nigeria has a lot riding on oil next year. According to its 2020 budget assumptions, it expects an oil production of 2.18 million bpd compared to 2.3million bpd this year.

Nigeria may raise condensate production, but its crude output has been capped and may not be allowed to supply more 1.7mllion bpd. Already the minister of state has said the government would abide by the supply cap agreement.

The 2020 budget anticipates a crude oil price of $57 a barrel hence a supply glut will push the target farther away. the aggregate revenue available to fund the 2020 is projected at N8.155 trillion and 43.86 percent of projected revenues is to come from oil sources while the balance is to be earned from non-oil sources.

A glut in crude oil supply will ruin these assumptions. This was the case in 2016 when oil prices crashed to less than $40 barrel in the first quarter of 2016.

This eventually forced Nigeria into a recession in 2017. A cashstrapped Federal Government who is going to operate a chunk of the 2020 budget on debt, will hope to shore up revenue through crude oil sales.

Despite all pretence at diversification, Nigeria is yet to wean itself from overdependence on crude oil. This situation raises the need for a holistic approach to deepen current efforts to diversify the economy. Petrol subsidies will further add a burden. This is why the government is aggressively seeking to raise taxes on citizens as seen in the passage of the Finance Bill but it will require greater transparency and accountability to achieve the support of people.

Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

27

ENERGY INTELLIGENCE

Inside details of Savannah Petroleum plans for Uquo creek fields DIPO OLADEHINDE

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fter completing it entrant in Nigeria’s exploration field which is in dire need of investments, Savannah Petroleum plc has announce it’s 2020 intents to undergo major projects in its gas field development plan at Uquo creek fields in South-East Nigeria.

According to Savannah Petroleum, the upstream firms plan to drill and complete a gas production well, re-complete an oil well as a gas producer and work over one of the current gas production wells at an estimated cost of $34.5million.

“The well operations are expected to commence in H1 2020 and in addition $7million is intended to be invested by Accugas for continued facility upgrades,” Savannah Petroleum said in a statement seen by BuinsessDay. Savannah Petroleum noted that an asset integrity investment programme was also undertaken at the Nigerian Assets in 2019, focusing on the Uquo and Accugas facilities, in order to ensure that high-level operational delivery can continue while investment programme is

expected to continue into 2020.

“We continue to view these assets as a strong platform from which we will deliver further growth. In this regard, we continue to make good progress in relation to the supply of gas to potential new customers, and are investing in additional well stock to ensure anticipated future production levels are capable of being met,” Savannah’s

CEO Andrew Knott said.

Savannah Petroleum said gas from the Uquo field is sold via Accugas to three principal customers through Gas Sales Agreements (GSAs), with maintenance adjusted gross take-orpay volumes under the GSAs set at 141 mmscfd (23.5 kboepd) in 2019 while Oil and condensate from the two fields are sold under an offtake deal with Mobil

Producing Nigeria (MPN) and is exported via the Qua Iboe terminal.

The British independent oil and gas company focused around activities in Niger Republic and Nigeria said a Competent Person’s Report for the Uquo and Stubb Creek fields as well as the Accugas midstream business estimates gross and net proved and probable reserves of

99.6 million barrels of oil equivalent and 71.0 million barrels, respectively.

The best gross and net resource estimate stands at 98.0 million barrels of oil equivalent and 58.6 million barrels, respectively.

The report states a net present value of the Nigerian assets at $1.2 billion, with $957 million net to Savannah Petroleum.

In the first half of 2020, Savannah Petroleum expects gas production to rise largely as a result of the addition of the Alaoji power plant, which will be a new partner for Accugas.

Savannah Petroleum said cash collections at the Nigerian Assets in 2019 are expected to be around $190million, with cash generated from these assets already been directed to funding operating cost, maintenance costs and debt service while capital expenditure for 2020 is predicted at $41.5 million.

Also, production costs over the 2016-2019 periods have decreased by a total of 18percent.

At year-end 2019, the Company expects a reduction in total leverage at the Nigerian Assets of $40million with cash within Savannah’s Nigerian Asset holding subsidiaries of $15million.

Forget the hype, Aramco shares may be valued at zero next year

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ast week, see the onset of full trading activity in the shares of Saudi Arabia’s flagship oil company, Aramco.

Through a combination of wooing local retail investors via preferential loans, threatening wealthy Saudis with the sort of treatment they had during their imprisonment in the Ritz Carlton in 2017, and inveigling the two principal credit ratings agencies to toe the exact Saudi line on the ‘lack of significance’ of the ‘Houthi’ attacks on Abqaiq and Khurais, the Saudis have finally been able to sell off a part of Aramco.

It may be nearly three years late, only around one third of the original amount intended, have no foreign listing, and be priced to value the entire company at much less than the US$2 trillion that Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman (MBS) had staked his reputation on but it is done.

The shares are to be finally priced at the top end of the initial range, at SAR 32 ($8), according to Saudi sources.

The problem with this is that within the coming year Aramco shares could well be valued at US$0.

The reason for this is not

connected to the fact that Aramco does not actually own any of the sites from which it extracts oil and gas – not a single field, not a single well.

It is not connected to the fact that it is used as a conduit to fund the latest harebrained social or vanity projects that are nothing to do with its core business – including developing a USS5 billion ship repair and creating the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology.

And nor is it connected to the mathematically impossible assertion by the Saudis that its oil reserves have remained at basically the same level for the last 30 or more years despite Saudi pumping an average of nearly three billion barrels of oil every year from 1973 to the end of 2017 - totalling 132 billion barrels – with no new significant oil finds being made during that period.

It is not even connected to the multiple class-action lawsuits that Saudi Arabia is facing from the families of the ‘9-11’ terrorist attacks for its part in them (15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals) nor to MBS personally giving the order to murder journalist

Jamal Khashoggi, according to the CIA, among many others.

These, though, were key reasons why no listing for Aramco took place in the U.S., and indeed the U.K. The actual killer blow for Aramco is on the cards from the renewed impetus to finally get U.S. President Donald Trump to sign the ‘No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels’ (NOPEC) Bill, as examined in depth in my new book on the oil markets. This Bill has

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a broad mandate, making it illegal to artificially cap oil (and gas) production or to set prices. Clearly, fixing (and later heavily influencing) oil pricing is the very reason why OPEC was established in 1960, Saudi Arabia has been its de facto leader ever since, and Aramco is the prime vehicle through which Saudi Arabia’s production and pricing strategies (and those of OPEC) are implemented. Nobody from the Saudi side seemed to have

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twigged to the fact that there was a major legal issue in this context from both the U.S. and U.K. perspective as both have anti-trust (or anti-monopoly) regulations with real practical bite.

With Aramco being the key instrument used to manage the oil market by the Saudis, even though it is not directly involved in making the policy, the anti-trust legislation of the U.S. and U.K. can point to Aramco as being collusive in @Businessdayng

price-fixing through adjusting output to manage oil prices.

Conversely, once the Bill is enacted, if Aramco did abide by the anti-trust regulations then Saudi would have to give up its role at the head of OPEC, which clearly it would not wish to do.

In addition to all of this, the NOPEC Bill immediately removes all sovereign immunity that presently exists in U.S. courts for OPEC as a group and for its individual member states – including, Saudi Arabia. According to legal sources in Washington familiar with the legislation and spoken to

by OilPrice.com last week, this would open up Saudi’s US$1 trillion or so of assets in the U.S. to be seized in lawsuits.

It would also mean that trading in Aramco’s products – including oil and gas – would be subject to the anti-trust legislation, meaning the prohibition of sales in US dollars (oil, of course, is priced in US dollars), and would also mean the eventual break-up of Aramco into much smaller constituent companies that are not capable of influencing the oil price, if the Saudis could offer up no other way of complying with the anti-trust laws.

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Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

OFFGRID BUSINESS

How FG-World Bank partnership lit up Rokota community with off-grid power Energy access for rural dwellers in Nigeria has been limited and in most cases non-existent. This is often because the national grid does not cover such areas. STEPHEN ONYEKWELU writes that the Federal Government-World Bank mini off-grid electrification will reverse this trend as the first of such project gets commissioned in Rokota, Niger State under the Performance-Based Grant scheme.

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okota is a farming community in Edati Local Government Area of Niger State known for Shea butter and palm fruit farming, and small trade. How limited and in some cases no access to electricity has slowed the progress of both farmers and traders in the community, depriving them of basic social facilities.

To help spur economic development in places such as Rokota around the world, the World Bank has initiated renewable energy projects to drive increasing access to electricity in order to attain universal access to electricity in underserved and un-served regions.

On December 7, 2019, the Federal Government of Nigeria, through the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), facilitated the commissioning of a solar hybrid mini-grid power plant in the community. Rokota is the first beneficiary of renewable energy off-grid electricity under the Nigeria Electrification Project Mini-Grids.

The mini-grids project aims to provide clean, safe, reliable and affordable electricity to 300, 000 homes and 30, 000 local businesses in Nigeria. The Nigeria Electrification Project (NEP) has turned a new leaf with the commissioning of the first mini-grid under the performance-based grant of the Rural Electrification Agency in collaboration with the World Bank.

A 64 kilowatts (kW) solar hybrid, and 360 kWh of battery storage renews hope that millions of Nigerians without access to electricity can be lifted out of the darkness.

The electrification is an innovative programme to catalyse off-grid development in Nigeria, through the provision of grant funding, detailed market data, and technical assistance, in collaboration with the World Bank ($350m) and African Development Bank ($200m). The NEP components are Solar Hybrid Mini Grids, Solar Home Systems (SHS) and the Energising Education Programme (EEP).

With a distribution network of 10 kilometres across the community, the mini-grid is expected to supply constant electricity to 326 households, which will propel economic growth and improve small and medium scale business activities within the community. New business opportunities will also be possible with the availability of reliable electricity.

“I am honoured to be a part of this momentous achievement of the Rural Electrification Agency and the World Bank in collaboration with the Ministry of Power and the Federal Government of Nigeria,” Goddy Jedy-Agba, minister of state for power said at the commissioning.

“The commissioning of the 157KW capacity solar hybrid mini-grid power plant will provide economic growth and stability to the people of Rokota,” Jedy-Agba said.

According to Jedy-Agba, no stone will be left unturned in ensuring that un-served and underserved communities continue to enjoy basic amenities such as stable power in Nigeria.

Damilola Ogunbiyi, managing director and chief executive officer of the Rural Electrification Agency(REA) pointed out that the presence of the power sector leaders, the project financiers, private sector developers, community leaders and captains of industries at the commissioning lent credence to the great importance attached to powering communities in Nigeria through renewable energy solutions.

“I am proud to say that in line with the Federal Government’s power sector roadmap, the

L-R: Rokota Lwemp Health Clinic Health Officer, Ndachukwu Ibrahim (Left) explaining what the new newly commissioned electricity project means for the health centre to Goddy Jedy-Agba, minister of state for health, while Damilola Ogunbiyi, MD/ CEO, Rural Electrifcation Agency, watches in admiration.

Rural Electrification Agency has supervised and implemented mini-grid projects across multiple rural communities, educational institutions, hospitals, and businesses.”

There are great investment opportunities in the off-grid sector, she pointed out and that is why most of REA’s projects are private sector-focused. Ogunbiyi explained that “this is why we partnered PowerGen on this project here in Rokota, to deliver this 157kW solar mini-grid project that will power over 326 households and transform the lives of countless more.”

Shubham Chaudhuri, the World Bank’s country director in Nigeria, in his goodwill message, explained that the World Bank is committed to reducing the consumption and use of fossil fuels in energy production through renewable energy investment.

“I am thrilled to be here with you all as we witness the commissioning of the first solar hybrid mini-grid project under the Performance-Based Grant component of the Nigeria Electrification Project (NEP). This is a huge milestone that will set the pace for more impactful electrification projects under the World Bank-funded programme.”

The World Bank has already approved $350 million for off-grid electrification projects in Nigeria and beginning with Rokota, Nigerians have started benefiting from these projects.

Chaudhuri said the World Bank committed to eliminating extreme hunger which will make life better. “With a project like this, the statistics of about 600 million that have no access to electricity will be a thing of the past.”

Similarly, Rohit Khanna, practice manager of Energy Climate Finance & Energy Sector Management Assistance Programme (ESMAP), admitted that the electrification project in Rokota is a significant event that will improve the lives of the community and contribute to their economic development.

ESMAP, an alliance between the World Bank and 18 partners, is dedicated to advancing energy transition through sustainable

power solutions to reduce energy poverty and boost economic and developmental growth, especially in rural communities.

“Our role at ESMAP is to shape the World Bank Group strategies and assist it in implementing programmes and policies that foster the use of renewable energy solutions for the conservation of the environment and climate,” said Khanna.

In an address, the World Bank’s Task Team Leader, Jon Exel, explained that mini-grids are progressively emerging as a major costeffective and reliable approach to electrifying unserved and underserved communities across Africa, with huge potential in achieving the bank’s energy goals of universal energy access.

According to him, the World Bank is currently, one of the largest financiers in the energy sector, earmarking a total of $350 million for the NEP. “Our goal,” said Exel, “is to decrease energy poverty and reduce carbon emissions by funding renewable energy solutions to power communities such as Rokota, tertiary universities and teaching hospitals under the Energising Education Programme and foster the provision of Solar Home Systems to households and enterprises through access to clean, affordable and reliable energy.”

With about 30 jobs created during the construction phase and many more jobs to be created with businesses growing from stable electricity, Exel pointed out that the project firmly supports small scale job creation initiatives and, as a result, improve the quality of life of over 1000 people here in Rokota community and beyond.

“REA stands as a model agency to partner with thanks to their dynamic team and institutional capacity and processes,” the World Bank Task Team Leader stated.

Alastair Smith, managing director of PowerGen Renewable Energy Nigeria Limited in his speech during the commissioning said “we are happy and privileged to have brought

ANALYSTS: Isaac Anyaogu (Team Lead), Stephen Onyekwelu, Dipo Oladehinde

this impactful project to the good people of Rokota Community.”

Smith said thanks to the Nigeria Electrification Project, under the Performance-Based Grant “we have been able to deliver this the solar hybrid mini-grid power plant in record time. I am proud to say that the mini-grid, with a total, installed capacity of 157kW and 360kWh of battery storage was delivered based on international best practice and standards.”

Rokota’s Village head, Alhaji Adamu Mohammed, in his said “this is a major event and on behalf of the people of Rokota Community, we are grateful for this opportunity.”

“At Rokota, our children can study under the glow of clean electricity. As enterprising people blessed with kaolin, red clay, and iron ore resources, we look further to more commercial activities and small businesses growing Rokota’s economy.”

The health officer at Rokota Lwemp Health Clinic, Ndachukwu Ibrahim, said “This is a milestone in the history of this community.

Before, we used to travel to about 10 kilometres for assistance. With this newly commissioned electricity, we have a small fridge now where we keep our medical pharmaceuticals.

Now we have light to attend to our patients.

With this, we are enjoying a new lease of life.

We are grateful to the World Bank, REA, and Federal Government.”

Adejoke Odumosu, the head of NEP PMU, noted that the combined efforts of all those involved in the off-grid work have materialised into a laudable project being commissioned.

Odumosu also that the project would not have been possible without the collaborative efforts of the Federal Government, the World Bank, the Rural Electrification Agency, the private sector developers and the people of Rokota.

Ibrahim Panti, representative of Niger State Governor and Commissioner for Works and infrastructural expressed gratitude to the Federal government and the World Bank for this laudable project in their community.

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email: isaac.anyaogu@businessday.ng, stephen.onyekwelu@businessdayonline.com, oladehinde.oladipo@businessdayonline.com

Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

BDTECH

29

In association with

E-mail: jumoke.akiyode@businessdayonline.com

‘9PSB will transform rural banking, boost financial inclusion’ Phillips Oki is the chief financial officer of 9mobile, Nigeria’s innovative telecommunications company. In this interview with BusinessDay, he speaks on the telco’s planned initiatives to bolster Federal Government’s policy on financial inclusion among the populace. Excerpts. ronment. What innovative services should customers expect from 9PSB with this new milestone?

9PSB will provide creative and market-driven financial services solutions that will address the pain points of the target customer segment. The hallmark of these services will be accessibility, affordability, simplicity convenience and security. Customers will be able to transfer and receive money to and from family and friends and earn returns on their savings.

What is a PSB? Can you give a general background? n view of the challenges to effective financial services coverage of rural communities, which has led to over 59 million unbanked adults in Nigeria, as well as the need to complement the services provided by other licensed entities, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has issued licenses for the operation of Payment Service Banks (PSBs) in Nigeria. PSBs are expected to leverage on mobile and digital channels to enhance financial inclusion and stimulate economic activities at the grassroots through the provision of financial services.

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What customer groups will be served by PSBs? Based on available statistics, 70 percent of the underbanked and unbanked population live in rural areas, with 30 percent in semi-urban communities. This means a majority of PSB customers are rural dwellers.

Accordingly, CBN guidelines require PSBs to deploy not less 50 percent of their touch points in rural areas in order to adequately reach the mass of the intended market.

The CBN recently granted approvals-in-principle (AIP) to new Payment Service Banks (PSBs) including 9mobile. What does this mean for 9mobile?

The issuance of AIP for the Payment Service Bank is a commendable move by the Central Bank of Nigeria. At 9mobile, we are constantly exploring opportunities to support Nigerians and we see the issuance of a PSB license to 9mobile as yet another opportunity to serve over 59 million unbanked adults through deployment of innovative financial services that will leverage our top-quality mobile technology and distribution network of agency banking to support the financial inclusion drive of the Federal Government of Nigeria.

Phillips Oki

The apex bank also said that the issued AIPs were in line with its National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) with the objective to improve financial inclusion across the country. What impact do you think this will have on the unbanked?

Approved guidelines provide that 75 percent of customers’ deposits with PSBs be domiciled with the CBN, while 25 percent is held by local commercial banks. Therefore, the first impact will be that all doubt as to safety of funds with PSBs will be cleared. In addition, the coming on stream of PSBs is expected to extend financial services to previously unbanked segments of the Nigerian society. The expectation, therefore, is for PSBs to deploy innovative financial services that will run heavily on mobile technology because of its high penetration rate, enabling users to open and operate a bank account from the comfort of their mobile phone, with the existing distribution network of the promoters serving as touch points. As customers adopt the service, they will be able to access

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credit from deposit money banks and CBN developmental funds for targeted segments to support their businesses.

Why is 9mobile interested in playing in the financial service market?

At 9mobile, we are constantly exploring opportunities to bring creative solutions to Nigerians and PSB provides an excellent opportunity to further pursue this commitment to serve more people in a manner that improves their quality of life. We are convinced that PSB will further stimulate savings and investments as more liquidity is mobilised from the informal sector into mainstream financial system. This will translate into increased economic activities in the informal sector and the overall economy.

Payment Service Banks could revolutionise financial services in Nigeria as they usher in a new era of change in delivering innovative payment solutions to customers across an evolving financial services envi-

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From your vantage point, how disruptive will PSBs be and what impact will it have on the entire national socio-economic ecosystem?

We expect significant socio-economic growth in Nigeria on account of the introduction of PSBs. According to a research conducted by McKinsey in 2016, the potential economic benefits of digital financial services in Nigeria alone as an essential component of financial inclusion includes bringing 46 million new individuals into the formal financial system; boosting GDP growth by 12.4 percent by 2025 (USD 88 billion); attracting new deposits worth USD 36 billion; providing new credit worth USD 57 billion; creating 3 million new jobs; and reducing leakages in government’s financial management annually by USD 2 billion.

Other CBN initiatives like microfinance banking, mobile money, agency banking etc., did not significantly improve financial inclusion in Nigeria. Why are PSBs expected to be different?

What players in the informal sector need is a simple, convenient, secure and affordable platform to save, send and receive money which is the underlying design principle for PSBs. 9PSB will adopt a dual strategy model that will combine telecoms and innovative mobile money technologies to meet this need and shape the nature and future of financial services consumption in Nigeria.

@Businessdayng

Rural and low-income consumer segments have limited telecom network coverage and low penetration of basic banking facilities. These factors impede their awareness on how to use banking channels. What strategies will 9mobile put in place to drive PSB services adoption within this target segment?

9PSB will deploy a wide distribution network that will serve as a channel for financial education for rural and low-income consumers. This will enable them to conduct basic banking services like cash-in and cash-out transactions. 9mobile will invest in infrastructure to ensure customers can transact easily from the comfort of their mobile phone. We have set up a team of network specialists that are currently mapping our network coverage digitally in these financially underserved communities to identify areas that require urgent network deployment.

What are the potential challenges PSBs will face; how will 9mobile mitigate these and what existing capabilities and infrastructure will 9mobile leverage to deploy and sustain a PSB? As with all new projects, PSBs may face the expected challenge of slow adoption due to low financial literacy among rural dwellers. But with the right investment in awareness campaigns in partnership with the relevant authorities and proper positioning of the distribution network of PSB service providers, trust will be built over time to drive growth and scalability.

With the issuance of the AIP, when should Nigerians expect news of roll out of 9PSB services considering that CBN guideline provides that licensees have no later than six months after the AIP to apply for final license?

We are working towards launching within the provided regulatory window.

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Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

BDTECH

E-mail: jumoke.akiyode@businessdayonline.com

Smartphone review: Key features to look out for on Tecno Spark 4 Jumoke Akiyode-Lawanson

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lot of people buy new smartphone devices without knowing half of the functions of the phone. With constantly evolving technology, it is not enough to only use your phone to make and receive calls. Because human needs are steadily increasing original equipment manufacturers (OEM’s) are investing more and taking more time in Research and Development (R&D), to embed essential innovative features to make or lives much easier. So, it really is time to take advantage of these innovations.

One of such devices embedded with cutting edge technology is the Tecno Spark 4 which has grown so much popularity among consumers. It is the successor to the popular Tecno Spark 3 Series and it comes with a lot of impressive upgrades when compared with other devices under its flagship line-up.

Key features to explore include; Brighter view on a bigger screen The Tecno Spark 4 is built with an impressive screen size. The device comes with a 6.52-inch HD dotIn display. This guarantees users a 20:9 aspect ratio of great screen experience especially for movie lovers and gamers. With ease,

you can Netflix and Chill in traffic or when on a long commute. For the first time on a Spark device, the Spark 4 spots a set of Triple AI Rear Cameras of 13MP+2MP+AI. The 13-megapixel main camera is packed with features that ensures the images that are captured are vivid and sharp even in low-light conditions.

Camera upgrade with clearer images The rear camera includes features such as eight scene modes, AR stickers, custom bokeh, AI HDR, AI beauty, and panorama sample image detailing bokeh effect on the Spark 4. Spark 4 also comes with an 8MP selfie camera,

accompanied by a pair of dual LED flashlights for low-light purposes. Users also get to enjoy AI beauty, portrait and wide-selfie mode. There are times you wish to enhance an image and you are required to download an app to make it happen. You do not need an extra app to make this happen on the Spark 4. The AI beauty mode is all you need on the Spark 4. Spark 4 users won’t just be taking pictures but capturing memories in the brightest, warmest colours.

High performance on the go Powered by MediaTek’s Helio A22 (MTK6761) Spark 4 guarantees sustained high-performance and

Softcom fosters artificial intelligence education in Nigeria …As it distributes free books, trains teachers in AI, Python Programming Jumoke Akiyode-Lawanson

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n a bid to upskill tertiary school educators on Artificial intelligence (AI), the future of learning and further enhance the Nigerian education system, Softcom Limited, a leading IT company that specializes in building software, products and programs that connect people and businesses, recently hosted an AI and Python Programming masterclass for computer science teachers.

During the masterclass held at the University of Lagos, which was aimed at equipping teachers with the requisite skills and knowledge to transfer to their students, the company also distributed 250 free copies of AI textbooks to primary and secondary schools in Lagos, as each teacher received a free copy of the recently launched AI textbook by Data Science Nigeria, for use in their respective schools.

According to Seindemi Olobayo, the chief solutions officer, Softcom Limited, the company is very passionate about education because

it is through education that we can drive change in Nigeria.

“To address the challenges in the education sector, we are doing some research around basic education and the possibilities of broad access.

We also have the Teachers’ Learning Network where we systematically upskill teachers. We are therefore excited to partner with Data Science Nigeria on this book distribution to various schools across Nigeria,” he said.

It would be recalled that last month, Data Science Nigeria (DSN), in partnership with Softcom, published and launched the first AI textbook for primary and secondary schools.

Olalekan Akinsande, technical delivery lead, Data Science Nigeria said; “we are committed to building 1 million Artificial Intelligence talents in 10 years from Nigeria and this masterclass is one of our platforms to realise this vision. We are thankful to our partners, Softcom for making this happen.”

During the masterclass, participants were taken through the impact and use cases of AI, alternawww.businessday.ng

tive channels to learn Python using devices besides a laptop, deep dive into Python programming and introduction to machine learning and deep learning.

Participants in the masterclass expressed their excitement and appreciation to the organisers. Adebowale Adetoun, ICT and data processing teacher, At-Tanzeel Schools, Ikorodu, one of the participants, described the masterclass as informative, educative and interesting.

Okoedoh Abraham, a private educator, said: “I am particularly excited about the tools explored – Python in particular. Being able to access Python for free is of advantage to low income countries like Nigeria, and I look forward to implementing a data science and AI curriculum in the schools that we partner with.”

Softcom also used this platform to highlight the challenges in the education space and how the company seeks to address these issues utilising technology. With Nigeria’s population rapidly growing year after year, it is necessary for education to scale at a similar pace.

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reliable user-experience. No matter the number of apps you have active per time, Spark 4’s performance will not slow down, neither will the device start freezing up or hanging. This chipset also allows for power efficiency and top-notch privacy features like the fingerprint sensor.

Other features on the Spark 4 include Bluetooth 5.0 which makes connecting one device to another easier and transferring files faster; 4G LTE capacity for smooth high-speed browsing, and an impressive 4,000mAh Battery allowing all day use following a single charge.

In terms of storage capacity, the Spark 4 is available for sale in

a sizeable 2GB ROM+ 32GB RAM and an expandable memory capacity of up to 128GB through an SD card.

Out of the box, the Spark 4 comes in four colour variants: royal purple, vacation blue, misty grey and energetic orange. This allows for a number of choices for personal preference.

The device comes with a lot of enhanced features for young Nigerian mobile users and is available for sale at N34,500.00 at authorised retail stores nationwide.

As for my verdict on the Spark 4 smartphone, for all its upgraded features at that price, I would rate it an 8/10.

Five female tech entrepreneurs to represent Nigeria at UK-Africa investment summit Jumoke Akiyode-Lawanson

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he British High Commission, through its UK-Nigeria Tech Hub, a program developed to stimulate the local digital economy and forge innovative partnerships between local tech sectors and international businesses to spur bilateral trade and investment between both countries, is sponsoring five of Nigeria’s most promising female technology entrepreneurs to the upcoming UK-Africa Investment summit.

The summit which will take place in the United Kingdom (UK) in January 2020, is UK’s flagship conference organised to boost investment and growth in Africa.

With over 500 online applications, and a pitching session from the top 10 entries, Damilola Emuze, founder of ScholarX – an EdFinTech company operatiig at the intersection of education and finance, Ifeoma Uddoh, founder of Shecluded – a credit inclusion company that provides women with access to credit, financial advisory and mentoring, Damilola Olokesusi, founder of Shuttlers Mobility – a platform than enables professionals and organisations share rides in corporate buses to and from work, Funmi Adewara, founder @Businessdayng

of Mobihealth – a platform that creates easier and faster access to medicines using tech and Keturah Ovio, founder of Limestart – a platform that financially includes unbanked small businesses in Africa’s informal sector, emerged top five and will be heading to the UK in January.

The attendees will gain access to world-class mentoring, one on one time with UK investors and expert training to help scale their companies.

Speaking at the final pitching session held at the residence of the British Deputy High Commission in Lagos, Harriet Thompson, the British Deputy High Commissioner said; “we are pleased to be hosting this event, as it brings together several personal passions: support for women, whose empowerment is vital for Nigeria’s future prosperity and stability; support for technology entrepreneurship, which is also key for future growth and jobs; and support for a country which I’ve grown to love since my arrival in 2016.”

According to her, Nigeria is very important in the tech world, as its ICT sector accounts for over 11 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and its technology companies have attracted $300 million (+167% YoY) in funding, mainly from foreign investors.

Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

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property&lifestyle Here’s what building with innovative technology means to home buyers …as Lekki Pearl enters market offering low energy, maintenance costs CHUKA UROKO

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ill date, the Nigerian building industry is struggling to wean itself from the conventional method of building where bricks and mortar hold sway with the attendant material waste and low output.

Building with this method means taking longer time to deliver just a few units.

This, in turn, means keeping demand-supply gap wider as more people continue to remain in the housing market and many more living in unconventional structures that define slum settlements.

But building with technology changes the whole narrative as the old method gives way to simplified processes that deliver houses not only fast, but also in large numbers that can bridge the existing deficit estimated at 17 million units.

Delivering houses massively and speedily with reduced waste lowers cost of construction which the home buyer benefits from.

Only technology can make this possible and developers who have embraced it

say it is the way to go. One of such developers is the Alpha Mead Development Company (AMDC).

“With technology, the speed of construction is high and that reduces the cost of financing the project. It also reduces the cost of labour and, effectively, delivers better and cheaper houses to buyers. This is what we mean when we say houses are affordable,” affirmed Damola Akindolire, AMDC’s managing director.

AMDC, a real estate investment and development subsidiary of Alpha Mead Group, is the developer of the moderate 60-unit Lekki Pearl Estate sitting on one hectare of land in the Lekki corridor of Lagos. With innovative tech systems, the company has been able to deliver one of the best-inclass estates with bespoke functionality and compelling value propositions for home buyers.

“We have built this estate with technology. Nigeria can only meet its housing needs or reduce the 17 million deficit by building with technology. This is the only solution to housing in Nigeria. The old method cannot

take us far,” explained Femi Akintunde, GMD, Alpha Mead Group.

Akindolire takes it further, saying, “Nigeria has housing crisis. The 17 million housing deficit we talk about everyday is simply a time bomb.

Statistics shows that 66 percent of people living in Lagos live in slums, meaning that 6 in 10 people in Lagos live in unconventional buildings.”

Explaining the crisis fur-

ther, he noted that urbanization rate of Lagos is about 3 percent per annum and that is projected to hit 4.5 percent by 2030. This means that every hour, about 400 people enter Lagos. By 2030, it is expected that about 10,000 people will be coming into Lagos per hour.

The solution to this crisis situation, Akindolire said, was not the conventional method of building because

FIABCI seeks perception change, ease of doing business for foreign funds to come into real estate DIPO OLADEHINDE

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or the much needed foreign funds to find their way into the Nigeria real estate market, there must a change in the mindset and negative perception of this market by foreign investors, the International Real Estate Federation (FIABCI), Nigerian chapter, has said.

A global real estate organization with membership in 65 countries including 100 professional associations, 65 academic institutions, and 3000 individual members, FIABCI believes in the growth of businesses and investment in real estate.

The Nigerian chapter believes too that the Nigeria real estate market has opportunities enough to benefit from the estimated global $7 trillion investment finding their way into growth areas and investible assts like real estate.

But, according to the federation, emerging economies like Nigeria must make

its environment friendly and enabling for these funds to come in, citing ease of doing business which, it said, must improve significantly in order to attract direct investments.

“FIABCI-Nigeria aims to correcting the negative notion and image perceived about Nigeria by the world and will continue to be part of positive changes founded on the belief that Nigeria has a lot of great potentials and opportunities,” said Adeniji Adele, FIABCI Nigeria, at a press briefing in Lagos.

Adele at noted the press briefing called to announce the federation’s 2020 Business forum and Dinner scheduled for January 24, 2020 at the Grand Ball Room of Eko Hotel and Suites Conference Centre Lagos, that the forum would create an advocacy platform for dialogue between government officials and private investors on the need to improve the ease of doing business in Nigeria.

“A lot of investors want to move their investment from

Europe to Nigeria, however if we can’t guarantee the safety of their investment, then there is a big problem,” Adele said.

Expected at the event are FIABCI World President, Walid Moussa while the main speakers for the event are Wouter Truffino, CEO and founder of Holland Contech and PropTech, and Elena Panaritis, an Economist and CEO of Thought for Action.

Also expected are wellknown panelists, who are competent and successful in their various fields. Immediately after the business forum comes the dinner, which gives way for networking— one of the major aims of FIABCI. Ayodeyi Adeleye, Secretary-General of FIABCI, said the business forum was an avenue draw government’s attention to the current situation of ease of doing business after which the outcome would be presented at the World Economic Forum in Dubai in 2020 titled the ‘Nigeria Property Scorecard’.

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“It’s an advocacy platform we are trying to leverage on; at FIABCI, we are concerned about the current situation and the state of housing generally in Nigeria,” Adeleye told journalists.

He said the aim of the event was to advocate for the important need of improving the ease of doing business in Nigeria. most especially in terms of delivering affordable housing.

“Also expected at the event is Jumoke Oduwole, the senior special assistant to the vice president on industry, trade and investment. These are representatives of government that make ease of doing business possible”, he said.

In terms of what to expect, Akin Akinola, Treasurer of FIABCI, said there wouldl be a two-panel session and an exhibition where people could showcase their products for public consumption.

“One of the panel sessions will be focusing on the economy while the other will be on ease of doing business,” Akinola said.

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that cannot work.

“What we need is an advanced method of building that is also fast in delivery. We need a method that can deliver houses massively—a rapid method that can manufacture houses like other commodities. This is what is needed to solve the housing crisis and that is what we at AMDC have done with millions of dollars investment in equipment procurement,” he said.

By deploying the formwork technology in the development of Lekki Pearl, AMDC says it has not only delivered quality products, but also put money back into the pockets of buyers by way of reduced energy and maintenance costs which have been designed to be low.

“What we have here is a green estate that is environmentally friendly; all the sewage systems here are underground and they are channeled in such a way that they are used to generate electricity. This is the first of its kind in Nigeria today,” Dada Thomas, AMDC’s chairman, explained to buyers.

It is estimated that residents of this estate will be saving 15-20 percent of their energy and maintenance costs per month. “These savings could be channeled into other domestic needs,” Thomas said.

Lekki Pearl offers different house-types including 2-bedroom and 3-bedroom apartments; Town-houses and stand-alone houses, all targeted at buyers within the low and medium income group. The houses, the developer said, are affordable chiefly because there is a flexible payment plan in place.

The Pacific Lagos earns GPP recognition as best commercial development firm CHUKA UROKO

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lobal Property Partners (GPP), a subsidiary of Cavalli Business & Investment Group, has been given an award of recognition as the Best Commercial Development & Consultancy Firm Nigeria Award 2019.

The Build Magazine, an international quarterly publication for the global real estate, construction and infrastructure industry, which gave the award, explained that GPP earned the recognition on account of its new project in Lagos.

The new project called The Pacific Lagos is a mixed use development located along Ozumba Mbadiwe Avenue, Victoria Island, Lagos where construction work is underway.

The Pacific Lagos was recently remodeled, expanding it from its initial design into two distinct luxury towersone with 10 suspended floors of premium office space for commercial use, as well as 12 floors of exclusive hotel apartments for residential purposes.

GPP says it has assembled a team of top firms across the construction industry to ensure it meets its project completion timeline, adding that construction was cur@Businessdayng

rently progressing according to schedule.

GPP’s award was under Build’s ‘Real Estate and Property Awards’ which the magazine says is meant to “highlight innovators and visionaries throughout this vital industry.”

Emmanuel Odemayowa, the MD/CEO of GPP, says the award is “a humbling endorsement of the tireless efforts we are making to expand the frontiers of customized, luxury living and working spaces in Nigeria through the Pacific Lagos”.

He recalled that the official sod-turning of The Pacific Lagos was done in July this year, after many years of painstaking research, planning and constant reviews towards delivering a real estate project that compares favourably with the best internationally.

According to Odemayowa, it is this unending quest for perfection that influenced the company’s recent remodeling of The Pacific Lagos to make it “bigger, better and offer even more value to our clientele.”

He hoped that the recent award would spur GPP into doing much more to help reduce Nigeria’s housing deficit through residential and commercial real estate developments of international standards.

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Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

property&lifestyle CBE Estate commissions first residential property in Lekki Free Zone ENDURANCE OKAFOR

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oral Beach Estate (CBE), a re a l e s t at e development company has commissioned the first-ever residential property in the Lekki Free Zone aimed at providing accommodation for professionals who will be working and doing business in the Zone.

At the official opening of the property which sits on 20,000 square metres, the real estate firm said the first block of 24 flats is now ready to let/lease.

According to Xigong Huang, MD of the Lekki Free Trade Development Company (LFZE) the commissioning of the residential property is a win-win for both the LFZE and Coral Beach and he said he was confident that the investment will have a big potential.

“Coral Beach is the pioneer real estate company in the Lekki Free Zone to start the real estate business in the south-west quadrant of Free Zone and they have commissioned the first block of their apartments,” Huang said at the ceremony on Thursday.

The main objective of the Coral Beach Estate is essential to seek out and developed real estate opportunities in Lekki Free Zone with a primary focus in estates, lands, building casements or other interests in residential

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commercial, shopping mall and office building in the Free Zone, CBE said.

In his remarks, David Eyerem, chairman board of director Coral beach estate explained said that the idea of Coral Beach was formed by few people who visited the area and found out that they could make something out of the forest zone.

“This is the first of its kind, especially in the Free Zone, there is no other structure of this kind, this is the first one and it is going to have a good impact for those who will be doing business around the area,” he said.

The decision by the shareholders of CBE to commence development of the Coral

Estate in phases started in 2015 with the first one being a block of five storeys with all supporting infrastructure for the entire estate.

“For the people doing business within the Free Trade Zone, the Coral Estate will provide accommodation for them and the Estate is currently the only approved residential development within the free trade zone,” Emeka Okoye, the project manager for Coral Beach Estate said.

Currently, the company is pioneering the development of an ultra-modern Estate of 318 luxury dwelling units consisting of 24 units of 3-bedroom flats, 36 units of 2-bedroom flats,

24 units of 2-bedroom maisonettes, 144 units of studio maisonettes and 12 units of an executive penthouse.

According to the property company, they are designed to be built for businesses, professional service providers and high net worth individuals operating in the Fee Zone area.

To many, the facts about the Free Zone are not only intimidating but also compelling, especially for savvy and patient investors with long term view of the property market.

Today, Ibeju-Lekki is acclaimed to be one of the fastest developing corridors in Nigeria and, in fact, Africa. It is said to be an ideal

investment destination for real estate investors and the future of Lagos. The reason for this is simple and not far-fetched.

The community is where the Lekki Deep Seaport, Dangote Refinery and Petrochemical Industry, Dangote Fertilizer Plant, International (Cargo) Airport, Lekki International Golf Course, Eleganza Industries are being developed.

Commenting on the potentials of the Lekki Free Zone, Huang encouraged other real estate developers to explore the opportunity that abounds in the free zone as “it holds a lot of potentials and already there is demand for real estate property.”

New lifeline for Diaspora Nigerian investors as firm creates platform to assist, protect investment CHUKA UROKO

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ttention is, increasingly, being paid to the fears and concerns raised by Diaspora Nigerian investors as interventions are now coming from institutions or firms focused on addressing those concerns.

One of such firms is Four Seasons Legacy Investment Limited—a global company with focus on helping people in home and investment property ownership in Nigeria and abroad without hassles.

The firm is out to restore investor-confidence, especially that of Diaspora Nigerians. Some of them, in their bid to invest in their home country, got their fingers burnt through fraudulent activities of estate developers and even family and friends.

“We are strategically positioned to resolve some of the challenges people in the Diaspora constantly

Lagos now demands tax payment evidence from home buyers before transactions

face with regards to mitigating the risk of frauds, eliminating travel risks and the need to give money to family members, sourcing for loans and getting vetted professionals to handle projects on behalf of our clients in the Diaspora,” explained Alfred Olabisi Tofade, Four Seasons MD. Tofade who spoke recently at the unveiling of ‘Nigerian Dream Homes’, a new product offering by the company, noted that annual remittances from Nigerians in Diaspora in the last few years had exceeded $21 billion, which currently outperforms Nigeria’s earnings from the oil sector.

Four Seasons Legacy has created a platform that captures all the vital information needed to meet clients’ dreams and, at the same time, providing them with adequate protection and easy access to their various partners. This includes ensuring that the clients have proper insurance to cover their property, quality aswww.businessday.ng

surance, interior design for great finishing, real estate management and many more.

“Our system provides an A to Z turn-key process through our developers from the initial stages of land acquisition, mid stages of construction and to final stages of completion; our projects are handled by experienced, vetted developers who adhere to strict uniform regulatory guidelines irrespective of which city our clients plan to build,” Tofade assured.

Construction work for their clients is inspected stage by stage by quality assurance professionals before the clients authorize payment. This helps to eradicate the problem of developer non-performance.

Also, projects are paid for in stages by the receiving bank (Fidelity Bank) from clients’ account when authorized after each milestone is accomplished to clients’ specification and satisfaction.

The MD said that, throughout this process, their clients have total control of their money through their account with Fidelity Bank and do not have to risk having huge amounts of money in their personal possession when they travel.

Throughout this process, neither the developer nor Four Seasons has access to clients money earmarked for the project and, according to Tofade, their transparency gives clients peace of mind as money is disbursed only upon full clientele satisfaction.

“People in Diaspora have a yearning to build investment properties and homes in Nigeria and they are looking for trustworthy collaborators here in Nigeria to work with in building commercial properties such as retirement homes, resort centers, industrial parks and estates,” he noted.

He said that the company was currently putting proposals together with

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their partners in the UK, US and other places. This, he explained, was because, many Nigerians who travel abroad have desires to have a vacation home and properties in the US, UK, Dubai etc while some have need of homes for their children to stay or rent or even own.

“Under the auspices of Four Seasons, through the Nigerian Dream Homes, such dreams become reality with our seamless process; our platform works alongside banks, developers in the US, and trusted agencies to deliver a world class service to our clients,” he said.

According to him, Four Seasons process was gaining rapid worldwide attention of Nigerians in the Diaspora as a solution to long term challenges in the real estate and infrastructural development.

He added that Nigerians at home could also use this platform to build their dream homes at home in Nigeria or abroad. @Businessdayng

he aggressive tax drive in Lagos aimed to widen the net and improve the state’s revenue has crept into the its housing market and it is such that all transactions are now based on evidence of tax payment.

Authorities of the state have said that government will only entertain applications for housing transactions that are accompanied with evidence of tax payments by applicants.

“No tax defaulters would have the opportunity to embark on Housing transactions with the Ministry Housing and its agencies,” said Wasiu Akewusola , the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry in a statement obtained by BusinessDay .

Akewusola stressed that unless applications were backed with evidence of payment of personal income tax, they would not be entertained.

According to him, the documents that would accompany all applications made to the ministry must include photocopy of Lagos State Revenue Receipt and bank deposit slip, Assessment notice from the Lagos Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) as well as Electronic Tax Clearance (e-TCC) Card or three months salaries pay slips with corporate Identification Card of the employees.

“Prospective applicants for either outright purchase or rent to own scheme are advised not to forward any application that does not include any of the aforementioned documents as such requests will not be accepted”, he said.

Akewusola explained further that housing construction and provision of infrastructures in the state are financed by tax payers money and it is only right that beneficiaries of these projects must have contributed their own quota to the revenue of the State government.

He emphasized the commitment of the state government to providing affordable and quality homes for the people, saying the ultimate goal was to bring more Lagosians on the homeowners ladder.

He enjoined the residents of the state to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by the state government in prioritizing the completion of all uncompleted housing projects in order to increase the stock of available homes in the state thereby reducing the housing deficit.

He then assured the general public that all applications completed with all required documents shall be promptly considered.

Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

PHOTOSPLASH

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The Launch of BusinessDay Economic Club in Lagos BusinessDay Economic Club was launched on Thursday, 21st October 2019. It is a laidback community of young professionals seeking knowledge and network. Hosted by BusinessDay in collaboration with Circa Non-Pareil refreshed Myshayo.ng, the event was convened by Lehlé Balde, senior associate, radio show host & columnist for BusinessDay, to provide a relaxed environment for young professionals to learn, network and enjoy great food courtesy of Circa Non-Pareil. Speakers included Catherine Duggan, Vice Dean & Professor of Management & Political Economy, ALU School of Business, Kigali, Rwanda; Mohammed Garuba, Co-Founder & Executive Director, Cardinal Stone Financial Services.

Dayo Okusami, Partner Templars

Lehle Balde, senior associate BusinessDay and convener of the Economic Forum

Sheyi Adepoju, CEO of MyShayo.com

Catharine Duggan, vice dean, and professor of management and political Economy at the African Leadership University of Business, Rwanda

Yvette Dimiri, head of audience engagement, BusinessDay and a guest

Guest at the Economic Club

L-R Chinonso Arubayi, Bukola Dakolo,Vani Nadarajah director of admissions ALU School of Business, Osam Iayehn director and head natural resources Africa Finance Corporation

L-R: Catharine Duggan, Mohammed Garuba and Dayo Okusami,

Cross-section of guests

The drinks were provided by Myshayo.com

The food was provided by Circa Non Pareille

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Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

POLITICS & POLICY 2023: Nigeria must adopt electronic voting to avoid crisis - Chekwa Okorie Iniobong Iwok

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h e kw a O k o rie, national chair man of the United Progressive Party (UPP), has said that Nigeria must amend the Electoral Act to accommodate electronic voting in the 2023 general election, saying that the off-season elections have shown that the country could face a serious crisis if the status quo remains.

In recent time, elections in Nigeria are conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) through the use of card reader. But elections across Nigeria have been marred by ballot box snatching, voters’ inducement, violence and manipulation of the election results largely due to desperation by politicians to win at all cost.

Just before the 2019 general election, President Muhammadu Buhari had refused signing the amended Electoral Act empowering

INEC to conduct and transmit the election results electronically.

However, amid reported violence which characterised recent off-season elections in some states, there

has been renewed outcry from stakeholders for the amendment of the law to accommodate electronic voting.

Ovie Omo-Agege, deputy Senate President, recently

introduced a bill to start the process for a comprehensive amendment of the 2010 Electoral Act. Speaking in an interview with BusinessDay, Monday, Okorie noted that the

L-R: Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, wife of former Governor of Lagos State, Abimbola Fashola and Lekan Are at the Ibadan Foundation 2019 Annual Awards held at Kakanfo Inn, Ibadan.

Sowore: CSO seeks dismissal of DSS DG, lambasts Malami ...FG guided by extant laws, court tradition Iniobong Iwok, Lagos and Felix Omohomhion, Abuja

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he Centre for Rule of Law (CENTROLAW) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately sack the Director General of the State Security Service (SSS), Yusuf Bichi, over the invasion of the Court to forcefully re-arrest Omoyele Sowore after he had been ordered by the court to be released on bail.

The rights group also described the move by the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami to take over the prosecution of Sowore from the DSS, as an attempt to cover up and redirect attention from the action of the DSS. The Sahara Reporters’ publisher was arrested on August 3 for leading #RevolutionNow campaign, a series of nationwide protests he had planned with other activists to demand better governance for Nigeria.

However, he was violently seized from a federal courtroom by armed agents of the SSS, after being released the night preceding the December 6 court invasion after the SSS had disregarded several orders for his release by a federal

judge, Ijeoma Ojukwu.

In a statement to journalists in Lagos State on Monday, a copy of which was made available to BusinessDay, the group wondered why the AGF would allow the SSS to investigate and also prosecute Sowore.

“We hereby call for the immediate dismissal, by Buhari, of the head of the DSS and all the officers who crudely obeyed and carried out the illegal order to re-arrest a citizen from the court premises while the court was sitting and after the citizen has been ordered by the court to be released on bail.

“Our attention has been drawn to the decision by the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) to take over of the prosecution of Omoyele Sowore from the Department of Security Services (DSS).

“We view the decision as aimed at attempt to cover up and redirect attention from the horrible folly of the DSS. The decision came hesitantly and weakly too late after the preventable harm has been done.

“It raised the reasonable question about why should the DSS prosecute the case it investigated?” the group said.

The CSO said the dismissal www.businessday.ng

of the DG of the SSS had become necessary based on the unwarranted invasion of court by its officers, stressing that any action below that portends a weak administration.

It further urged the AGF to resign from office if President Buhari refuses to dismiss Bichi from his position.

“Our call for the immediate dismissal of the head of the DSS from his office and position for the unconstitutional breach of the judicial arm of government is the most reasonable action to take in tandem with the precedent already laid by the presidency in the case of the former head of the DSS who was justifiably dismissed from office for invading the legislative arm of government with impunity. Not to do this is to admit governmental weakness and failure.

“We expected the AGF, as the Chief Law Officer of the Federal Government, to have acted faster than he is now trying to do reluctantly. We urge him to also insist on the dismissal of the head of the DSS for the unpardonable breach of the sanctity of the hallowed court of the Judiciary.

“In case the President fails to dismiss the head of the DSS, we expect the AGF to

resign from his office. We view this as the most decent and honourable action for him to take in the circumstance to distance himself from the horrible occurrence,” the group further said.

However, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice has said that the Federal Government was guided by extant laws and tradition of the law in handling legal matters and related litigations.

This is contained in a statement by Umar Jibrilu Gwandu, Special Assistant on Media and Public Relations, office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice made available to newsmen.

According to the statement, the Minister was responding to the media on the claim that a lawyer sent a letter to the AGF requesting for the release of Sowore.

“When parties submit their issues for determination to a court of law, they lack exclusivity of decision over such issues without recourse to court,” he said.

Malami said: “We remain guided by the established tradition and will not take unilateral decision without recourse to the rule of law.

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country risked the danger of falling into electoral crisis and anarchy in 2023 if the agitation of Nigerians was ignored.

“That is the only way you can eliminate thuggery and large percentage of the violence in the system. People can vote with their phone and laptops.

“INEC have enough resources and equipment to do that. If we want to eliminate crises and war in 2023 we have to adopt electronic voting.

“The off-season elections have not given us much hope; they have been a major breaker for Nigeria; we must try to avoid this,” Okorie said.

The national chairman said that his party had suggested to the National Assembly a comprehensive review of the Electoral Act since 2012 and was ignored by the Goodluck Jonathan administration.

He, however, wondered why elections in Nigeria had become the more contro-

versial and violence-prone, warning that government and stakeholders must rise up and save the nation’s democracy “We want constitutional amendment to accommodate electronic voting and UPP campaigned for that since 2012 but it was turned down by that administration.

“We want full constitutional amendment that would eliminate the card reader and bring about full electronic voting and eliminate the transmission of result through sheet.

“Ballot box snatching would be eliminated. So, election results can be sent directly from the polling units to sever. The wards and INEC office in Abuja can see it. It becomes easy to have actual voting and distribution of results.

“We don’t need to wait for INEC to announce results; through this we can say this person would win election because of the polling that was done earlier,” Okorie added.

Dickson begins disengaging political appointees Samuel Ese, Yenagoa

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overnor Henry Seriake Dickson has started disengaging his political appointees ahead February 14, 2020 handover date when the Governor-Elect, David Lyon is expected to take over the reins of government.

A government special announcement signed by the Secretary to the State Government, Kemela Okara monitored in Yenagoa on Monday said: “Only political appointees whose positions are critical to the transition process will be retained henceforth to manage this process.”

The statement has sparked speculations that Governor Dickson has sacked his political appointees, especially as the announcement did not specify those critical to the transition process.

Aside that, there is also the growing fear among appointees that some of them might be denied their benefits as the government is set to compile the list of those “who are by law entitled to receive benefits, with a view to making payment before government winds down in February 2020.”

Dickson had appointed a @Businessdayng

huge number of Bayelsans from across all the eight local government areas of the state in the run up to the November 16 governorship election which was won by the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Over 60 special advisers were appointed in one ceremony and none of them was given any specific office a week to the election while a commissioner and Acting Head of Service were appointed after the election.

At the time, it was believed that the appointments were politically-motivated and only aimed at winning the governorship election with several stakeholders holding the view that they would be sacked once the mission was accomplished.

It is believed that the government special announcement coming less than two months to the official handover date and many of the appointees not having spent quite two months in their positions has confirmed the view of stakeholders.

Some appointees are confused at the announcement and are trying to confirm their status with the government promising to sort out their salaries after paying civil servants their salaries, which Okara described as a priority.

Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

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Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

FEATURE

Bracing local seed industry for global distinction Since his appointment as director-general of the National Agricultural Seeds Council in 2015, Philip Olusegun Ojo has focused his team’s target at two things: to demystify the market entry process for investors and entrepreneurs and reinforce the council’s ability to root out dishonest elements seeking a guise to shield sub-standard production. TEMITAYO AYETOTO writes that these efforts have been largely fruitful in transforming the Council into an innovative agency that has recorded tremendous growth and progress

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rom working rigorously to sift the wheat from the chaff of adulterated seed proliferation to sealing partnerships with key industry actors around the world, the National Agricultural Seeds Council (NASC) is riding on the back of a five-year growth plan to push its mandate further.

Beginning from 2020 to 2024, the council will require about N1.5 billion in addition to its budgetary provision to scale up the monitoring and development of the local seed industry. The plan is expected to analyse the inadequacies of the current seed system and take steps to fix them.

Nationally, there is a yearning for increased use of improved and certified seed among farmers, a situation considered possible under strengthened local capacity for production and affordability of these seeds to teeming farming populace thereof.

Until recently, farmers’ access to certified seeds was abysmally low, dangling between 5-10 percent of national need. And for a stage as critical as the foundational layer of boosting agricultural productivity in the country, it was clear that more needed to be done to marry quality planting materials with farmers at the heart of production.

Philip Olusegun Ojo understood this when he took the baton as the director-general of the council in 2015. Ojo, whose areas of special expertise include seed certification and quality control, seed production, seed testing, seed conditioning, seed storage and capacity building, quickly deployed his wealth of experience in transforming the Council into an innovative agency that has recorded tremendous growth and

progress.

The seed expert with years of experience under his belt essentially drove his team’s target at two things: to demystify the market entry process for investors and entrepreneurs and reinforce the council’s ability to root out dishonest elements seeking a guise to shield sub-standard production.

The leverage was a smart mobile technology that allowed seed enterprises and seed fields to seamlessly register on the council’s website and obtain approval without scampering around town in search of the nearest NASC regional office as was before the practice. Eligible new entrants now are ultimately able to acquire certificates online. The result has been rising private sector investment in the seed industry from 157 in 2016 to over 314 players in 2019, with processing capacity increased by over 40 percent, Ojo told a select audience of journalists in Lagos recently, in response to a question on the outcome of the council’s efforts.

Given that the seed business is a technical one requiring adequate competence in the area of variety development, seed multiplication, and distribution, fighting non-compliance with standards with routine market raids was more of a reactionary effort against a preventive move to save farmers from avoidable losses.

Consequently, the Ojo-led council, in partnership with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), came up with a verification concept which its popularity has travelled beyond local borders in appeal: the National Seed Tracker. With it, operators can access real-time information and monitor events

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Philip Olusegun Ojo

across the seed value-chain in the ambience of a mobile application.

The tracker initially functioned as a cassava and yam seed tracker before it was adopted across all crops. A code, NAS CCODEX, was equally embedded in it for authentication and anti-faking of quality. Just like some initiatives deployed in the pharmaceutical area of the health sector, a user could punch a code that will generate information on the authenticity of the product.

“We have introduced something into our seed packing materials. Every package ought to carry two labels. The first one is our conventional seed tax and the second, seed codex, which naturally has a phone number where you get a code. You will be

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given instant answers on what is contained in it, whether genuine or adulterated,” he explained.

The target is that about 40 percent of farmers access improved o p e n -p o l l i nat e d a n d hy b r i d seeds, especially across priority value chains such as roots and tubers (cassava and yam), grains (maize, rice, soybean sorghum) and vegetable. The initiative was crowned with the Global Google Impact Award.

In the aspect of punitive measures, the council went back to the lax harboured by existing seed law. The law was recently re p e a l e d a n d re - e n a c t e d a s the National Agricultural Seed Council Act no 21 of 2019. From soft to strong, the new Act reviewed the fine for first offenders from N50,000 to N1 million and a jail term of one year; and the fine for repeat offenders from N100,000 and a jail term of six months to N2 million and or with a jail term of two years. In what Ojo described as motivated by dwindling governmental funding, third party certification was also introduced into the law for efficient running and monitoring of wrongdoings.

“It took us a long time to get to where we are as far as the seed Act is concerned. But in June 2019, after almost 12 years, Mr. President assented to the bill and we have a brand-new Act,” Ojo said.

“Why a new Act? It is actually very important for us to have a @Businessdayng

new Act because there are changing trends in the global seed industry and Nigeria cannot afford to stay behind. Moreover, in any general business, there are always unscrupulous people who must be checked. The penalties before were soft and minimal,” he said.

NASC has also been leveraging partnerships to run faster in addressing the low yields of crops.

It plans to join the International Organisation for Protection of New Varieties (UPOV) to guarantee protection for breeders in Nigeria and help them with recognition for intellectual property and remuneration. The seed tracker has been a centre point of attraction and embassies such as those of Hungary, Israel and the Netherlands have extended partnership with the council on that basis.

And to retain that interest, the council started a programme, Seed Connect Africa Expo, which is a convergence of stakeholders not only in Nigeria but across Africa and beyond. It focuses on issues in the seed industry, gaps and way forward. From about 300 delegates in 2018 to more than 500 stakeholders in attendance, including the secretary general of International Seed Testing Association and the manager of seed scheme of the OECD countries, NASC aims that Nigeria evolves into a learning curve and a centre of excellence for seed in West Africa.

As a result of the successes of the seed sector in Nigeria under his watch, Olusegun Ojo was reappointed the director-general of the National Agricultural Seeds Council by President Muhammadu Buhari in May this year.

The re-appointment took effect from May 26, 2019, according to a letter signed by Audu Ogbeh, the then minister of agriculture and rural development. Under his leadership, Nigeria through the Council is benefitting from the regional harmonised seed regulation within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), as the country is so far the only one capable of moving seeds to other countries as a result of its advanced seed system, leading to numerous job and wealth creation opportunities along the seed value chain.

And if the new five-year plan works out as planned, the conversation in the seed industry should shift from addressing national deficiency to becoming an export giant.

Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

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news

NBC boss stresses need to support state for better future SIKIRAT SHEHU, Ilorin

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irector-general of National Broadcasting Commission, Is’haq Modibbo Kawu, has admonished the people of Kwara State to support the present government in the state for greater development and better tomorrow.

Kawu stated this on Sunday while delivering his speech on the theme “Kwara: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” at the fifth anniversary symposium of Fresh Insight Newspaper, held at the Banquet Hall of Government House, Ilorin, Kwara State.

The NBC boss, who was also the guest lecturer, however, expressed hope and confidence about the future of the state under the present leadership.

He said: “As a citizen of Kwara State; a citizen that feels a tremendous gratitude to our state and all the opportunities Kwara State gave me, to be educated; to work, and to become a professional in the media, as well as to begin to impact upon life. The story of our state started on May 27, 1967. I am very lucky to have lived through the entire history of our state.

“I have lived through some of the most impressive phases of the development of Kwara State; periods that spoke to a genuine commitment to the development of the structures of our state as well as of its various peoples.

“There was no area of development that was not witnessing incremental development, in those early years of our state. Health care facilities

were opened all over; agricultural programs inherited from the old Northern Regional government were not only maintained, but improved upon.

“Am I hopeful about our future? Absolutely! I think that on balance, the factors of progress weigh far more positively than those of reaction. And in my lived experience as a citizen and son of our state, I have seen enough; lived through the crest and the trough; to insist that our future can only be bright.”

In his submission, Abdulrasheed Akogun, the publisher and editor-in-chief of the Kwara-based newspaper, charged media organisations and journalists in the country to be alive to their responsibilities as watchdog and agenda setters for public officeholders.

Ex-ministers decry heightening rape incidences, gender violence Cynthia Egboboh, Abuja

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ormer ministers of Ministry of Women Affairs on Monday decried the increasing cases of rape, especially among minors, as well as all forms violence against women, children and the vulnerable across Nigeria.

Hajo Sani, former minister of women affairs, speaking at the meeting of all past ministers of the ministry, said efforts should be heightened to tackle and completely eradicate cases of rape and gender violence in Nigeria.

Th e f o r m e r m i n i s t e r stressed on the need to sensitise parents on ensuring the safety of their children, especially the girl child.

“We are working to set up taskforce to tackle the cases of rape and gender-based violence across the country and we also train and sensitise mothers on how to ensure safety for their children,” she said.

Sani, speaking further, said there was the need to encourage women participation in politics as a way of promoting laws that would better the lives of the both women and children alike.

Pauline Tallen, minister of women affairs, in her remark, said the meeting was aimed at creating the right environment and pathways to ease the lives of women in Nigeria.

“We are calling on all past leaders of the ministry to

collaborate in tackling issues that affect women and children.

“The aftermath of the Boko Haram insurgence has left most of our women devastated. As we reflect on the roles played by our past leaders, we also seek greater partnership with them in ensuring we win the fight against gender based violence across the country,” she said.

Salamatu Husseini, a former minister, in her remark, said among other issues affecting women and the girl child was early marriage, adding that there was the need to promote laws that make education compulsory for children as it empowered them for a better future.

Nigeria lost $400bn to foreign havens as FG decries illicit financial flows Felix Omohomhion, Abuja

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ttorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, has decried illicit financial flows out of Nigeria, noting that Nigeria had lost over $400 billion to foreign havens, stolen and expatriated by corrupt leaders and their foreign accomplices.

Malami said multinational companies in the country were also in this illicit flow. He made the disclosure in a speech as he led the Nigerian delegation to the eighth session of the Conference of States Parties to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption in the United Arab Emirate (UNCAC), taking place from December 16h to 20, 2019.

Umar Jibrilu Gwandu, special assistant on media and public relations, office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, in a statement on Monday, said the minister noted with great concern the incidence of illicit financial flows which go through the financial systems annually, particularly from developing to developed economies.

“The quantum of these illicit flows which are majorly proceeds of crime undermines local currencies, constitutes a threat to the economy, and enhances the risk of huge amounts of money flowing into channels such as organised crimes and terrorism,” he said.

The government has taken drastic measures to address the problem in order to ensure that Nigerian financial institutions and banks are not used as conduits for these illicit transactions, he said.

“To dissuade the perpetrators of this anomaly including financial institutions who act as enablers, State Parties should ensure that illicit financial flows, when tracked, do not remain in the custody of enabling financial institutions, but should be transferred into escrow account, preferably in Development Banks pending return to countries of origin,” he said.

According to the minister, “Bad eggs among public officials have been compromised by multinational companies and our resources looted and diverted through inflated contracts.”

He noted that with the return of democratic governance in 1999, the country had recorded significant progress in the fight against corruption, saying, “We have enacted legal frameworks and established several dedicated institutions focused on preventing and combatting diverse manifestations of corruption.”

The Federal Government has established numerous policies to promote transparency and accountability and prevent corruption before it occurs through institution of mechanisms that ensure data– policy nexus and inter-agency coordination, and established a robust access to information regimen in the Freedom of Information Act, ensuring increased transparency and accountability, he said.

“We have committed to the Open Government Partnership and beneficial ownership disclosure and adopted a roadmap for implementation.

A few days ago we launched two significant initiatives: The Open Treasury Initiative which establishes a financial transparency portal to keep the public informed about financial transactions within a specified threshold, on a daily basis, and a pilot Beneficial Ownership register focused on the extractive sector,” he said.

In realisation the necessity of effective Criminal Justice System for investigating and sanctioning corruption, Nigeria is actively implementing the Justice Sector Reform Strategy covering issues such as International Cooperation Mechanisms, Mutual Legal Assistance and reform of the Criminal Justice System, he said.

“Proceeds of corruption and illicit financial flows constitute a huge chunk of resources needed for sustainable development but are regularly diverted from victim states,” he said.

L-R: Patrick Mgbenwelu, head of investment banking, FBNQuest Merchant Bank; Aigbe Olotu, CFO, Sahara Power; Moroti Adedoyin-Adeyinka, director, Sahara Group; Kola Adesina, chairman, Sahara Power; Kayode Akinkugbe, managing director/ CEO, FBNQuest Merchant Bank, and Tonna Ejiofor, head, debt solutions, FBNQuest Merchant Bank, at the Sahara Power Global Facilities Restructuring Signing Ceremony, in Lagos.

Lagos prince, Oyekan, accomplice sentenced to death JOSHUA BASSEY

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he legal battle that started in 2014 over the murder of Sikirat Ekun, a 62-year business woman, came to a conclusion on Monday, December 16, 2019, as Adewale Oyekan (50), and his accomplice, Lateef Balogun (27), were sentenced to death by an Ikeja High Court after being found guilty of murdering the businesswoman.

Adewale is the son of Oba Adeyinka Oyekan, Oba of Lagos, who died on March 1, 2003. The prince hired Balogun for N6,000 to murder Ekun, according to the prosecution. The convicts, who have been in custody for seven years, murdered Ekun by strangling her and throwing her corpse into a 1,000-foot well in her home.

Raliatu Adebiyi, in a twohour judgment, held that the prosecution proved the charges of conspiracy to commit murder and murder beyond reasonable doubt.

She said: “The circumstantial evidence was strong and

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cogent; the act of the defendants in killing the deceased was intentional and premeditated. The court finds that the prosecution has proved beyond reasonable doubt the offences of conspiracy and murder, and the defendants are accordingly found guilty of the two-count charge.

“Section 221 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011, stipulates the punishment for the offence of murder as follows. Subject to the provisions of any other law, a person who commits the offence of murder shall be sentenced to death.

“Same is the punishment for conspiracy to commit murder as contained in Section 231 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011. The above cited provisions of the law does not give the court any discretion whatsoever in sentencing the defendants.

“For this reason, the first and second defendants are hereby sentenced on each of counts one and two, to death by hanging. May God, the giver of life, have mercy on your souls.”

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According to the prosecution led by Akin George, the convicts committed the offences at 1.00am on October 17, 2012, at the home of the deceased located at 5, Babatunde Lalega Street, Omole Estate Phase One, Lagos State.

The prosecution said the deceased was a restaurateur who knew Oyekan due to her friendship with his late mother.

“To render assistance to the prince, Ekun employed him as the manager of her restaurant. Balogun, the second defendant, was a former domestic staff of Ekun, who was employed by her to take care of her elderly father,” George said.

He submitted that Balogun’s employment was, however, terminated following a dispute with Ekun.

“The convicts conspired, killed the deceased and threw her corpse in a well within the premises of her home, and took over her businesses and property including a bus which was sold for N170,000.

When any inquiry was made by family and friends about @Businessdayng

her whereabouts, Oyekan informed them that she travelled to Abuja for the Ileya (Eid-el Kabir) festival. He passed this information by sending a text message from Ekun’s mobile phone.

“Following worry from members of Ekun’s family, and after an extensive search, her corpse was found two months later, in December 2012, by well diggers and fire fighters. The convicts had placed a generator, a gas cylinder and other household items on the corpse to conceal it in the 1,000-foot well,” he said.

The trial at the High Court began on April 14, 2015. Five witnesses including two police officers, a nephew of the deceased, Iyiola Olaniyi, and the only child of the deceased, Folashade Amurun, testified for the prosecution.

Oyekan and Balogun testified for the defence. While testifying, the convicts both denied knowing each other, saying that they met for the first time at a police station.

They also denied committing the offence.

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Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

news Sokoto’s ghost teachers, corrupt school...

After BusinessDay investigative story...

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to the school are Zubairu Arzika, Nalbaniel Osatemen, Kalu Garba, Nana Hauwau Bello, Abddulazeez Garba, Lawal Garba, Mercy George, Gbadamoshi Anthony Gideon, Udoku Roseline Ekene and Mainasara Muh’d Garba.

“We have 11 N-power teachers but only one of them, Zubairu Arzika, comes to work,” the headmaster said.

“Still, the 10 others receive salaries but they don’t come to work.”

Ghost-working in the country’s civil service is no strange phenomenon. In July, the Nigerian government sacked 2,525 beneficiaries of its N-Power programme for absconding from their places of primary assignment across the country. Back in 2017, the Federal Government said it cumulatively saved N120 bil-

repentance – unless they are caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

19 ‘ghosts’, five teachers, 1,030 pupils Decorum was totally lost in one of the classrooms of Dundaye Primary School in Wammako Local Government Area of Sokoto State. A pupil had just bitten another and the victim of the painful bite was embittered, yelling and snivelling heavily; the crowded classroom became disarrayed with most of the kids crying, one beating another and some others mocking their wailing classmates.

The headmaster’s office was about two yards away but the noise from the class got him out of his office. Mallam Lawali, short and dark, rushed out to restore calm to the class.

“You see, we don’t have enough teachers in this school

N-Power attendance sheet for Dundaye Pri School.

lion from checking imaginary workers through the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).

In 2018, the government said it removed over 50,000 ghost workers from its payroll through the Presidential Initiative on Continuous Audit (PICA). And earlier this year, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said its intervention had assisted in saving N4.5 billion monthly lost to ‘ghost workers’ on FG’s payroll. Ghost working and payroll corruption are a trend in Nigeria’s public service system and the perpetrators do not think of

and that is why there was no teacher with those children,” he told this reporter.

Active at work, very fluent in communication and painstaking while giving details, Lawali moaned about the poor teaching conditions of the school. Another understaffed school dominated by N-Power ghost teachers.

“We don’t have enough teachers because I think we are only eight in number – three females, five males. But we have 686 boys and 344 girls, making 1030 pupils,” Lawali said.

A shortage of teachers is exactly why the school cannot pass qualitative education

Three N-Power teachers, all ghosts

for corporate affairs, the

on to the pupils, according to the headmaster. But this academic challenge would have been surmounted if the N-Power teachers had been faithful.

“Yes, we have N-Power teachers. We have, I think, 24 N-Power teachers. Of course, some of them are coming; if they come today, they won’t until another two or three days,” he said.

Tukur Mansur, Rebbeca Anthony Brown, Bridget Osiagberi, Abdulqadir Ibrahim, Martins Edoamaokwo, Hannah Ojone Benjamin, Bugi Sunday, Buah Denis, Essier Charles, Ogunshina Cecilia, Isude Favour, Yunus Aminat, Rahinat Ogundipe, Benjaamin Godwin, Ugwu Ruth, Lukman Buhari, Cecilia Ugwuene, Ebun Aliyu, Joshua Tarfa, Salisu Yakasa, Yahaya Muhammad, Abdulaziz Ja’far and Obodo Ifeoma are the 24 N-Power teachers deployed to the school, according to records provided by the headmaster.

“I think only five out of 24 are regular,” the headmaster said. The 19 others were ‘ghosts’, earning salaries for job not done.

From the N-Power attendance book, BusinessDay established that Lukman Buhari, Yunus Aminat, Bugi Sunday, Hannah Ojone Benjamin and Isude Favour were the responsible five.

“It’s bad. It’s really not good!” said Yunus Aminat, one of the regular N-Power

teachers while commenting on the shadiness shrouding the N-Power Teach scheme in the state.

A headmaster covers up ghost teachers Nothing seemed interesting about Gidan Hamidu Primary School, also in Wammako Local Government Area of the state. When this reporter arrived at the school premises at exactly 9:45am one Tuesday in November, no significant teaching or learning was ongoing. Kashamu Dibo, the headmaster, and Ibrahim Muhammad, his right-hand man, were seen exchanging banters while the pupils were busy playing around at a time they ought to be in class.

One shocking observation: the headmaster was so incoherent that he could not remember the exact number of permanent teachers in the school, let alone the N-Power teachers.

“Five or six,” he said of the permanent teachers.

When the reporter requested the list of the N-Power teachers in the school, the headmaster feigned ignorance of the whereabouts of the list. However, Muhammad insisted on fetching it, believing that the journalist was a student researcher.

“Wait a bit! I’m confused!

I can’t find the list of the NPower teachers,” the headmaster yelled.

“Is Aisha Yakubu not one of the N-Power teachers?”

Gidan Rugga Primary School N-Power list www.businessday.ng

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agency said it was saddened by the incident and would leave no stone unturned in unravelling more truths about the illegal transactions.

“The attention of our Agency has been drawn to the BUSINESSDAY frontpage story titled ‘How Lagos’ revenue goes into private pockets’. The report detailed how, through an undercover exercise to the local government offices, one of our staff was caught receiving official payments of the Agency into her private bank account,” the statement said.

“This report is coming despite our Agency’s stance against issuing and collection of payments in cash. Our Agency is saddened by this incident because we have warned against such acts across our communication channels and platforms,” it said.

The agency said it had consequently set the necessary machinery in motion to investigate “this illegal activity and all those involved”.

“The culprit has been summoned for proper questioning and disciplinary procedure.

The public should be rest assured that no stone would be left unturned in unravelling these illegal acts,” it said.

LASSA reiterated that the agency does not collect cash payments for any reason, but directed all payments to the official account.

“Members especially of the public must desist from offering our staff and official cash payment. Our Agency operates a no-cash policy. We wish to assure members of the public that the Lagos State Signage and Advertisement Agency (LASAA) remains committed to discipline transparency and accountability in its operations,” it said in the statement.

A headmaster covers up ghost teachers

Muhammad retorted.

“Yes, Aisha. Abubakar Muhammad comes as well; that’s two.”

Further investigations by BusinessDay revealed that there are six permanent teachers, 291 pupils and 15 NPower teachers in the school, out of which only two – Aisha Yakubu and Abubakar Muhammad – show up at their duty posts; the other 13 teachers are mainly ghosting but they are on the government’s payroll.

‘N5,000 bribe to secure headmaster’s cooperation’ “When the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper, one will feel reluctant to do good.” This is the aphorism that suits the proverbial Hausa statement of an N-Power official very familiar with the situation at Gidan Hamidu Primary School. “Indan mai kyautatama Jama’ abayasamun alheri da yaka mace kyautatawansa, zaifara ganin cewarashin kyautatawaya fi kyautatawariba,” the official said in the local Hausa language, offering thoughts on the tepid attitudes of many N-Power teachers, whom she branded “irresponsible and unresponsive”.

“The thing is that we don’t have teachers. Like me now, a volunteer N-Power teacher, right? They said we are 15, but for months, I’ve been the only one coming here – and one @Businessdayng

guy as well; he is schooling but he is trying as well,” the official said.

“Imagine, we are 15 and just two are coming. What are they (the pupils) going to learn? Nothing! And, to be frank with you, these children, they really want to learn. They really want to learn seriously, but there are no teachers, no facilities.”

The official said it was annoying and unfair that her colleagues were just sitting at home and waiting for N30,000 credit alert every month.

“It is unfair. They shouldn’t think because government is not seeing them, God is seeing them. To be frank, they are going to account for this N30,000. You think you will just sit down and eat N30,000?

Yet, they are saying, ‘What is N30,000?’ Okay, why did you accept the job if N30,000 is nothing?” she asked.

“I have so many friends in this N-Power. As a matter of fact, one of my friends is here in Sokoto but her N-Power base is Gusau. This woman I’m telling you about, she is a very rich woman. The annoying part is that she doesn’t even go to teach. If she has been teaching, no problem, she can collect her N30,000.

Sometimes, she would even call me to ask about the alert; someone who doesn’t go to

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school. They don’t teach and they don’t care about these children.”

The official continued: “All they know is, ‘Let me give our headmaster N5,000 and I will relax at home’. As a result, these pupils are suffering academically. They really want to learn, but there are no teachers – no encouragement, nothing. The students who were in Class 6 but are now in JSS1, they always tell me they are tired, that they don’t understand anything. It is the consequence of that poor background. Those who are in Class 1 haven’t even learnt ‘A for Apple’. Nothing like that.”

Three N-Power teachers but all are ghosts When, at Government Day Secondary School, Ummarumma, the vice principal admin, Malami Garba, said no N-Power teachers were posted to the school, the BusinessDay reporter was surprised. N-Power teachers are expected to be deployed to all public schools in the state.

But really, the vice principal’s claims might be right; it was as good as there was no NPower teacher because none of the teachers deployed to the school, according to records, had ever shown up at their duty posts. This reporter later learnt that at least three N-Power teachers were deployed to the school.

Upon arrival at 11am or thereabouts, the reporter was welcomed by the principal, Dahiru Husseini, who later referred the journalist to the vice principal admin.

“We don’t have N-Power in this school. We used to have but not anymore,” he said.

When probed further, the old man got angry.

“I said I don’t have any idea; for us over here, we don’t

not set his eyes on ever since they submitted their letters.

From the letters, it was clear that Aisha Musa, Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulmalik Latifat were the teachers deployed to the school, but none had ever shown up despite receiving salaries.

10 N-Power teachers, all ghosts At Ummarumma Primary School, the ghost working propensity is even worse.

Saidu Aliyu, the headmaster, was at first not particular about the whereabouts of the N-Power teachers posted to the school.

“There are 10 N-Power volunteer teachers posted to this primary school,” Aliyu said, noting that five are absentees while the other five are irregular in class.

When asked about the names of the N-Power volunteer teachers whom he claimed show up at their duty posts, he said: “Bilyaminu Shuhaibu, Amina Ambuson, Luther Alaka, Kaffa Margaret and Umar Abdullahi.”

However, none of the aforementioned teachers was present in the school on the day – and the headmaster declined to comment on their whereabouts.

Other five teachers whose names appear on the N-Power volunteer list but are mainly ghost workers are Safina Ismaila, Jamal Muktar Bashir, Yusuf Muh’d Mujahid, Abdurahman Gazali and Ibrahim Babangida Muh’d.

This public-service shoddiness also reigns at Gidan Rugga Primary School in the Kware area of the state. Hassan Faruk, the headmaster of the school, was quite evasive and timid while speaking to this reporter. He gave little information, with much gesture and stuttered frequently.

Pupils receiving lectures in their bellies

have any N-Power teacher!” he yelled.

Displeased with the manner with which his deputy spoke to the reporter, who had presented himself as a final year student undertaking a research about the N-Power ghost teachers’ syndrome, the principal said, “Let’s help him; you know he’s a student.”

In a matter of minutes, he fished out letters of posting from three N-Power volunteer teachers whom he said he had

“There are seven N-Power teachers in the school,” he said. All but one of them teach regularly, he claimed, but only one of them, Aliyu Abubakar, was present in the school when this reporter visited.

Contrarily, a dated attendance book seen by this reporter revealed that Aisha Usman, Ja’far Aminu, Abubakar Muhammad and Aliyu Abubakar were the N-Power teachers who were diligent with their responsibilities. Further inwww.businessday.ng

A school without teachers

vestigation revealed that the ghost teachers, whose names only appear on paper in the school but are never seen, are Rahmah Abubakar, Yusuf Yahya and Aliyu Muhammad.

This grand cover-up is not peculiar to Gidan Rugga Primary School. Several sources in Sokoto told BusinessDay that the widespread practice is that many heads of schools connive with ghosting N-Power teachers to cover up for them by writing attendance on their behalf. In fact, in one school, the daily attendance list containing different names of teachers was bizarrely written in one solitary handwriting! The headmaster or principal, as the case may be, often gets kickbacks from the salaries of the ghost teachers in return for covering them up.

‘Are you a student or a spy?’

Tukur Ladan introduced himself to this undercover journalist as the vice principal of Government Day Junior Secondary School, Achida.

Ladan was the first person to make comments of appraisal about the N-Power teachers in his school.

“With regard to the N-Power staff that we have here, we have almost nine of them and before they came to the school, we were having a lot of challenges; there was a shortage of permanent teachers who are supposed to cover different areas, but with the coming of the N-Power Teach, we are able to get a lot of helping hands because for those subjects that we didn’t have enough teachers for, we were able to get more for them and the N-Power teachers are trying,” he said.

Good as it may sound to hear, his comments would have changed the narratives about the ghost working propensities in his school, if only they were not false. Ladan’s words were mainly contradictory and his body language portrayed him as someone hiding something.

“Even now if you go round the class, you will see things for yourself. If we should go around the class now, you will find them teaching,” he claimed.

But that was not true.

Only one of the nine N-Power teachers – Mahmmud Sanusi – was in class, actually.

Further checks revealed that only three of the nine N-Power teachers deployed

in the school are regular, as indicated in the 2019 attendance notebook, which was exclusively obtained by this reporter.

When Ladan was questioned on his claims about the N-Power teachers, he taunted the reporter, saying: “Are you a student or a spy?”

Pupils receiving classes ‘in their stomachs’ Aliyu Mudda started his journey home after feasting on the morning meal served at Gidan Hamidu Primary School. The seven-year-old said he was done for the day but the time was just 10:58am.

Pale and adorning tattered clothes, he saw no reason to wait behind in class after devouring the locally-made cooked rice with other children in the school. Clearly, breakfast was Mudda’s main assignment in school. Of course, he was not alone.

After days of embedding in certain public primary schools in Sokoto, this reporter was able to unravel how school children unfairly exploit the School Feeding Programme.

Some minutes past 10am on the said day, pupils of Gidan Hamidu Primary School were observed sneaking out of their classrooms one after the other without the notice of their teachers who were in the staff room. Recall that at Gidan Yaro Primary School, Yusuf, the headmaster, affirmed that the children were fond of sneaking out of the school “after eating government’s free food”.

In 2016, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo had launched the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme with the aim of providing primary school children with free school meals made from produce from local smallholder farmers. The programme was designed to provide school children free locally-sourced meals every school day and to improve school enrolment and completion opportunities for members of the community.

“The school feeding programme has contributed greatly to the turnout of students,” said Muhammad, one of the teachers at Gidan Hamidu Primary School. “At one point when as a result of shortage the programme stopped for a week, there was a low turnout of students.”

The schooling-for-food pattern was also observed at Um-

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maruma Primary School in Kware area of Sokoto, where this reporter went under cover for two days. After consuming the morning’s free food, most of thechildrenwouldheadstraight to their homes. Saidu Aliyu, the headmaster of the school, claimed ignorance of the habits of the pupils and pledged to henceforth punish defaulters.

N-Power official, experts react When contacted by BusinessDay, Zayanu Dalhatu, the desk officer of N-Power in Sokoto, spoke evasively about the efforts made by the body to monitor the activities of the N-Power teachers in the state.

“We have complained to the national (N-Power) office in Abuja to help us so that we can supervise them by ourselves. You know each local government has what we call monitoring officers; their job is just to monitor teachers around them and check those who are around and those that aren’t,” Dalhatu said.

“And then we are going to write a report on those who are not coming and those who are. Our own job here is to coordinate and when we have complaints, we write their names and send to Abuja.

Even now we receive some names of some volunteers who absconded from work from Sokoto South,” he said, noting that even if they (the N-Power officials) would start going around now, they do not have enough resources to do that.

Referring to the N-Power ghost teachers, Shettimmah Akilahyel, the Sokoto State coordinator, Legal Aid Council, said it is fraudulent to enjoy the government’s stipends without doing the work one is being paid for.

“There is Public Service Rule for both federal and state governments that indicates that a government worker must always be at work regularly,” Akilahyel said. “It is an offence; absenteeism is an offence. Another thing is the issue of fraud. It’s fraudulent to put someone on a payroll without working. It’s a very serious fraud.”

Mansur Buhari, a lecturer in Usmanu Dafodiyo University, Sokoto, faulted the N-Power officials for lack of scrutiny and regulation of employed teachers.

“One of the problems with the N-Power is lack of effective supervision,” he said. “There ought to be a check mechanism that will allow them to know who actually goes to work and who doesn’t. There should be a kind of provision where these people are supervised daily – supervision not only whether they come or not but what they teach and how they teach.”

He also argued that there should be some evaluation of the positive impacts of the scheme.

“The government gives them the impression that they are enrolled into this N-Power to get some source of income.

The government does not give N-Power teachers the kind of belief that it is service @Businessdayng

to the country with some stipends. So, when people are employed to teach and they only see that as a meal ticket, of course, they won’t take it seriously,” he said.

“If they are not well checked, the government will continue to waste its money for nothing and in the end, it is going to affect the education system. When people do not go to work to teach these children that are supposed to be taught, of course, some important part of their life is missing because education is life.”

The lecturer argued that N30,000 is enough to employ somebody permanently to teach.

“For the volunteer teachers, government is telling them that teaching is a temporary job for them. They are on stipends but they feel the government only wants them to make money some way; not that the government is serious with them. So, they would look for other jobs to do,” he said.

He also faulted the government for providing free food for school children without providing adequate facilities that aid teaching and learning.

“The government thinks that school is all about food.

The government is supposed to provide the parents a good living condition so that they work and provide for their children. Government should take care of schools and make the environment lovable so that students will love to go to school; students should be trained to go to school because they love the environment, not because of food,” he said.

“How can you not equip the school with furniture and instructional materials and you cook food to give to these children? They will only eat and go back home. Now the school has become a place where the student will just go to feed and return home, instead of going to fill their brains with some ideas and returning home.”

Huge revenue drain – N23.4m on 65 ghost teachers Meanwhile, the government continues to suffer huge revenue losses for this leakage.

Thus far, BusinessDay can confirm at least 65 N-Power ghost teachers in seven public schools in just two local government areas of Sokoto State.

At Gidan Yaro Primary School, 10 N-Power ghost teachers were uncovered; there were 19 at Dundaye Primary School, 13 at Gidan Hamidu Primary School, four at Gidan Rugga, 10 at Ummaruma Primary School, three at Government Day Secondary School, Ummaruma, and six at Government Day Secondary School, Achida.

Records show that the aforementioned ghost teachers have been on the Federal Government’s payroll since at least 2018. The calculation, therefore, is that for just those seven schools explored by this reporter, the government has wasted nothing less than N23.4 million on paying 65 nonexistent teachers.

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news

Buhari assents to 2020 budget today

Tony Ailemhen, Abuja

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resident Muhammadu Buhari will today at 3:30pm, sign the 2020 Appropriation Bill of N10.59 trillion into law. The budget was transmitted to the President for his assent last week Thursday by the National Assembly.

Buhari had presented the budget on October 8, 2019, which the ninth Senate promised to pass before the end of the year in order to revert the nation’s fiscal year to January to December.

Recall that President Buhari had proposed N10.33 trillion while the National Assembly increased it to N10.59 trillion.

The breakdown of the budget revealed that out of the N263 billion increment, the National Assembly increased

its budget from N125 billion to N128 billion.

Both chambers of the legislature harmonised the budget to ensure it runs from January 1 to December 31, 2020. The new budget appropriated N110 billion for the Judiciary, Niger-Delta Development Commission got N808 billion.

The National Assembly also increased Oil Benchmark Price to $57 per barrel, as against the proposed $55, but maintained the daily Crude Oil Production rate at 2.18 million per barrel, GDP Growth Rate 2.93 percent, Inflation Rate 10.81 percent and Exchange Rate 305/$1 as proposed by the Executive.

According to the Senate, the increase of N90 billion in the budget is to cater for security challenges in the country, packages for lawmakers and support for Zamfara State.

2020 budget: N37bn appropriated for NASS renovation not under our control - Lawan Solomon Ayado, Abuja

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enate President Ahmad Lawan said on Monday that N37 billion appropriated in the 2020 budget for renovation of National Assembly was not under control of lawmakers.

Lawan was responding to allegation that the NASS had inflated the budget figure to accommodate their diversion of funds budgeted for the renovation of National Assembly.

He stated that it was the Federal Capital Development

Administration (FCDA) that had the responsibility of the renovation and expenditure, that if anything, the agency should be held responsible instead of lawmakers.

When we came in, we noticed that parts of National Assembly were decayed; we held a meeting with the management committee and the FCDA. “We met Mr President, the Speaker and I, and we told him that for the past 20 years, there has never been any major renovation. And he assured us he would renovate the NASS.

Yomi Casual opens flagship outlet, launches new clothing line SEGUN ADAMS ward-winning fashion designer Omoniyi Makun, CEO of Yomi Casual Clothing, at the weekend launched a new clothing line at the opening of his flagship outlet in Lagos, promising fashion lovers a richer experience and more impressive designs.

The new outlet situated in Lekki offers services from laundry department, fabric department, VIP lounge for clients, an outdoor lounge for visitors, outfit pickup, production factory to masterclass section, among others.

“This is something I have always wanted. The brand is due for it,” said Makun. “We hope to get bigger.”

Yomi Casual Clothing is a label outfit that specialises in African design, especially cut-to-fit African design. The brand started in 2007 and instantly became the go-to for fashion-loving celebrities both in Nigeria and Africa.

The brand has evolved, providing bespoke services initially for luxury clients but has also broadened service scope

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to mid-segment clients with a taste for chic and classy wears.

The launch of a new clothing line will provide the fashion brand with the opportunity to cater to more segments of the market with its creative and urbane designs.

“When I started I was catering for the luxury end but I came to realise that the market is very wide,” said Makun. “Our new clothing line is very affordable.”

The award-winning entrepreneur at the launch of his new clothing lines said the indigenous fashion industry in Nigeria has come of age and encouraged fashion design enthusiasts to focus on carving a niche in order to stand out in the industry.

Makun received the Inspiration Excellent Awards, the Exclusive impact magazine fashion designer of the year and was a Peace ambassador nominee in 2014. He also received Cynosure magazine acknowledgement award in 2013 won Fashion designer of the year at the Nigerian Youth Merit in 2011 and has won numerous other awards. www.businessday.ng

L-R: Ade Shonubi, deputy governor, Central Bank of Nigeria; Asue Ighodalo, chairman, Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG); Ketil Karlsen, head of EU delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, and Folashade Ambrose-Medebem, president, European Business Organisation (EBO) Nigeria/director, communications, public affairs and sustainable development, Lafarge Africa plc, at the EBO’s 1st Anniversary celebration in Lagos.

Ports & Cargo’s $20m new equipment to enhance port efficiency AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE

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etermined to deliver quality services to its clients, Ports & Cargo Handling Services Limited (PCHL), an indigenous terminal operator in charge of terminal C, Tin-Can Island in Lagos, Nigeria, and subsidiary of SIFAX Group, has invested in the acquisition of series of new equipment to aid the terminal in positioning for future growth.

The new equipment, which include five new harbour cranes, nine reach stackers, 10 terminal tractors, and five units of Nissan Pick-Up, were acquired to not only support SIFAX Group’s business growth plan and vision, but to also enhance discharging of vessels calling at the terminal.

Speaking at the commissioning of the newly acquired equipment in Lagos on Monday, Adekunle Oyinloye, group managing director of SIFAX, said the investment was huge and also very significant.

“We are excited because in the last two years, shipping liners have started to bring bigger vessels with longer rows of consignment. So, most of our older equipment, are finding it difficult to be able to deal with those vessels. But with this additional equipment, we will be able to deal with any size and shape of vessels,” Oyinloye said.

Increasingly, according to Oyinloye, ease of doing business, turnaround time of vessels and cargo dwell time would improve. This, he said, was why SIFAX was not only buying cranes, but also cargo handling equipment like reach stackers and terminal tractors.

“For us in Ports & Cargo, we want to be ahead and we

are excited that we made the statement today. So far, we have committed over $20 million and we are not stopping at that because there are more to come as it was just the first set that were commissioned today.

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“We are hoping that access into the port would improve because efficiency and turnaround can only improve if government helps by improving the state of the roads in and out of the port,” he said.

@Businessdayng

John Jenkins, managing director, PCHSL, said the acquisition of the new equipment would not only aid the terminal to deliver quality services to its clients, but also position the terminal for future growth.

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Lagos, fintechs partnership to coAccountants urged to embrace create solutions for smart city agenda digitalisation for relevance OLUFIKAYO OWOEYE

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n a bid to engage with the technology ecosystem in co-creating solutions for its Smart City agenda, Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has unveiled the Lagos Innovation Masterplan.

According to Sanwo-Olu, this will further drive synergy between policymakers in the public sector and innovators in the private sector.

To this effect, the governor announced a tech fund of N250 million to be managed by the Lagos State Science, Research and Innovation Council (LASRIC) headed by Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, vice-chancellor, University of Lagos.

The fund is expected to fund research and develop-

ment of tech-focused solutions across the six pillars of his administration’s development agenda. LASRIC will also invest in research and development in the areas of Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics, health informatics and green energy.

Andrew Nevin, advisory partner/chief economist, PwC, also made a case for Lagos becoming a major player in Nigeria’s tech ecosystem given the growing number of Nigerian start-ups coming up with innovative solutions to societal problems during his keynote address.

Juliet Ehimuan, country director, Google Nigeria, also, a keynote speaker, discussed how technology was being deployed to solve problems in education, transportation, health, and business.

Founder, Ventures Plat-

form, Kola Aina, shared practical ways for government and tech to work together in his keynote address, ‘The Enabling Role of Stakeholders in Innovation,’ positing that Lagos should focus on enabling market-creating innovations and strengthening the ecosystem.

Other speakers at the event included Amauche Emenari, a doctoral researcher at M.I.T. spoke on how humans can leverage artificial intelligence to build better solutions to individual and societal challenges during his keynote address.

Tunbosun Alake, special adviser on Innovation and Technology to the Governor of Lagos State, launched Idea Hub, a mentorship platform designed to help innovators take their ideas from conception to actualisation.

SEYI JOHN SALAU

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hartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) has urged accounting professionals in Nigeria to embrace digitalisation as it launched a new initiative to help reshape the accounting profession in line with digitalisation in staying relevant into the future, tagged ‘Future of Finance.’

The initiative, in commemoration of CIMA’s 100 years of value creation and contribution to the economic development of societies, is expected to help transform the role of finance and the finance function.

The accounting body also released its white paper on reinventing finance for a digital world to lead the profession

forward.

According to CIMA, the update in CGMA Competency Framework, the new 2019 CIMA Professional Qualification Syllabus and a Digital Mindset Pack was influenced by research findings, which will give finance professionals the resources they need to thrive in a digital age.

Seyi Olanrewaju, chairman of CIMA, Nigeria branch, said CIMA contribution to the accounting profession over the last century was unmatched and noticeable to businesses and economies.

“My utmost point of elation this evening is that we are not here to count empty years of irrelevance but rather an impactful century of living up to purpose, mission, and engendering remarkable changes in

the world of accounting as we have it today,” said Olanrewaju.

Ijeoma Anadozie, associate director, CIMA Nigeria, said the institute will build on its future of finance research to support members and students in Nigeria towards moving their career ahead in a rapidly changing digital future. “Finance professionals who adapt quickly to these changes will remain knowledgeable and employable, capable of contributing to value creation and preservation in their organisations,” Anadozie said.

According to Anadozie, CIMA’s success is about evolution, embracing change and remaining relevant. She opined that the future of finance research is geared towards transforming communities, economies and organisations.

FG assures on prioritising development of textile industry HARRISON EDEH, Abuja

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inister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mariam Yalwaji Katagum, has assured on the Federal Government’s determination to give priority to the development of the textile industry in order to make Nigeria an export hub for the sector.

The minister of state disclosed this when she received a delegation of foreign investors from China led by the treasurer of Kano State Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, Umar Ladiyo Ibrahim, in her office.

The minister in a statement issued on Monday lauded the Chinese investors who had indicated interest to develop the Nigerian textile industry at Kano State, noting that “Kano is known to be a historic centre for the

Textile Industry, particularly the traditional dying art technology that had been there for many decades.”

Katagum further stressed that the Federal Government would give necessary supports to Kano State government and the Chinese investors towards the development and growth of the textile industry in line with President Buhari Economic Growth Recovery Plan (ERGP) policy.

Earlier in his remarks, Umar Ladiyo Ibrahim said the purpose of the visit was to seek collaboration with the Ministry in the development of the textile industry in Nigeria.

He explained that the Kano State government with Dantata Group of Companies were working assiduously in ensuring that the Nigeria’s textile industry was developed for the economic diversification of the economy.

SPAR gift card changes gifting model for Nigeria GBEMI FAMINU

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PAR, a hypermarket chain in Nigeria, has changed the gifting model for Nigerians through the introduction of a hassle-free Gift Card for its corporate and individual customers.

While speaking at the unveiling of the product in Lagos, John Goldsmith, group head of marketing, said, “It has been discovered that many people do not give the perfect gift during festive seasons and special occasions like birthdays; weddings and anniversaries. In order to make gifting accurate and appropriate, SPAR Nigeria developed the gift card to allow people make their choice from the thousands of various products available in our outlets across the country.

“The SPAR Gift Card helps people to give valuable and flexible gifts to celebrants in accordance to their choices. The SPAR Gift Cards are available at the cash counters of SPAR outlets across the country. Other benefits of the card include- the card can be loaded with amounts from N 5,000 and above, it can be

used for multiple transactions across all SPAR stores.

“The Card is convenient to carry, can be bought at one location and delivered across the country, No extra change for the Card. Another important feature primarily targeted at large organisation is that SPAR Gift Cards can be Co-Branded with Logo, Brand Name or Organisation Name.”

The SPAR Gift Card and other theme-based cards are a gifting solution with inbuilt flexibility for the receiver to choose from over 15,000 products across food, grocery, bakery, butchery, fruits & vegetables, wine, spirits, consumer electronics, home appliances, laptop, printers, mobile phone, perfume, watches, clothing, furniture and many more product categories at all outlets of the leading retail chain.

SPAR Nigeria is a hypermarket chain in Nigeria with outlets across major cities in the country. The brand has always developed innovative products for discerning Nigerians who desire to have quality products, impeccable service and value addition. www.businessday.ng

L-R: Abiodun Awosika, MD/CEO, Excel Exploration and Production Company, his wife, Ibukun Awosika, chairman, board of directors, First Bank of Nigeria; Ogazi Eke, her husband, UK Eke, GMD, FBN Holdings Group; Oba Otudeko, group chairman, FBN Holdings Group, and Adesola Adeduntan, CEO, First Bank of Nigeria, at an evening with the FBN Holdings Group in Lagos.

Pic by Pius Okeosisi

Julius Berger hosts media practitioners to end-of-year parley … gets plaudits for consistent engineering professionalism, excellent media relations SEGUN ADAMS

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onstr uction fir m Julius Berger has received commendations for its faithfulness as Nigeria’s most reliable and consistent infrastructural development partner. The company was also commended for its proactive and continuous recognition of efforts of journalists as comrades in progress.

At a media parley for journalists in Lagos at the weekend, Quasim Akinreti, chairman, Lagos chapter of Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), lauded Julius Berger for its dependable and enduring loyalty to the development of sound infrastructure all across the country.

A k i n re t i s a i d L a g o s stands strong on the solid engineering structures built by Julius B erg er,

beginning with the Eko Bridge which the company built in 1965. He urged the company not to relent in its visibly excellent professional discharge of its projects.

At the Abuja media parley held mid last week, Leman Shaibu, NUJ national secretary, had also praised the construction company for its “consistency in not only being historically and presently professional in the discharge of its various jobs across the country, but also for being able to create and sustain its excellent friendship with the robust Nigerian media”.

In his address at both parleys, Zubairu Ibrahim Bayi, executive director, administration, of Julius Berger Nigeria, likened the company’s relationship with the media to the interdependent relationship between a mother

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and unborn child.

“The relationship between Julius Berger and the media can at its most serious be likened to the interdependence of the mother and the baby in the womb bound together by the umbilical cord for a fruitful end to produce life, and at its most hilarious context, t h e ‘ To m & J e r r y ’ a c t which exemplifies the ultimate revelation of an inescapable affinity and survivalist need for each other,” Bayi said.

He said the purpose of the end-of-year parley with the press was to appreciate the journalists’ “healthy understanding and objective reportage throughout the work year”, adding that the journalists’ “competent professionalism has been more than helpful to our business and work”. @Businessdayng

Bayi said both the media and Julius Berger do their work in the public domain and that the good and fair work of journalists “has helped to reasonably debunk every lie and wrong notions about the work we do in our country.

“The media will never turn a blind eye to our understandably impactful construction activities; and we must rely on the objective competence and industry of the robust Nigerian media to help us enlighten the public about the truly long-term benefits of our work over any temporary inconveniences it may seem to cause the good public,” he said.

He pledged the company’s sincere commitment to sustain and continue to promote the healthy relationship with media practitioners in the country.

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BUSINESS DAY

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Tuesday 17 December 2019

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FINANCIAL TIMES

World Business Newspaper JAVIER ESPINOZA AND SAM FLEMING

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russels’ competition chief is examining ways of curbing unfair competition from non-EU state-owned enterprises, as bloc member states urge closer scrutiny of Chinese investment on the continent.

Margrethe Vestager, the competition commissioner, said some companies outside the EU were able to use government backing to gain an advantage when acquiring European rivals. She said the commission was looking at possible responses, including proposals for sweeping new powers submitted by the Dutch government.

“We found that there was a gap if, for instance, a state-owned company buys a European company and can pay anything if they want to because other potential buyers are bidding against state coffers,” Ms Vestager told the Financial Times. “We are in the process of trying to figure out what to do about that.”

EU politicians are demanding responses to an aggressive push by Chinese state-supported companies to snap up European assets. Chinese investment in the EU peaked at €37.2bn in 2016, according to figures from the Rhodium Group.

Ms Vestager praised as “very handy” a Dutch proposal, first reported in the FT this month, which would add a pillar to EU competition law, allowing the European Commission to intervene when state-owned companies were distorting competition.

“It is very ambitious and it is also quite worked through. So I think it’s an important contribution to the debate,” the EU executive vice-president said.

She stressed she had reached no conclusions on possible reforms to the rules.

Another person with direct knowledge of the commission’s thinking said proposals such as the Dutch idea were “high on the

Margrethe Vestager examines curbs on non-EU state-backed companies

Brussels’ competition enforcer says Dutch plan to bolster EU law could be ‘handy’ tool

Margrethe Vestager © Reuters

list” when it comes to debating what instruments are needed to better deal with distortions in competition.

Under the Dutch plan, the commission would take on new powers to conduct investigations into a company’s conduct if it thought the business was engaging in “distortionary” behaviour thanks to government subsidies, or if it were deemed to be making excessive profits thanks to a dominant market position in its own country.

The commission could respond by forcing the non-EU company to

NBCUniversal appoints film studio chief as new CEO Jeff Shell succeeds Steve Burke as media group faces competition from streaming services MAMTA BADKAR

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omcast has named the executive who has overseen its Universal film studio as new chief executive of parent NBCUniversal, replacing Steve Burke, who will retire after the upcoming Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

Jeff Shell, whose role recently expanded to include oversight of the media group’s film and network television businesses after several years overseeing Universal Pictures, will assume the helm at NBCUniversal at the start of next year when Mr Burke, 61, moves to become chairman.

Mr Burke — who oversees a portfolio that includes the NBC broadcast network, Universal theme parks and cable channels like MSNBC — is set to retire on August 14, at which time Mr Shell will begin reporting directly to Comcast chief executive Brian Roberts.

“I will miss Steve’s trusted partnership, and I know I speak for both myself and my late father Ralph when I say that we will be forever grateful to him for shaping first Comcast and then NBCU-

niversal into the great companies they are today,” Mr Roberts said.

Mr Burke has been credited with increasing profits at NBCUniversal — taking its adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation from $3.4bn to $8.6bn since Comcast snapped up NBCUniversal in 2011 through last year. Under Mr Burke’s leadership, the company also won the broadcast rights for the Olympics through 2032.

NBC has been the only major network to maintain its viewership amid an onslaught of original programming from streaming rivals Netflix and Amazon Prime. Amazon poached Jennifer Salke from NBC Entertainment in 2019 to run its Studios division in Hollywood.

Mr Burke has been readying to launch Peacock, a streaming service to compete with Netflix, Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+ and Hulu, in April.

In January, NBCUniversal unveiled a host of high-level executive changes, which at the time was seen as setting up a battle between Mr Shell and Mark Lazarus who oversees the broadcast network. www.businessday.ng

be more transparent in its bookkeeping, or by prohibiting certain behaviour — such as charging artificially low prices in the EU or pursuing takeovers that are not genuinely profitable.

Ms Vestager has just assumed a broader role as executive vicepresident of the new commission, which took office this month, giving her powers not just over competition but over the digital agenda and artificial intelligence.

Her comments come as the EU debates whether it needs to foster its own corporate “champions” as part of a more directly

interventionist approach to industrial policy. Ms Vestager this year decided to block the rail merger between Alstom and Siemens, dealing a severe blow to a FrancoGerman plan to create a European behemoth to compete against state-sponsored rivals, mainly China’s CRRC, the world’s largest trainmaker.

Ms Vestager spoke to the FT on Friday during a week in which the commission launched its Green New Deal, an initiative to push the bloc towards carbon neutrality by 2050. With her new powers she wants to look at the digital implica-

tions of Europe’s drive for carbon neutrality.

“For fighting climate change digital technology is not just a nice add-on, it is one of the things that are essential to make this fight successful,” she said. “I don’t think that we can be successful in fighting climate change and become a carbon neutral continent if we don’t use all the technologies available.

“The research and innovation community will have to step up when it comes to reducing the carbon footprint of digital technologies. That’s absolutely significant and cannot be ignored.”

Boeing considers suspending production of 737 Max ANDREW EDGECLIFFE-JOHNSON

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oeing’s board is discussing whether to cut back or suspend production of the 737 Max passenger jet, raising the possibility that the US aircraft manufacturer will face another round of charges before regulators clear the plane to resume flying.

A scheduled end-of-year board meeting began in Chicago on Sunday and was set to continue on Monday.

Directors had announced no decision as of Sunday evening.

The Max has been grounded since March after two crashes that killed 346 people. Boeing’s hopes of when it might return to service have been repeatedly pushed back as the US Federal Aviation Administration and regulators from Europe to China raise fresh questions about its proposed fixes.

The company cut its production of the Max by a fifth in April, to 42 planes per month, triggering billions

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of dollars of charges. It has disclosed a $5.6bn hit to profit for customer compensation and a further $3.6bn in additional cost to the 737 programme.

It had hoped to raise its output to 57 in 2020 but another cut or a temporary halt to production was on the table at the board meeting and could lead to billions of dollars of new charges.

The Max is produced at Boeing’s Renton plant in Washington state, which employs about 12,000 people.

The company could redeploy staff to other programmes until it can return to its planned production rate for the Max. A Boeing spokesman declined to comment on the deliberations, which were first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

“We continue to work closely with the FAA and global regulators towards certification and the safe return to service of the Max,” the company said. “We will continue to assess production decisions based on the timing and conditions of return @Businessdayng

to service, which will be based on regulatory approvals and may vary by jurisdiction.”

Last week, the FAA told Congress its administrator was concerned that the company was pursuing an unrealistic schedule for returning the Max to service, and complained that some of Boeing’s public statements appeared to have been designed “to force [the] FAA into taking quicker action”.

Boeing has been forced to ground 383 planes already in service, and another 400 finished planes sit waiting to be delivered to customers. It has a seven-year backlog of 4,500 orders for the Max. A further cut to production could add to the pressure on Dennis Muilenburg, the Boeing chief executive who was stripped of his chairmanship in October.

Shares in Boeing have fallen by more than 8 per cent in the past three weeks but remain above the level at which they started the year. They closed on Friday at $341.67.

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NATIONAL NEWS

FT Bond funds revel in white-hot year for fixed income

Investors have added new money every week in 2019, extending a record run of inflows RICHARD HENDERSON, COLBY SMITH AND JENNIFER ABLAN

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olumn chart of Weekly net flows into bond mutual and exchange traded funds ($bn) showing Bond rally draws wave of inflows Investors have poured money into fixed income funds at a record pace this year, fuelling a blowout bond market rally that has taken veteran traders by surprise and sent borrowing costs back to their lowest levels on record.

The latest data from EPFR Global, which tracks flows in and out of mutual funds and exchange traded funds across the world, show that money has been added to fixedincome funds for 49 straight weeks.

That stretch has added $468bn in new assets to bond funds, the largest uninterrupted haul in records going back to 2001 — eclipsing the $275bn over 54 weeks to December 2012, and the $250bn over 60 weeks ending in May 2010.

Assets in bond funds now total $5.8tn, from $4.9tn at the start of the year, reflecting sharp rises in prices along with net inflows.

Central banks across the world juiced the rally by loosening monetary policy, but fund purchases have continued even since October when the US Federal Reserve said it was finished with its recent run of cuts in interest rates.

“It’s been a surprisingly extraordinary year for the fixed income markets,” said Bob Michele, global head of fixed income for JPMorgan Asset Management.

“Overwhelming” monetary easing sent investors “scrambling to put money into fixed income before rates came down further”, he said.

Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive of bond fund manager DoubleLine Capital, said investors

were responding to a “big shift” from a Federal Reserve that appears no longer to fear inflation.

Chairman Jay Powell has signalled that consumer prices would have to rise significantly and stay high before he would raise rates again.

“It’s almost poetic that Paul Volcker passed away [last week],” Mr Gundlach told the Financial Times, referring to the former Fed chairman who vanquished 1970s-era inflation with high interest rates.

Line chart of Bloomberg Barclays Multiverse index yield showing Yields crater as bond prices surge Fears over a slowing global economy prompted central banks around the world to cut rates 66 times this year, according to JPMorgan data.

The demand for bonds sent the yield on the Bloomberg Barclays Multiverse, one of the widest measures of the bond market, tracking $59tn in assets, down to 1.4 per cent in September, matching its lowest level last reached three years ago. Investors in the Multiverse have enjoyed returns of 6.4 per cent so far this year, on course for the second-best annual result in a decade.

Scott Mather, chief investment officer of US core strategies at Pimco, the $1.9tn bond fund manager, said 2019 was “unique” because bond markets have done well across the board — from developed to emerging market government debt and the safest to the riskiest corporate bonds.

The difference in yields between US junk bonds and risk-free government debt has tightened by 1.6 percentage points to 3.7 per cent since the start of the year, according to an ICE Bank of America Merrill Lynch index, indicating strong interest even in risky bonds.

UK stocks jump as election result eases uncertainty London’s FTSE 100 climbs 2% in biggest rise in more than a year ADAM SAMSON

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K stocks have roared higher for the second day with Boris Johnson’s election victory helping to alleviate uncertainty that has weighed heavily on markets this year.

London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index rallied 2.3 per cent in mid-morning trade — the biggest gain since April 2018 — bringing its rise for the past two trading days to 3.5 per cent. The FTSE 250, which tracks medium-sized British companies that tend to be more exposed to the domestic economy, advanced 1.4 per cent after its 3.4 per cent surge on Friday.

The gains came amid a strong day for European equities overall, with the continent-wide Stoxx 600 up 1.3 per cent.

Goldman Sachs said it was particularly bullish on UK domestic stocks, especially homebuilders and banks that have struggled recently. It last week reiterated its call to bet on British-focused groups against a basket of international equities.

“Clarity on the UK’s terms of exit from the EU should unlock pent-up business investment; the reversal of a decade of fiscal con-

solidation should provide a fillip to domestic demand; and a pick-up in global growth should underpin a recovery in net exports,” the bank said in a note to clients.

Line chart of Rebased showing Medium-size UK listed groups outpace their larger peers Jefferies analysts added that “the spectre of politics has left many UK assets significantly undervalued versus peers”. It specifically pointed to lender Barclays, housebuilder Persimmon and telecoms group BT as three of its favourites.

In a sign of how much the political jitters have disrupted the economy, a key survey from IHS Markit released on Monday showed UK manufacturing output shrank in December at its most rapid pace in more than seven years.

Sterling rose as high as $1.3422 in early London dealings on Monday, an advance of nearly 0.75 per cent from where the currency ended last week. The rally cooled later in the morning, however, to leave the currency up just 0.2 per cent.

It had soared to a peak of $1.3514 after it became clear on Thursday that Mr Johnson’s Conservatives would command a strong majority in the House of Commons. www.businessday.ng

Money, trolls, timewasting: the impact of social media on work Online forums can help or hinder professionals and should be utilised with care

EMMA JACOBS

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ocial media transformed the working life of midwife Clemmie Hooper, known on Instagram as Mother of Daughters.

Then it proved her undoing.

Ms Hooper received brand endorsements through her work as a parenting lifestyle blogger. But after admitting to leaving anonymous abusive messages on rival Instagram accounts, she closed hers and demands were made to the UK’s Nursing and Midwifery Council that she stop practising.

The NMC has only said that it has “passed all messages on to the relevant teams”.

While Ms Hooper sowed the seeds of her own difficulty, other influencers have found their careers hit by online pile-ons, as well as harassment and burnout.

Jenna Drenten, assistant professor of marketing at Chicago’s Quinlan School of Business, Loyola University, says that “while platforms, such as Instagram, may not directly encourage users to engage with harassers, the optics of engagement and ability to hack the attention economy for potential monetisation does innately encourage such interactions”.

One study showed some female influencers on social media platforms engage with harassers by posting playful emojis or shorthand such as “lol”, rather than manually deleting their posts, because even these negative or aggressive comments boost engagement rates, which in turn increases their visibility and the possibilities for monetisation.

Yet even those who are not digital influencers have found their careers harmed by social media.

In 2013, Justine Sacco, a US public relations executive, lost her job after posting an offensive tweet.

In 2016, Angela Gibbins was dismissed for gross misconduct from the British Council after publishing an offensive post on Facebook about Prince George, third in line to the British throne.

Despite having the highest possible privacy settings on her profile, the post was leaked to the press. An employment tribunal upheld the dismissal, finding she breached her employer’s advice on social media use that “staff

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should be careful what they said even if they believed their comment was private”.

In an academic article published this year, titled “I Lost my Job Over a Facebook Post — Was that Fair?” Virginia Mantouvalou, a professor of human rights and labour law at University College London, wrote that British employers have good reasons for wanting to rein in employees’ social media posts because, for example, it can inflict potential harm on “workplace performance, harmonious relations at work, and business reputation”.

However, arguments that companies are upholding their reputation by policing social media posts can interfere with employees’ rights to privacy and may mask “moralistic views about how employees should lead their lives”, according to Ms Mantouvalou. And supposed social media breaches may provide a perfect excuse to fire someone for unrelated underperformance.

Social media can also get in the way of work. The rapper Nicki Minaj (Instagram following of more than 108m) said she would not be posting on the site because it was trialling a new system to remove “likes” from public view and spoke for many who suffer distractions when she tweeted: “Hmmm what should I get into now? Think of all the time I’ll have with my new life.”

Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, wrote in the FT this year that he took a break from Twitter after realising too much of his time was spent composing witty retorts, or becoming exercised by comments. “I was, in short, wasting time, energy and emotion. I was engaging with the people and things around me more narrowly, and I was thinking with less freedom.”

Others have complained that they become so wary of triggering wrath on social media forums that they end up censoring themselves, which also affects their thinking.

Lorenzo Bizzi, assistant professor of management at California State University, Fullerton, says that we tend to have an unsophisticated view of social media when it comes to work, failing to differentiate between passive use, like @Businessdayng

scrolling through feeds, or active use when we post content. “Different social media behaviours have different reactions,” he says.

He also points out that different job roles might make divergent use of social media. In a creative job, say, at an advertising agency, it might provide a welcome fiveminute break, or promote a feeling of wellbeing, prompting productive work. Whereas for those in boring repetitive jobs it might have different implications: a quick browse on Twitter could spiral into cyberloafing.

But work, rather than social media, might be at fault. If your job is unsatisfying, the lure of Instagram quickly proves more appealing than spreadsheets. Roland Paulsen, associate professor in organisational studies at Lund University’s Department of Business Administration, has researched empty labour, which he defines as “private activities at work”. In a paper, he argues: “Despite the overwhelming mass of sociological research demonstrating how the hardened competition of globalisation leads to precarisation and an increase of socio-pathologies such as ‘burnout’, several studies report that employees generally spend 1.5 to three hours of their daily working hours on non-work related activities” — including social media.

Others find social media beneficial for their careers, for example, freelancers turn to it to combat isolation and provide social interaction and gossip that they miss out on by not being in an office.

Responding to a callout on Twitter by the FT on this subject, several people replied to extol the virtues of social media in a work context. One UK National Health Service consultant says he uses social media to educate a global audience. “Rather than showing [a medical case study] to a dozen people in one room, I can spread the knowledge to tens of thousands more, across borders, time zones, professional and societal hierarchies.”

As a result, he has met new colleagues in other countries with whom he collaborates professionally and also engages with other medical professionals on workrelated topics ranging from the light-hearted — speech recognition errors — to pension taxation issues.

Tuesday 17 December 2019

BUSINESS DAY

46

FINANCIAL TIMES

COMPANIES & MARKETS

@ FINANCIAL TIMES LIMITED

European stocks hit record as US-China trade concerns ebb Composite Stoxx 600 brings cheer even as regional economy struggles SARAH PROVAN

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uropean stocks are bringing some cheer as they soar to their highest level ever following a trade agreement between the world’s two biggest economies.

The composite Stoxx 600 picked up 1 per cent in mid-morning trade on Monday, touching a record of 416.83 points early on, as analysts suggest that the world economy has touched “peak tariffs” in the trade tit-for-tat dispute between Washington and Beijing.

The eurozone region and the UK however showed manufacturing activity has lost further momentum while Germany’s weak performance looks to continue.

Halfway through the final month of the year the composite index has risen 2.2 per cent and is on track for its fourth consecutive monthly climb. The Stoxx 600 has risen every month but two this year and is heading for its biggest annual advance in a decade. Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts predict a 4 per cent upside in European equities by mid-March, forecasting the index will hit 425 points by then.

A limited agreement between the US and China, struck on Friday, to pause their trade war promises to ease pressure on the global economy as 2020 looms.

Key IHS Markit figures on Germany’s manufacturing purchasing

manager index showed that activity is shrinking at an accelerated clip. In France, the rate of growth in December of manufacturing activity fell to 50.3, just grazing above the line between contraction and growth, while UK business activity fell below analysts’ expectations.

“We may have reached the point of ‘peak tariffs’ and this deal could be the start of a series of phased rollbacks, which could unlock further upside for equity markets, driven by an improvement in business confidence and a recovery in investment,” said Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management.

The advance to a record for European equities comes as London’s benchmark FTSE 100 jumped more than 2 per cent in mid-morning trade, its biggest percentage gain since April last year.

It was the second day of trading for UK stocks since Boris Johnson, prime minister, stormed to a decisive victory with a convincing majority in Thursday’s general election.

Goldman Sachs said it is bullish on UK domestic stocks, especially homebuilders and banks. Monday’s gains bring its rise for the past two trading sessions to 3.5 per cent. US stocks on Friday closed 1.6 per cent higher while futures point towards a 0.3 per cent rise when Wall Street opens.

NBCUniversal appoints film and network chief as new CEO Jeff Shell succeeds Steve Burke as media group faces competition from streaming services

MAMTA BADKAR

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BCUniversal’s chief executive Steve Burke will retire in autumn next year following the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Comcast announced on Monday, naming Jeff Shell his successor.

Mr Shell who currently oversees the company’s film and network television businesses including NBC Entertainment will assume the helm at NBCUniversal at the start of next year when Mr Burke, 61, assumes the role of chairman.

Mr Burke — who oversees a portfolio that includes the NBC Broadcast Network, Universal theme parks and cable channels like MSNBC — is set to retire on August 14, 2020, at which time Mr Shell will begin reporting to Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts.

“I will miss Steve’s trusted partnership, and I know I speak for both myself and my late father Ralph when I say that we will be forever grateful to him for shaping first Comcast and then NBCUniversal into the great companies they are today,” said Mr Roberts.

Mr Burke has been credited with increasing profits at NBCUniversal — taking its adjusted earnings before interest, tax, deprecia-

tion and amortisation from $3.4bn to $8.6bn since Comcast snapped up NBCUniversal in 2011 through last year. Under Mr Burke’s leadership, the company also won the broadcast rights for the Olympics through 2032.

NBC has been the only major network to maintain its viewership amid an onslaught of original programming from streaming rivals Netflix and Amazon Prime. Amazon poached Jennifer Salke from NBC Entertainment in 2019 to run its Studios division in Hollywood.

Mr Burke has been readying to launch Peacock, a streaming service to compete with Netflix, Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+ and Hulu, in April.

In January, NBCUniversal unveiled a host of high-level executive changes, which at the time was seen as setting up a battle between Mr Shell and Mark Lazarus who oversees the broadcast network.

Mr Burke said in a statement on Monday that “while this has been a dream job, it has always been my plan to hand off the baton at the right moment and move on to the next chapter of my life where I can pursue a different set of interests.”

Comcast shares, which are up 29 per cent year-to-date, climbed 0.9 per cent to $43.99. www.businessday.ng

Ofwat has ordered companies to reduce water leaks by 16 per cent © Robert Stainforth/Alamy

UK water rates set to fall after regulatory shake-up

Ofwat imposes limits on investor payouts and orders companies to reduce debt levels GILL PLIMMER

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ater companies are facing the biggest clampdown since privatisation three decades ago after the industry regulator imposed strict limits on investor payouts.

Ofwat said the sharp reduction in the return on capital allowed would reduce bills by an average of £50 per household, or 12 per cent, over the next five years, although some of that would be absorbed by inflation. The regulator is also demanding that the 10 large regional water and sewage companies and seven smaller water suppliers lower debt levels.

Ofwat has also set the companies a target to reduce water leaks by 16 per cent between 2020 and 2025, saving an amount of water equivalent to the needs of the population of Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Leeds, Liverpool and Sheffield.

“Today we’re firing the starting gun on the transformation of the water industry backed by a major investment programme to deliver new, improved services for cus-

tomers and the environment and resilience for generations to come,” said Rachel Fletcher, chief executive of Ofwat.

The final ruling is part of a complex regulatory process that involves reaching individual settlements with each water company over a five-year period. Since its draft determinations in July, Ofwat has made concessions to a number of companies, including Yorkshire Water, Affinity Water and Welsh Water, though the settlements are still tougher than the utilities had sought.

A number of water companies, including Thames Water and Northumbrian Water, are considering appealing against the decision on the basis the settlement is too harsh. They have eight weeks to decide whether to appeal to the Competition and Markets Authority.

The water companies have previously accused Ofwat of prioritising bill cuts over the greater investment needed to reduce leakage and improve sewage treatment.

A spokesman from Thames Water said: “We have today received our final determination from Ofwat

and are analysing the very lengthy and detailed documents. There are eight weeks to decide whether to accept — or challenge — the determination.”

The ruling is part of Ofwat’s long-awaited final determination on how much water companies can charge customers and how much they must spend on infrastructure, such as mains pipes, and sewage treatment over the next five years.

The settlement for the next fiveyear period is the toughest yet by the water regulator as it seeks to curtail the excesses of the sector.

The regional monopolies in England and Wales were privatised almost free of debt 30 years ago in a model that has not been repeated elsewhere in the world.

Since then the sector has racked up a combined £51bn in debt and paid out £56bn in dividends, while at the same time failing to hit its targets for cutting leaks and incurring a series of fines for polluting rivers.

Under the ruling, Ofwat will allow the utilities to invest £51bn over the next five years to meet the leakage and pollution targets by modernising the country’s increasingly stressed infrastructure.

Why bonds, rather than stocks, are a better guide to the future An equity market rally driven by political news and promises is fragile CHRISTOPH SCHON

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ceasefire between the world’s two biggest economic powers is helping the US stock market end 2019 at record highs. This trade optimism has drowned out everything else. It marks quite a turnround since August, when the yield curve on US government debt inverted, sparking fears of a looming recession.

It would be negligent to dismiss that threat quite so easily. The bond market is better than the stock market at predicting economic downturns.

Investors forget the summer’s warning at their peril.

Veteran investor John Templeton once dubbed “this time is different” as the four most expensive words in the English language. The first time I heard the costly phrase was in a finance lecture at university in the mid-1990s.

The dotcom bubble was growing, stock indices around the globe were surging to unprecedented heights, and the seemingly all-powerful Alan Greenspan was at the helm of the

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world’s most powerful central bank, the US Federal Reserve.

Our professor proclaimed an era of never-ending growth — a “new paradigm” in which globalisation and technological changes had consigned business cycles and inflation to history. We all know how that ended.

Four months ago, the bond markets sent a signal. Yields on 30-year US Treasuries, the “long” end of the curve, fell below those on the Fed’s overnight interest rate, at the “short” end.

This inversion has been a sure-fire indicator, historically, of an impending economic downturn. And yet American stock exchanges continue to climb to record highs on the back of positive trade news.

It is neither unprecedented nor unusual for share prices to continue to rise after a yield curve inversion.

On the contrary, previous episodes have shown that this can go on for another 12 months. And it could be an additional six months on top of that before we see economic output @Businessdayng

begin to contract.

All precedents indicate, though, that both the stock market correction and the recession will both come eventually. Does anyone truly believe that this time will be different? Will a comprehensive trade agreement between the US and China be enough to avert what has so far been deemed unavoidable?

The unusual, almost contradictory, behaviour of the stock and bond markets we observed in November was puzzling. It was almost like an optical illusion, where what you see changes, if someone points out a different way of looking at it.

I was reminded of this when share prices went up following reports that a “phase one” US-China deal could be signed as early as mid-December while sovereign bond prices also rose, as yields declined. It seemed that fixed-income investors were paying more attention to US president Donald Trump’s comments that he was still prepared to substantially raise import duties if he did not get the deal he expected.

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Tuesday 17 December 2019

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ANALYSIS

In search of liberal nationalism

UK prime minister Boris Johnson has a chance to show this is not an oxymoron GIDEON RACHMAN

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ast summer, I had a thoughtprovoking conversation in Moscow with Fyodor Lukyanov, the editor of the journal Russia In Global Affairs. He mentioned that Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, had argued for a “liberal Brexit”, then laughed loudly. Viewed from Russia, the idea that Brexit is anything other than a savage blow to the liberal cause evidently seemed absurd.

The question of whether Mr Johnson and the Brexiters can, in any way, claim to be “liberal” is of more than academic interest. As Mr Lukyanov’s reaction suggested, it has international significance. The Brexit vote in 2016 saw liberal internationalism — championed by the EU and the Obama administration — take a double blow: first, the Brexit vote, followed shortly afterwards by the election of Donald Trump as US president.

The nationalist tide is flowing just as strongly outside the west. President Xi Jinping’s promise of a “great rejuvenation” of the Chinese people is his version of Mr Trump’s pledge to “Make America Great Again”. In Russia, Vladimir Putin’s presidential rhetoric is all about making Russia great again; it is the same in India, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi promises cultural and national revival.

The new nationalists sometimes describe their enemy as “globalism”.

The “globalists”, they complain, are a self-interested international elite, intent on erasing borders and national cultures. Many liberals (me included) reject the label “globalist” as meaningless and sinister, since it

often gives way to conspiracy theories about George Soros or the Trilateral Commission.

On the other hand, plenty of liberals would agree that nationalism is their foe. The nationalists’ stress on the interests of a dominant ethnic or religious group often comes at the expense of the individual and minority rights that are dear to traditional liberals. The latest example of this trend has come in India, where Mr Modi’s government has just passed a law on refugee rights that discriminates against Muslims in favour of non-Muslims. The furore caused by the law has now provoked riots in Delhi and elsewhere.

India is not the only democracy that is seeking to prioritise the rights of one group of citizens over another.

In Israel, the last Netanyahu government passed a “nation-state” law, formally defining Israel as a Jewish state. This was criticised, at home and overseas, for relegating Israeli Arabs to second-class citizenship.

In Hungary, Viktor Orban, the prime minister, has championed the rights of ethnic Hungarians, built walls to keep out refugees and proclaimed that the “era of liberal democracy is over”. Mr Orban, in turn, is hailed as a hero by Steve Bannon, Mr Trump’s erstwhile chief strategist.

Viewed from today’s perspective, it seems clear that liberalism and nationalism are enemies. But that was not always the case. As recently as 1989, liberalism and nationalism were allies in causing the collapse of the Soviet empire. In countries such

as Poland and Hungary the demand for national self-determination was closely linked to demands for liberal freedoms.

Thirty years later, some of the new nationalist governments in central Europe now see liberalism as the enemy of national self-determination. That is partly because liberal internationalism has attempted to embed some of its central ideas into international laws and conventions — for example the rights of refugees, the independence of the courts or the freedom to trade and invest.

For conservative nationalists like Mr Orban or Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of Poland’s governing Law and Justice party, this institutionalisation of liberalism is unacceptable because it constrains the ability of

national governments to make radical changes. As Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes explain in a recent book, The Light That Failed, the central European nationalists reject liberal democracy because it “offers provisional victories only. It denies the electoral winners the chance for a full and final victory.”

The constraints imposed by international law are particularly tight inside the EU. The Brexiters consistently argued that Britain can only regain full control of its immigration policy by leaving the EU, which imposes a legal requirement to accept free movement of people within the bloc. Those restrictions on national freedom of action allowed Mr Johnson to campaign for Britain to “take back control” of “our laws, our money and our borders”. For Mr Johnson and his tribe, Brexit is a liberal cause largely because it allows the UK to re-empower its national democracy.

Many will continue to regard Mr Johnson’s claim to be a liberal as either patently insincere or delusional.

But he is now set for five years in government with which to justify his claim. So far, the signs are distinctly mixed. On the international stage, his record does not suggest that he intends to align himself fully with the new nationalist agenda. For example, he has taken “liberal” positions on climate change and the World Trade Organization, supporting international treaties and institutions. At home, however, Mr Johnson’s henchmen are making worrying sounds about reining in the BBC and the courts.

But nothing is written yet. Over the next five years, Mr Johnson has a chance to demonstrate that liberal nationalism need not be an oxymoron.

Let us hope he takes it.

Global stocks hit fresh highs as US-China trade concerns ebb MSCI All-World index notches new record after Washington and Beijing strike deal SARAH PROVAN, MYLES MCCORMICK AND MATTHEW ROCCO

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olumn chart of Annual gains (%) showing S&P 500 seeks best year since

2013 Global stocks hit fresh record highs on Monday as an agreement between the US and China de-escalated the long running trade war between the world’s biggest economies and soothed investor nerves.

Wall Street was on track to extend its winning streak to a fourth day amid optimism over the “phase one” pact and an expected vote in Congress later this week on the US-Mexico-Canada trade deal.

The advance to a record for European equities came as London’s benchmark FTSE 100 jumped more than 2 per cent in its biggest percentage gain since 2016 — the second straight day of gains in the UK after Boris Johnson’s election victory.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.9 per cent in afternoon trading in New York, led higher by shares in energy, healthcare and technology groups. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.6 per cent, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was up 1.1 per cent.

In Europe, the continent-wide www.businessday.ng

Stoxx 600 rose 1.4 per cent.

The Stoxx and all three major US indices climbed to record highs as analysts suggested the world economy had touched “peak tariffs” in the tit-for-tat trade dispute between Washington and Beijing.

A limited agreement between

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the US and China, struck on Friday, to pause their trade war promises to ease pressure on the global economy as 2020 looms.

“We may have reached the point of ‘peak tariffs’ and this deal could be thestartofaseriesofphasedrollbacks, whichcouldunlockfurtherupsidefor equitymarkets,drivenbyanimprovement in business confidence and a recovery in investment,” said Mark Haefele, chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management.

The MSCI All-World index, which includes developed and emerging market equities, also notched a new all-time high. It was recently up 0.6 per cent.

Donald Trump cheered the rise in US stocks. “New Stock Market high! I will never get bored of telling you that — and we will never get tired of winning!” the president said in a tweet on Monday.

“While there remain important issues that will probably take far longer to sort through, the [US-China] deal came as a relief to markets that had been @Businessdayng

expecting something similar to what was announced but had grown nervous that it might never actually materialise,” said David Joy, chief market strategist at Ameriprise.

The S&P 500 is on pace to record its best year since 2013 and its second-biggest yearly gain since the 2008 financial crisis.

Halfway through the final month of the year the Stoxx has risen 2.5 per cent and is on track for its fourth consecutive monthly climb. The index has risen every month but two this year and is heading for its biggest annual advance in a decade.

It was the second day of trading for UK stocks since Conservative prime minister Mr Johnson was returned to office with a convincing majority in Thursday’s general election.

Goldman Sachs said it is bullish on UK domestic stocks, especially homebuilders and banks.

Monday’s gains bring its rise for the past two trading sessions to 3.4 per cent.

leaderSHIP

BUSINESS DAY Tuesday 17 December 2019 www.businessday.ng

Adesola Adeduntan: Thinking Nigeria’s Financial Inclusion 125 years ahead SEGUN ADAMS

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nder the leadership of Adesola Adeduntan, First Bank of Nigeria has been at forefront in the campaign for greater financial inclusion in Nigeria and across Africa.

The century-and-a-quarter old bank, which has made significant strides in reaching the under-banked and unbanked population, is taking a step further - envisioning financial inclusion in the next 125 years.

First Bank of Nigeria is one of the leading institutions championing financial inclusion in Nigeria, with one of the largest agent banking network in the country. The bank has Over 40,000 agent locations and has covered 754 out of 774 LGAs in Nigeria.

It provides basic banking offerings in all 36 states of the country including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

So far in the year, there have been at least 150m transaction volume/count and over 1million processed daily on its Agent Network amounting to N2.5trn.

First Bank of Nigeria has created over 150,000 indirect job creations through agent banking and included account opening, BVN capture and card issuance in its service offering portfolio while it has introduced micro-credit facility to individuals and small businesses within the rural communities where the agents are located.

In the utilization of USSD, the bank has 8.4 million total subscribers on its platform as of October 2019, compared to 6.3 million subscribers in the same period of 2018.

It has also processed at least N3.1trn on its USSD platform which is based on over 621 million transactions processed on the platform.

In fact, over 75 percent of transactions carried out on First Bank of Nigeria’s USSD platform are done by new users brought into the formal financial system who are mostly in the remote locations where physical banking structure is non-existent.

The statistics are testament of the visionary leadership of

Adeduntan who is the managing director/chief executive officer of First Bank of Nigeria Limited and subsidiaries (comprising FBN UK, FBN Congo DR, FBN Ghana, FBN Senegal, FBN Guinea, FBN Gambia, FBN Sierra Leone, FBN Mortgages, and First Pension Custodian).

His appointment to lead the bank in 2016 was on account of the professionalism and dedication he had demonstrated in his previous role as Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer which he had occupied since 2014 when he was appointed to the Board of First Bank of Nigeria.

Adeduntan before then was a Director and the pioneer Chief Financial Officer/Business Manager of Africa Finance Corporation (AFC).

He had also served as a Senior Vice-President & Chief Financial Officer at Citibank Nigeria Limited, a Senior Manager in the Financial Services Group of KPMG Professional Services and a Manager at Arthur Andersen Nigeria.

Over the course of his sterling career, he has garnered diverse expertise in treasury and financial management, risk management, accounting and internal controls, corporate governance, corporate strategy development and implementation, corporate finance, business performance management, financial advisory, investors, regulators and

rating agencies relationship management, deployment and management of information technology, and compliance.

Sola attended the University of Ibadan, where he obtained a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) degree. He also holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration (MBA) from Cranfield University Business School, United Kingdom, which he attended as a “British Chevening Scholar.” In addition to his MBA, he has attended executive/leadership programmes at Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford and INSEAD. Since taking over at the helms of affair, Adeduntan has committed financial and human resources to ensure financial inclusion is a reality in Nigeria. This dedication won him the 2018 African Banker of the Year in the African Leadership Magazine Persons of the Year Award which took place in Johannesburg, South Africa.

He was also inducted into the African Leadership CEOs Hall of Fame at the event.

In addition, Global Banking and Finance Review recently awarded First Bank of Nigeria Limited, a pioneer in retail banking development in Nigeria with recognition for its dedication to providing leadership and excellence in the banking sector.

“The bank’s commitment to retail banking is reflected in their strategic vision, organizational structure and strong

risk management which contributed to their outstanding performance,” said Wanda Rich, editor, Global Banking & Finance Review “We look forward to seeing more from them for years to come.”

Recently at the 2019 University of Edinburgh’s Sustainable Business in Africa Forum where Adeduntan was a keynote speaker, he shared insights on the future of financial inclusion in Africa and how financial institutions can steer the continent to achieve greater inclusion.

With the UN forecasting that between 2015 and 2050, Africa will add 1.3 billion people, more than doubling its current population of 1.2 billion, Adeduntan opined that the future is African and gave a positive message for an easy financial inclusion penetration in Africa; which is a catalyst for equitable development and sustainable inclusive economic growth.

To position First Bank of Nigeria ahead of that future, Adeduntan pointed to three strategic tripod approach namely Technology, Product Development and Financial Education, and Partnership and People.

To that end, First Bank of Nigeria is focusing on introducing more accessible digital financial tools that facilitate greater levels of inclusion and economic involvement. Similarly, there will be a continuous investment

in technology to build a robust, convenient and easy to use payment solution.

Adeduntan also said the bank will leverage the omnichannel approach, where digital is simply part of the general business and covers everything from back-end customer relationship management to front- end mobile applications for customers.

In addition, First Bank of Nigeria would focus on Expansion of Digital loan and savings.

For Product development and Financial Education, the emphasis would be on value proposition in product development to cater for the needs of the unbanked and underbanked, as well as empowerment of low-income earners and small scale businesses.

The bank will also focus on empowering women and youth through wealth creation product offerings, financial literacy and career counselling programme for secondary school students, and empowerment of low-income earners and small scale businesses.

Adeduntan, the other leg of the three-pronged approach would be Partnership & People.

First Bank of Nigeria will be focused on partnership with Fintechs, Telcos, Micro-finance, consulting services, development institutions and any other emerging market capable of driving financial inclusion.

There will be the empowerment of new and existing FirstMonie agents by providing security and mobility to reach remote and difficult locations.

The bank will also focus on an incentive package award system to encourage stakeholder activities in financial inclusion programmes.

Under the leadership of Sola, First Bank plans to drive its retail banking and deepen financial inclusion through the use of credit as an incentive to bring the excluded into the financial net.

First Bank was awarded the Best Retail Bank Nigeria 2019 because of the company’s outstanding performance and achievements in retail banking and by scoring well in the following categories.

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