38/OPINION
26.08.2016
ADEOLAAKINREMI HOME TRUTHS
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Email: adeola.akinremi@thisdaylive.com
Tel 08116759785(sms only)
For Buhari, Where is the Outrage?
igeria is not a racist country. But we have bigger problem than racism here. It is called tribal war. We’ve lost more of our countrymen to tit-for-tat ethnic clashes than auto-accident—an avoidable major killer of Nigerians. That’s how big the problem is. In most cases the kind of pell-mell manner in which we respond to ethnic issues often bother me to a sore point. It has been days of agony for Joe Fortemose Chinakwe and his family and no one seems to be outraged by injustice being melted out to citizen Joe for calling his dog a name he feels comfortable with. For calling his pet Buhari, the police took Joe away from his family and placed him in custody without trial. He was later charged to court and again remanded in prison custody for his inability to meet bail conditions after he pleaded not guilty to the offence. It all happened under the nose of a supposed progressive governor who by his political leaning should understand error is being committed in the matter with the arrest of Joe. Interestingly, the police relied on complaint by Joe’s neighbour that the name Buhari belongs to his father. Of course the police claimed the arrest borders on “breach of peace,” in “Hausa section” of a community market in Sango Otta, Ogun State. All my life, I have heard of “Hausa section” and Yoruba and Igbo sections probably in many cities around the country but the most common one has been “Hausa community” with a kind of no-go-zone label. Shall we continue like this and say unity should abound in our country?
Buhari
What are we learning from Joe’s story? There are a few ideas in my head: That a man cannot give his pet name as he desires; that with such a pet he cannot go around freely with the pet’s name attached to its body; that a pet is not free to answer just any name and that there’s always ethnic angle to everything in Nigeria. Okay, let’s call it a puzzle and let’s try to place the words in the right groups. First, I disagree with the police that the name given to the dog by Joe is inappropriate. I grew up in Ogun State—the same state where Joe was arrested for naming his dog Buhari— and I can remember we had a neighbour who named his dog Felix. Felix is a common name among residents of Ogun State, especially residents of the state who migrated there from the East and those who are Christians. More than just the name Felix, there were several other pet names shared by human and animals. For instance, I remember of a
cat named Alice. Let’s go global, President John Kennedy of the United States once had a dog among his pets named Gaullie. Guess where that name came from? Gaullie was a French poodle who belonged to First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. In a memoir, Jackie was noted to have had the pet before she married the president. As a growing kid she had special interest in France as a country and followed everything about the country including its leadership. During World War II, Jackie was very impressed with French President Charles de Gaulle’s resolve not to give up during the trying time. She named her poodle after the president calling the dog De Gaulle “because he was straight and proud and had prominent nose”— attributes she found in President Charles De Gaulle. Did any police arrest Jackie Kennedy for naming her dog after a president? I have heard of Duke, Baron, Winston, George, Jackson, Winnie and all kinds of names associated with human as dog names and there has been no fury about it. Really, in a recent conversation I had with someone who works as a house agent, dog was described as a “family member.” Are you surprised? That is the difference between us and other nations. We treat dogs as unkind animal only meant for hunting and staying at the corridor. But Brandie Gonzales, director of corporate communications and PR at Rover.com explained that more people are viewing their dogs as part of the family, and thereby bestowing them human-like names. Believe me, there’s more to the arrest of Joe than the complaint filed by his neighbour who claimed his father go by the name Buhari so a dog shouldn’t have that name. My sense is there’s political undertone to
the arrest. With our commander-in-chief and president, Muhammadu Buhari, bearing the same name, the political sycophants in high places and the police probably feel that it’s a haram to have your pet share same name with a sitting president. So Joe is probably paying for excising his right and that of the dog. Of course Joe probably knew what police are not telling him. He has said contrary to the idea in the head of his neigbour that the dog shares same name with his father, his dog was truly named after President Buhari based on his soft spot for a man he described as “anti-corruption warrior.” “I did not commit any offence. I named my beloved pet dog Buhari, who is my hero. My admiration for Buhari started far back when he was a military Head of State. It continued till date that he is a civilian President,” Joe recently said in an interview. It is disturbing to understand that an assistant inspector general of police is now a key investigator of an innocent citizen already adjudged a criminal for naming his dog Buhari and for going out with the dog and parading the dog in “Hausa section” of a community market. Sadly, Nigeria is one country where animal rights movement is almost nonexistent. The human rights lawyers are tight-lipped on the case and the social media activists around the county are having the posture of a crashing computer programme with only one message of “not responding.” I wish everyone will speak up against this intolerance and that activists will wear the red colour and go on the streets against oppression for the sake of Joe and Buhari, the pet. Until then, let’s agree that there’s Buhari the president and Buhari the pet.
LEKANFATODU HEADS-UP
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Email lekantodun@yahoo.com
Tel 07058069255
SunTrust and the Internet of Things
he daily reports about businesses that are shutting down, and others which are taking to their heels are depressing and discouraging. While a reputable player in the Nigerian economy has painstakingly elucidated and emphasised the ripple effects of such developments on the Nigerian market, the powers-that-be do not seem to be paying attention. And we are living the reality. The exit of Sun International, a hospitality and gaming company brought the number of major South African companies that have departed Nigeria to four. Many other local and international investors are groaning under this economic condition. Will they endure? Will they give up? Only God knows. Whichever way the government plans to reflate the economy, either by expanding its economic management team and opening its door to crack experts to critically assess its framework for economic development or by accelerating the proposed “Emergency Economy Stabilisation Bill 2016”, a swift and viable response is needed, and soon. Undoubtedly, Nigeria needs to attract new investments to the country and not to drive existing ones away with stifling economic policies. Meanwhile, it is quite interesting that despite the state of the economy, a new enterprise is set to launch. And in a big way. Expectedly, many are curious about the source of such uncommon courage and the venture’s unique selling point. Many had those questions when a new bank, SunTrust, announced its entrance into the Nigerian commercial banking league. Instructively, SunTrust had run for the past
Jubrin
six years as a mortgage bank until September 2015 when it secured a license to function as a commercial operator. Thus, its management has just decided to commence full operations this year with an official launch days ago. This formal commencement has been followed with some measure of public promotions, although a lot still has to be done to attract the over “100 million unbanked Nigerians” which are the bank’s target. Nonetheless, I am certain many will still consider the backers of the new bank as uncommon risk-takers for daring to come on stream at a time when financial institutions particularly look more endangered than ever. Regardless, the SunTrust is set on its goal and is promising unique experiences for millions of Nigerians. Truly, this is the type of entrepreneurial fortitude the Nigerian government needs to grow amongst its people with favourable incentives and regulatory framework that will embolden business expansion, and such should be cleverly cited to guarantee solid and enabling environment
for local enterprises and foreign ones alike. As part of these special processes, the new bank has stated that innovative technology such that has never been seen in banking operations within the country, will be the major driver of its services. And its CEO, Muhammed Jubrin, has further ascertained this. “We are determined to use technology to attract more Nigerians into the banking sector. We are very positive that this is possible, and with the success in the telecommunication sector, we are sure that our mobile banking applications will entice millions of able Nigerians into the sector.” “SunTrust Bank will bring banking to your home rather than make you come to us. We will be everywhere but we will be nowhere. We will offer telephone, mobile and Internet banking underpinned by the traditional banking ethics of probity and integrity,” he said. Although it is a known fact that many Nigerian banks are using technology to run their services, this cannot be said to have been sufficiently deployed to improve operations or make life easier for customers. Really, nothing exposed Nigerian banks’ lack of extensive touch with modern financial technology than the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN’s), directive that the about 30 million Nigerians within the banking sector be captured by the Biometric Verification Number (BVN). This otherwise simple technology intervention, unfortunately brought untoward disruption and hardship on a lot of Nigerians because of the banks’ inability to efficiently coordinate the process. Some banks, after having you stay on a queue for lengthy hours to fill the BVN registration form which is done on a paper, still got daily
activities of customers disrupted by blocking any transactions on people’s accounts on the purported basis of not registering for the BVN! Not a few Nigerians complained of being stranded in different parts of the country after being prevented from retrieving money at various Automated Teller Machines (ATM) because of the BVN directive which many actually reported to have completed. The worst part of the situation was many of the banks were grossly deficient of the technical know-how to solve the crisis at any location where their customers had been stranded. So the affected individuals were sent back to the branch where they originally opened the accounts to get the problems rectified. Until now, ordinary banking services that should be easily done on the phone with the assistance of a customer service representative, requires customers’ physical presence in the banking hall leading to waste of ample man-hours. While the world is already advancing the discussion on the Internet of Things (IoT), which simply means that all our everyday devices, I mean anything that you can ever think of will be linked to a giant network and will be made to serve human needs like a “robot”, Nigeria shouldn’t still be struggling to proffer some straightforward technological answers to her development questions. As such, if SunTrust truly has its eyes on this ambitious targets, its demonstration of commitment and competence by at least helping to tackle some of the ordinary encumbrances in the Nigerian banking system, as stated previously, through effective deployment of technology will certainly secure its place in the banking sector.