Chamscity, the pioneer ICT firm that caught the attention of both local and international community, has closed shop. With the closure, it appears, has gone down the drain, the hope and aspiration of its shareholders and founders that had raised money to put the peice of architectural edifice at Ikeja, Lagos, in place.
The story of the firm is a gripping tale of a firm that began so so well but which sun suddenly at noon.
To save the naira from further free-fall, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) barred importers of 40 “frivolous goods” from sourcing foreign exchange through its official windows.
Justifying the measure, CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele told CEOs in Lagos that the country must start to imbibe the culture of producing for local consumption and export.
He said: “The only thing that will reduce pressure on our currency is producing those things we are importing today. “We will try as much as possible not to hurt your business, but we need to be able to work together.”
Though software on which telcos and other big corporations spend hundreds of millions of dollars yearly to import is not on the list, the policy underpinned the need to encourage local firms to flourish.
There are some indigenous original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) producing international standard personal computers (PCs), laptops, tablets and other high-tech accessories, but ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) prefer to patronise offshore OEMs at the detriment of their indigenous counterparts.
Attempt to enforce
indigenous OEMs’ patronage
Worried by the folly in adorning Federal Government’s MDAs with foreign PCs, the administration of former President Olusegun Obasajo issued a circular in 2006 directing MDAs and Federal Government institutions to patronise indigenous OEMs.
Endorsed by former Secretary of the Federation Chief Ufot Ekaette, the circular had also made locally written software to be patronised.
The directive was obeyed only in its breach as MDAs and public institutions patronised foreign OEMs. Many PCs assemblers in Nigeria did not survive the stiff competition by the foreigners whose brand had become a household name in the country.
Director-General, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Peter Jack, on patronage of indigenous OEMs, in an interview with The Nation in Lagos, said: “There are two things we are doing. In 2013, the former Minister of Communication Dr Omobola Johnson launched the Local Content Guidelines and Policy for the country. Now what we are also doing is to call, any moment from now, we are calling for the local OEMs to come to a table. As you know Intel is non-specific, you know the Intel processor is in all computer, both local and international, such as IBM; Nigeria systems, such as Omatek and Zinox. What we are trying to do is to encourage Intel because they have already built a plant in a place like Gambia, why can’t we build a plant in Nigeria?”
ChamsCity’s cruel fate
Chams Nigerian Plc has shut the doors of all its four ChamCities across the nation due to the company’s inability to sustain the upkeep of the ultra-modern malls which housed some of its equipment.
The closure of the digital cities, it was learnt, may not be unconnected with its impasse with the Nigerian Identity Management Commission (NIMC), which culminated in the termination of the concession agreement it entered into with Chams Plc for the National ID card project.
It was alleged that the concession deal was overturned to a contractual agreement, a situation which has badly affected Chams Plc through its subsidiary Chams-Consortium.
Reacting to the closure of the centres, the founding Group Managing Director, Chams Plc, Sir Demola Aladekomo, expressed sadness over the fate of the company.
“Today is a sad day for entrepreneurship and innovation as we close down ChamsCity at Ikeja that got Nigeria into the Guinness World Record because my government could not protect Chams Plc from the onslaught of the NIMC management; a nation that kills its own.”
It was learnt from a source that Aladekom’s company awarded the concession in a transparent bid process that involved 65 international companies in 2007, following the recommendations of a 2006 Presidential Implementation Committee, headed by the then Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nasir El-Rufai, who is now Kaduna State governor, on how to deliver on a project that has cost several billions but has remained largely in limbo for decades.
He added that other notable members of the committee were the former Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; former Managing Director, Zenith Bank, Jim Ovia and Chairman, Heir Holdings, Tony Elumelu.
According to him, trouble began after the DG started foot-dragging in getting the concession agreement ready, adding that it took the NIMC chief executive three years to prepare the concession agreement.
“Meanwhile, because we have promised the president that we were going to deliver in 2009 and he said ‘don’t wait for the concession agreement, start work’. We invested. We did an IPO, raised N8.4 billion, spent N7.1 billion on the project. One of the things we got out of the project was the Guinness World Record for the Chams City that we built. We built a switch that could handle 100 million Nigerians. We built a card plant that could produce 1.7 million cards a day in Abuja for national ID. We spent N7.1 billion of shareholders money preparing for the take off so that we can do consumer finance and credit bureaus, this man was busy writing concession agreement,” Sir Aaldekomo said.
Furthermore, he spoke about how corruption and vested interests have made the resources invested in the project a waste.
“N9.2billion shareholders’ funds was wasted for pecuniary interests of converting a concession to contracts. May God help Nigeria! We tried, we begged, we did our best to protect a concession we won after a major international tender process,” he lamented.
The other operations of Chams Plc remain solid even though the NationalID was a substantial investment for Chams PLC. Chams PLC has other investments in ChamsMobile (a Mobile Banking and Payment operation), ChamsAccess-the only thriving independent automated teller machine (ATM) deployer) and ChamsSwitch, a payment processing company. It is instructive to note that Chams Plc is the company that implemented the successful bank verification number (BVN) project which has so far registered about 20million bank customers in less than two years. Sector analysts say it is strange why such an innovative entity could have one of its flagship project killed by government manipulation of converting a concession into a contract regime.
Sir Aladekomo said ChamsCity was established to handle multiple challenges associated with the substantial registration of Nigerians in the National ID card project. The IT guru also said his aspirations for the world-class ICT hub was for it to exist beyond the ID card project, offering government agencies, educational institutions, professional and corporate organisations, IT service providers, and small businesses the opportunity to experience efficient qualitative services in information and communications technology.
He said: “Data capture was not a new exercise in Nigeria. The usual procedure was to assemble people in schools, hospitals, local governments, under the tree or makeshift venues to collect their details. But when Chams got the concession, we decided to do the data capture in a different way.
“We calculated that to do 50 million cards, we needed at least 1,000 computers in about 29 locations, such that within the first five years, the 50 million Nigerians would have been fully captured. We settled for this option because part of the concession agreement gave us the right to operate the agreement for 10 years. So, we designed the mall, and went to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) where we were able to raise about N8.4 billion from the market. We also added N800 million from our internally generated money, making total of N9.2 billion,”
It was a huge project such that Apple Inc., the giant U.S-based technological firm, was astounded by the quantity of devices Chams ordered for installation at ChamsCity.
‘N9.2billion shareholders’ funds was wasted for pecuniary interests of converting a concession to contracts. May God help Nigeria! We tried, we begged, we did our best to protect a concession we won after a major international tender process’
“When we placed the order for the first 2,000 machines, the Apple people called from US to tell us that nobody had ever placed an order for 2,000 machines, not even the US State Department or the US Education Department. They demanded to know why we needed 2,000 computers. We explained to them what we were trying to do and it baffled them,” he said.
Chams Plc brought the ChamsCity dream alive. It was built and opened for business in Lagos and Abuja in 2009 while the Port-Harcourt and Benin branches were subsequently created. The ChamCities were a sight to behold as the various facilities in the different states were majestically furnished with state-of-the-art equipment. Abuja had 1,200 workstations, Lagos had 1,100 workstations, Port-Harcourt had 1,000 workstations, and Benin had 800 workstations, effectively serving the identification registration process and other ICT needs.
The significant and valuable importance of ChamsCity to Nigeria and the world could not be overemphasised as reputed historian recorders, the Guinness Book of World Records, certified it as the only digital mall globally to have the largest number of PC’s in a single location with over 1000 fully networked PC’s, processing and enabling the activation of a wide range of activities simultaneously- a world record which positively portrayed Nigeria’s image on the world stage.
For now, the equipment has been converted for storage at the company’s warehouse in Lagos. Are we likely to see such initiative again? Only time can tell but for now, an incisive entrepreneurial initiative, due to sleaze, brazen highhandedness, and vested interests of a few, has unfortunately kissed the dust.
It would be recalled that the project, ChamsCity, fully began in 2008, a year after the concession agreement was signed. ChamsCity was Nigeria’s pioneer digital mall that provided enormous capital-intensive resources to facilitate services specifically for the National Identity project such as payment transaction, identification management, research findings, pleasure, and large scale data management in a conducive, serene, and secured environment.
Chams Plc is Nigeria’s foremost ICT firm, renowned for providing a variance of qualitative products and services in the digital arena. The company which began operations in 1985 as a privately-owned business, specialising in Computer Maintenance has over the years, successfully migrated to the developing enterprise technology solutions, initiating several ground-breaking accomplishments and has remained the industry’s leading player. Its core objective right from inception has been to create and deploy innovative and beneficial technologies for the betterment of Nigeria. It is in line with this objective that the company created another trailblazer project called ChamsCity.
ChamsCity was a technological project conceived and developed after its parent company, Chams Plc won a hugely competitive bid for a concessional agreement to develop and syndicate the process of identity management during the twilight of Obasanjo’s presidency in 2007. After winning the bid which involved a number of distinguished international companies and getting the brief from the Federal Government, the company realised it had a herculean task to accomplish and therefore sought unique ways to fulfill the government mandate.
Electronic mail sent to NIMC helmsman requesting his response did not elicit any response. This may not be unconnected with the fact that the matter is pending in a court.
