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news you can trust ** tuesday 27 october 2020 I vol. 19, no 680
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Iheanyi Nwachukwu
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nvestors are beginning to reduce their equity stake in some of Nigeria’s listed insurance companies following record loss situation expected to arise from #EndSARS protest hijacked by hoodlums across the country. The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) Insurance Index, which provides an investable benchmark to capture the performance of the insurance sector, was seen among other indexes Continues on page 31
Axxela Nsp-spv Funding 1 (Natural Gas) PowerCorp plc plc
0.00
-0.01
-0.14
-0.13
-0.01
379.00
0.26
3.20
4.16
5.96
6.78
6.48
3m 2m 25-nov-20 30-Dec-20 391.71 394.55
6m 12m 31-Mar-21 29-Sept-21 403.06
420.09
60m 36m 27-Sept-23 24- Sept-25 497.46
589.09
*NTB - Nigerian Treasury Bills; *CP - Commercial Paper
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Market to be largely directed by expected earnings results insurance stocks, amid their recapitalisation efforts, attracted stock investors, making NSE Insurance the second most performing sector on the Bourse this year (+9.17 percent) after NSE industrial good (+14.47%) – both outperforming the NSE ASI (+6.91%). While prices of other listed insurance stocks remained flat in early trading on the NSE on Monday, October 26, the shares of Consolidated Hallmark Insurance plc lost 3kobo; Wapic Insurance was also down by 4kobo,
Dangote Cement plc
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#EndSARS: Investors re-price insurance stocks as claims spike after protest as the sole negative in last week’s trading (-0.59%) and month-todate (MtD) (-1.04%). The Index comprises most capitalised and liquid companies in insurance – AIICO, Consolidated Hallmark Insurance (CHI) plc, Cornerstone, Lasaco, Law Union & Rock, Linkage Assurance, Regency Alliance Insurance, Sovereign Trust Insurance, Wapic, Sunu Assurance, Mansard, Mutual Benefit, NEM, Niger Insurance and Prestige. Before now, analysts “Buy” ratings placed on most of these
FGN
386.00
$-N 450.00 466.00 1m £-N 600.00 616.00 Currency Futures 28-Oct-20 388.88 €-N 540.00 554.00 ($/N)
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MTN Nigeria plc CP
Spot ($/N) 29-Apr-21 5-Mar-21 23-Jul-30 30-Apr-25 20-May-27 27-Feb-34
Market
₦5,898,712.35 +0.93
Foreign Exchange
Benchmark Sovereign & Corporate Bonds
but Lasaco gained 2 kobo. Lagos State, through its investment company, Ibile Holdings Limited, created to spur economic growth of the state economy, owns 27.65 percent stake in Lasaco Assurance plc, which also handles majority of the state’s insurance businesses. Others majority shareholders in the insurance company are Canon Properties & Investment Limited (12.70%) and Nigerian Citizens and Associations Continues on page 31
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Why Access Bank launches N50bn fund to support EndSARS victims and how it will work HOPE MOSES- ASHIKE
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ne of Nigeria’s largest banks, Access Bank, says it chose to launch its well acclaimed N50 billion interestfree loan and grant fund for Continues on page 31
Inside MTN Nigeria appoints Karl Toriola as CEO designate P. 30 N240bn debt: AMCON, Pan Ocean reach out-of-court settlement P. 30
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Akure airport shuts down operation over unsafe runway KORETIMI AKINTUNDE, Akure
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lights have been prevented from flying and landing in Akure Airport, the Ondo State capital over sudden appearance of craters on the runway at the Airport. Investigation by Busin e s s Day re v e a l e d t hat craters were dug by suspected miscreants on the runway which had forced the Airport authority to close the runway, preventing flights from taking off or landing in the Airport. When BusinessDay c o r re s p o n d e n t v i s i t e d the airport with few journalists, Joke Olatunji, the airport manager, said she w a s n o t au t h o r i s e d t o speak to newsmen. O latunji neither denied nor confirmed the development, but investigation revealed that the airport was shutdown as a result of major cracks and holes in the runway.
It was further revealed that the airport authority discovered the craters overnight and subsequently closed the runway. There were no operational activities at the airport, though it could not be ascertained whether the closure of the runway as caused by the craters was as a result of ongoing protests and destruction of public and private facilities across the country or not. However, spokesperson of Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Henrietta Yakubu, said there were craters discovered on the runway within the Airport but that didn’t account for the quick shutdown of runaway for flights. Yakubu confirmed that there were cracks discovered on the runway during the routine checks on Monday morning and that had not affected flight operations in the Airport, saying that repair works
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had commenced on the cracked portions on the airport. BusinessDay’s checks show that the Akure airport was one of the airports designated as cargo airport but has no cargo facilities to process cargoes into and out of the airport. The cargo shed at the airport has since been abandoned inside the bush for a long time. Hope seems to be lost for exporters and intende d expor ters, as thos e who could afford it have resorted to travelling all the way to Lagos as the alternate airport to export their produce. Akure is an agricultural trade centre for yam, cassava, corn (maize), banana, rice, palm oil, palm kernel, okra, and pumpkins, which are grow n by the Ondo people. Although cocoa is by far the most important local commercial crop, cotton, teak, and palm produce are also cultivated for export.
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NEWS
NBC fines Arise, AIT, Channels TV over ‘unprofessional coverage’ of #EndSARS protest GODSGIFT ONYEDINEFU, Abuja
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he National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has fined Channels Television, AIT and Arise TV N3 million each over what it tagged their “unprofessional coverage” of the #EndSARS protests and the crisis that followed it. Armstrong Idachaba, acting director-general, NBC, announced the sanction at a press conference in Abuja on Monday. He accused the stations of airing unverified
images of the alleged Lekki toll gate shootings. According to Amnesty International, at least 12 people were killed when the army opened fire on peaceful #EndSARS protesters on October 20, attracting local and global condemnation. Idachaba said that if the commission escalates the violations that emanated from the misuse of social media sources by broadcasters and sanctions according to the provisions of the law, it can comfortably shut the stations
down. The DG said the stations’ offence was capable of leading to a breakdown of law and order but the option of the fine will serve as a warning to the stations and others. Despite video evidence of soldiers firing at protesters, the army has denied any involvement, describing it as “fake news”. Lagos and other parts of the country have been in chaos following the incident. The #EndSARS protest which was initially peaceful
Workers in Apapa, Lagos face an unusual traffic jam as normalcy returns after the #ENDSARS protest.
went violent after it was hijacked by thugs to perpetuate looting, killings, and arson in different parts of the country. The #EndSARS protesters staged days of nationwide protests calling for an end to police brutality, kidnappings, and extrajudicial killings. Despite the disbandment of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), the protests have continued with calls for police reforms, compensation for victims of police brutality, and the prosecution of indicted officers.
Pic by Pius Okeosisi
New Hampshire plans over 400,000 meters for DisCos ISAAC ANYAOGU
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ew Hampshire Metering Services Limited, a subsidiary of New Hampshire Capital Limited, has announced immediate plans to roll out over 404,000 smart prepaid meters for Ikeja and Ibadan Electricity Distribution Companies under the Meter Asset Provider (MAP) scheme. Isaac Omoyeni, general manager, operations of New Hampshire said the company was installing meters in Ikorodu and Epe in Lagos State under the Ikeja DisCo franchise area, while also providing metering services in Ilorin, Oyo and Ogbomosho under the Ibadan DisCo franchise area. He stated that the company entered into long term metering services contracts with both DisCos to finance, procure, install and manage prepaid meter assets and also ensure the provision of prompt metering services to electricity customers in both Discos.
According to Omoyeni, the metering programme by the company which began in 2019, would soon enter its second phase, which is the mass metering of electricity customers within its coverage areas under a monthly payment amortization plan. To ensure the company has adequate stock of meter inventory for its mass metering programme, New Hampshire has partnered with several international meter manufacturing companies to produce high quality smart prepaid meters. New Hampshire has also entered into meter purchase agreements with several local meter assemblers to purchase their assembled meters in line with the local content requirement of the MAP regulations. The company has also developed proprietary technology systems and meter installation apps to manage the installation and commissioning of prepaid meters. He said that “our Meter Ordering Services (MOS) system is our technology platform which www.businessday.ng
was specifically designed to ensure seamless end-to-end provision of metering services to electricity customers, from procurement to the installation and commissioning of the meters at the customer’s premises”. Omoyeni further said that the company has deployed significant resources in terms of meter installers, appropriate meter installation equipment and operational vehicles to ensure efficient meter roll-out operations. He said that the company’s MAP operations currently provide direct employment for over 400 meter installers and field engineers who handle meter maintenance and repairs. “We would engage more than 1,000 trained meter installers when we fully commence our mass metering roll-out”. “The company has been able to build capacity using local workforce and youths within our areas of operation and enjoy significant support from our host communities who are major beneficiaries of our local labour recruitment” he said.
Omoyeni stated that while the MAP scheme has recorded significant success so far, there are several challenges facing the implementation of the scheme. One of such challenges is the inability of MAPs to secure foreign exchange to import sufficient quantities of prepaid meters, as well as the 35 percent import levy charged on prepaid meters. He lamented that the inability of local meter manufacturers and meter assemblers to meet the 30 percent local content supply requirement as stipulated by the MAP Regulations has further constrained the company’s determination to accelerate the meter roll out program. He thanked the Federal Government for granting a one-year waiver on the 35 percent import levy to allow MAPs carry out bulk procurement and importation of prepaid meters to meet the demand of electricity customers. However, he called for the immediate implementation of the Presidential waiver, as well as a clear framework which MAPs can access the presidential waiver.
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Nigeria urged to position self to benefit from $20trn IoT global economy …as Swift Telephone Network launches landline telephones INIOBONG IWOK
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igeria has been advised to position itself to play in the estimated $20 trillion Internet of Things (IoT) global economy that is about to unfold, Oluwole Adetuyi, managing director, Swift Telephone Network, has said. Adetuyi gave the advice while announcing the launch, by Swift Telephone Network (STN), of its Landlines telephone which was popular in various parts of the country before the introduction of Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) into Nigeria’s telecommunications market. He said that the 01343....network is a separate entity and is not in any way related to the internet service provider, Swift 4G, being offered by the communication company. Adetuyi assured that the company is poised to providing telephone services that transit beyond the limit of the already known Landlines framework as it will provide the users the opportunity to manage modern telecommunication features, with expanding features of their voice solution. He exuded confidence that the newly introduced product will put smile on users’ faces. The managing director also assured that the p ro d u c t w ou l d e nab l e
user flexible preference that would allow subscribers to manage volume of inbound and outbound calls, sets limits to external calls and consequently h e l p s h ou s e h o l d s a n d SMEs control communication budget. While giving insights into the features of the products, he said, they include it hosts private branch exchange (PBX) that will give small businesses dexterity of big corporate players, while the big players with existing PBX do not need to change things as STN technology is highly compatible. He a d d e d t hat S M E feature and the multiple device extension functionality make it possible to initiate and receive calls anytime, anywhere and on any device with dedicated support and easy connection. “This is like carrying your office table phone with you everywhere you go,” he said. According to him, the product is being reintroduced to businesses and homes to ease the challenges that are being faced in the course of communication with one another. Adetuyi, who said that Landlines still exist in developed nations of the world, explained that internet and fixed telephony are the building blocks for machine to machine and machine to human seamless communication that is already building up around the world.
#ENDSARS: Shippers’ Council requests for demurrage waiver over business disruption at port AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE
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he Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC) said it has opened discussions with international shipping companies to find ways to remove demur rage on cargoes trapped at the ports due to the disruption of business activities during the protests against police brutality by Nigerian youths. It was during the Covid-19 lockdown, the activities of the past weeks caused a lot of disruptions for shippers, according to a statement signed by Rakiya Zubairu, head of public relations of the council. Zubairu said discussions were ongoing between the NSC and ship@Businessdayng
ping companies to accelerate the clearing of backlog of cargoes from the terminals as well as collection of same by shippers who were unable to access the ports during the period of the unrest. “Both sides are mulling the removal of demurrage charges on cargoes as one of the ways the hardship on shippers can be alleviated. The executive secretary of the NSC will also visit some terminals to deepen discussions on the waiver and other issues,” she stated. According to her, activities at Apapa, the port city of Lagos, are gradually returning to normal as Lagos State government has eased the curfew which now residents to move between the hours of 6am
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Economic contractions overshadow ASEAN-6 recovery Table Coronavirus contraction in ASEAN-6*
Figure ASEAN-6: Daily new COVID-19 infections
Indonesia Philippines Thailand Malaysia Singapore Vietnam
2018 5.2 6.3 4.2 4.8 3.4 7.1
2019 5.0 6.0 2.4 4.3 0.7 7.0
2020 -1.5 -8.3 -7.1 -6.0 -6.0 1.6
2021 6.1 7.4 4.0 7.8 5.0 6.7
2022 5.3 6.4 4.4 6.0 2.6 7.4
* Percent change, 2018-E2025 (GDP, constant prices)
DAN STEINBOCK
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n 2021, the return to growth in major ASEAN economies rests on the containment of COVID-19, structural growth and global outlook. Due to rising deficits, debt and political volatility, the recovery will be bumpy. Recently, the WHO stated that 1 in 10 people worldwide may have been infected by the coronavirus. Since the current world population is 7.8 billion, real infections would total 780 million rather than the 40 million confirmed cases today. Among Southeast Asia’s major economies – ASEAN-6 - Indonesia and the Philippines have currently almost 360,000 confirmed cases each. According to WHO’s models, the real number could be 3.5 million or more. Here’s what such projections would mean in Southeast Asia. Modeled projections 10 times higher In light of the daily confirmed cases, Philippines was the epicenter of COVID-19 in Southeast Asia until recently. Now that aggregate role belongs to Indonesia, where daily cases average 4,000, as opposed to some 2,400 in Philippines. In Thailand and Vietnam, the confirmed cases have been low through much of the year. Malaysia is coping with a secondary wave with some 540 daily cases. In Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam the number of cases remains under 10 (Figure a). However, modeled projections portray a very different reality in which the cases in Indonesia exceeded those in the Philippines already at the end of March. In this view, daily cases in Indonesia total almost 30,000 today; and in Philippines, nearly 22,000. Furthermore, bending of the curve has not really started yet in either country. In other ASEAN-6 countries, the projected cases remain only a fraction of those in Indonesia and the Philippines (Figure b). If the modeled estimates are some 10 times higher than the confirmed cases, the longerterm human costs and economic damage could prove significantly more burdensome than cur-
(a) Projected Estimates**
Rolling 7-day average, Jan 1 to Oct 16, 2020 ** Daily mean, Jan 1 to Oct 16, 2020 Sources: Imperial College London (ICL), WHO, Difference Group
rently anticipated. Major economic contractions across Southeast Asia During the 3rd quarter, economic outlook was downgraded for most ASEAN economies, which are currently amid a three-speed recovery. During the summer, confirmed infections in both Indonesia and Philippines increased almost 10-fold, which resulted in major lockdowns. As a result, economic outlook in these two countries has been penalized more severely than elsewhere in the region (Table). However, other ASEAN economies have challenges of their own, particularly if they rely – as Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand do – on exports and tourism. Severe contractions in epicenters Indonesia and Philippines In Indonesia, the year 2020 will result in a contraction (-1.5%). If infections are not contained in the coming weeks, outlook could further deteriorate. Despite pent-up demand for consumer durables, fiscal easing is lingering. After slow disbursements until late summer, half of the stimulus package remain to be disbursed. Weakening sentiment is reflected by broad protests over the new jobs-creation law, which President Joko Widodo has promoted. Critics
say it is scrapping labor rights, environmental protections and indigenous community rights. In the Philippines, the 2020 contraction will be severe (-8.3 %), due to COVID-19 surge in the summer, new quarantines, and the consequent fall of domestic demand. In part, the contraction has been offset by the central bank’s aggressive policy easing, net exports (thanks to import stagnation), and rising remittances. Nonetheless, President Duterte has managed to keep his support intact and his ratings have actually increased in the course of the pandemic. However, the hoped-for fast recovery is predicated on bending the epidemic curve, reignition of the government’s huge infrastructure initiatives and particularly jobcreation. After major contractions, bumpy road to recovery In Thailand, economic conditions have further deteriorated since June. As a result, the contraction (-7.1%) is expected to be worse than initially anticipated. Weak performance in the auto sector is dragging overall export performance, while tourism will continue to undermine the overall economic outlook. Though needed in the short-term, fiscal easing is pushing deficit and debt levels higher. Dire economic prospects translate to rising political unrest, which led the government to declare a state of emergency after tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Bangkok. The demonstrators are pushing for a new constitution, removal of Prime Minister Prayuth Chanocha, and reform to monarchy. In 2020, Malaysia and Singapore each are expected to suffer a deeper-than-expected contraction (-6.0%). In Singapore, border closures have taken a heavy toll on tourism, although manufacturing sector is recovering with rising industrial output. To a degree, Singapore has benefited from Hong Kong’s unrest, which has sparked a new influx of investment, corporates and business. But Hong Kong’s volatility has also caused some unease in the city-state, which has been ruled by the People’s Action Party (PAP) since
1959. Singapore’s recovery has been predicated on strong fiscal stimuli and thus substantial leverage. As a consequence, government debt has surged in the past two years: from 109% in 2018 to more than 142% of GDP last June. In Malaysia, recovery has been strengthened, but full recovery won’t return until in 2021. While the recent surge in infections is manageable, recovery could prove bumpier than anticipated. Before summer, unemployment surged (5.4%), but the good news is that exports and industrial output began to recover in July. In Malaysia, too, recovery rests on significant fiscal easing (20% of GDP), while increasing leverage has caused government debt (59% of GDP) to exceed the limit. Among the ASEAN-6 economies, only Vietnam is expected to avoid a contraction in 2020, in part thanks to US trade and technology war against China. Improved GDP growth has been fueled by recovery in exports, which has benefited from offshored manufacturing capacity from China. Yet, foreign investment flows have fallen. Despite solid trade performance, darker clouds loom in the horizon as the Trump administration is now “investigating” Vietnam’s trade practices and alleged currency manipulation. Four caveats While many analysts are projecting Southeast Asia’s fast recovery in 2021, those predictions are in part optical. Due to sub-optimal growth in 2020, next year’s growth outlook will seem better than it is in substance. Second, new COVID-19 infection surges would cause further deterioration in economic expectations. Third, since most countries have had to resort to significant fiscal stimuli, they will also have to cope with higher deficit and debt burden in the future. Finally, most analyst projections downplay the cold fact that if the US tariff wars against China (and many other major economies) will continue and further expand in Southeast Asia, the consequent trade friction and aggressive geopolitics have potential to further impair ASEAN-6 forecasts. Dr. Dan Steinbock is an internationally recognized strategist of the multipolar world and the founder of Difference Group. He has served at the India, China and America Institute (USA), Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Center (Singapore). For more, see https://www.differencegroup.net
Post #EndSARS protests: Nothing will change until...
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orty-Eight hours after the horrific incidence of 20th October 2020 at #LekkiTollGate where #EndSARS protesters were shot at in the dark by security operatives, the President, Muhammad Buhari, finally addressed the nation. There have been many reactions to the speech made by the President. While many were happy that the Commander-in-Chief finally addressed the nation, some expressed their disappointment about the content of the address. Whichever side of the divide you are, one thing is sacrosanct: as Nigerians, we all want a better country, a nation with systems that work for all, irrespective of class, tribe, or religion. A country where basic amenities of life should not turn into prayer points before they’re met. A country where quality healthcare is affordable and accessible. A country where good education is available in public schools and private education is simply an option. A country where the security of lives and properties is guaranteed for all citizens, not only for the rich and privileged. A country that creates equal opportunities for its youth and merit gets the jobs, not connection. However, it is important to note that nationbuilding is a collective responsibility of all citizens. The hydra-headed problems hindering our national development did not start today, not with President Buhari, even though as the leader today we expect him to solve most, if not all, of the problems. The policeman that extorts and brutalizes is a product
of the Nigerian system. The corrupt politician that plods at our commonwealth is a product of the same system. The civil servant that loots the treasury is a product of the system; while the citizen that refuses to demand his/her right or hold people in public offices accountable is also a product of the same system. So, there is no doubt that the system that makes it all too easy for anyone in Nigeria to do the wrong thing and get away with it is faulty and needs urgent repair and total reform. The #EndSARS protests have shown a good example of citizens summoning the courage to demand and force change, self-led by the new generation of young and fearless Nigerians in their 20’s and 30’s, most of whom all they know is freedom: 20 years of uninterrupted democratic rule, freedom of expression through social media, non-traditional means of livelihood through the Internet, etc. These brave young men and women, leveraging the power of social media platforms organized one of the most coordinated and peaceful protests Nigeria has ever witnessed, sending a clear message to anyone and everyone that young Nigerians are ready to birth a new and working country for the collective benefit of all. They shared a common vision and responsibility with no superhero – speaking volume about their Leadership capability. They raised funds and accounted for the donations – that shows Accountability. They fed and took care of each other, and even non-participants of the protests, irrespective of tribe
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and religion – that demonstrates Unity. They cleaned their protest grounds – that shows their understanding of Common Good and Responsibility. They also recognised the victims of Police Brutality – talks of Empathy. But unfortunately, the ugly turn of events on 20.10.2020 and the hijack of the protests by hoodlums who took over the streets of major cities, killing, maiming, looting and destroying both state properties as well as the livelihood of individual citizens leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of many and raises the question of whether the protest is enough. Young Nigerians have now realised how much power they have and are able to wield, but that power should not only be demonstrated via street protests because after all is said and done, one thing is clear: Protest is Protest and Power is Power. The people in power will always direct the affairs of the nation. Therefore, young Nigerians, the youth, should pick interests in politics by either vying for offices or determining who becomes the next President, Governors, Legislators, down to Local Government Chairmen. Young people should not only be card-carrying members of political parties but also negotiate for their own generation’s inclusion in governance. It is not written anywhere that being a young person or a youth implies that you can only be an agitator, protester, political thug, personal assistant, or an appendage to people in government – at least not in the same country where the current crop
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TAOPHEEK BABAYEJU of leaders became heads of state and ministers in their 20’s and 30’s. In 2015, young Nigerians did a good job of packing President Buhari to look impeccably good for the job. While some were paid handsomely for their marketing communication expertise, some performed at rallies for fees, and others collected stipends to vote, but they failed to negotiate their interest and involvement in the government. Again, in 2019 younger aspirants found it difficult to come together to give the established candidates the needed fight. Power is not freely given; it is taken. 2023 is just around the corner. You can’t be doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. Young people need to pivot the #EndSARS energy into coordinated political movements and take their own destiny into their hands by negotiating their own future through active political participation. That is the only way to effect the much-desired change we crave. Nothing will change until the best of us start getting involved in the deliberate process of nation-building. “The change that we desire is never going to come from the government, but from ordinary people like you and me doing the right things every day.” God bless Nigeria!
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Shifting global demographics: An African opportunity? (6) African opportunities to engender demographic transition & dividend by sector
RAFIQ RAJI
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urplus absorption and development Surpluses chasing deficits underpin global trade. “Over the past several decades, demand for goods and services has therefore become the world’s scarcest and most valuable resource, with the United States playing the role of swing producer.” Slavery, immoral though it was, could be seen as surplus labour in Africa filling labour deficits in the West. Colonialism was also the primary channel through which the United Kingdom funnelled its production surplus abroad to earn funds to meet its input deficits (Klein & Pettis, 2020). From this perspective, the postWorld War Two Marshall Plan was in effect, a mechanism by the United States that created demand for its own goods by lending a war-devastated Europe the cash that enabled them to buy American goods. In fact, “The Marshall Plan eventually provided $13 billion of aid between 1948 and 1952, around 5 percent of US GDP (Coggan, 2020).” The exposition above shows how Africa has always acted as a surplus absorber for the rich world. The difference this time around is that it does not need to be forced to do so. This model also illuminates
Health Education Population Business development & investment Domestic savings Trade
Contraceptives, condoms, pharmaceuticals, health technology Digital/online learning, education technology Fast moving consumer goods Infrastructure, SME financing, ICT Mobile money, digital financial services Imports, exports, trade finance
Adapted from Canning, Raja & Yazbeck (2015) China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) role as a surplus absorption scheme. While not originally motivated by Africa’s so-called “demographic exceptionalism”, it probably should have. The BRI should primarily focus on what is increasingly seen as the “African century”. This is not farfetched. In his 2020 book China and the future of globalisation: The political economy of China’s rise, Grzegorz Kolodko asserts that motivations for China’s Belt and Road Initiative and its investments in Africa anticipate the continent’s future wealth. “Just think that even if, halfway into the century, only a tenth of Africa’s population is wealthy, let’s say with incomes at the level of today’s US middle class, this will represent for China a bigger market than Europe, with its middle class (Kolodko, 2020).” China’s demographics are evolving. Its aged are increasing, and its birth rates are low. These factors lead China to being only nine per cent of the world’s population by 2100, down from 14 per cent today. China is leading the efforts to digitalise its manufacturing and services (Kolodko, 2020). While China evolved quickly enough to avoid the initial impacts of automation and robotisation, these are now in
full play. Africa may not be able to industrialise before China offsets its inevitable labour constraints with robots. As China would need a market for what will almost surely be excess production, its investments in the continent’s infrastructure and capacity ahead of a future when these scarce resources will likely be in demand make sense. Africa could become a huge export market for high technology from the developed world. But apart from China, there is little awareness of this thesis. China seems to be the only industrialised country with a comprehensive strategy that acknowledges Africa’s demand potential and leverages that as the basis for its engagement with the continent. That may be about to change. American thinkers and policymakers are beginning to catch on. In a recent policy brief, leading American think-tank Centre for Strategic & International Studies acknowledges “U.S. policy toward Africa is in need of a facelift – in both substance and strategic vision – to keep up with the continent’s shifting demographics and growing influence on the world stage.” Africa’s unique demographics underpin this rethink. It is a bit surprising that it took China’s competitive stance on
‘
Africa could become a huge export market for high technology from the developed world. But apart from China, there is little awareness of this thesis
the continent to motivate this realisation; especially as one would think that an America that was forward-thinking and visionary in its Marshall Plan surplus absorption scheme for Europe would have been first out the gate on the African front. Still, it supports the thesis of this article. Shifting global demographics tilts likely scarce future demand towards Africa. To make this a reality, however, global firms need a “Marshall Plan type” business strategy for the continent. Canning, Raja, & Yazbeck (2015) observe “the sectors needed to encourage the demographic transition and produce a dividend include health, education, population, business development and investment, domestic savings and trade.” Better health infrastructure will help reduce child mortality. Female contraceptives may empower women to make self-interested fertility decisions. Secondary school education is found to raise the marriage age for girls and delay childbirth. It also raises employment prospects for both genders. Adding greater financial inclusion that rewards saving and provides income-enhancing credit results in a virtuous cycle. Edited & published by the NTUSBF Centre for African Studies at Nanyang Business School, Singapore. References, figures, tables, etc. in original article viz. https:// nbs.ntu.edu.s g/R es earch/R e searchCentres/CAS/Publications/ Documents/NTU-SBF%20CAS%20 ACI%20Vol.%202020-32.pdf “Dr Raji is chief economist at Macroafricaintel. He was previously an Africa Economist at Standard Chartered Bank, London, UK. (Twitter: @ DrRafiqRaji)”
The education of our youth is the key to nation building
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ike all of us I was shocked and outraged to learn that unarmed youths were confronted by live bullets on Tuesday evening at the Lekki Toll Gate after almost 2 weeks of a peaceful, relatively successful protest. Initially, I had observed the start of the #EndSars demonstrations with admiration for the cause. The lamentations of the youth are genuine and difficult to argue against. If we haven’t personally been affected by an encounter with a callous police officer then I am sure we know somebody that has. Calling out police brutality and demanding an end to the extra judicial killing of predominantly young Nigerian males is a moral duty. It is clear that the vast majority of Nigerians had some empathy for the social movement. Unfortunately, what soon transpired in Lagos and across the nation was a display of anger that was about so much more than police brutality. The open agitation exposed a frustration with the system. What we have witnessed over the past week is an extreme manifestation of decades of youth segregation from governance and opportunity which has left millions of Nigeria’s youths unemployed, under employed and absolutely desperate for a way out of poverty and despair.
According to Nairametrics, data from the National Bureau of Statistics reveals Nigeria’s unemployment rate as at the second quarter of 2020 is 27.1 percent indicating that about 21.7 million Nigerians remain unemployed. The highest unemployment rate was recorded for youths between 15 – 24 years at 40.8 percent. This is followed by ages 25 – 34 years at 30.7 percent. To put things into context, Nigeria’s unemployed youth of 13.1 million is more than the population of Rwanda and several other African countries. Youth Population is also about 64 percent of total unemployed Nigerians suggesting that the most agile working-class population in the country remains unemployed. I am a firm believer in the economic future of Nigeria and the catalyst to this future is our young people. Youth engagement and youth inclusion in governing arrangements is paramount if Nigeria wishes to succeed. As 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana the Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific recently acknowledged: “Young entrepreneurs have been a source of innovation and economic dyna-
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mism, creating jobs and providing livelihoods to millions. To achieve and accelerate action on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we urgently need their expertise and voices on creating solutions to social and environmental challenges, as well as economic opportunities. First, we need to ensure that the next generation of business leaders think about social purpose as well as profit. To achieve this, education will be critical. Governments play a key role.” Alisjahbana is right to call out the government’s role in ensuring their youth are sufficiently educated, however private investment is also needed to solve the problems that the education sector is currently facing in Nigeria. A lack of access to quality education and the sluggishness in adopting new methods of learning has immediate and long-term effects. The immediate effects have been playing out on the streets of Nigeria over the past few days. The long-term consequences are almost unthinkable. HESED Learning is an initiative and my own personal contribution to providing quality education to Nigerians, as a borderless structure with an unrestricted curriculum. The e-learning platform com-
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MATTHEW ODU pliments the current school system by using a national curriculum with the option of studying an international syllabus. It is time for our youth to become more competitive. Not a select, fortunate few but the vast majority. Increasingly in the sectors where our children do excel – in medicine, science and finance – they sadly leave the country for better prospects abroad. Who can blame them? Education is the key to nation building. A quality education propels industry. In countries where the children are educated the likelihood of civil unrest is reduced. We cannot afford to under educate our youth. A Fellow of Institute of Chartered Accountant of Nigeria
Tuesday 27 October 2020
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The soul of our nation is at stake…We can do better! STRATEGY & POLICY
MA JOHNSON
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ur hearts are with Nigerians who have lost precious lives and properties during the #EndSARS peaceful protests across the country. May God give us the wisdom, and power as patriots and parents to provide the needed comfort, leadership, guidance and direction to our youths. Since the FG has gone spiritual on COVID-19 matters, some patriots have sought divine intervention on all political and economic matters affecting the county. We thought the FG was doing its part to ensure political and economic reforms. But on October 10, 2020, I had a dream. In that dream there was a loud voice asking me: “Son of man what is happening in the vineyard?” I was confused. Which vineyard, I asked? But the voice directed me to the Book of Prophet Isaiah in the Holy Book. One of the memorable passages in all the prophetic literature is that reflected in Book of Prophet Isaiah Chapter 5. What appears in the opening verses of the Chapter like “love-song” develops into an allegory and lest any doubt about the message. However, it was the seventh verse that provided an explicit interpretation to me. It is pleasing to know that God is the owner of the vineyard which represents His people – Nigerians – God’s own people. No one prays for catastrophe. The failure to enact justice and fairness has invited catastrophe. And that is why we must ensure that by our actions and inactions, we do not invite destruction of our beloved country by the failure to bridge the wall of injustice, inequality, and nepotism. The shock of October 20, 2020, pro-
voked fear that Nigerians have not experienced in a long time. It was a peaceful #EndSARS protest that turned bloody throughout the length and breadth of the country. Why? Peaceful protesters at the Lekki Tollgate were attacked by “unknown soldiers.” The tabloid referred to the infamous and inglorious incident as the “Lekki Massacre.” Police stations were burnt down in most parts of Nigeria. Businesses and government properties worth billions of Naira were destroyed. Looting held sway in broad daylight. Inmates were released in a few correctional centres in some states. State officials say these crimes were perpetuated by hoodlums. What began as peaceful protests with legitimate demands to end police brutality have been hijacked by hoodlums? Who are these hoodlums? Are they Nigerian youths, who sleep on the streets without food and no education? Are these Nigerian youths whose parents don’t know their whereabouts? Or, youths from neighbouring countries? Hoodlums, who according to unconfirmed sources, were paid by agents of the government to vandalise properties and discredit otherwise peaceful protests. If truly they were hoodlums, they are likely to be Nigerian youths not taken care of by their parents. Do we bother about these hoodlums? Why can’t hoodlums be accommodated in all youth programs by those in authority if there was going to be peace? The wrong of these hoodlums is traceable to the faults of their parents by an observer. And I share the same sentiments. Please, permit me to explain. The well-being of the individual family depends largely on how our children are taught to honour their parents. I strongly believe that what happens in the family happens in the nation. If children do not respect their parents and not show love, they are not likely to respect any kind of authority. Thus, a nation where children do not respect their parents and those in authority is bound to fall. There is curfew in most states. But it is not obeyed. The police can hardly enforce curfew because some police stations have been burnt while most police
officers are in the hiding. Is that why “unknown soldiers” should massacre our children sitting down with Nigerian flags at the Lekki Toll Gate? No! But most children have been pushed to the wall. Some of these children don’t have jobs after postgraduate qualifications. At the age of 35 years, some Nigerian youths still live with their parents. This is a big shame on most parents. After all, parents are the ones you find mostly in government at all levels. Parents are leaders. But most parents in authority have shown that they lack empathy. In my dream, the owner of the vineyard made every possible preparation for a fruitful harvest- picking a good site, preparing the land, choosing the best plants, arranging for protection and for processing the grapes. But what He got was “wild grapes.” Very shameful. Nigeria is the vineyard. Nigeria is a country strategically located in the Gulf of Guinea, with abundant resources and good climate. A country which continues to face the daunting task of institutionalising democracy and reforming a petroleum-based economy. Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa and the most populous country of about 200 million people within the continent. “Violence, victimisation, hunger, homelessness, greed, impunity, corruption, nepotism,” are all realities that sound too familiar in the country. The country’s revenue has been squandered through decades of corruption and mismanagement. Now, about N1.0 trillion has been lost due to the protests nationwide, according to economists. Somewhere in our part of the world, one may not be completely wrong to say a child dies every one minute from causes related to hunger and malnutrition with about fifty percent of the population living in poverty. Unemployment, underemployment and inflation are rising. The price of neglecting our youths in national development is what we are paying for now. All parents should apologise to Nigerian youths because they have not been fairly treated. My humble opinion. It is more than 20 years that Nigeria has been operating an uninterrupted
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The price of neglecting our youths in national development is what we are paying for now. All parents should apologise to Nigerian youths because they have not been fairly treated
democratic form of government. Is this a democracy, pundits are asking? The country appears to be under siege in a “police” state under cover of democracy. It is unfortunate that the nation has been turned to a battle space which has given patriots some concern. But a lot more needs to be done to protect democracy in Nigeria because the country is already the third most terrorised country in the world, according to reports. The police have an important role to play in any democratic society. Police officers are valuable in every society and they are to enforce laws that protect the people and property. But the state needs to cater to the needs and welfare of the police and their families. The same with all other security agencies. For most Nigerians, #EndSARS and police brutality matters while there are some who do not care. A judicial panel of inquiry has been set up in Lagos State. But the hallways of history are littered with the corpses of those young men and women who have been killed or maimed in the hands of unknown soldiers and unknown police. Much of our limited infrastructure has been destroyed. We now observe before our own eyes where security personnel, protesters and hoodlums were involved in mutually destructive actions. The soul of our nation is really at stake when we have uncaring “democrats” who claimed they fought for democracy. If this is the kind of democracy our “democrats” fought for, they should be prepared in all respects to fight again for democracy. It is sunset, and it is time for our youths to leave the streets. Our youths have made their points. I apologise to Nigerian youths on behalf of all parents. We must move forward. I urge the FG and state governments to address urgently all requests presented by Nigerian youths. Let all aggrieved parties go back to the negotiating table for a lasting peace. Thank you. Johnson is an author and a retired naval engineer who has passion for African development and good governance
What Lagos must do next
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t the start of the weekend, the Lagos state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, relaxed the 24-hour curfew he imposed just before the violence which saw peaceful protesters shot at around the Lekki Toll Gate. The curfew was supposed to bring about calm, and an end to the unrest that began to ratchet up as paid thugs began to infiltrate the peaceful End SARS protesters. What we have learned, unfortunately, is that the curfews are actually now something that gangs and cults in Lagos can use to unleash violence on the state. This new phenomenon was first seen during the last curfew imposed to implement lockdowns meant to stifle the spread of the Covid-19 disease. Apparently, as law-abiding residents sit at home, the emptiness of the streets becomes suitable for large organised gangs to embark on looting and robbing sprees targeting business districts and stores, and even residential estates at times. The Lagos state governor said the scale of destruction wrought on Lagos during the curfew was the worst the state had ever seen. Some people have expressed surprise at how this came to pass but this was actually to be expected. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics says that Lagos State has an unemployment rate
of 19.5 percent with 1.5 million underemployed people underemployed and almost a million employable but unemployed Lagosians. When you add the poverty level and food price inflation angle to a situation where almost a million people are unemployed, it is easy to see that a significant crime problem is an expected outcome. Jamaica has just over two million citizens, which means that the number of completely unemployed people in Lagos is roughly half of the population of Bob Marley’s home country. Any way you dice it, this is an insane position for a society to be in. What has also exacerbated the situation is the manner in which the political class in Lagos has blatantly rewarded violent groups for helping them in their political agenda while paying no attention to the education and economic growth of the youth in the state. The Lagos political class and the elite of Lagos have essentially left youths in the state, and especially those in the poorer classes, to rot. So it is no surprise that gangs have stepped up to fill the vacuum. The elite has abandoned the social contract that made the South-West geopolitical zone a treasured model for other regions. This social contract required the youth to align with certain civic codes and commit to education in
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exchange for their elite and elders working hard to create employment opportunities for them. In his time at the helm, Obafemi Awolowo spearheaded a drive that helped provide education for all and prioritised the establishment of industrial estates. It worked to some extent, as there are still doubts as to whether his programmes did not bankrupt the region. However, after 1999, the South-West political class embraced an elitist mindset and set itself apart from the masses, focusing on sharing the available employment opportunities within its ranks while ignoring the education and economic issues of the general public. This failure to play their part as laid out in the social contract has led to a breakdown in order that has seen an Oba of Lagos having his palace ransacked and miscreants playing about publicly with his staff of office. Dominant Lagos political figure, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has also had to seek temporary refuge in Europe while a lot of his most visible properties in Lagos were targeted by arsonists. These are things that were simply unthinkable just a few years ago and they are happening because of the leadership gap and how the elite abandoned the poorer masses and made them see violence as currency. Action must be taken quickly. These gangs will at some point learn to not need the cover of cur-
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CHETA NWANZE fews to move powerfully. There must be a strong focus on enhancing the quality and quantity of education and employment opportunities made available to the general public. The Lagos state government must work on making the business environment of Lagos much more favourable. It must, for the sake of the city, work with other states to move some industries away to reduce overcrowding in the city. And it must work out how to curtail the rate of extortion and rentseeking behaviour that people and businesses have to deal with from state and non-state actors within the state’s boundaries. A failure to take these steps in addition to having the security agencies firmly shutting down these gangs will have Lagos dealing with much worse in no short order. The political class of Lagos must also recognise the damage that they have done by enabling the NURTW and other groups to become wealthy and politically influential. They must find ways to whittle down the power and influence of these groups for the sake of the state.
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Nwanze is lead partner at SBM Intelligence
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Tuesday 27 October 2020
BUSINESS DAY
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Nigeria at 60: Not yet the desired dream
Nigeria needs focused reforms, especially resource, electoral and anti-corruption reforms
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n Thursday 1st October, 2020, Nigeria marked 60 years of independence from Britain with parades and festivities. But the celebration came with mixed feelings for the citizens. Despite the fanfare, including a colourful military parade and a dramatic air show, many people did not appreciate such display at a time when Nigerians are overstretched by several challenges which call to question the essence of independence. Contrary to the aspiration of our founding fathers, Nigeria, the world’s largest black population, with massive wealth to spend as the largest oil producer in Africa, is far from where it ought to be. At 60, the country remains a work-in -progress A country with over 250 different ethnic groups has gone through brutal civil war and over three decades of military dictatorship to become a democratic nation. Its return to civilian rule in 1999 was widely seen as an opportunity for the country to restructure governance and ensure equity in its distribution of resources. But growing corruption and a brutal insurgency in the northeast region of the country that has lasted for a decade have contributed to its failure to effectively tackle some of its most critical problems. It is paradoxical that a country with abundant human and material resources, a country whose nation-
als are breaking barriers across the world, a country that has produced Nobel laureates and other celebrities, a country with the largest economy in Africa would same time be the world capital of poverty. The development effectively makes it unlikely that the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) to end extreme poverty by 2030 will be met. There’s almost nothing to celebrate in a country where almost everywhere is so insecure. Four years before the country gained independence, large oil reserves were discovered along the coastal Niger Delta region, bringing hopes of prosperity for so many. But, as Nigeria emerged as one of the world’s largest oil exporters, the ruling class mismanaged the resources from oil sales mostly to its own benefit. Today, the outlook is bad. According to Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index for 2019, Nigeria occupied the 146th spot out of 180 countries listed, falling to its lowest ranking ever. The amount of money stolen by the political class is enough to fix the most important infrastructures in the country. It is so annoying to see millions of Nigerians languishing in poverty while a group of persons squander the country’s resources. In sixty years of independence, our key achievements as a nation are that we survived the Nigerian civil war of 1967 -1970 and that we are still a country. Beyond these, every index in
terms of physical and social parameters shows that we have declined. Up to the early 1980’s Nigerians most likely contemplated going abroad to study only if he/she did not find a place in a Nigerian university. Our universities compared with the best in the world as did our primary and secondary schools. Our medical facilities, largely public or owned by religious missions were first rate. It is said that up to 1965 the King of Saudi Arabia went to University College Hospital (UCH) Ibadan for his medicals. Today, our social and physical infrastructures are in shambles. The textile factories in Kano and Kaduna and many other industries all over the country have been shut down. We have one of the highest, if not the highest, number of out of school children in the world, the unemployment and poverty rates are scandalous. There was a time when the safest time to travel was at night. Crime was very low especially in the North. That has changed for the worst. Nigeria’s judiciary was rated amongst the best in the world. Today, in every sector it is a tale of woes. By 1971, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was a complete desert with no infrastructure. We were miles ahead. Today UAE compares with the best in the world and has sent people to space while we still grapple with nineteenth century issues. In Nigeria rather than preach tolerance where we should have strength, the political elite,
in agbada and military uniform, have exploited these differences to promote disunity and hate. Nigeria prides itself as a federation. But in all honesty, we cannot say we are practicing true federalism. Apart from Lagos and Rivers States, others are completely dependent on statutory allocations. We have a centralised police and correctional (prisons) system creating an anomalous situation where for instance, a person commits a state offence; he is arrested by a federal police, is tried by a state court and sentenced to a federal correctional facility. Our federalism is clearly abnormal. Its content suggests a unitary system. The current centralised system of federalism has become a veritable source of, rather than a credible solvent for, the country’s multifaceted crises of unity, democracy, and development. A more balanced perspective would distinguish between the system’s remarkable achievements in alleviating inter-group political inequality and insecurity, and its conspicuous failures to advance good democratic and economic governance. Ultimately, focused reforms, especially resource, electoral and anticorruption reforms, will be required to consolidate Nigeria’s real successes in mitigating potentially disintegrative ethno-political conflicts and to assuage current agitations for the wholesale restructuring or dismantling of the federal system.
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Tuesday 27 October 2020
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Tuesday 27 October 2020
BUSINESS DAY
EDUCATION Weekly insight on current and future trends in education
Primary/Secondary
Higher
Human Capital
#EndSARS: ASUU condemns attacks on peaceful protesters • Urges Govt to fish out the culprits without delay •Profers continuous engagements with youth, working class MARK MAYAH
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he Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has reacted to the reports of violent attacks on protesting youth under the aegis of # EndSARS in Lagos and other states in the Country. The union condemned in strongest terms government’s handling of Tuesday’s Lekki incident and called on the Federal Government to get to the root of the crisis and ensure that justice is done and seen to have been done to all victims of brutality and murder. ASUU in a statement signed by its President, Biodun Ogunyemi (Prof), said it fully identified with Nigerian youth in exercising their Constitutional rights of freedom of expres-
sion, peaceful assembly, and non - violent protest. The union also attest to the reckless, unguarded, and anti - people activist of the nowdefunct Special anti - Robbery Squad (SARs) arm of Nigeria Police Force. “From all indication, SARs had become an instrument of oppression, intimidating, extorting and killing innocent youth and citizens on trumpup charges. “Those who survived the SARs experience tell gory tales.” “The mere name change of the killer organisation (SARs) is not enough to ease the deep-rooted impression of betrayal by a security outfit supported with taxpayers’ money. “ASUU notes that with regrets, Nigeria has not grown beyond the conquest subjugation orientation of colonial
Buhari
Nigerian teachers bag Edu-Aid’s most outstanding lockdown teacher awards KELECHI EWUZIE
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wo alumni of Teach For Nigeria, Gideon Ogungeyimi and Precious Adegunle for developing and implementing innovative ideas to ensure continued learning for their students amidst the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, have emerged winners of the winners in the Educational Aid Global Initiative (EduAid) Most Outstanding Lockdown Teacher Competition. The Most Outstanding Lockdown Competition was organized by Edu-Aid under the banner of the Covenant Christian Center to reward teachers for their selflessness, creativity and innovation in ensuring continued learning for students during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. The teachers were required to submit a one-minute video detailing the work they did; these submissions were independently assessed to determine the winners. Gideon Ogungeyimi, a 2018 Teach for Nigeria alumnus, who emerged as winner amidst the coronavirus outbreak and school closure, developed the “Learn at Home” model to engage his students
during the lockdown. Under the Learn at Home model, Gideon created and printed worksheets in English and Mathematics which were delivered to the doorstep of his pupils and collected at a later date for assessments. He also launched ‘Project Feed100’ with two other Fellows- a project that provides low-income families with financial palliatives to cater for their children’s education, feeding and health needs. Precious Adegunle, a 2019 Fellow who emerged as the first runner up raised funds to purchase tablets for her students and began a project to digitize the Nigerian curriculum in indigenous languages, particularly Yoruba. She preinstalled these educational contents and also included games, movies, books and worksheets to encourage continued learning for her pupils. Precious went further to distribute these tablets to her pupils for free. As winners of the competition, Gideon and Precious were presented with a cash prize of N500, 000 and N300, 000 respectively which they have both committed to creating more opportunities for www.businessday.ng
rule evidence in police and military brutalisation of civilian populace. “Any approach to security that ignores the existential needs of the citizenry - economy, social, and cultural is tenuous.” The union said it has not ceased to condemn Nigeria’s dependent and weak position within a declining and crisis - ridden world capitalist system, drawing attention to the presence of a local exploiting class whose members collaborate with foreign exploring firms to steal Nigeria’s wealth and transfer it abroad. “The Government must lead way in restoring peace and justices in Nigeria. “Security operatives must be stopped from the senseless killing of harmless youth protesters while infiltrators must be brought under check
low-income learners and rehabilitating library facilities across low-income schools and communities. Commenting on this, Folawe Omikunle, CEO, Teach For Nigeria said: “We are tremendously proud to see not only the winner of this contest emerge from Teach For Nigeria, but also the 1st runner up. This is evident of the leadership quality that exists in our teacher leaders. The pandemic widened the gap of inequity, and as leaders who understand the challenges in underserved schools, our teacher leaders did not only identify the challenges, but they also displayed a great sense of responsibility and agency in responding urgently to ensure that learning didn’t stop despite the school closure. We are inspired to see the possibilities of the future of education beyond the classrooms within lowincome communities.” The Teach For Nigeria Fellowship is a two year full-time paid commitment, designed to build a movement of leaders across the nation who will work towards eliminating educational inequity in Nigeria by teaching in underserved schools in low-income communities.
through active intelligence”, it added. The union commiserates with the families whose children and ward’s lives were cut short in the course of #EndSARs protests nationwide. “We equally empathise with youth and other citizens who are still nursing various degrees of injury and wish them a full and speedy recovery.” It however urged the government to take measures to fish out the culprits and bring them to justice without further delay in order to calm all frayed nerves. It said the rulling class should always remember that only continuous engagements with the citizens especially the energetic youth population and working class would deepen Nigeria’s democracy and guarantee lasting peace in the Country.
ASUU to Gov Umahi : You lack power to proscribe us • Urges members to remain resolute MARK MAYAH
F
ollowing last week announcement of the Governor of Ebonyi State, David Umahi, that all trade unions in the state owned University have been prescribed, the Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Ebonyi State chapter, Ikechukwu Igwenyi (Dr), has called on the state government to prioritise university education in the state. Igwenyi made this known in a statement issued in reaction to the last week proscription of ASUU in Ebonyi state
university by the governor of the state, David Umahi. He said labour matters are in exclusive list of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and it is impossible for any Governor to proscribe a national union duly registered and given a charter to operate. “We are just a branch of ASUU and the national body of the Union is very much aware of the situation in Ebonyi, “ he explained. The Chairman, who is an associate professor and also the Head of department of Biochemistry, Ebonyi state University, said the staff of the institution were being owed four months salary as at the
David Umahi, Ebonyi state Governor
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time of this report. He urged the people in government not to collapse public educational institutions simply because their children are not there. “Most public office holders are not interested in our public schools and they do not invest in the institution because all their children are studying overseas,” he explained. He called on the staff of the university to remain resolute until government meets up their demands. He, therefore, urged the students who are losing their patience to remain calm until victory is achieved. The only body currently allowed by the Governor to exist is the students union government. It would be recall that Umahi, who met last week with the leadership of the unions, had said : “The decision was taken in order to ensure that academic and non - academic unions activities do not negatively affect the resumption of academic and non-academic activities in the state owned University.” Meanwhile, the state Commissioner for Education, Onyebuchi Chima, said approval had been made for the release of N500 million for the payment of staff salaries.
Tuesday 27 October 2020
BUSINESS DAY
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EDUCATION Why students, educationists justify #EndSARS protesters demand for reform in education KELECHI EWUZIE
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ducation professionals and concerned students have thrown their w e ig ht b e h i n d the calls for reform in the education sector by the #endsars# protesters in the past two weeks saying that this clamour will reshape this pivotal sector for good. Reacting to calls for a state of emergency to be declared in education as part of the 5 for 5 demands by the protesters, educationists, university professors and students who shared their views with BusinessDay say this action is a welcome development as it will help save millions of young Nigerians. Educationists observe how the education system Nigeria is poorly funded with successive governments proposing less than 10 percent budgetary allocation to education. The sector is bedevilled with poorly equipped laboratories, uninhabitable hostels and unmotivated lecturers. Over 10.5 million young Nigerians are out of school, partly because of insecurity and education affordability.
Considering that millions of candidates yearly sit for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), but only about 500,000 get admitted to university. Over 90 percent apply to public funded institutions, most of which suffer from infrastructural decay. In addition, young Nigerians are the worst affected by unemployment. There are 21.7 million unemployed Nigerians with the youth accounting for 13.9 million of this number. In the views of Peter Okebukola, a professor of science education and former executive secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC), the challenges bedevilling the education sector in Africa’s largest economy are too numerous, they include the poor quality training with many having low content knowledge of their teaching subjects. Low level of remuneration leading to low enthusiasm for teaching and discouraging optimal performance on the job. Mismatch of teaching subject with subject assigned to teach in school, lack of interest in teaching as a profession, Weak capacity in using exciting teaching strategies to boost academic performance
Adamu Adamu, education minister
of students. Poor attitude to schoolwork as they look forward to cutting corners to pass, Negative mind-set about the value of education owing to employment difficulties after graduation, A cross section of students who spoke to BusinessDay pointed out that the over
Why we suspend examinations- Kwarapoly SIKIRAT SHEHU, Ilorin
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he Management of the Kwara State Polytechnic has announced the suspension of the on-going First Semester 2019/2020 examinations. A release by Ajibola Jimoh, the institution’s Deputy Registrar, Information and Publication, “this development was caused by the twenty four hours curfew declared by the Executive Governor of the state, Abdulrahman Abdulrazak, in order to prevent further excallation of the street protests and wanton lootings which took place in Ilorin metropolis. This notice takes immediate effect. Meanwhile, the polytechnic has notified members of the general public and the Polytechnic community that there was no civil unrest, rioting or breach of the peace in any of the two campuses of the institution. “The above clarifications becomes germane, in other
to dispel the on-going rumour that the institution is engulfed in civil unrest and Students uprising. In fact, all students who were yet to complete their first semester examinations before the Covid-19 lock down, are all back on campus and sitting for their remaining papers. “It suffice to clarify that a major electricity spark occurred recently in one of the cafes located directly opposite the gate of the main campus, which made people who were around the place to scamper for safety. “The electricity fault that
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caused the spark was later repaired by owners of the cafes and normalcy has since been restored around the area, and this did not happen on the campus. The management of the Polytechnic is hereby assuring members of the public and the students populace to go about their normal business as there is no any breach of the peace in and around the two campuses and examinations are currently going on smoothly,” said Jimoh in a statement made available to journalists in Ilorin, Kwara State.
seven months Academic Staff Union of Universities’ (ASUU) strike is enough reasons for youths to hit the street and demand better education because the strike portend grave danger to their academic aspiration. They maintained that Education is the most veritable source of knowledge which
forms the bedrock of any nation, querying why in Nigeria, the situation is different owing constant sit out by the university lecturers. Faith Joshua, a student of education, University of Lagos observes that Nigeria’s graduates no more measure up to the standards of both internal and external evaluators which she attributes to the constant disruption of education activities by both the government and academic unions, warning that with the actual level of the deterioration at various levels of the educational systems, the attitude of students will soon change negatively towards education. Joshua maintains that at a time when the government is trying to check the restiveness of youths, sending students out of school now has very serious security implications. The aggrieved students insist that the strike action has done more harm than good to university education in the country, because expectedly, students across the country have once again been thrown out of school, while the academic programme has been seriously disrupted. “If urgent care is not taken the future of the country is bleak as far as any meaningful
development is concerned” she added. On his part, Audu Balogun, a 400 level students of Political Science, University of Lagos opines that the sad reality confronting us now is that learning as a social and a developmental process has virtually been halted all across the nation’s public Universities and polytechnics, a phenomenon he rightly observes has led to the unjustifiable frustration of the yearnings of thousands of our youths for quality education. According to him, “the unending strike action has made parents and guardians, distressed, not to talk about the embarrassment of the academia” Balogun calls on the government to pay attention to demands of the protesters and yearnings of youth if they are not to be painted as being uncaring and insensitive to the gaping decay in the educational sector. “It is the role of the government to create the enabling environment for its brightest minds to return to our universities. Unless this government intervenes and begins to fulfill its obligations, it would have missed the opportunity to make a great impact on the Universities” he maintained.
Don’t be misdirected by ASUSS - Teachers warned SIKIRAT SHEHU, Ilorin
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he Nigeria Union of Teachers, Kwara State chapter has urged teachers in the state not to be misdirected by the an organization known as Academic Staff Union of Secondary Schools (ASUSS). The Union made this known Weekend at a press briefing in llorin, the state capital. Adigun Oladotun Gabriel, the Vice Chairman of the Union had while speaking on the sidelines of the state secondary school teacher’s opting out the state NUT says “the Executive members of the Nigeria Union of Teachers under the Teaching service commission in the state wishes to denounce the statetement made by the group of people calling
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Fatimah Ahmed, Kwara Commissioner for education
themselves ASUSS under the leadership of the retired teachers.” Gabriel explained that the idea of establishing a new body to represent the interests of certain group of Teachers will not be in the interest of the teaching profession. He notes that section 4 of @Businessdayng
the trade union Act does not allow the formation of another union to represent workers when there is an existing one, adding that ASUSS is not a union but an organization under the corporate affairs commission. According to him, all Teachers in the state secondary schools were adequately represented in the NUT both in the local, state and National, explaining that the Deputy state chairman of the Union is from secondary school comrade Alfa Etsu from Edu local government area while the 3rd vice president of NUT a principal from Offa local government area. The Union appealed to all secondary school teacher’s not to allow frustrated retirees to cause confusion in the Union as they called on security agencies to be on the alert to forestall the break down of law and order.
16
Tuesday 27 October 2020
BUSINESS DAY
BDTECH
In association with
E-mail: jumoke.akiyode@businessdayonline.com
‘We see opportunities in accelerating, evolving our delivery and logistics business with tech’ Uber recently increased fares for rides in cities of operation across Nigeria. As cities reopen and movement restrictions continue to be eased, many people are wondering what Uber is doing to support drivers during the crisis. BusinessDay’s Jumoke Lawanson, shares excerpts of an interview with Ridwan Olalere, general manager, Uber Nigeria, where he details various measures that the technology ride hailing company has put in place to support and protect drivers on its platform.
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hat is Uber doing to ensure convenient m o b i l ity without compromising safety? We know that the transport industry in Nigeria is facing new and unpredictable challenges with corona virus and the protests. At Uber, we are doing our best to support drivers and riders during these unprecedented times and to limit the spread of the coronavirus, we adapted our safety measures where we have rolled out a number of new features and policies to help ensure their health, safety and well-being while operating across our platform, including info in-app, providing them with sanitising reimbursements, and more. also, all Uber riders and drivers will be required to wear a mask or face covering when taking a trip. As part of a new in-app safety checklist, before drivers and couriers go online they will be asked to take a selfie to verify they are wearing a mask or face covering using new object recognition technology. Any driver who is not wearing a mask or other face-covering will not be able to go online. Riders will also be required to take safety precautions like washing their hands before getting in the car, sitting in the backseat and opening windows for ventilation. We have worked with manufacturers and distributors to provide drivers, carriers and delivery people with disinfectants and cloth
masks. Drivers have been sent tips to follow to help keep themselves and the Uber community safe, including information on how to get reimbursements or PPE. We have also partnered with UAP Old Mutual to provide drivers with masks. Drivers will also be asked to confirm they’ve taken additional safety measures such as regularly sanitising their car and making hand sanitizer available for their riders. While riders will be required to take safety precautions like washing their hands before getting in the car, sitting in the backseat and opening windows for ventilation. Things like free cancellations for safety concerns have also been put in place. With this, drivers can cancel a ride without a penalty if a rider isn’t wearing a mask or face covering. Riders can do the same. These cancellations must be related to safety concerns, Uber’s Community Guidelines prohibit discrimination against anyone based on their race or perceived national origin. Uber is adding new options for feedback in the Uber app, including if a rider or driver is not wearing a mask. Anyone who is repeatedly flagged for violating our new safety policies risks losing access to Uber’s apps. Working with the World Health Organization and the latest public health advice, we have compiled safety tips and recommendations specifically geared toward ride-
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Ridwan Olalere
sharing. This will be used to educate riders and drivers when we learn of unsafe behaviour. How has Uber supported drivers with reduced earnings due to coronavirus? The disruption and uncertainty caused by the coronavirus is being felt by everyone around the world. We know it’s especially concerning for people who drive and deliver with Uber. We have and continue to work hard to expand earning opportunities for delivery peo-
ple and drivers by leveraging our technology. We quickly adapted our technology for both our Rides and Eats apps to meet the evolving needs of communities and companies. One example is Uber Connect, which allows users to send packages to family and friends through the app. Not only does this provide a cost-effective same-day, nocontact delivery solution but allows further opportunity for drivers and delivery people to earn. As a commitment to fur-
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ther support drivers, we are also providing up to 14 days of financial assistance to drivers and delivery people diagnosed with COVID-19 or ordered to self-quarantine by a doctor or public health authority, including where they have a pre-existing health condition that puts them at higher risk. With the shortage of masks globally, we also took the opportunity to showcase our commitment to our driver community by providing them with masks. We are also working with preferred vehicle partners to ask that they support drivers in need by reducing the overall cost of their vehicles and have rolled out the ability for drivers to be able to cash out to their bank account once per day instead of weekly, putting drivers in control of when they get paid. Drivers and delivery people also have access to our support team who remain available via our 24/7 support channels. As this situation progresses we will continue to work with our partners on sustainable ways to support them and the community. What is next for Uber Post COVID-19? What innovations have you adopted during this period that will be integrated into your business model? We know the coming months will be challenging for many however real opportunities lie in accelerating and evolving our delivery and logistics business. We believe in the power of adapting to any situation,
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for us, this includes connecting even more drivers and delivery people to earning opportunities. Over the last six months, it’s become increasingly clear that grocery delivery is not only popular, but often a necessity which is why we introduced our new essentials solution to help grocery stores reach their customers. We expect to see this trend continue as people across the world look for new ways to save time and stay safe, and we will ensure we continue to adapt to meet our customers needs. We also see the “contactless” society becoming more of a reality now, especially on a continent where cash is the dominant payment method and contactless delivery is encouraged in an effort to limit the spread of the virus. We have just launched Uber Cash, a contactless payment option, allowing more people to use Uber’s apps, especially those who don’t have cash or cards at hand. This helps ensure you adhere to social distancing measures, as limits physical contact with others. The coronavirus will be around for some time, and to get through this we would need to stay focused and look beyond the virus. We need to continue finding ways to adapt to the new normal and work on innovating to meet the ever-changing demands of the consumer while working hard to protect and support communities, customers, drivers and delivery people and partners from the virus
Tuesday 27 October 2020
BUSINESS DAY
OFF-GRID ENERGY BUSINESS
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in association with
States, private investments offer quick path to electrifying underserved communities ISAAC ANYAOGU
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igeria’s electricity market does not guarantee commercial returns because power is priced below the cost of production. Therefore market operators do not get the full value of their invoices.The grid is fragile and susceptible to collapse so over 80million Nigerians lack access to power, hence the recourse to alternative sources of energy is a necessity. The Federal Government has been paying subsidies for grid-connected power. Since 2015, it has spent over N1.75trillion to defray this shortfall. Crude oil sales which pay for this subsidy is no longer flowing as much as once did. Prices have fallen on account of lower demand due to the coronavirus and dispute among producers and now oil producers are forced to lower their output. However, Nigeria’s constitution has empowered state governments to generate, transmit and distribute electric power, and some are investing in renewable energy as well as private companies many funded by grants and it is increasingly looking like Nigeria’s best option to deepen energy access for large swathes of tits
population without power. The Federal Government has stated an intention to ramp off-grid energy in the country. In the recent Nigeria Economic Sustainability Plan, the government set a target to deliver five million solar home systems (SHS) across the country by local manufacturers and assemblers. Ahmad Salihijo, MD/CEO REA said the agency wants new private players to come in, in line with the executive order on local content. “This is a space that private sector developers should look out for as we roll out the renewable energy fund,” he said.
To sustain the renewable energy projects in rural communities, Salihijo says the agency established renewable electricity users’ cooperative society, in every community. It is a structured mechanism where community members play a key role in securing the deployment of systems, enlightening community members, and ensuring payment of light bills. The agency said it is working with DisCos too and gathering data to help with innovation. But state governments who are constitutionaly empowered to act must play an active role in the sector.
Habeeb Alebiosu, a non-executive director at Viathan Engineering Limited at a recent BusinesDay conference said one of the states’ role in setting up Independent Power Plants is revenue assurance. The other is contractual offtake, with the state as an anchor tenant. Other areas include licensing, Environmental Impact Analysis certificate, and identifying load centres. “For instance in Ogun State, the government has metered all government parastatals and agencies to ensure they are adequately billed. Lagos has guaranteed contractural offtake,” Alebiosu said. In Kano, 10 megawatts (MW) solar project has been built on a 24-hectare parcel of land provided by the state government. This is a project that is happening as a result of the collaboration between the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) and the Kano state government. “COVID-19 has slowed down the progress of the project. However, we are getting all the necessary licenses, working on the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contracts and by the fourth quarter of 2021, the solar project would be fully operational,” Aisha Abba Kyari, vice president, Renewables, NSIA said.
The NSIA has an ambitious target of 500MW of renewable energy capacity but achieved incrementally. In addition to the enabling conditions investors expect from states as listed earlier, Kano solar project shows additional conditions such as the provision of land, resolution of land ownership disputes and compensations. “States need to commit and be excited. They need to provide access to industrial clusters, this will in turn boost economic activity,” Abba Kyari said. Joel Abrams, executive director Konexa, an integrated power company said there is a real case for an integrated distribution network, thanks to the growing liberalisation of the power sector. Abrams also said that a booming diesel-fired generation in Nigeria shows there is a latent large market of underserved and unserved customers. Diesel generation is many times costlier than on-grid electric power, yet the largest supplier of energy for Nigerians. Koxena started operations in Kaduna in because of the state’s large industrial base and mass non-industrial customers. Both Kaduna and Kano have a large peri-urban population, which Koxena has a robust business case for.
Next-generation fuels: How hydrogen is changing renewable energy investment landscape STEPHEN ONYEKWELU
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ydrogen has held the attention of countries and energy investors who see investment opportunities and this has been forecasted to provide a significant boost for renewable energy, the scaling of which lowers hydrogen production costs further. To date, of the 70 million metric tonnes of hydrogen produced globally per year, only 4 percent is generated from renewable energy according to the World Energy Council. Nevertheless, three months ago, the European Union set out its new hydrogen strategy as part of its goal to achieve carbon neutrality for all its industries by 2050. This presents a big win for the hydrogen sector argues Alex Kimani,
a veteran finance writer, investor, engineer and researcher for Safehaven.com. “Natural gas is surely a cleaner fossil fuel but hydrogen is coming with a big bang too. Japan may soon become energy independent on hydrogen,”Tony Attah, MD/CEO, Nigeria LNG Limited said at the recent BusinessDay’s Energy Series 2020. The EU has outlined an extremely ambitious target to build out at least 40 gigawatts of electrolyzers within its borders by 2030, or 160 times the current global capacity of 250MW. The EU also plans to support the development of another 40 gigawatts of green hydrogen in nearby countries that can export to the region by the same date. The big deal is that the regional bloc intends to have 6GW of green hydrogen produced from renewable
energy up and running by 2024. According to BNP Paribas Asset Management’s Lewis, developing these green hydrogen commitments will require about $400 billion, fully half of which will go to developing new renewable energy capacity, thus increasing the growth opportunity of a sector that’s already red-hot. That is a $200 billion boost for the global renewable sector or nearly 4 times the EU’s approximately $55 billion investments in clean energy in 2019. A lot of that hydrogen is probably going to be used to decarbonise the mobility sector, giving electric vehicle (EV) investors some serious food for thought. Green hydrogen is currently the most expensive hydrogen source, with grey hydrogen produced from
fossil fuels via Steam Methane Reforming (SMR) and coal gasification the cheapest. But the EU does not seem bothered with costs at the moment, with its main goal being to become carbon neutral by 2050. Wall Street has lately been bubbling with bold bullish projections and some bearish ones too about the renewable energy sector. Solar stocks have especially been shooting the lights out as a Biden presidency is increasingly being viewed as a big win for clean energy. Wall Street is also taking hydrogen seriously. From pariah that was burdened with too many challenges to become a practical energy source during our lifetimes, suddenly even giant utilities such as Nextera Energy (NYSE:NEE) and Dominion Energy (NYSE:D) have charted highly ambi-
tious hydrogen roadmaps. Bank of America says hydrogen could supply the world’s vast energy needs, fuel cars, heat homes, and also help to fight climate change. BAC says “we have reached the tipping point of harnessing this element effectively and economically” and predicts the hydrogen marketplace to reach a staggering $11 trillion by 2050. Mark Lewis, the chief sustainability strategist at BNP Paribas Asset Management, has told CNBC that the development of green energy will create the biggest investment opportunities for renewables and not hydrogen infrastructure. Scores of global energy heavyweights, including BP, Siemens Energy, Repsol, and Orsted have already outlined their green hydrogen strategies.
Editor: Isaac Anyaogu / Analysts Stephen Onyekwelu, Dipo Oladehinde / Feedback: 07037817378, / email: isaac.anyaogu@businessday.ng,
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Tuesday 27 October 2020
BUSINESS DAY
property&lifestyle
Here are opportunities, lessons for land owners from ‘The Mystery of Capital’ … ‘simply giving property-holders a title deed is not enough’ CHUKA UROKO
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raditional land tenure and property ownership system has succeeded in making land owners in poor countries, including Nigeria, unaware of the need for, and opportunities in having enforceable property rights. In reality, people in poor countries are not as poor as they seem because they have assets—lots of them. This was a startling observation made 20 years ago by a Peruvian economist. But, because these people who own assets cannot prove that they own them, they cannot use the assets as collateral. Such assets, according to Andrew Nervin, Chief Economist at PwC, represent what he calls dead capital. Nervin estimates that Nigeria holds, at least, $300 billion or as much as $900 billion worth of dead capital in residential real estate and agricultural land alone. According to him, approximately 95 percent of household dwellings in Nigeria have no title or a contestable title, noting that
Nigeria is underperforming (economically) and unlocking dead capital is critical to stop that. Earlier, Hernando de Soto, the Spanish explorer, had estimated that the total value of informally owned land, homes and other fixed assets was a whopping $9.3 trillion in 2000 (over $13.5trn in today’s money) which was more than 20 times the total of
foreign direct investment into developing countries over the preceding decade. All these help to underscore the amount of wealth which land owners in poor countries would have had at their disposal if they had clear, legal title to their property. They could borrow money more easily to buy better seeds or start a business. But the publication of de
Nigeria needs to build infrastructure for inclusive economic growth, experts say CHUKA UROKO
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or future and inclusive economic growth, Nigeria needs to build the necessary infrastructure, experts in the engineering profession have advised. But the infrastructure the engineers are talking about are not physical infrastructure such as roads, water, electricity, etc. They are, instead, intellectual infrastructure which the experts listed as knowledge, entrepreneurial capitalism, capital, land velocity, and labour. “These are infrastructure upon which great nations are built,” Ndubuisi Ekekwe, a Professor of Engineering and Founder, First Atlantic Semiconductors and Microelectronics, explained. The Professor, who spoke at a lecture organised by engineers under the auspices of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), Victoria Island, Lagos Branch, said it was through improvement in the engineering curriculum and capacity that Nigeria could rise as a nation. He explained further that infrastructural capitalism would help build an innovative soci-
ety, pointing out that the engineering profession in Nigeria should raise men and women that could help the country to get to a state of prosperity. Ekekwe noted that, over the last 1,500 years, the GDP of nations had been flat because the world wasn’t seeing any significant improvement in the standard of living of the people and the per capita income was decelerating. The world, he noted further, was in a state of economic paralysis because people were just postulating ideas, having solutions to transportation, electricity, water, and other infrastructure problems, but not producing goods and services. He, therefore, tasked engineers to develop innovations that could unleash a $3 trillion GDP by 2030 in specific areas such as, agriculture, technology, healthcare, education, and real estate. insisting that, it is only when engineers are creative, that there could be prospects for the nation to rise. The professor lamented that the impact of COVID-19 pandemic had changed the ordinance of practice for the profession but that has given engineers the opportunity to www.businessday.ng
build the country by offering services to the expectations of Nigerians. Ali Rabi, President, Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), agreed, adding that Covid-19 pandemic was affecting governments in terms of plans and policies for infrastructure development as well as management. According to him, the issue of development and management of infrastructure would be greatly affected, considering the fact that the development and management of infrastructure in Nigeria were done by foreigners. “Government should prioritize its spending for meaningful impact on the economy, development, and investments,” he advised. Ali reasoned that the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) depended on the production of sufficient engineering capacities to provide infrastructure and sustainable technology. “It behooves the government to adequately engage indigenous engineering professionals in design, supervision, and management of infrastructure and projects in the country, he advised further.
Soto’s book, ‘The Mystery of Capital has made significant changes. Its ideas have spread and they hold lots of lessons which Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam have bought into, making them pursue vast titling projects, mapping and registering millions of land parcels. In his presentation at the unveiling of his company’s Mobile App for property search in Lagos recently,
Jide Odusolu, CEO, Octo5 Holdings Limited, provided further insights into the scale of investments countries other than Nigeria are making in land titling, mapping and registration. “India wants to use drones to map its villages. Ethiopia has registered millions of tracts. Rwanda has mapped and titled all its territory for $7 per parcel, thanks to cheap aerial photography. Studies suggest that titling has boosted agricultural productivity, especially in Asia and Latin America,” he said. Challenges however exist, especially in Nigeria and Africa at large. Odusolu noted that, though the World Bank wants 70 percent of people to have secure property rights by 2030, that is unlikely to happen. He noted further that despite all the efforts, only 30 percent of the world’s people have formal titles today. “In rural sub-Saharan Africa, a dismal 10 percent have formal title while just 22 percent of countries, including only 4 percent of African ones, have mapped and registered the private land in their capital cities,”
he said. He quoted United Nations as saying that as Covid-19 destroys jobs, there has been a global upsurge in evictions and home demolitions, adding that about one billion people, nearly one in five adults, according to another survey, fear they would be evicted within five years, often because they do not formally own the land under their homes. He was of the view that property rights could not work unless the law applied to everyone. “Land is an emotive issue, especially where memories of colonial expropriation still linger. In parts of southern Africa, when a baby is born, its umbilical cord is buried in the ground,” which underscores the importance they attached to land. He noted that the introduction of modern, legally enforceable property rights would always be politically fraught, advising however that reformers must keep up the long, hard slog of recording who owns what, cementing individual property rights in law and building the institutions to uphold them.
Financing structure in housing sector raises concerns as FG’s mass housing delays CHUKA UROKO
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ertain structura l d i s l o cat i o n s in the financing structure for the housing sector have been identified, raising concerns among real estate stakeholders. Correcting these structural dislocations, the stakeholders say, is necessary for the federal government’s planned construction of 300,000 mass housing and rural roads to be effective and also to be able to have the desired positive impact on the sector and the economy as a whole. “Federal government’s decision to build 300,000 houses around the country and also to spend N2 trillion on rural roads construction is a welcome development that will positively impact the economy in various ways,” Femi Akintunde, GMD, Alpha Mead Group, noted. “First, it is a form of reflationary measure that will stimulate economic output through increased spending in housing and infrastructure development. Such investment will create large scale employment, increase
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the stock of housing and the provision of additional road infrastructure that will help to improve connectivity and further ease our logistics challenges,” he added. But he has his concerns as noted above. He advised that any available fund to be provided by the government must be designed in a way that will be targeted to impact the primary mortgage banks directly on the demand side and the real estate developers on the supply side. He reasoned that, unless the developers have access to reasonably priced funding, they will not be able to create sufficient stock of quality mortgageable housing stock that the primary mortgage banks (PMBs) could finance. “Where the developers continue to struggle to produce the houses under the current very harsh and unfavourable economic condition without any form of support from the government, they will produce and sell at the most economically viable price that will not be affordable to an average Nigerian,” he said. Akintunde added that where the purchasing power of the customer @Businessdayng
also remained weak due to challenging economic environment where Nigeria currently finds itself, there will be weak demand that cannot spur the supply. He explained that such weak supply was the cause of instability in the supply chain structure of the real estate industry. “We have to rebuild the system from the bottom up in order to be able to achieve a sustainable growth and development of the housing industry,” he said. He reasoned further that unless there is sufficient liquidity to support the PMBs, they would lack the capacity to create good mortgages for the secondary mortgage institution, the Nigerian Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC), to refinance. “The current situation whereby the NMRC has the fund but is unable to deploy it to refinance mortgages from the PMBs due to their limited capacity to create the mortgages in the first instance is a misnomer and this has to be corrected with every sense of urgency in order for the country to make any meaningful progress towards bridging the wide housing gap that has been identified,” he said.
Tuesday 27 October 2020
BUSINESS DAY
19
Media business EndSARS protest: Donating companies Digital transformation: Measure what matters may deal directly with victims Matthys Esterhuysen
Daniel Obi
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he incidents of hoarding, stockpiling and non-distribution of donated palliatives for Covid-19 in some states may pull-back some companies from partnering with state governments in assisting the victims of endSARS protest. For instance, a source in a multinational company told BusinessDay over the weekend that the company is considering dealing directly with the victims of the protest. He did not directly link the decision of the company to the non-distribution of Covid-19 palliative items as observed in some states, goods which were looted by some Nigerians from warehouses, but said the company’s motive is to create direct impact on the victims of the protest. During the two weeks protest, it was alleged that Nigerian soldiers shot bullets into a crowd of unarmed protesters at Lekki Tollgate, killing certain people, an incident which has attracted international community condemnation. More so, shops and homes of certain individuals were raided with many items
carted away. To assist the victims of the EndSARS protest, Coca-Cola Nigeria, according to a report said it is making a donation of N20 million to cover the medical costs of victims. It was reported that CocaCola Nigeria donation would be supplied in partnership with Whitefield Foundation, its NGO partner “providing support for the injured and those in critical condition. ”The events of the past few days have scarred us all. Our heart goes out to the families
of the fallen and injured, as a result of the recent violence that ensued during the peaceful #ENDSARS protests”, the company said. The warehousing and subsequent looting of Covid-19 palliatives has further raised questions on the management of funds and items donated by individuals and corporate organisations towards alleviating people’s suffering and slowing the spread of the virus. “There is need for an explanation on how funds were
curated, disbursed and the execution managed. The recent discoveries of the stockpiles of palliative items make this a compelling integrity issue”, a source said. In his speech to the nation, President Buhari said that he is “deeply pained that innocent lives have been lost. These tragedies are uncalled for and unnecessary. Certainly, there is no way whatsoever to connect these acts to legitimate expression of grievances of the youth of our country”.
igital is not just a channel; it’s a technology infrastructure that allows brands to better connect with, and understand, their customers. It’s the technologies where brands can interface with consumers, but it’s also the technologies that crunch complex datasets to allow a better understanding of your customer and market. In the new paradigm, future-focused companies are seeking to transform their businesses, routes to market and customer experiences rapidly. A broadly encompassing and extensively used phrase for this is “digital transformation”. Wikipedia defines digital transformation as “the adoption of digital technology to transform services or businesses, through replacing non-digital or manual processes with digital processes or replacing older digital technology with newer digital technology.” But there is something critical missing here. All digi-
tal strategy on a real-time basis. Institute the operational changes necessary to act on data-informed insights. And, of course, build an internal culture that appreciates the value of analytics-based competing. Your goal is to build connected brand ecosystems that use all touchpoints data to effortlessly track and continuously improve the impact of your digital marketing. You can expect improvements in four areas: Processes: Make significant time, resource and financial savings by automating repetitive tasks. Your staff can then focus their time on what’s valuable. Marketing investments: Discover patterns from your results to drive future improvement across channels, products and campaigns and identify ways to improve them. St a f f c a p a b i l i t i e s : A grounding in analytics will help people make decisions with greater confidence and success. Risk management: Iden-
Analysts give explanations to hijack of EndSARS protest by hoodlums
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nalysts have linked the prolonged EndSARS protest and the subsequent hijack by hoodlums to ineffective communication and seemingly absence of leadership among the protesters. It is acknowledged that the protesters had genuine course to end police brutality and enthrone good governance, but the vacuum of absence of leadership among the protesters made it difficult for government to properly engage with them for a meaningful dialogue, says Ehi Braimah, a public relations practitioner. Though there was no proper communication between the government and
the protesters but when the government eventually met the demands of the protesting youth on October 12, 2020, it was expected that any leadership of the youth
would have announced a truce. This did not happen hence the protest continued and was in the process hijacked by hoodlums. To Akonte Ekine, an ana-
lyst based in Lagos, government would have insisted on identifying and engaging the leadership of the protesting youth as “there can’t be a gathering of people without a leadership”. According to him, it was the lack of communication and absence of identifiable leadership that to led to the hijack of the peaceful protest for accountability, good governance and against oppression. In his broadcast to the nation on October 22, 2020, President Buhari acknowledged that the result of the hijack led to loss of human lives, destruction of public and private properties worth billions of Naira
tal transformation should be analytics-led. If you cannot measure what matters, you cannot improve your digital ecosystem, resulting in underperforming digital assets and underutilised digital platforms. Not to mention a lack of clarity as to what is effective about the work that’s working. Is it your brand messaging, creative expression or media strategy? So what should you do about it? Define a data infrastructure that effectively measures the performance of your digi-
tify and mitigate the risks in your marketing to ensure that each campaign is better than the last. An analytics-led ap proach requires a strategy built on an integrated technology stack to manage data governance, data extraction and transformation. This new strategy will empower your team to make better decisions, faster, and improve your return on marketing investment. Outsmart your competition before they outsmart you. Culled from Bizcommunity
Marketing Edge Award: Eagleserve emerges Young Creative Agency of the Year
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agleserve Consultants Limited, an Abuja based brand building and marketing communications firm has emerged as the winner of the Young Creative Agency of the Year Category at the 2020 Marketing Edge Brands and Advertising Excellence Award
held in Lagos recently. The event was organised to celebrate the best innovative minds in the Nigeria Integrated Marketing Communications industry. In his welcome address, the Publisher/Chief Executive Officer of Marketing Edge, John Ajayi described www.businessday.ng
the award as unique with special attractions that were organically planned and designed to reboot, restart and re-energise the social, intellectual and entrepreneurial landscape of the Nigeria IMC industry. ‘’We have watched and monitored these individuals
and agencies very closely in the last few years and can confidently attest to their market leadership, resilience, excellence and above all landmark achievements in their various sectors,’’ he said. Receiving the award, the managing Director of Eagleserve Consultants Limited,
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Prince Shola Rotimi expressed the company’s profound appreciation to the organisers saying that the honour has affirmed the hard work of the agency making significant impact on the business of its clients. ‘’We feel very great and honoured to have been rec@Businessdayng
ognised by Marketing Edge for our contributions to the growth of the Marketing Communication industry. We thank Almighty God for His grace, my team at Eagleserve, you are all wonderful, our clients, we are always indebted to you because you are the reason for our existence
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Tuesday 27 October 2020
BUSINESS DAY
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Tuesday 27 October 2020
BUSINESS DAY
Live @ The Exchanges Market Statistics as at Monday 26 October, 2020
Top Gainers/Losers as at Monday 26 October, 2020 LOSERS
GAINERS Company
Company
Opening
Closing
Change
NASCON
N14.3
N13.1
-1.2
INTBREW
N6.3
N6.01
-0.29
N13.8
N13.7
-0.1
N0.6
N0.54
-0.06
N0.67
N0.62
-0.05
Opening
Closing
Change
FLOURMILL
N23
N24.2
1.2
DANGCEM
N151
N152
1
N5
N5.5
0.5
N4.55
N4.9
0.35
MORISON
N5.4
N5.65
0.25
LIVESTOCK
CUSTODIAN ETI GLAXOSMITH
21
DANGSUGAR
ASI (Points)
28,777.96
DEALS (Numbers) VOLUME (Numbers)
4,235.00 340,804,399.00
VALUE (N billion) MARKET CAP (N Trn)
5.560 15.041
Global market indicators FTSE 100 Index 5,792.01GBP -68.27-1.16%
Nikkei 225 23,494.34JPY -22.25-0.09%
S&P 500 Index 3,382.39USD -83.00-2.40%
Deutsche Boerse AG German Stock Index DAX 12,177.18EUR -468.57-3.71%
Generic 1st ‘DM’ Future 27,401.00USD -788.00-2.80%
Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index 3,251.12CNY -26.88-0.82%
Investors shrugged off protest risks to buy Nigeria stocks
Nigerian Breweries eyes N20bn as Commercial Paper programme opens
Iheanyi Nwachukwu
...now launched in three Series - 9, 10 and 11
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quity investors were upbeat on Monday, ignoring glaring risks of economic slowdown after recent #EndSARS protest hijacked by hoodlums put Nigeria’s businesses on the pedestrian lane. With a number of bellwether stocks expected to release their third-quarter (Q3) 2020 results into the market this week, investors raised bet on stocks like Flour Mills Nigeria Plc, Dangote Cement Plc, Custodian Plc, ETI Plc and GSK Plc. At the close of trading session, the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All-Share Index (ASI) appreciated by 0.28 percent to close at 28,777.96 points from day open low of 28,697.06 points while market
Iheanyi Nwachukwu
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capitalization increased from N14.999 trillion to N15.041trillion. Investors booked N42billion gain at the close of trading session on Monday. Flour Mills rallied most on the Bourse, from N23 to N24.2, adding N1.2 or 5.22percent,
Dangote Cement rose from N151 to N152, adding N1 or 0.66percent; Custodian increased from N5 to N5.5, adding 5okobo or 10percent; ETI advanced from N4.55 to N4.9, adding 35kobo or 7.69percent; while GSK moved up from N5.4 to N5.65, adding 25kobo or
4.63percent. The stock market’s positive year-to-date (YtD) return increased to +7.21percent. In 4,235 deals, equity investors exchanged 340,804,399 units valued at N5.560billion. GTBank, Zenith Bank, Wapic, FBN Holdings and UBA were actively traded.
igerian Breweries Commercial Paper (CP) programme opened today October 26, 2020. Nigerian Breweries had announced the continuation of its N100 billion Commercial Paper (CP) Issuance Programme in a bid to raise up to N20 billion to support its short term funding needs. The CP now launched
MTN Nigeria appoints Karl Toriola as CEO designate …share price unchanged on NSE Iheanyi Nwachukwu
CIS president unfolds agenda for 2020 conference Iheanyi Nwachukwu
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he president, Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS), Olatunde Amolegbe, has unfolded the uniqueness of the Theme for 2020 Stockbrokers’ Conference against the current macroeconomic challenges militating against the country. Barring unforeseen circumstances, the high profile Conference, scheduled for Wednesday, November 4 and Thursday, November 5 by physical and virtual mode, is designed to address some of the fundamental economic challenges in Nigeria. The Conference has the Theme: “Navigating through the Storms-Reenergizing the Economy through
the Capital Market” with numerous sub-themes on contemporary issues in financial market. Responding to media enquiries, the Institute’s President, Olatunde Amolegbe explained that the Conference would sensitize all tiers of government, particularly, the Federal Government to leverage investment opportunities in the capital market to raise medium and long term capital to bridge the mounting infrastructure deficit. “The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated the Nigeria’s fragile economy. The sharp drop in government revenue has made it more difficult for the government to weather the crisis. This resulted to decline in consumption, aggregate demand, investment, net export and increasing govwww.businessday.ng
ernment spending. The Federal Government had to review the budget downwards to N10.8tn. The trend informed our focus on how the Nigerian capital market can assist to bridge the infrastructure deficit and funding gap in the Country. “We believe even with the 29percent allocation to capital expenditure –about N3.4trillion, is not sufficient to bridge the gap given the neglect in the past compared to about $14 billion annual requirement so the capital market via the private sector can provide this support. Our overriding objective for the Conference is to provide direction for both fiscal and monetary authorities to deploy expansionary policies for sustainable growth and development. “Capital market provides better funding op-
tions in terms of cost and tenor, relative to bank loans. Our panelists shall also examine investment options for diversification of portfolios across asset classes and beyond the traditional asset classes. We plan to examine how the proposed CAMA 2020 will benefit the capital market as well as provide context on how The Nigerian Stock Exchange’s Demutualisation shall benefit the capital market stakeholders. “This flagship Conference, the 24th edition and the first hybrid, is unique as the presentations shall generate raw materials for the government’s economic blueprint in this era of tough operating environment. We have invited seasoned speakers from within and outside the country to provide their perspectives on the focus areas.
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in three Series - 9, 10 and 11, the brewer said while notifying investors of a rearrangement of this tranche of its Commercial Paper programme. While Series 9 would be for a tenor of 120 days, Series 10 and 11 would be for 183 days and 240 days respectively, Nigerian Breweries told investors at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). “Other details communicated in the earlier notification of the CP programme remain unchanged”, it said.
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TN Nigeria has informed the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), the investing public and other stakeholders of the appointment of Karl Toriola as chief executive officer designate of MTN Nigeria Communications. His appointment is effective March 1, 2021, providing enough time for an orderly handover. The current CEO, Ferdi Moolman will exit this role with effect from March 1, 2021 and assume a new role as MTN Group Chief Risk Officer. The shares of MTN N Plc remained unchanged at N140 in ongoing remote trading on the Nigerian Bourse. “After a thorough and rigorous selection process, we are delighted
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to welcome Karl back to MTN Nigeria,” said Ernest Ndukwe, chairman of MTN Nigeria. “Recognized throughout the industry as a highly experienced and well regarded business leader, Karl has been a member of MTN family for over 14 years and has an intimate understanding of the telco business. His appointment further reaffirms the company’s commitment to succession planning as well as retaining and developing identified high performing executives. With his rich credentials, I am pleased that Mr Karl Toriola is well-suited to lead MTN Nigeria’s Executive Management team through the next stages of growth in the years ahead”, Ndukwe said. Toriola is currently the vice president: West and Central Africa (WECA), excluding Nigerian and Ghana, a position he assumed in 2016.
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Tuesday 27 October 2020
BUSINESS DAY
Explainer
This is why the young protesters in
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igeria has been rocked in October by some of the biggest protests since military rule ended in 1999, resulting in dozens of deaths and rattling what had been considered a virtually unassailable political establishment. Thousands of hopeless youths have taken To the streets to vent their anger about police brutality by marching, barricading roads and bridges and setting buildings and vehicles alight. The authorities initially struck a conciliatory tone and agreed to policing reforms, but their response has become increasingly heavy handed. In particular, President Muhammadu Buhari has warned that he won’t allow national security to be compromised, raising the stakes for the crisis in Africa’s most populous nation.
2. Are there broader issues at play? Yes. Many young adults complain about feeling marginalized by successive governments. Their grievances include a sub-standard education system and a Lack of job opportunities - a third are jobless and many more underemployed. A lockdown that was imposed in March to curb the spread of the coronavirus shut many businesses and a slump in international oil prices that reduced government revenue have compounded the economic hardship. There is also a huge generational gap: Buhari is 77 and the average age of his cabinet is over 60, yet about 60% of Nigeria’s more than 200 million people are under 30.
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The government says 51 civilians and 18 security force members have been killed in protest related violence. Twelve people died after troops opened fire on crowds that gathered at two sites in Lagos
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1. What are the protests about? The protests erupted in early October after a video circulated on social media that purportedly showed a civilian being killed by the police’s Special Anti- Robbery Squad. Protesters mobilized using social media (hashtag #EndSARS) to press for the unit’s disbandment and for the government to tackle police brutality. The special unit, formed almost two decades ago, made headway in solving some high-profile cases but some of its members have been implicated in extortion and the harassment and killing of innocent people. A report released by the human-rights group Amnesty International in 2016 said the unit systematically tortured detainees to extract confessions and bribes, yet the government failed to take action. An assessment that same year by the International Police Science Association ranked Nigeria as the worst-performing country when it came to the ability of the security bodies to render services.
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3. How has the government responded? Buhari has conceded the protesters have legitimate grievances. He agreed to dismantle the anti-robbery unit and take steps to make the police more accountable, including establishing an independent panel to probe and prosecute all misconduct cases. He also pledged to scale up youth development programs, start a fund to support small- and medium-sized businesses and improve access to credit. At the same time, he alleges the protest campaign has been hijacked by “miscreants and criminals” intent on perpetuating “acts of hooliganism.” 4. How bad is the violence? About 10 of the 36 states have instituted curfews and the army was deployed to help the police maintain order. The government says 51 civilians and 18 security force members have been killed in protest related violence. Twelve people died after troops opened fire on crowds that gathered at two sites in Lagos, the commercial hub, on Oct. 20 in defiance of a state curfew, according to Amnesty International. The state governor confirmed troops used live ammunition against the protesters, but said it hadn’t been definitively established whether they’d killed anyone.
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5. Could Buhari be toppled? It’s unlikely. A former general, Buhari retains the backing of the military, which remains a key power broker in Nigeria. And while some world leaders have condemned the violence, there’s unlikely to be international backing for the ouster of a democratically elected president. The demonstrators also don’t appear to have a clearly defined leadership structure, reducing the likelihood they’ll be able to wage an orchestrated campaign for regime change. 6. How much staying power do the protesters have? Demonstrations largely abated after the Oct. 20 shootings, although unrest has continued to flare in some towns. The protesters have indicated on social media that they aren’t done yet because they don’t trust the government, given that it has reneged on previous commitments. Disenchantment is likely to endure throughout Buhari’s second and final term, which ends in 2023, because the government lacks the money to follow through on its pledges to improve the lot of the youth. 7. How worried should investors be? The scale and duration of the upheaval has spooked the financial markets, as evidenced by declines in the nation’s stocks
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Tuesday 27 October 2020
BUSINESS DAY
23
Nigeria are so angry – Bloomberg
Here is a timeline of how the events have unfolded: October 3 Protests are sparked by a viral video allegedly showing SARS officers killing a young man in the southern Delta state. Authorities claim the video was fake and arrested the man who made it, provoking even more anger. Nigerians take to social media as the hashtag #EndSARS tops the global trends on Twitter, supported by worldfamous Afrobeat pop stars such as Davido and Wizkid.
October 8 Demonstrations across Nigeria start in major cities protesting against the death of the young man killed on October 3. Hundreds of youths gather in central Lagos, holding banners reading “respect for human rights” and “a more equal society”. In capital Abuja, dozens of protesters demonstrate with police forces using tear gas to disperse protesters, as per witness accounts. October 11 Nigeria’s police chief announces the dissolution of SARS after days of widespread demonstrations against police brutalities. Muhammed Adamu, inspector general of police, says the unit will be abolished “with immediate effect”, a decision made “in response to the yearnings of the Nigerian people”. All SARS officers, he says, will be redeployed to other police commands, formations and units. Nevertheless, demonstrators pledge to keep up their campaign seeking justice for victims of police brutality and an overhaul of the security apparatus.
‘ Muhammed
Adamu, inspector general of police, says the unit will be abolished “with immediate effect”, a decision made “in response to the yearnings of the Nigerian people
October 15 As protests intensify, the Nigerian army
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and international bonds. Prior to the protests, the International Monetary Fund forecast that gross domestic product would contract 4.3% this year due to the fallout from the coronavirus. The unrest has further dimmed the outlook, with the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry estimating it had cost about 700 billion naira ($1.8 billion) in lost output over just 12 days. The oil industry -- Africa’s biggest and the mainstay of the economy - hasn’t Been affected, although insurgent groups in the crude-rich delta region have warned they may attack oil and gas facilities if the government fails to meet the protesters’ demands.
releases a statement warning “all subversive elements and troublemakers” and says it “remains highly committed to defend the country and her democracy at all cost”. The Nigerian army adds it “is ready to fully support the civil authority in whatever capacity to maintain law and order and deal with any situation decisively”. October 20 On Tuesday, Nigeria’s security forces are accused of shooting dead demonstrators according to several witnesses, as authorities imposed a curfew while promising an investigation. Amnesty International says it has received “credible but disturbing evidence of excessive use of force occasioning deaths of protesters at Lekki toll gate in Lagos”, adding that it was investigating the killings. At least 12 people were killed, the group claims, adding the death toll was likely to be higher. The Human Rights Watch also confirmed security forces shooting at protesters calling it a “shooting spree”. October 21 Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari makes a long awaited national broadcast, assures justice for victims of brutality, and that the police reforms demanded by the demonstrators were gathering pace. But he failed to even acknowledge the Lekki killings. The United Nations condemns the use of “excessive and disproportionate” force by Nigerian security forces against peaceful protesters. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet urges “Nigerian authorities to take urgent steps to deal decisively with the underlying problem of persistent violations committed by the security forces”. Meanwhile, Governor Babjide SanwoOlu, in an interview to local media reveals the chief of defence staff and chief of army staff called on Wednesday that if required the military, “they will deploy them”. October 22 The African Union Commission chairman strongly condemns deadly violence in Nigeria’s biggest city Lagos and calls on all parties to “privilege dialogue”. Moussa Faki Mahamat “strongly condemns the violence that erupted on 20 October 2020 during protests in Lagos, Nigeria that has resulted in multiple deaths and injuries”, his office says in a statement. October 25 Pope Francis speaking at the Vatican, makes global appeal for prayers for Nigeria The world’s greatest F1 driver Lewis Hamilton calls what happened in Lekki Lagos a gross human rights abuse.
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Tuesday 27 October 2020
BUSINESS DAY
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Tuesday 27 October 2020
BUSINESS DAY
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26 BUSINESS DAY
Tuesday 27 October 2020
NEWS
Hoodlums invade ADP warehouse for palliatives in Kogi ...as journalist shot VICTORIA NNAKAIKE, Lokoja
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uspected hoodlums on Sunday night burgled the Kogi State Agricultural Development Project (ADP) fertiliser warehouse and carted away several goods. This is also as the Sun Newspaper correspondent in the state Kogi, Emmaunel Adeyemi was shot on Monday by yet to be identified security operatives, while monitoring the #EndSARS protests which ro cke d Lokoja, the state capital. It was learnt that the hoodlums invaded the premises of the ADP at ab ou t 7 p m o n Su n d ay with dangerous weapons and overpowered the security personnel on duty. An eye witnessed account said after overpowering the security men, the hoodlums headed for the warehous e, forced it open and carted away bags of fer tilis ers and other items. It took the intervention of armed security operatives to bring the situation under control and arrested some of the hoodlums. William Aya, spokesperson of the Kogi State Police Command, who confirmed the incident to our reporter on Monday, said that the Commissioner of Police, Ayuba Ede visited the scene on Sunday night and also on Monday morning. Aya noted that some suspe cts had b e en arre s t e d , i n v e s t i g a t i o n s commenced and security operatives deployed to the scene to avoid further looting. Kogi State governor, Yahaya Bello has condemned the incident that took place on Sunday night. According to a press statement issued on Monday by the commissioner for information and communicat i o n s, Ki ng s l e y Fa nw o sa i d t h o s e b e h i n d t h e attacked have been arrested by security agents in the state. The statement said “late last night (Sunday night), some armed robbers went to burgle the fertilizer warehouse of t h e Ko g i St at e A D P at Felele, Lokoja. “They stole bags of
fertilisers and agrochemicals, dangling dangerous weapons to scare the secur ity operatives on duty at the ADP. This is considered an attack on the economy of the state as the government has positioned agriculture to drive the state out of the global economic gloom. “However, the ever gallant security operatives in the state swiftly moved to the scene of the crime to ensure prompt arrest of the robbers and recover all the stolen fertilisers and agrochemicals belonging to the Kogi farmer. The fertilisers in the warehouse were reserved for dr y season farming across the state.” Meanwhile, the Sun Newspaper correspondent in the state, Emmaunel Adeyemi was on Monday shot by security operatives while monitoring the #EndSARS protests across Lokoja, the state capital. Security forces were seen in the streets, engaging the protesters who had converged on Zone 8 axis of Lokoja. BusinessDay gathered that protesters numbering over 500 had gathered at the Zone 8 Junction as early as 6.30am chanting solidarity songs with intention to break into one of the warehouses owned by the state. It was further learnt that efforts by the security personnel manning the edifice to push back the protesters proved abortive, leading to reinforcement of security personnel. Sporadic shootings w ere heard across the state capital, as residents including s chool chil dren, journalists scampered to safety. The public relations officer of the Kogi State police command, William Aya has, however, said those who shot the journalist could be the looters who needed free space to perpetuate their nefarious acts. Adeyemi was shot by drive-by security personnel in white colour Hilux van few metres away from his house while on his way to t he N UJ s e c retariat where his other colleagues were being held hostage by the gun shots. He was rushed to an undisclosed private medical facility for attention. www.businessday.ng
Unfortunate turn of #EndSARS protest to dampen FDI inflow possibilities DAVID IBIDAPO
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he unfortunate turn of events last week following the #EndSARS protest which kicked off as a peaceful demonstration shortly after Nigeria’s independence celebration will not only weigh slightly on economic recovery but also shut the doors against Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) in Nigeria, analysts say. Historically, Nigeria has struggled to attract FDI due to a number of factors, of which policy inconsistencies played a major role. FDI, a term that describes when a foreign entity invests in or acquires a business asset in Nigeria, has often been put forward as the panacea to Nigeria’s economic underdevelopment. “The recent happenings in the economy will further put a dent to the perception of foreign investors in regards to safety of their investments. We didn’t really see a bold step from the security agencies in curtailing the impact of the
…amid poor investment climate, infrastructure deficit crisis,” Gbolahan Ologunro, senior research analyst at Cordros Capital Limited. Since 2014, foreign direct investors gradually reduced their exposure to the Nigerian economy according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). In the last 6 years, the value of FDI slumped by approximately 59 percent to $934.34 million from $2.277 billion in 2014. This represents a compounded annual decline by 16 percent in a six year period. In 2014, FDI inflows into Nigeria averaged $569.26 million quarterly, but now, Nigeria can barely account for $260 million in FDI quarterly. In a number of factors, the prolonged state of insecurity in the country played a significant role in demotivating foreign investors to consider Nigeria as an investment destination despite its status as a frontier market with growth potentials and market accessibility. Coupled with recent
destruction of buildings, properties and looting of malls and other market places by hoodlums who took advantage of a leaderless but peaceful protest and unprofessional responses of security personnel, analysts fear that it only creates an uglier image of Nigeria in the eyes of foreign investors. For a country whose economy is broadly unstable given its exposure to swings in crude oil prices, and also experiencing cases of insecurity, Nigeria will struggle in attracting FDI going forward. Since the recovery of the Nigerian economy from the 2016 recession in 2017, FDI has accounted for a meagre 6 percent on the average of total capital imported (TCI) into the country. In 2014, FDI to TCI was 11 percent, 2015 (15%) and 2016 (20%). “An economy like Nigeria with economic and social potential ought to attract more long-term foreign investment. To do so, however, we need to address the underlying
structural bottlenecks that make Nigeria such a difficult country to do business. Insecurity such as what we witnessed last week is one of such bottlenecks,” Harrison Olayinka, an economic analyst told BusinessDay. Poor investment climate characterised by overly stringent or impromptu government policies, bureaucratic bottlenecks for securing permits, and a weak legal framework; Nigeria’s infrastructure deficit especially the absence of stable power and miserable Human Development Index characterised by high poverty, unemployment, and low disposable incomes, are other factors many foreign investors fear shunning Nigeria’s large population. “It is not difficult to see why Nigeria is losing the FDI battle among peers. Many potential investors have opted for other markets like Morocco, Kenya, and South Africa,” Olayinka said.
L-R: Leye Oyebade, AIG Zone II; Bisi Ilaka, chief of staff to Oyo State governor; Rauf Olaniyan, deputy governor; Seyi Makinde, governor, and Debo Ogundoyin, speaker of Oyo State House of Assembly, during the governor’s meeting with traditional rulers, council chairmen and clerics, in Ibadan, yesterday. NAN
Nigerian youths have been abandon - Duke MIKE ABANG, CALABAR
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ormer governor of Cross River State and presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 2019 general election, Donald Etim Duke, has stated that the first thing to do is to heal the wounds of the bruised youths before any meaning progress can be made in Nigeria. Duke stated this while speaking to journalists at his residence in Calabar after assessing the level of damage in Calabar metropolis on Sunday. According to the former governor “the older generation who had been leading the country since 1999 need the forgiveness of the youths, adding that the
trust deficit must be bridged in a bid to regain their confidence once again to be able to forge ahead as a nation”. Duke asserted that Nigerian youths were badly bruised and their scares must be healed first before talking of forging ahead. “The youths have been neglected for too long, and they watch us their leaders display opulence in the face of deprivation and wants. Our youths must be well taken care of. The youths are telling us something not in words but in actions, they are speaking in their own manner because people speak differently, some speak in parables too. The youths have to forgive us first, because we are the ones who are managing their resources and they are telling
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us that our management is poor, they cannot be silenced any longer, they must be heard. “If there is right to life, then there must be right to livelihood, giving them a job or engaging them is not a privilege but a right”. There is a trust deficit between the people especially the youths and the government. Our democracy is 21 years already, we can’t wait to be fools at 40,” he explained. The former governor further stated that “Nigeria is in a situation where the rich cannot sleep because the poor cannot eat.” “We have always warned that Nigeria was seating on a keg of gun powder. From this moment we must be very sincere with the people. We must mean what we say and say what we mean.” @Businessdayng
“The youths feel cheated because the older generation had better opportunities at their age The youths need to know that we are listening to them, the youths should be able to hold us accountable. The engagement of the youths is pivotal to any meaningful progress. A huge percentage of our youths are idle. In fact, over 80 percent of them, because when you see someone carting away used toilet seat then there is a big problem. “Television sets can be replaced, cars can be replaced, but a bruised mind is very dangerous to handle, young people are beginning to ask questions and if the youths feel your statements are empty, they will not take you serious anymore,” Duke said.
Tuesday 27 October 2020
BUSINESS DAY
27
NEWS
Lagos #EndSARS judicial panel member faults S/West governors, ministers
Again, army warns against plot to distabilise Nigeria
...says evidence at Lekki tollgate tampered with …urges Sanwo-Olu to promote panel’s independence
GODSGIFT ONYEDINEFU, Abuja
JOSHUA BASSEY
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bun-Olu Adegboruwa, a senior advocate of Nigeria, has faulted governors and ministers from the Southwest geo-political zone for visiting the Lekki tollgate and tampering with evidence that could aid investigation into the shooting that occurred at the tollgate last week. Adegboruwa, a human right activist, is a member of the Judicial Panel of Enquiry set up by the Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Ol to investigate complaints of police brutality which triggered the #EndSARS protests that spread across Nigeria and beyond. The panel has an extended mandate to unearth circumstances surrounding the shooting of the #EndSARS protesters on Tuesday, October 20, at the Lekki tollgate, by suspected operatives of the Nigerian Army. The panel which was inaugurated on Monday, October 19, began its sitting yesterday at the International Court of Arbitration, Lekki, with members of the public who have
been abused or violated by the police, expected to formally lodge complaints and tender evidences. But Adegboruwa before the inaugural sitting yesterday, faulted the Southwest governors and ministers, who were at the Lekki tollgate on Sunday, October, 25. The senior lawyer particularly picked fault with the minister of works and housing, Babatunde Fashola’s decision to remove a hidden camera from the scene that was under investigation by the panel. Adegboruwa in a statement titled ‘BRF Tampers With Evidence’ made available to newsmen, stated that the governors/ ministers’ visit and removal of the camera from the scene was an act to distort facts and they have impeded the panel responsibility. Other scenes visited by the Southwest governors/ ministers led by the governor of Ondo State, Rotimi Akeredolu, include the Lagos High Court, the State DNA & Forensic Centre, the Nigerian Ports Authority headquarters, Marina.
Adegboruwa appealed to the Lagos State governor, Sanwo-Olu to hands-off from the committee activities and accord it full autonomy as promised at the inauguration. he said: “On Sunday, October 25, 2020, it was widely publicised that ministers and governors of the Southwest visited the governor of Lagos State on a sympathy tour of structures affected by the wanton looting and destruction that took place last week. In the course of their visit, they were led to the Lekki toll plaza, to assess the situation thereat. “It was at the same Lekki toll plaza that the incident of alleged shooting of EndSARS protesters was said to have taken place. And based on public outcry, the governor of Lagos State added the Lekki toll plaza incident to the terms of reference of the Judicial Panel that was set up. “Since the panel has been vested with jurisdiction over the Lekki toll plaza, I verily believe that it is illegal for anyone else to conduct any visit to the said
Lekki toll plaza in the absence of and without the authority and consent of the panel. It was reported that in the course of the visit, the former governor of Lagos State and the minister of works and housing, Babatunde Fashola, discovered a hidden camera, which he took. This is a clear case of illegally tampering with exhibits that may become useful to the Panel in the course of its assignment. “I appeal to the governor of Lagos State to allow the panel the full autonomy and independence that was promised at the time of inauguration. It is contempt of the Panel for anyone to usurp the powers of the panel in the way that has been reported. In this regard, the Panel will not shy away from summoning anyone who is alleged to be involved in any contemptuous act that may obstruct the course of justice. “I call on all Nigerians to come up with their complaints before the Panel for proper ventilation, as it begins its sitting today”, he added.
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ollowing the violence that follow e d the #EndSARS peaceful protest across the country and the attending looting spree, the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Tukur Buratai has again warned that the army will not allow subversive elements to destabilise the peace and stability of Nigeria. T h e C O A S d i re c t e d Principal Staff Officers (PSOs), General Officers Commanding (GOC) and Field Commanders (FCs) to respond decisively to any act of arson or attempt to kill or maim any military or security personnel. Buratai, who stated this after a meeting with PSOs, GCOs and FCs at the army headquarters, Abuja, restated his loyalty to President Muhammadu Buhari. Buratai also warned the
Expert sees outsourcing as alternative to grow SMEs post COVID-19 KELECHI EWUZIE
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Osagie Ehanire (l), minister of health, and Godwin Obaseki, governor, Edo State, inspecting the government warehouse breached on Medical Stores Road, Benin City, storing palliatives and medical supplies.
#EndSARS: US based Nigerian IT specialists slam FG, military over Lekki attack MARK MAYAH
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igerian Information Technology professionals based in the United States have joined the growing condemnation trailing last Tuesday’s alleged shooting of #EndSARS protesters at the Lekki Tollgate, in Lagos. President of the American-based Nigeria-US IT Network, Michael Oriade, described the attack by the military against unarmed peaceful protesters as condemnable, reprehensible, and criminal. In a statement titled, “Condemnation of Shooting of Peaceful #EndSARS Pro-
testers,” the group lamented that the protesters conducted themselves peacefully and did not deserve to be subjected to the violence witnessed at the scene. “The Nigeria-US IT Network Inc. vehemently condemns the reprehensible action of the government and military authorities of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which resulted in the death and injury of several of the protesters,” Oriade said, adding that, “We identify with the courageous youths and commiserate with the families and friends of the fallen heroes.” According to Oriade, the protesters had been exerwww.businessday.ng
cising their constitutionally-guaranteed rights with utmost decorum and the security apparatus should offer them protective cover rather shooting at them. “As the world observed, the protesters were peaceful and well organised in their conduct and did not pose any threat that could warrant the soldiers’ unleashing of violence against them,” the IT group pointed out. Recalling the words of the famous civil rights activist, Martin Luther King Jr., the group stressed that the Lekki tragedy could not but provoke the humanity in people everywhere. “The late Martin Luther
King said, ‘injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.’ ” The group expressed commitment to supporting Nigerian youth with initiatives that would help build their capacity in the information technology space. The Nigeria-US IT Network Inc. expressed confidence in the youths’ ability to build a dream Nigeria should the right atmosphere be provided, pointing out that, “This is all they have asked for in this protest.”
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PSOs, GOCs and FCs that there would be no room for disloyalty amongst all officers and soldiers of the Nigerian Army (NA). Buratai also alerted the PSOs, GOCs, and FCs that “The recent activities by unscrupulous elements have shown their desire to acquire arms and ammunition at all cost from security personnel. No less than 10 AK-47 rifles have been lost to these miscreants in the past 2 weeks across the country with attendant loss of lives of personnel. He charged the commanders to nip in the bud this emerging trend at all cost, and directed them to warn their troops on internal security or on guard duties outside the barracks to be at maximum alert at all times and to also deal decisively with any attack on their duty locations”.
he adoption of outsourcing as a strategic business plan would optimise profitability for owners of small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) in the new normal, Olufemi Ogunlowo, group managing, Strategic Outsourcing Limited (SOL), has said. Ogunlowo obser ved that by entering into a human resource outsourcing agreement with a professional service firm, owners of SMEs can easily liberate their business from the burden and exposure to the risk associated with statutory and regulatory compliance demands while retaining the benefits of keeping their workforce intact. Ogunlowo while speaking at SOL Business Series 1.0 hosted virtually, offered constructive and strategic insights on processes business executives can adopt in their operations to reduce overheads. Ogunlowo in the 90-minute session with the theme ‘reducing cost and optimising business output in the new normal’ noted that human resource outsourcing was an efficient way business owners can adopt to keep the same workforce and maintain the same wage bill while eliminating @Businessdayng
unproductive cost factors embedded in the HR process. He further noted that outsourcing was a smart strategy for a business, adding that it enhances the effectiveness of operations by collaborating with professional service firms to retain value and at the same time shed the risk and burden that comes from bearing all your processes internally. “As a reputable business process outsourcing firm with over a decade long experience in offering personnel outsourcing and payroll administration services to small and medium businesses as well as large corporations, SOL is specifically suited to relieve you of the burden and risks associated with HR, Payroll Administration and Personnel related business functions”, Ogunlowo said. Busola Oyebadejo, one of the participants lauded the company for the decision to put together the training as a means of empowering SMEs owner with skills to navigate the business terrain post Covid-19. Oyebadejo observed that the session had excellent attendance and offered participants the opportunity to contribute intellectually, adding that topical issues such as payroll administration, accounting, sales and marketing and office space were elaborately discussed.
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Tuesday 27 October 2020
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news MTN Nigeria appoints Karl Toriola as CEO designate
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TN Nigeria on Monday announced the appointment of Karl Toriola as CEO designate. His appointment is effective March 1, 2021, providing enough time for an orderly handover. Toriola is currently the vice president, West and Central Africa (WECA), excluding Nigeria and Ghana, a position he assumed in 2016. During that period, he has overseen the steady progress of the operating companies in the region, notably the turnaround of MTN Ivory Coast and MTN Cameroon. During his tenure, the WECA markets have made significant commercial and strategic strides. These include the improvement of market shares within the region and the development of mobile financial services. Since joining the Group in 2006, Toriola has also held a number of senior operational roles including Chief Technical Officer of MTN Nigeria, CEO of MTN Cameroon and MTN Group operations executive. Toriola has at various times in his career in MTN Group had oversight responsibility of 16 of the Group subsidiaries and serves on various MTN boards, including MTN Nigeria. Prior to joining MTN Nigeria, he was the chief operations/regional officer for Vmobile Nigeria (now Airtel Nigeria), where he was responsible for operations. Toriola obtained a Bachelor of Science in Electronic
Ghana outpaces Nigeria in foreign direct investments first half of 2020
… despite having an economy 7 times smaller STEPHEN ONYEKWELU
and Electrical Engineering from the University of Ife, a Master of Science degree in Communication Systems from the University of Wales, and attended the General Management Programme in Harvard Business School. In addition, he has attended several executive development courses at various institutions including Wharton Business School, Harvard Business School, Institute of Management Development and London Business School. He is a Fellow, Nigerian Society of Engineers (FNSE) and Council of Registered Engineers of Nigeria (COREN) as well as a member, Institute of Directors. After a thorough and rigorous selection process, we are delighted to welcome Karl back to MTN Nigeria,” Ernest Ndukwe, chairman of MTN Nigeria, said. “Recognised throughout the industry as a highly experienced and well regarded business leader, Karl has been a member of the MTN family for over 14 years and has an intimate understanding of the telco business. His
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hana may have an economy seven times smaller than Nigeria’s but the West African country has raked in two times more foreign direct investments (FDIs) than Africa’s biggest economy in the first half of 2020. With a gross domestic product (GDP) of $67.077 billion, Ghana has recorded total investment of $869.47 million, with total FDIs value amounting to $785.62 million between January and June 2020, as FDI inflow showed rare strength in the final moments of the second quarter of the year, undeterred by the Covid-19 pandemic. The total FDI of $785.62 million represents investment recorded by the Ghana
Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) and the Petroleum Commission. The seemingly positive performance of FDI inflows to the country has been to an extent attributed to the gradual easing of the Covid-19 restrictions as well as government initiatives and incentives rolled out to buffer businesses and the economy at the height of the pandemic. For the same period, however, Nigeria with a GDP of $446.543 billion attracted $362.84 million in FDIs. This represents a 29.70 percent drop from $470.51 million in the corresponding period of 2019 (H1’19), this highest Year-on-Year, (YoY) decline in the last three years. Development economists and financial analysts attribute the development in
FDI in H1’20 to the sharp decline in crude oil earnings and negative impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the global economy. Worldwide, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has estimated that the Covid-19 pandemic would send global FDI plunging by about 40 percent - driving the total value of FDI below $1 trillion for the first time since 2005. Despite a sluggish start in the first quarter of 2020 and a worrying slump in the beginning of the second quarter due to severe lockdown measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus, FDIs to Ghana have begun to rebound resulting in a notable increase in FDI inflow for the first half of the year. At the GIPC, a total of 69 projects with a total estimated
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ash strapped Nigerians are in for tougher times ahead on the back of rising food cost and other essential items further aggravated by the EndSARS protest, which took an unexpected turn and gave room for hoodlums to loot stores and malls thereby wreaking havoc on many businesses. The effect being, further erosion in the purchasing power of households. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) report for September, released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in October, revealed that the country’s inflation rate rose to 13.71 percent. However, on the back of a threeweek old protest, analysts fear that Nigeria may experience a faster increase in inflation numbers month-on-month. “Momentum of inflationary pressures may become faster than initially expected in October, when you consider the impact of the civil unrest on the movement of goods from the Northern part of the country to the Southern region. Major foods items will likely record faster increase in prices of food items,” Gbola-
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Unrest, looting to accelerate inflation pressures, worsen households’ purchasing power DAVID IBIDAPO & GBEMI FAMINU
value of $688.74 million were recorded by the end of June 2020. Of this, the total FDI component amounted to $627.52 million while local component accounted for an estimated $61.22 million. The FDI value of $627.52 million was a considerable increase of about 409.10 percent from last year’s FDI value of $123.26 million recorded within the same period (JanJun 2019), depicting a strong performance irrespective of the global pandemic. Out of the 69 projects recorded, the services sector registered a majority of 25 projects followed by the manufacturing and export trade sector with 21 and 11 projects, respectively. With regards to value, general trading recorded the
han Ologunro, senior research analyst at Cordros Capital, told BusinessDay. Prior to the protest, the economy was already suffering from insufficient supply of food items locally as the border closure exercise was still ongoing, the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic that saw the Federal Government impose lockdown measures across several states further aggravated the availability of food items with a consequential effect of higher prices of food items. Now, the looting and destruction of malls, banks and shops, especially in Lagos, the commercial hub of Nigeria, and other states will mean shortage in supplies of goods, increased cost of getting back in business. All of these passed down to customers in form of higher prices. “The recent destruction of malls, markets will further affect prices as operators of shopping malls, markets might be scared of reopening their outlets and the few available outlets are likely to see increased demand as people begin to scramble for other stores where these products are available, and that might put upward pressure on prices,” Ologunro said. www.businessday.ng
Commercial activities return to Idumota Market on Lagos Island, after the #EndSARS protest in Lagos, yesterday.
N240bn debt: AMCON, Pan Ocean reach out-of-court settlement ISAAC ANYAOGU
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sset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) and Pan Ocean Oil Corporation Nigeria Limited have agreed to an out-of-court settlement pending the consent of a Federal High Court over a N240-billion debt to a consortium of Nigerian banks. The consent of the Federal High Court will end the debt dispute between AMCON, Pan Ocean and other syndicate of lenders. Pan Ocean and subsidiaries took the loan facility from a syndicate of Nigerian banks to finance their various businesses including the development of Oil Prospecting Licences, Oil Mining Licences, construction of the 200mmscf/day OvadeOgharefe Gas Processing Plant and construction of the 67km, 20” Amukpe-Escravos
Oil Pipeline. Some of the projects partly funded by Pan Ocean with proceeds of the loans are ground-breaking and will significantly boost infrastructure in the Nigeria oil and gas industry. The projects include the Amukpe-Escravos pipeline, a 67-kilometre 20-inch, low-risk underground pipeline that will evacuate crude oil from Amukpe-Escravos export terminal, with a delivery capacity of 160,000 barrels of crude oil per day. Pan Ocean also invested in the development of other oil and gas assets, including a PSC awarded in 2007, which is currently producing an estimated 45mmscf and 3,400bopd. AMCON and Pan Ocean have been in court for a number of years but early this month, both parties, desirous of a positive outcome resorted
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to an out-of-court settlement. According to AMCON, this decision was in line with its role as a resolution vehicle to help stabilise and revitalise the Nigerian banking system and economy. Confirming the settlement, Pan Ocean’s management remarks that the settlement is welcomed and allows the businesses to focus on its core operations. “We acknowledge the effort of Pan Ocean and related companies to transform the oil and gas industry, and are committed to ensuring that the divestment reduces the gearing level of the organisation, while supporting Pan Ocean towards its goal of continued financial health,” senior officials at AMCON states. AMCON further notes that the agreement with Pan Ocean reflects her commitment to support Nige@Businessdayng
rian companies with a proven business case to remain afloat in the face of macro-economic challenges. Established almost 50 years ago, Pan Ocean is one of the original seven companies with which the Federal Government of Nigeria, through the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), signed participation agreements in 1979. Pan Ocean has remained committed to the development of the oil and gas industry in the country, through extensive investment in assets to support oil and gas production and communities and local content policy implementation. Pan Ocean Oil Corporation was also the first Nigerian oil company to eliminate gas flaring under the Kyoto Protocol, and earn carbon credits for the Federal Government of Nigeria.
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News Why Access Bank launches N50bn fund... Continued from page 1
small businesses that fell
victim to attacks by hoodlums last week because of its sense of duty to help budding Nigerian entrepreneurs get back on their feet. The innovative fund was first unfolded Saturday by Access Bank plc’s CEO Herbert Wigwe in a telephone call with BusinessDay, as the bank’s response to the heart wrenching experience of small businesses that were looted by hoodlums during the EndSARS protest. According to Roosevelt Ogbonna, Access Bank’s deputy CEO, “As one of Nigeria’s largest businesses serving every part of our society, it is our responsibility and duty to make a difference. Some of these up-coming businesses are also our customers. “Corporates cannot simply stand by and send messages of solidarity and then go back to ‘business as usual’ without helping get their customers and communities back on-track.” He explained, “Supporting business, large and small, is in our DNA and in recent years we have seen entrepreneurial spirit that filled us with hope and confidence about the future. “Our young technology entrepreneurs have been building businesses that are celebrated globally and we have seen SMEs flourish and innovate across the country. “There has been a setback on this journey and we feel their hurt and that of our nation. We are committed to restarting these businesses quickly, but even more importantly to ensure we come out of this stronger and we are more successful together.” On how the fund will work, the deputy CEO, said, “We have set aside a minimum of N50 billion (through interest-free loans and grants) to support the rebuilding of businesses and to bring greater opportunities. “It will support our micro, small and medium sized businesses who employ most Nigerians and feed and educate our children.” The fund will be used to support the communities we live in, the people who protect us and the spaces that we need as communities to thrive. “We are keen to support our young population who represent the future and hope for our nation,” he said. A set of criteria for eligibility for the fund is being worked out and should be ready late Monday, and subsequently it is expected that application can be completed from end to end in 72 hours. Reacting to the development, Uju Ogubunka, president, Bank Customers Association of Nigeria (BCAN) said on phone, “Let them come up with the guidelines then we will know whether they are being realistic or not.” However, some of the affected businesses have indicated interest in the fund, while analysts in the financial ser-
vices sector have commended the bank for the move. An official at one of the branches of Spar who wishes to be anonymous noted that they would be interested in the loan but that their head office would be the one to have the final say on it. “The N50 billion interestfree loan scheme of Access Bank for businesses affected by the EndSARS crisis is highly commendable,” said Uche Uwaleke, professor of capital market and president Capital Market Academics of Nigeria. The move is quite exemplary and a demonstration of empathy on the part of the bank, Uwaleke said, saying other banks should borrow a leaf from this great show of corporate social responsibility. Extending this kind gesture in the form of reduced interest rate and moratorium to those who already borrowed money should equally be considered, he said. “There is no doubt that the implementation of this plan will be at a cost to the bank. This cost should be borne by the shareholders ultimately and not the customers by way of higher bank charges. It is the responsibility of the CBN to ensure that deposit money banks, as financial intermediaries, do not give with one hand and take with another,” Uwaleke said further. Responding to BusinessDay’ question, Ayodele Akinwunmi, relationship manager, corporate banking, FSDH Merchant Bank Limited, said, “I think it is a good gesture from the bank to assist businesses affected by the crisis to recover faster by offering financial assistance to the affected businesses.” The strategy will also help the bank to win new customers because customers will see them as bank that can stand with them even in crisis, he said, and in the long run, it is a win-win for both parties and the economy.
L-R: Femi Gbajabiamila, speaker, House of Representatives; Babajide SanwoOlu, governor, Lagos State, and Abiodun Faleke, member, House Representatives, during the visit of the speaker and some members of the House of Representatives to Lagos State governor, to condemn the violence and destruction of properties by hoodlums.
#EndSARS: Investors re-price insurance... Continued from page 1
(59.65%).
Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, said the state would need N1 trillion for reconstruction after the destruction caused by hoodlums who hijacked the #EndSARS protests. Insurance sector operators said the losses, expected to be the highest in the history of insurance business in Nigeria, follow the wanton damage to properties of both government and private businesses during the protest. Operators expect claims may be so huge and capable of swallowing the industry if government fails to support in helping to meet claims obligations, expected to be in billions of naira, at a time the sector is embarking on a recapitalisation exercise. Aside from the number of people that lost their lives or got injured who may claim from health insurance, public and government assets razed, shopping malls looted and vandalised, private businesses looted and vandalised, as well
MTN Nigeria appoints Karl Toriola as CEO... Continued from page 30
appointment further reaffirms the company’s commitment to succession planning as well as retaining and developing identified high performing executives. With his rich credentials, I am personally pleased that Mr. Karl Toriola is well-suited to lead MTN Nigeria’s executive management team through the next stages of growth in the years ahead,” he said. The current CEO of MTN Nigeria, Ferdinand Moolman, will exit this role with effect from March 1, 2021, and assume a new role as MTN Group chief risk officer. Moolman joined MTN in 2002 and has held several senior positions within the Group, in Nigeria and Iran. He joined the Board of MTN Nigeria in 2014 as chief financial officer and became CEO in 2015. Under his leadership, significant progress has www.businessday.ng
been made in stabilising the business and setting it on a sustainable growth path. He will remain on the Board of MTN Nigeria in his new role as the MTN Group Chief Risk Officer. “The Board of MTN Nigeria wishes to express its gratitude to Ferdi for his exemplary leadership. He has played a critical role in the Company’s development and success, and while we will miss him, we wish him the best in his new role at MTN Group,” Ndukwe said. In response, Moolman said, “I wish to thank the Board of Directors, Management, our dedicated shareholders and my amazing team, for all of the support you have given me through the years. I am proud of the people of MTN Nigeria and the Company we are building; and while this is a time of great challenge and opportunity, I remain steadfastly confident
as private residences and businesses of politicians that were also affected, have claims to make from insurance. The #EndSARS loss incident is covered in insurance under policies that extend to riot and civil commotion. So, fire and burglary or commercial property insurance, if extended, covers damage that results from vandalism, rioting and civil commotion. These policies specifically include coverage for acts of looting in connection with a riot or civil commotion. “Despite the heat in the socio-political landscape triggered by the degeneration of the #ENDSARS protests, we do not expect a material dent to investors’ appetite for stocks,” Cordros research analysts said. “We reiterate that pent-up system liquidity and the hunt for alpha-yielding opportunities in the face of increasingly negative real returns in the fixed income market remain positive for stocks. However, we advise investors to trade in only fundamentally justified stocks as the weak macro enin the greater potential and future of this nation and the significance of our role within it. It has been my honour and privilege to serve this great Company. I am grateful for my time here and the supportive relationships built over time.” Commenting on his new appointment,Toriolasaid,“Iam delightedtobereturningtoserve in my country at such a critical point in history when the services we provide are so important to our national development. MTNNigeriaisagreatcompany with exceptional people and extraordinary customers, who place a high value on those services. I have a clear focus on delivering a stellar network experience and enhanced customer service; and look forward to working with an outstanding group of leaders, in and out of government, over the coming years to continue harnessing our capabilities, transforming our relationships and delivering even greater value to our nation and her people.”
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vironment remains a significant headwind for corporate earnings,” the analysts said. Meanwhile, the Nigerian equities market had defied the uncertainty surrounding the ongoing civil unrest to deliver its fifth consecutive weekly gain. “This week, we expect more earnings to come in and investors will continue to cherry pick on stocks,” United Capital analysts said. Vetiva research analysts said with investors cherry picking attractive counters across sectors, the All Share Index (ASI) maintained its positive performance while neutralising the effect of declines in the insurance sector, even as local institutional investors continue to take positions in the market. “With a number of bellwether stocks expected to release their third-quarter (Q3) 2020 results into the market this week, we expect the market to be largely directed by the expected earnings results. We also believe the unattractive yield in the fixed income (FI) market will continue to redirect funds into the equities market. However, due to the persistent uncertainties in the
global and domestic space, a cautious trading strategy is still recommended in the short term,” Vetiva analysts said. Meristem research analysts said the unrest across the country seemed to dampen investors’ confidence at some point last week, adding, however, that the imposition of curfews across states which served as the hotbed of protests restored calm to the nation. “The financial system remains robust with liquidity contributing to the continued uptick in the equities market. In addition, the low yield in the fixed income space and the dearth of attractive investment opportunities should stimulate buying interests in fundamentally sound stocks. Against this backdrop, we expect the market to close in the positive zone this week,” they said. With more mixed Q3 earnings results expected this week, GTI Research analysts said they see the market “sustaining the current positive trend, albeit at a modest pace, owing mainly to the high system liquidity and low yield environment in the fixed income space”.
Ghana outpaces Nigeria in foreign direct ... Continued from page 30
highest amount of $246.05 million. This was tailed closely by the mining exploration sector with $231.02 million, having sealed some major investments such as the Chirano Goldmine project for the exploration of minerals. The manufacturing sector also saw significant investments valued at $170.67 million on the back of some notable ventures such as a deal by Matrix Industries for the manufacture of paper and aluminium products as well as the Rainbow Paints Limited project, which is a joint venture between Ghana and Kenya for the manufacturing of paints and related products. Meanwhile,additionalequitytotalling$11.56millionwasreinvested by existing companies within the first half of the year, while a total of GHC1,365.26 @Businessdayng
million was recorded as investment from 28 wholly-owned Ghanaian businesses. Regardless of the upbeat performance, the UNCTAD predicts that FDI will continue to see a decline of 5-10 percent in 2021 with a slow recovery to be initiated in 2022, driven by restructuring of global value chains and a general rebound of the global economy. In this regard, the GIPC remains cautiously optimistic about the flow of FDI to Ghana. That notwithstanding, the Centre plans to assiduously pursue worthwhile investments for economic development as well as support government initiatives such as the Covid-19 Alleviation and Revitalisation of Enterprises Support (CARES) Programme to help bolster the Ghanaian economy towards recovery and remain resilient pre and post-pandemic.
Insight
BUSINESS DAY Tuesday 27 October 2020 www.businessday.ng
#EndSARS: A National “Conversation” for A Better Nigerian State ’Funmi Olonisakin
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EndSARS was waiting to happen. Brought on by the weight of history; a dialogue of the deaf between Nigeria’s governing elite and the governed about how the latter experience (in)security; and the deficit of new ideas to convene and govern our collective aspirations, #EndSARS symbolises a deep structural problem. At its core is the question whether there is a shared vision of security between the governing elite and a cross-section of Nigerian society. The Lekki shootings on 20 October 2020 only entrenched citizens’ distrust in the institutions meant to protect them from fear of violence. In the light of our recent tragedies, I offer, here, several proposals for moving away from this precipice into a new national security conversation that could lead to a renegotiated and better Nigeria. For too long, Nigeria’s governing elite presumed to be in conversation with citizens, imposing their security vision as security and justice for ALL; whereas, in practice, the elite conversed with itself; while fellow citizens talked back in various ways, using music, theatre, violence, and sometimes silence and disengagement. In the last two weeks, we witnessed Nigeria’s youth talk back through constructive protest; and the governing class responded through a confusing combination of verbal commitment, silence and violence. In turn, other groups of (severely deprived) youth announced their presence through spasms of mindless violence across the country. #EndSARS will persist because there is no alternative for either side to pursue. Since we cannot continue to suffer the various unintended consequences that have followed the actions and inactions of both sides, we must reflect and start a new national conversation. As we do so, it is important to understand how we got here. The Weight of History Historical baggage accompanies Nigeria’s security crisis. It goes back to the central tenets of colonial security thinking as well as the organising logic of state-centred security during the Cold War era. Colonial powers used the police to subjugate local African populations and extract taxes. Many post-colonial African countries, including Nigeria, retained the same adversarial colonial security apparatus. Subsequently, in the Cold War environment into which African countries emerged at independence, the state, not the people, became the reference point. With the end of the Cold War, Nigerians could demand for the first time that their leaders recognise their vision of security and respect their dignity. We have had many chances to prioritise citizen security since 1999 but issues concerning policing and police oversight were pushed to the back burner for
too long. The language of peoplefocused security – human security – entered our security discourse but did not translate into real change on the ground toward the protection of ordinary people. This was because successive Nigerian governments saw security, particularly police control and oversight, influenced by decades of military government, as too vital to lose a grip on. An Inaudible Conversation The governing elite and the people have been conversing about security in parallel universes. Each facet – the meaning of security, its translation and experience – is seen in diametrically opposed light . For too long, security was framed to secure the defence of the state and the protection of privileged elite and their networks from fear of violence. The vast majority of citizens, who are not under the umbrella of elite protection and who cannot afford to pay for protection are therefore doomed to suffer at hands of the police.
The Nigerian youth of this century are alive to this reality. Ongoing research at the African Leadership Centre indicates that the human condition in Nigeria is the primary security concern of its youth. They define security as “living well” and “living long”, a view clearly at odds with the state and elite-centric approach to security. Even then, we see how insecurity persists. For one group, living well means “being healthy; living with no fear of danger and lack; and fulfilling life goals with benefit to others”. Yet, for another, living well means “living large”; and “having the power and means to do whatever I want”. So, the pursuit of the personal aspirations of a relatively small group of people can create existential threats for a larger group. This is Nigeria’s story. In 2019, the new National Security Policy, uncharacteristically, but appropriately, highlighted a range of security concerns to Nigerian citizens, from kidnapping to poverty
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Ongoing research at the African Leadership Centre indicates that the human condition in Nigeria is the primary security concern of its youth. They define security as “living well” and “living long”, a view clearly at odds with the state and elite-centric approach to security
and unemployment, that went beyond the usual state-centred paradigm. Clearly, the lessons of Boko Haram and the range of internal security threats faced by this and preceding governments opened the window to an expanded perspective of security. In 2020, a new Police Act was assented to by President Buhari. Yet, translating the National Security Policy and the new Police Act into real change for citizens had neither occurred nor showed signs of occurring before #EndSARS happened. So, control of the Nigeria Police Force (its anachronistic surname established by the 1999 Constitution is yet to change, unfortunately) is still centralised in the hands of one individual – the Inspector General of Police. Given the overlapping functions between the IGP, the Police Council and the Police Service Commission (which, like the Police Council, is a constitutional body, yet is not even mentioned in the Police Act), effective oversight of the Nigerian Police is lost. So, who polices the Police? Is it the President, the Police Service Commission or the National Assembly? To add to the uncertainty, the Court of Appeal recently ruled that parts of the new Act are in conflict with the 1999 Constitution’s provisions on the Police Service Commission. Failure to clearly define the limits of the IGP’s authority and the proper supervision and oversight of the Police by the appropriate authority condemns ordinary Nigerians to prospects of abuse without redress. Two important points of contention must be immediately addressed. First is the conflict in the constitutional responsibilities of the Police Council as against those of the Police Service
Commission, which is compounded the provisions of the Police Act that seems to have created a statutory Ministry of Police Affairs without saying so directly. Four poles of both constitutional and statutory responsibility now exist between the Police Council, the Police Service Commission, the Ministry of Police Affairs and the Inspector-General of Police. The second point concerns the debate about states control of policing. This is a real challenge for the mindset of Nigeria’s Federal Government that historically has been so nervous about devolving authority and responsibility away from Abuja. Convening Citizens’ Aspirations into a New National Security Conversation The way forward requires acceptance by the government and the people that there is need for a radical transformation in the security situation of Nigeria. The journey begins by transforming the conversation brought about by #EndSARS rather than side-stepping it. This is the best way for Nigeria’s leaders and their fellow citizens to envision a common future, and plan from that future to begin a new conversation. Five elements of this new security conversation present themselves: • Unveiling the TRUTH about this week’s shootings in Lekki and other places is an important starting point for regaining the trust of citizens in their leaders. Truth along with a public apology from Nigeria’s leaders can have a transforming effect. • Keeping the President’s and Governors’ promise to bring SARS perpetrators to book. In this effort, representatives of youth coalition with relevant expertise should be granted observer status in the inquiries at a minimum. • In the absence of amending the Police Act, 2020, an administrative rule, established jointly by the Police Council and the Police Service Commission and embodied in an Executive Order by the President, that addresses the overlapping functions of the IGP with the Police Service Commission and the Ministry of Police Affairs (which may be seen as the executive arm of the Police Council), is vitally important. • Providing legitimate space for an extended national security conversation that opens conversable spaces at all levels of society for Nigerians to project a collective vision of security and governance. This cannot be a closed-door process by a handful of elites. • Organise a referendum to allow Nigerians an opportunity to make a choice from the best ideas that emerge from the National Security Conversation. This will give Nigerians a collective sense of belonging rather than a perception of life in two parallel universes.
• ’Funmi Olonisakin is Professor of Security, Leadership and Development at King’s College, London
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