The Nation Newspaper

Category: Jobs

  • ‘MTN ’ll breach pact if it doesn’t list on Stock Exchange’

    In 2015, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) fined telecom giant MTN N1.04trillion on MTN Nigeria. The fine was reduced to N330 billion, which the firm must pay up next year. Part of the terms of settlement is the listing of MTN’s shares on the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE). NCC’s Executive Vice Chairman/CEO Prof Garba Umar Dambatta says the telco will be breaching the agreement if it fails to list on the Exchange. He speaks on other challenges facing the industry with ICT Editors in Abuja. LUCAS AJANAKU was there.

    You are three years in the saddle; how would you assess broadband penetration in the country?

    On assumption of office in 2015, we unveiled the eight-point agenda for the telecoms industry, among which is the broadband plan. We are keen on driving broadband penetration in the country. Before we came on board in 2015, there was a Presidential Broadband Committee set up by the Federal Government and the committee was jointly chaired by the former Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission, Dr. Earnest Ndukwe and Zenith Bank Chairman, Mr. Jim Ovia. The committee did a good job in coming up with a detailed five-year National Broadband Plan (NBP) from 2013-2018. On page nine of the NBP, it was stated that broadband penetration, as at 2012, was between four and six per cent and there were measures through which broadband penetration could be achieved. Achievement of broadband penetration is not the responsibility of NCC alone, but a combined responsibility of other agencies such as the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), NigComSat, Galaxy Backbone, including critical stakeholders such as telecoms operators. They were all assigned roles in order to achieve faster broadband penetration

    So, where are we?

    The NBP stated that the country must achieve five-fold in broadband penetration, but this of course, depends on the minimum and maximum threshold. By multiplying four per cent minimum level of broadband by five, which represents the five years broadband plan, it will give 20 per cent minimum broadband target and by multiplying six per cent maximum broadband penetration as at 2012 by the five years broadband plan, it will give 30 per cent broadband penetration, which is maximum target at the end of 2018.

    But Nigeria had surpassed the minimum target of 20 per cent last year; working towards achieving the maximum target of 30 per cent by the end of 2018, according to the NBP. As of today, Nigeria has achieved 22 per cent broadband penetration, and it is close to achieving the 30 per cent target. The achievement in broadband penetration gave rise to the first phase licencsing of Infrastructure Companies (InfraCos) to drive broadband infrastructure deployment that will enable broadband penetration. The licence was planned to cover the six geopolitical zones of the country, as well as Lagos that was mapped out as a zone for the purpose. MainOne was licensed to cover Lagos zone, iConnect, a subsidiary of HIS, was granted licence to cover the Northcentral zone. These two zones were licensed before I came on board as NCC’s EVC, and it was during my tenure that we licensed additional five zones. They include Northwest, Northeast, Southwest, Southeast and Southsouth. The beauty of the licence is that it is cheap because the NCC is not keen at making so much money in the  licences.

    The NBP specified the roles of government agencies in achieving 30 per cent broadband penetrations by this year’s end.  Are we anywhere near this target?

    Yes, all government agencies that are drafted to drive the broadband policy were given specific roles but I cannot speak for them on the extent to which they have accomplished their roles. However, I know that they are all party to the implementation of the broadband policy. NITDA, for instance, has the responsibility to drive capacity building, but NCC is the arrowhead among all other government agencies in driving broadband penetration and we have done so well to achieve over 70 out of the total 30 per cent maximum broadband target for Nigeria.

    Are there challenges on the way of achieving this milestone?

    Yes, there are national and regional challenges to broadband penetration. In these two broad areas of challenges, there are backbone infrastructure challenges as well as challenges of broadband access in underserved and unserved areas of the country. In the area of access, we have about 200 access gaps but through the efforts of the NCC, we have been able to reduce them to about 190 as of today. Nigerians living within the current 190 access gap areas are not experiencing telecoms services and this is a challenge we need to address as a country. To address the challenges, there is need for capacity building to leverage ICT to do greater things and in better ways. So, we need to sensitise the people and empower them with ICT tools that will make them achieve their dreams. NCC for instance, is pioneering the Advanced Digital Acquisition Programme (ADAP) for tertiary institutions, where we have the highest concentration of talented youths. By the time they acquire the skills, they will be able to develop ICT applications. NITDA is also involved in ICT training and skills acquisition through its sponsored scholarship programmes for students studying ICT related courses, up to doctorate level.

    What is NCC doing about  interconnectivity which remains a teething problem?

    The advisory committee set up by government to increase broadband access in the country is on course. The committee made up of four licencees of the NCC, namely IHS, MainOne, Phase3 Telecom and Broadbased Telecom, and supervised by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, has deployed fibre cable in the country and the committee is planning to lay additional 18,000km fibre infrastructure to complement the already 40,000km on ground. This will further complement the 120,000km of fibre optic cable that the country needs to ensure maximum broadband connectivity that will address the country’s challenges of intra and inter broadband connectivity. Our plan is to make Nigeria a fibre connected nation across all its 774 local government areas. Every local government area in the country deserves to have broadband connectivity and this can be achieved through additional deployment of broadband infrastructure. So, we need targeted deployment across the country.

    How far has NCC fared in consumer protection and empowerment?

    We have great plans for consumer empowerment, hence its part of our 8-point Agenda. We went ahead to declare 2017 as the year of the consumer, because everybody in the country is a consumer of telecoms services, including myself. Nigerians welcomed the initiative and majority were able to activate the 2442 short code for Do Not Disturb (DND) initiative, designed to protect the consumers from unsolicited text messages, which was becoming an issue in the industry. From a little above one million activated DND, it has gone beyond 10 million since 2017. With the activation of the DND short code, consumers have powers in their hands to receive or reject messages. They can now reject messages they do not want and accept messages that they want. The number of complaints from subscribers has reduced because the NCC is responding fast to consumers’ concerns. Beyond that, NCC still engage consumers through the NCC organised consumer parliament and town hall meetings.

    Delay in approving Right of Way (RoW) by state governments had always been an issue to contend with by carriers who are desirous to roll out services. What is NCC doing about this?

    The NCC is in a conscious engagement with critical industry stakeholders on RoW issue. I mean critical industry stakeholders such as the National Economic Council (NEC) under the chairmanship of the vice president of the country, as well as the Nigerian government. I had in the past made presentations to the Nigerian Governor’s Forum, while engaging them on the issues of RoW.NEC had also discussed the issue and came up with a report on harmonised price of N145 per metre length in the laying of fibre optic cable for broadband deployment. No state and no local government is adhering to the NEC report on the harmonised RoW rate, and this is a serious challenge to industry growth and expansion, because state governments, Federal Government and their agencies are imposing high and arbitrary charges on RoW. Even at that, the NCC did not give up the struggle. At the last NEC meeting, there was a very important resolution that came out. The resolution was that the harmonised RoW rate of N145 per metre length of fibre cable must be charged as against the current high and arbitrary charges on RoW. This is a major achievement by the NCC, but we still have challenges of fibre cut during road constructions in most states and local governments. Again, we are engaging the states and local governments on the need to protect telecoms infrastructure during road constructions. We need a national telecoms infrastructure bill that will protect telecoms infrastructure across the country.

    The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has accused NCC of sabotaging its efforts in protecting the rights of workers, by giving tacit support to MTN. What is your reaction to this?

    Our duty as telecoms regulator is to protect jobs in the telecoms sector and we jointly demonstrated that with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the financial regulator, in the case of 9mobile, when the banks were threatening to take over 9mobile because of its indebtedness to 13 local banks to the tune of $1.2 billion.

    In the case of the NLC accusing us of aligning with MTN to short-change the country, it is not true. The NCC has not aligned with MTN in any way to short-change the country. We have a duty to protect telecoms investment and telecoms jobs in the country and we are already engaging the NLC on this. NCC will not in anyway, stop Nigerian workers from belonging to workers’ union.

    Back to 9mobile sale; how soon would the telco be handed over to the preferred bidder?

    The delay in the conclusion of the sales of 9mobile, and the possible handover of the telecoms company to Teleology Holdings Limited, the preferred bidder, could be attributed to several factors. First is about the accumulated debts owed by 9mobile, which must be cleared before handing it over to the preferred bidder.9mobile was owing the Commission over N15 billion in annual operating levy (AOL) and numbering fees, which must be cleared according to NCC rule before approval would be given by NCC for the sale of the telecoms company. 9mobile initially wrote the Commission, asking for the transfer of the shares of Emerging Markets Telecommunications Services (EMTS), now trading as 9mobile, to United Capital Trustees, the receiver-manager and the legal representative of the 13 local banks that lent money to Etisalat, now trading as 9mobile.9mobile was owing the Commission N12 billion AOL fees for 2016 and 2017, N1 billion for numbering fees for a period of two years, as well as spectrum fees of N2.3 billion.9mobile however paid 50 per cent of the total of the over N15 billion it was owing and NCC wrote an initial letter of ‘No Objection’ for the approval of the transfer of shares of EMTS to United Capital, as requested by 9mobile. Again, there was another request from 9mobile, asking NCC to transfer the shares from United Capital to Teleology, and we have to give them another condition before such transfer would be effected. The condition is that 9mobile must show NCC a clear evidence of the registration of Teleology with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), among other conditions like the conclusion of the due diligence evaluation on Teleology by the NCC, to find out the technical capabilities of Teleology to effectively handle 9mobile.  A committee was set up to find out the technical capability of Teleology and its corporate governance structure. As soon as they meet the other conditions, we will again transmit the final approval letter of ‘No Rejection’ for transfer of shares from United Capital to Teleology. The evaluation report on Teleology will soon be made public and we are on course to conclude the process of the sales of 9mobile and we are assuring Nigerians that we will conclude the process if all conditions are met.

    There was a similar issue where MTN bought over Visafone in January 2016, and Visafone later requested that it’s 800MHz spectrum licence be transferred to MTN. What is NCC’s position on transfer of spectrum licence?

    Over a year ago, Visafone requested NCC to transfer its equity to MTN, following the acquisition of Visafone by MTN in 2015. They asked for 100 per cent transfer of shares from Visafone to MTN, and we granted them their request after all the conditions were met. Later it occurred to them that they did not request for the spectrum licence transfer, but the transfer of spectrum from one operator to another is not automatic because there are competition issues that must be addressed. We told them that the Commission is empowered by an Act to conduct public enquiry and invite all critical stakeholders including the media to discuss it, and we have done so recently. The outcome of that public enquiry will determine whether their second request on spectrum could be granted. We have concluded on the report of the public enquiry, we are only waiting to get the recommendation of department that conducted the public enquiry. We will surely look at the recommendation before approval will be given or denied.

    There are issues of strange SIM card registration. What is NCC doing about this?

    The SIM card registration has been concluded and the data uploaded into our dedicated database. Whatever is uploaded on SIM card registration into our database is still considered as raw data until treated as real data. There is a software that treats it and ascertain the credibility of the data. If after we apply the software, we identify anomalies, then we must impute the data again or send them back for proper registration. SIM card registration is key to addressing national security and we must address it as such. Nigerians must stop selling pre-registered SIM cards because it is an act of illegality that undermines national security.

    The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has complained that telcos were not remitting value added tax (VAT) to government. What is NCC’s take on this?

    We are law abiding and we want all operators to be equally law abiding and pay their tax as andw when due. On this note, we have advised telcos to pay all outstanding VAT and all other taxes that were meant to be paid to government. We encourage FIRS to invoke appropriate sanctions where there is no compliance in payment of taxes. FIRS is a legal entity created by law and we will not interfere in the discharge of their duties. So, telecoms operators have obligation to pay their taxes.

    The NCC indicted some operators involved in call masking and refilling, but experience show that the big telecoms operators are still involved in the act. How is NCC addressing this?

    Call masking and refilling is one practice that NCC is doing everything possible to end because it is not only illegal, it also undermines national security. We have indicted and fined some operators that were involved in the practice and we are still investigating to get more of the operators that are secretly involved in the practice. However, our statistics shows that the rate of call masking, where operators deliberately hide the number details and identity of a caller, is on the decline, and we will not rest on our oars until we completely eradicate call masking from the system. We have established that the source of call masking is SIM Boxes—small electronic boxes with the capacity to receive and transmit voice and data signals. The boxes are portable and those involved in the illegal business, find it easy to move around with them and they are not in one location. Calls are supposed to be routed through Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) but the perpetrators bypass BTS to transmit data and voice signals from their mobile electronic boxes. Having identified the challenge, we need a technology solution that will be able to trace and track call masking across the country and block all such calls. We have since discovered that people are involved in call masking because of the differential in the cost of international termination rate and local termination rate. So, because local termination rate is cheaper, they tend to hide the numbers and details of international calls that are terminating in Nigeria and make it look as if such international number is a local number in order to pay local termination rate as against international termination rate that is higher.

    Poor quality of service is still an issue despite the efforts of NCC. Can there be an end any time soon to this?

    Limited telecoms infrastructure is a big challenge to service quality and Nigeria needs additional deployment of BTS to change the narrative. We need more deployment of telecoms infrastructure to provide the additional capacity that is needed to improve service quality. Other challenges include cable cuts, disruption in electricity supply among others. NCC has the ability and capacity to monitor quality of service across the country. We can use our Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to identify areas of poor service quality and trace the operator involved in it and direct such operator to fix it up, but the challenge with operators is insufficient telecoms infrastructure. We have resolved to use the option of fine as the last resort to address poor service quality, but we must continue to monitor the networks and encourage deployment of additional telecoms infrastructure.

    What is NCC doing about idle licences warehoused by some telcos?

    NCC has introduced regulatory measure that encourages spectrum trading. It helps operators to trade their idle spectrum through leasing or transfers. The regulatory measure was put in place to prevent owners of spectrum from keeping to themselves, spectrum that is not in use. Spectrum licences are national resources that should not be kept unutilised. The NCC has the capacity to monitor the use of spectrum that we have assigned to operators and if we discover anyone that is not being used to provide telecoms services, we can invoke such licence. We call on all operators to take advantage of the framework put in place on spectrum trading, leasing, sharing or transfer. Nigeria is the only country that has such regulatory framework and I will be speaking about it in the next Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain. We will continue to provide proactive regulation, by taking appropriate steps before the challenge occurs.

    What is NCC’s take on the loss of revenue to telecoms operators through Over the Top (OTT) technology service deployed by fintech operators?

    I read and hear arguments about OTT service such as WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook, Instagram, among others, where the providers of such services ride on the network of traditional telecoms operators to deliver voice and data services to the people at no cost. Traditional telecoms operators who have invested heavily in their network, which the OTT service providers are utilising, have called for the regulation of OTT services, complaining that the service is eating deep into their revenue generation. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is still looking at the implications and the gains of OTT services to consumers and the operators and the NCC cannot act in isolation over OTT service delivery, which I think the consumers are enjoying because it is completely free of charge.But what the operators failed to say is the way OTT services stimulate demand for data. We have noticed tremendous increase in data usage for the past 12 months because people must buy data to access the free OTT services. Again, the operators will not say how the OTT service stimulates demand for network expansion, and this means making more money. Nigeria is on the global LTE map because of the huge use of data. LTE is the network of data associated with high speed data use. So, data usage has doubled in the country and operators are making money from the increased data usage. We know the challenge of the other side of the coin, where OTT service providers are riding on telecoms infrastructure that they did not invest in to provide free data and voice services. There is need to strike a balance and the ITU and the Commonwealth Telecommunication Organisation (CTO) are currently looking at it because it is a global issue, and developed countries like the US have not come up with any regulatory framework on OTT.

    Investment in telecoms appears to be on decline. What could be responsible for this?

    Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into Nigeria in telecoms is still on the increase. I do not have the figure for 2017, but government is doing things to further boost FDI through the Executive Order on the ‘Ease of Doing Business’. Again, telecoms contribution to GDP is on the increase. We are making efforts to woo investors to come and invest in the telecoms sector of the country.

    What is the current situation with interconnect debt among operators. Does an operator have the right to disconnect another operator for accumulated interconnect debts?

    Today we see increase in the accumulation of interconnect debts among operators. Some operators are heavily indebted to others over interconnect termination fees, but our position is that those owing interconnect fees must pay such fees without further delay. Interconnect debt is made of two components: the facility and infrastructure components. When calls are terminated on other networks, the networks where the calls are terminated must be paid their termination fees.  NCC is worried about the accumulated huge debts from interconnectivity, which currently stand at over N165 billion. We have summoned the operators and advised them to pay up their interconnect debts promptly. But be that as it may, no operator can disconnect another operator on the ground of interconnect debt, except by the express permission from NCC. Disconnection will be a measure of last resort and cannot be done without the approval of NCC.

    Listing shares on NSE was part of the settlement terms of the 2015 MTN fine. MTN is yet to be listed. What happens if it fails to list by 2019 when it will complete payment of the fine?

    If MTN fails to list by 2019, that will be a breach of the settlement agreement that the NCC reached with the telecoms company. It was an agreement that was signed, sealed and delivered, so anything short of it will be breach of agreement. In terms of payment, MTN is meeting up with the payment agreement plan for installment-based payment. So far it has paid N165 billion, which is 50 per cent of the total fine of N330 billion. They are due to pay another N55 billion by December this year and will complete payment by 2019. The initial fine was N1.04 trillion, for failure to deactivate unregistered SIM cards from its network, but the fine was later reduced to N330 billion at the end of all negotiations.

    Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are reducing in their numbers due to harsh market condition. What is NCC doing to resuscitate them?

    We have seen distortions in the ISP market, especially where telecoms operators have diversified into offering internet services to their subscribers. The distortion is squeezing smaller operators out of market, but one way that could better address the distortion is to divide the market into wholesale and retail trading to separate the bigger operators from the smaller operators, but I do not know if the market is matured now for such separation. A time has however come for NCC to look at the situation and sensitise the market.

  • How Jobberman disrupted recruitment process, by Olude

    Two years ago, Mark Zuckerberg, the influential founder of Facebook, named Olalekan Olude and his friends, Ayodeji Adewunmi and Opeyemi Awoyemi, as examples of young Nigerians using digital technology to make impact across Africa. The trio in 2009 started a job repository site called Jobberman in their dormitory at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, to help connect people looking for jobs with companies hiring. Jobberman has touched over 60,000 companies and helped millions of people to get their dream job. Olude, the Group Chief Operating Officer of Jobberman, who oversees the company’s operational and monetisation initiatives, in this interview with OLUKOREDE YISHAU, says they were simply in pursuit of adding value to the lives of young Africans.

    What motivated you and your friends (partners) to start Jobberman, which has become the main source for jobs in Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa?

    Jobberman was borne out of a desire to add value to lives. The biggest problem for every graduating student and a lot of graduates out there was and is still getting a job. We also saw what was happening in India with Naukri, a similar economy to Nigeria’s and we decided that if we really wanted to impact on millions of lives, then we had to work on the jobs problem.

    If we didn’t do it, it was going to be a problem we would have to face when we graduate. So, we decided to solve it for others, providing a platform that makes it easy to find and apply for jobs in Nigeria.

    One other critical factor that fueled this motivation was easy access to internet in my university, Obafemi Awolowo University. A lot of great talents were unlocked during that time due to this. It’s one of the reasons I am bullish on infrastructure being a key to unlocking rapid growth and  development.

    What are the challenges you have faced and are facing with the recruitment site?

    In the early days, the biggest challenge we had was getting jobseekers and employers to trust Jobberman. This was the early days of internet companies in Nigeria. Anything online at the time was labelled as fraud. It took us a while to change that perception – today you find everyone using technology in one way or the other even in rural and remote communities.

    Another challenge we faced is the relative lack of knowledge on the part of young jobseekers. Most youth do not know what it takes to be employable because our educational systems have not evolved to handhold students to become employable graduates or entrepreneurial graduates.

    Jobberman has been working tirelessly to change that and because of our efforts we have placed over 500,000 people in jobs since inception. All of this is good news as we need all the help possible to ensure our institutions provide graduates that can hit the ground running.

    Have there been instances where recruiters’ details given out on your website turn out to be false?

    Yes, we have had our fair share of scammers trying to leverage on our platform to take advantage of the desperation of unsuspecting Nigerians. We have constantly continued to develop strategies on how to ensure that scammers do not get a chance to either access the platform or use it. We verify companies, blacklist offenders, and also provide tools for jobseekers to report bad/fake companies. Companies with suspicious email addresses are automatically flagged.

    We have also enlisted the support of law enforcement agents and we have reported lots of fraudsters to the police and EFCC.

    You have changed the face of recruitment, are there things you still wish like doing but cannot do?

    It seems to me like we have just scratched the surface. Are there things that we would like to do that we have not done? Yes, a whole lot. I am clear about my calling, which is helping people have a better and meaningful life. It keeps me awake, keeps me motivated, and keeps me going. Jobs is a very powerful tool to make lives better. Its impact is generational – parents, children, relatives of people who get better jobs, and the communities they live,  all benefit.

    I am hoping to use the Jobberman platform to help grow other initiatives and movements with the similar goal of making lives better

    Youth unemployment in Nigeria is about 52%, what should we be doing more to solve this ticking time bomb?

    Crisis is an understatement. However, if we can match more people to available jobs, we would be reducing the unemployment gap. So, the real question is how do we make more jobs available? We need the policies both the federal and state government level to be pro-business. With a pro-business government, you create more jobs locally, attract more investments and create more industries.

    We need government to be intentional about bringing in companies that can hire a lot of Nigerians here. Early this year, Jobberman helped a foreign technology company to place 400 people with over a thousand more opportunities in Q1/Q2 2019. If I were in government, a core focus would be to drive more of these kind of initiatives. As these new jobs are sourced and created, extensive training to match these jobs need to start happening to ensure that companies also become more productive.

    We also need to help more youths become entrepreneurial – with high demand skills locally and abroad. There has been a recent spate of Nigerians emigrating to Europe and Canada through dangerous routes. We need to train Nigerian youth enmasse in high demand skills  so that these countries will be pleading to have our skilled people not the other way round. If China and India have perfected this, we can do the  same too.

    As a critical stakeholder in the tech-ecosystem in Nigeria, how can we deploy technology to solve this problem?

    I would love to see more use of technology in helping government manage the ecosystem called Nigeria. A lot more use of technology in data gathering, trend and predictive analysis, revenue generation and our ability to project and forecast on the things we should be doing.

    I also see technology as a key tool to reduce corruption and also enhance service delivery across board. Needless to say, this would entail a lot of investment and education but I strongly believe for our long term sustainability, we need to do this.

    Lagos is one of the three African cities, where youths are doing great with tech-driven innovations, do you think Ogun State where you are from, can catch up with Lagos tech ecosystem?

    Absolutely, I believe so. Lagos for one is already an expensive place to live in and once you realize that the only thing a tech company needs to succeed is an ecosystem: good academic institutions, ready to learn youth,and  good access to fast internet/Infrastructure, then you can quickly see that Ogun state can match Lagos like for like in this regard.

    If you look at Silicon Valley, it extends beyond SanFrancisco itself to its neighboring cities like Palo Alto, San Jose and Cupertino. Ogun fits all of that and has the land and environment to make a Silicon Valley and a better quality of life. Ogun State’s proximity to Lagos makes for easy access to foreign investors and professionals.

    That proximity also allows for any company/business structure in Lagos to set up back office, development team, strategy, manufacturing, warehouse to run from Ogun.

    With the rail system and a mass transit system coming up along the corridor, Ogun is the new get-away location to the stress and combustion in Lagos. This not only applies to technology, it applies to every industry from transportation, manufacturing, agriculture and so on.

    I believe Ogun should not strive to be Lagos, Ogun can be everything Lagos needs to be sustainable. We will feed Lagos and the rest of the country.

     

     

  • New automobile app, CarXie set for unveiling

    A new mobile application developed in Nigeria in collaboration with foreign partners, CarXie, is set to be launched.

    The app is designed to fix intra/intercity trips at the shortest possible notice by providing cabs that guarantee comfort, security, safety and affordability.

    At a pre-launch briefing, CarXie  Managing Director, Mr. Chinedu Amadi, the app was born to ensure  the country is a major player in technology-driven transport sector.

    Ahead of its July 27 launch, the mobile app, Amadi said, is available on the Google Play store and in the very discerning Apples Store.

    He said: “CarXie is on the path to increase by several notches the definition of innovation in Nigeria in relation to globalisation through mobile transportation. It comes on board with awesome features that answer a number of questions – What challenges do we face when arranging our trips? Will the cab be functional and comfortable with a courteous driver? Can the Police or Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIOs) stop and delay the cab (your trip) for ‘particulars’? Will the trip have an almost zero per cent possibility of having an accident? What of the security of life and luggage? How do we ensure that no one chances the rider in terms of costs? What of the anonymity that is aiding the hydra headed crime that is called kidnapping? The greatest advantage of home-grown technology in collaboration with foreign technical partners is its ability to effectively solve local problems as CarXie is designed to do and enhance technical competence of indigenous firms like Dukan George Limited.”

    The CarXie chief said the app was conceptualised with features that make car theft and kidnapping impossible

    “A rider is expected to issue his Bank Verification Number (BVN), as a means of social identification, each vehicle is automatically tracked, and voice chats are possible during rides.The driver and vehicle verification are so thorough that they yield only courteous and comfortable service. There are three tiers of supervision embedded in that CarXie offerto ensure quality and trust,” he said.

    CarXie, Amadi said, is another opportunity for Nigerians to patronise made for Nigeria goods and services; utilising international collaborations to deliver goods and services that are focused to address the needs of the Nigerians with reference to mobile transportation.

    He urged Nigerians to download the CarXie App in any of these two categories – as a driver or cab owner, a rider or a partner.

    Amadi appealed to governments at all levels to continue to improve the road networks across the country.

    This, he said, would help in delivering people and goods to their destination at shorter time, resulting in money-saving benefits.

     

     

  • ‘Nigeria has huge knowledge gap in estate planning’

    Mrs Mercy Edukugho-Aminah is the managing director of Meristem Trustees Limited, one of Nigeria’s trustee companies. In this interview with Capital Market Editor Taofik Salako, Edukugho-Aminah speaks on emerging issues in trusteeship, capital market and the economy.

    What does a corporate trustee firm do?

    As a trustee company, principally, we act as corporate trustee for corporate entities, public institutions and individuals. Ordinarily, an individual or corporate can decide that it wants to use someone who is familiar or they have a relationship with as Trustee for their assets. What the corporate trustee does is to now provide a specialized service, hence when you come to us, you are dealing with an institution, a regulated entity that has a corporate structure and enshrined corporate governance.

    However within the capital market, there are some transactions that require a trustee, such as bond issuance by corporate institutions and governments. In that instance, you have the law making it mandatory for you to use a corporate trustee and in that respect, you cannot use an individual or anybody that you like or any company you like, you have to go the regulated way. At that point in time you have to use a corporate trustee that is licensed by the appropriate authority. In Nigeria, you have the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that licenses trustees. Also, if you are doing a lending transaction, such as a syndicated loan, you ordinarily would have a security trustee.

    As trustees, there are times when the business transaction dictates the parties that you bring while at other times, it is the regulation that determines this. But in each of this, you will have a role for a corporate trustee.

    Now for individuals, because of peoples’ sad experiences with having to depend on relatives, legal associates, family friends and the like-there have been issues around biases coming to the fore, favouritism, issues around lack of confidentiality and accountability. This has made people more disposed to using corporate trustees. So readily, we are there to also provide for that market segment.

    How would you describe the operators and users of trust services?

    The trust business in Nigeria is relatively still at its infancy, especially when it comes to private trust. When speaking about trust services in general, you can segment it into private, corporate and public trust services.  Within the public trust, that’s probably where you have the states bond issuance while under corporate trust, you have instruments like mutual funds-that is funds managed by licensed funds and portfolio managers. Mutual funds are regulated under the purview of the SEC and must have a Trustee. The Investment and Securities Act (ISA) stipulates and regulates investments and securities business in Nigeria including transactions where Trustees are mandatory, hence I will say relatively we are average when it comes to the public trust business.

    However, within the corporate trust services as well as private trust space, you still have that knowledge gap of people who would ordinarily require our services but are not aware that they do. Accordingly, what you have is that most people are familiar with private banking and couple of years ago; let’s say about 10 years ago, that’s when you’ve a lot of people talking about private banking because it was an elitist thing. If you look at the history of where trust came from, how trust evolved, where the land owners had to use their property to get security, you will find how trustees have been the pillars of transactions and family business over the decades. In Nigeria generally, you’ll find out that the private trust business as well as the corporate trustee are relatively still at their infancy stage in terms of practice. In terms of the participants, you have mostly capital market firms wanting to have trust services subsidiaries as part of business expansion strategy.

    From a multi-stakeholders’ approach, what should operators do and what can the government do to drive the adoption of trusteeship from the corporate, private and public trust perspective?

    Sincerely, I’m probably not sure about government participation outside of capital market transactions, outside of bond issuances. As a group-the Association of Corporate Trustees (ACT), which is the self-regulatory organisation (SRO) for corporate trust businesses, I know that we are trying to get FMDQ and NASD- the two over-the-counter platforms to be able to see how we can include a role for trust companies in their transactions, especially when it comes to holding of security and perfection of security for the lenders and all that. When you talk about government, the preference would be for government to be an enabler, that is, to provide a level-playing field for everybody, as a market where you have professional dealings, where you will have your transactions executed the way you want it and within the ambits of the law. Government only needs to provide enabling and efficient systems that ensure that there are no sacred cows; that promote transparency and send the right perception out there about the capital market. Because really the image you want to put out there in the world about the capital market is an efficient, competent, professionally-driven, and value-driven market that is devoid of fraudulent and sharp practices. So generally, for the government they should help with projecting the capital market participants in the best light. With positive projection of the capital market, people will be ready to work with the parties, whether they are trustee companies, funds and portfolio managers, registrars, broker dealers and other capital market operators. That would definitely rub off on the trust business operators within the market.

    I know Nigerians always like government to be at the focus of what we do. But really, what the government should do is to make sure that if I am operating as a corporate trustee, I am not a fraudulent entity and those that make up my board are people of integrity. Check me, come and see what my processes are, check my governance structure and all that, and then allow me to market my services to individuals, corporates and the like. We might think that government regulations might benefit us in the short run but in the long run, people will start looking for different ways in which they can avoid those kinds of transactions. So the government should be the enabler, that is, make rules that ensure that there is transparency in the market. To a large extent, the government has done a lot. For example, if you want to do transactions within the public space, it’s highly regulated. You cannot say you want to go and collect money from the public as a capital market operator without a prospectus and approval. Generally you need to go through the legal way, the regulated way. So I wouldn’t say that government should have so many activities within the private space. We should allow the market to dictate its own pace and grow at its pace. But what government should do is to ensure that the professionals in that space do what is required under the law by adhering to professional ethics and standards.

    Are there advantages  trusteeship offer an individual or a corporate?

    The advantage of a trustee is that it opens up your business. Now, let’s take it from the corporate entity: it opens up your business to show everybody that you are transparent, you don’t have anything to hide and it allows for equitable execution of your transactions. So let’s take a case in point. You need N100 million for the expansion of your business, and the asset you have is valued at N500 million. Because you have a bank A that you have been doing business with over the years, they are available to give you the N100 million. Given the risk consideration and everything that the bank would do, the lender would say no problem we would give you the N100 million but at the end of the day, you are using a N500 million asset as collateral to collect N100 million. At the end of the day that bank transaction is over-collaterised.

    So what if you go into the expansion and you have all the shocks like we have had with foreign currency fluctuations recently and your business was affected and your earlier projections were not tenable. With the bank’s exposure to you, you also know that there is what is called single obligor limits and the bank will not go above that loan, but you are stuck. Imagine if you have given your N500 million asset to the bank, the bank will go and put title documents in its vaults and until you sort out your business with the bank, there is nothing you can do. But if you built a trustee into the transaction, what happen is that you give the asset to the trustee to hold as security trustee, he holds those asset, then the bank comes to sign up an agreement, a debenture deed to say that I am collecting N100 million, these are the terms and everything. If anything happens, you still have a N400 million head room with this same asset because it is not sitting in one bank’s vault. So you can use it to access more funds and you can even decide to go to bank B and refinance the previous loan. So trusteeship allows for a lot of business transactions to be done as against how it would ordinarily have been. There are a lot of benefits. You could do structuring around having a trustee to hold your assets for you for the benefit of multiple interests, multiple stakeholders. The interests of those stakeholders are protected because there is a trustee that is holding that asset not only for one person but for everybody.

    You also have that too with land or real estate transactions. Let’s take a land development transaction. You’ve somebody that owns the parcel of land but does not have the money to build, you now approached a private property developer that has the money or he is going to look for people he can readily collect money from. For the person that owns the land, you are definitely not going to give your title document to the developer. Now the developer will not like the title document to be in your pocket while he is pumping money into your land. So something needs to happen. What do you do? You call a trustee and say okay, trustee I am entering into this transaction, Mr Developer said he will do A, B and C, Let us write it down; this is what he will do. I, the land owner, have agreed that after he finishes developing and he gives me this portion of it, I would do deed of assignment for everybody that purchase and all that. So, Trustee will get all the documents sorted out, such that everybody is happy and nobody is feeling like if this man should die tomorrow what happens. So those are the ways in which you could use trust services. We keep telling people and we cannot overemphasis it, anywhere there are multiple interests over an asset, you need a trustee.

    The same applies to individuals; our history is replete with families, well-known names, that when the patriarch of the family is dead, the family is in disarray. The patriarch before he died probably did a Will but that would be contested until thy kingdom comes. Some of them as we speak are still in courts. Imagine if he had given those assets to a trustee, just like the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi did. He made a testamentary trust. He disposed off his assets as he pleased, however the executors of his estate were corporate trustees.

    Generally when it comes to estate planning, you should always plan for the unexpected. You need a trustee to help you in the distribution and management of your estate. It is very important. A trustee will help you to a very large extent to minimise those family crisis and issues. Once the assets are under the trustee vested with legal ownership over it, the law will take its course.

    How do you assess the level of awareness about estate planning generally in Nigeria?

    Estate planning is still a novel area in Nigeria. If you look at other climes like the UK, U.S. and other parts of the world, their estate planning structure and institution are very well defined, articulated and documented. However at Meristem, we align ourselves with best practices and policies as dictated by the Society for Trust and Estate Planning (STEP), which is a global body for trust and estate practitioners registered in the UK. We customise such global best practices and align them with Nigerian law and dynamics to make sure that what we are proposing to clients and how we are servicing clients are in line basically with extant regulations and global best practices.

    Specifically, as a service, there is still a huge knowledge gap in estate planning. Most people off hand will tell you I have a Will. But you and I know that having a Will is not the end. You have some who have Wills and yet, many years after, they are still awaiting the judgement of the courts on the Wills. Some people will purchase assets and say it belongs to me and my wife as Mr and Mrs but there is nothing in the law known as Mr and Mrs, the law does not recognise that. When purchasing assets as a couple, the full names must be clearly delineated. Whatever you own in your lifetime are your assets, such as, shares in companies, bonds, real estate, jewelleries, cash in the bank and others, all that make up your estate. The question is who do you want to get your assets when you are gone? How do you want them to be shared? When do you want them to take benefits of the assets? That is estate planning. There is also the issue of culture too and the way it affects estate planning. Around here people don’t usually want to talk about death. But death is one of the inevitable events that must happen in the life of a man. Designing and implementing an Estate plan using a Trustee does not mean that you are wishing death on yourself.

    As a company, how do you handle the problems of cultural bias and resistance?

    We have handled these basically through education and sensitisation. For existing clients that are doing one or two things with us already and are not really into estate settlement plan, we talk to them. For people that we don’t know we gather them up as a group and come to speak to them at their homes, offices or at leisure places. That is what we have been doing. We tell people it is not just about acquiring assets and all that. The same way you planned towards acquiring those assets, the same way you need to strategise on who gets what and the earlier you do it, the better because the earlier you start buying assets under a trust, you end up saving huge transfer cost should you decide to establish a trust over those assets.

    Do you have specific products for individuals?

    Our services are generic or bespoke trust business across corporate, public and private platforms. Under our private trust, our services includes estate planning, child education trust and nominee transaction-that is where you want to have somebody else who will marshal your arguments and make sure that whatever interest you are holding or assets is well protected and you are getting the best value. We also have a very unique service that we render in Meristem and that is the Meristem Diaspora Trust. Meristem Diaspora Trust (MDT) is aimed at ensuring that Nigerians in Diaspora execute their projects and investments in Nigeria successfully while still residing abroad. It includes all kind of transactions including financial investments, construction of buildings, acquiring of properties and advisory services on investment options among others. We have all heard one way or the other of cases where people say they sent money to their relatives or friends to build a house, the house did not materialise, sent money to someone to buy stocks for them, the shares were not available when requested, all those kind of cases around. If you live and work in the Diaspora and you need a trusted partner, you can come to Meristem Trustees.

    With Meristem Diaspora Trust, everyone is a winner. When the people in the Diaspora have more confidence that their remittances will be used as required, there will be more inflow of remittances and the country will be better for it. Nigerians in the Diaspora are toiling hard to build their futures, hence they can also be rest assured in certainty of coming home to their investments and in the longer term, they will be in better position to support themselves and their relatives, make meaningful contributions to their society. Under Meristem Diaspora Trust, all transactions are backed with a Trust Deed, you can monitor your investment and there are flexible exit options in case of decision to withdraw. We also have alternative education plan for parents known as Meristem Kiddies Assured Trust (M-KAT). It is not an insurance product but a trust product that guarantees uninterrupted education for the beneficiaries. Unlike an insurance product where interruption can occur due to legal transfer process or probate administration, M-KAT is based on a Trust Deed that spells out the rights, obligations and other modalities for seamless management of the trust. The fund is managed professionally and the return on investment is usually reinvested to form part of the principal that is payable to the specified beneficiary.

    How affordable are these services that you render?

    They are very affordable. For us as a firm, our philosophy is built around values; we are a value-driven firm. Across a group, Meristem generally is value-driven. So whatever we do, we are always asking ourselves: are we adding value to the client?  Let me make an example. If you say you want to set up a trust fund for your child today and you put N10 million to the trust fund, how will you feel if I tell you my fee of one per cent will be from that your N10 million? Meanwhile your child is about 10 years old. So let’s assume that you are saving towards his university education, at least the first few years, how will you feel if I tell you that between now and termination of the Trust Fund I will be earning as fee one per cent every month? How much will you have at the end of the day?  So would you do business with me?  The answer is no. But what we do is that once you put funds in a trust fund, In the Trust Deed we have stipulations of where we can invest funds from trust assets. In addition, we have the Trustees Investment Act that dictates the kind of investments that trust assets can be put into. And those are guaranteed and securitised investments like treasury bills and bonds among others. We make sure that the asset is protected. So what we do is at the end of the day, taking into cognisance the regulation, it is only what we can add to the N10 million that we take our fee from. So that N10 million should be able to yield a certain amount of returns. That is just an analogy to tell you how we operate, how flexible we are.

    As a group, how do you ensure that the independence of the trustee is not compromised in any way as to affect the fidelity of its transaction?

    That’s a very interesting question and that takes me back to the duties and responsibilities of a trustee. Now for you to say you are a trustee, it is not by saying it, it is the fact that you act within the ambits of the law: you are a fiduciary. So irrespective of whatever consideration you have, at the foremost of your mind, would be your role as an impartial judge; our role is to serve as protector; our role solely is to ensure that nobody suffers a loss around the transaction. We are not going to say because we are related to this party or related to that party or we have the same board, to jettison our duties and responsibilities as trustee because it is a fiduciary position. We must make sure we render account of trust assets; we must make sure we do not enrich ourselves with trust assets. We must make sure that trust assets are not co-mingled where the clients would not be able to distinguish its assets from ours. We must make sure that whatever the dictates of the trust deeds and agreement reached by the parties are, they must be upheld. Trusteeship as a concept on its own, has over the centuries defined what your roles are, what your obligations are, what your powers are and what Trustee duties are. So really that concept of trusteeship is sacrosanct. So you are not just a trustee by mouth, at any point in time you are a trustee in deed and actions. And that has evolved over centuries.

    Within the Nigerian space, as a trustee, we have the code of conduct by the SEC, if you go and check the code, you will see all the things that trustees should do and all the things that you should refrain from doing already stipulated. So if you add that to the timeless principles of trusteeship given the origin of trusteeship, if you are going to be a professional, you must align yourself. So that’s the best way. So at any point in time your fidelity must not be compromised. And if it means you shouldn’t do the transaction because you would be compromised, then really you should walk away. Also, you also have instances where the SEC would say if you have a capital market firm that is a party in a transaction and you also have a trusteeship firm, the two of the firms cannot be on the same transaction, or where you have the same board managed by the same holding company, you cannot pitch or do this transaction. This is aimed at guiding against conflict of interest.

    One major statutory requirement for bond issue whether as corporate, private or public is having a trustee. Now we have had instances where bonds being raised, especially by governments, are suspected to have been mismanaged. What can be done to guide against such incidences and to protect the interest of the common citizens?

    Yes, the interest of the citizens is very important because what such public bond issuance is usually meant for is to build infrastructure and that must be done. Because, once a bond is issued, you now have Irrevocable Standing Payment Order (ISPO) and at the end of the day, the money from the state is being deducted to pay back the bond. Like you said, we have had one or two issues around that. The role of the trustee is actually, at that point in time, is to ensure that those projects are being undertaken and it is not somebody putting up phantom projects. The bond issuer itself has an obligation to make sure that those infrastructural projects are put in place. As a trustee, we can only go and monitor. But for those public bonds at the end of the day, the onus goes back to the issuer. Trustees would try to sit between ensuring two things: the person that has invested in good faith should be able to get his investment back, that is why you have the ISPOs, and the people who should benefit from the infrastructure should have the infrastructure, the issuer should be responsible enough to make sure that asset or infrastructure is provided for the people. We also handle such roles but the problem is that these monies are not disbursed by the Trustees.

    Doesn’t the law give a trustee the power such that if there is fraud in the system it can actually take up the parties that are involved?

    It can. At that point in time what you can do is to notify the regulator that these are your findings. That while you are aware that this bond issuance was for this and that project, this is your finding with regards to project execution and utilisation. These bonds issuance are cleared by the SEC, the apex capital market regulator and we render returns to it. We just perform our role of making sure that investors are protected and they get their returns. The other thing that we are proposing given the experiences we have had is to hold the assets and the money and disburse it ourselves according to project milestones. This will give trustees greater powers to monitor fund utilisation and project execution and help to checkmate abuse. With this, the proceeds of the bond issue will not be subject of political transition and the citizenry will be rest assured that irrespective of the government in power, the project will be delivered as projected. Because irrespective of the government in power, the ISPO will automatically deduct funds from the government and by extension the funds belonging to the general citizenry.

    As a capital market operator, mutual funds are some of the things that drive the market. What can be done to encourage savings and investments and how can Nigerians see the benefit in mutual funds?

    As to what we can do as operators in the market, we must make sure we operate a market that is transparent, a market that is professionally driven, and peopled by professionals with integrity. Once you have a market that is transparent, a market that is professionally-driven, the market will have integrity, a market where you have zero conflict of interest, you put in place measures and practices that guarantee that my interest is not at risk. Once you have a market that is like that you can be rest assured that overtime the market would speak for itself. Now, on getting the Nigerian populace to come into this market, you have to go by way of more sensitisation. We have had some good examples but most time you find out that some negative experiences we have had tend to discourage people, so we need to keep projecting the market in a positive light. If we keep projecting it, peoples’ confidence in the market would be sustained.

  • Fed Govt has pumped over N2.5tr into infrastructure, says Adeosun

    Finance Minister Mrs. Kemi Adeosun says the Federal Government has put the economy on the path of growth, investing over N2.5 trillion in infrastructure. She also states that the government is clearing the arrears of subsidies inherited from the past administration. In this interview with Assistant Editor Nduka Chiejina, she emphasises that the country has turned the corner and is heading for growth.

    Next month, this administration will be three.  What has changed since the administration took over governance on May 29, 2015?

    A lot has changed, but the principal thing that has changed is that Nigeria has been on a very difficult transition from high to lower oil prices. We went through a very difficult recession. What has significantly changed is that the direction of growth, which we inherited and was actually declining, has been reversed. It is now moving in a positive direction. Secondly, Nigeria has realised that we cannot continue to focus on oil. We are trying to change the direction of the economy away from oil. There is much more focus on agriculture, there is much more focus on Made-in-Nigeria products. There is greater awareness of what it really takes to drive the economy forward. Over all, the focus has been to invest massively in infrastructure to make sure we get the economy growing. Between 2015 and 2017, we have pumped in over N2.5 trillion in infrastructure, especially on capital projects. If you move round the country, you will see work is ongoing: on roads, power, bridges and other areas. These are really important building blocks for the economy. For us to really become competitive, we need to have good transportation links. It is very important for the movement of goods across the country efficiently and readily. Look at the road sector, when we came in, it was N90 billion that was invested in the sector in 2015. And in 2016, we invested N304 billion. So, there has been a new step, which is changing our capital projects. This is the foundation we have identified with more opportunities. All these opportunities are not limited to oil, but spread across the nation. That is why you see projects spread across the nation. For me, that has been one of the biggest changes.

    Would you say the downtrodden have fared better now, prior to May 29, 2015?

    Absolutely yes, all the investments are for the ordinary Nigerians, who are the long-term beneficiaries. If we fix our roads, the people who will benefit are you and I. If we fix our power, those who will benefit are you and I. If we fix the rail, it is you and I that will benefit. The jobs that are been created as a result of these investments are for Nigerians. The way we measure capital for growth (capital formation) is higher now than it was in the past. These are building blocks. It is like building a house; you have to build the house first before you begin to fix the window and roofs. It is going to trickle down as we move forward, and begin to reflect in the lifestyles and prospects of Nigerians.

    This Administration promised to remove  distortions and subsidies. So, why are oil marketers still demanding subsidy payment?

    The subsidy they are demanding is actually the subsidy arrears we inherited from the previous Administration. We are not paying subsidy in the old manner it was being paid to oil marketers. So, the subsidy they are clamouring for is what they were owed before this Administration came in. But, we are negotiating with them and we have to also make sure our focus remains on our capital projects. That is really our priority. But then, they are clamouring for the government to give them attention and pay them subsidy arrears owed them before we came on board.

    Are you not worried that the government is borrowing to run the economy? Are you not concerned that this may lead the country back to the debt trap?

    Absolutely not! What we are borrowing for is what you have to look at. If you are borrowing to pay salaries, travels, do training or in a wasteful venture, then you have to be worried. But if you are borrowing for long-term infrastructure, those are the investments that allow business to thrive. You cannot ask someone to fix a factory where you know he cannot move his goods when he produces them. Such investor won’t come. Infrastructure is a real asset. So, I am not worried about borrowing. Our debt to GDP ratio remains very low, one of the lowest in Africa. And we are working very hard to increase our revenue to make sure our debts are serviced adequately. The alternative when we were in recession was to wait for oil price to recover.  That alternative would have created a very long recession had we not taken action then to spend. If we hadn’t done what we did – to borrow and invest in the economy and infrastructure, the recession would have lasted longer than what it eventually was. Besides, the projects we are hugely investing in are long term projects that will provide growth.

    Some people have expressed worry over the rising debt profile of this Administration which is in excess of N21 trillion. What is your take on this?

    As I said earlier, I am not worried at all. Our borrowing is sustainable and well-managed.  Firstly, we took a decision to reflate the economy. Our borrowing is a true reflection of our economy. When your income has gone down, the only place you can go is to borrow. It was a strategic decision. We borrowed and invested heavily in infrastructure and then increase our revenue so that we can pay back the debt. It was a deliberate decision. We looked at our budget in terms of size and increased it from N4 trillion to N7 trillion so that we can focus on developing our infrastructure. It was a very deliberate policy. It was deliberate because if we do not invest in our capital projects, we cannot grow. If all that the government does is to pay salaries, we will be running at a loss every year. So, it was a strategic decision to tie that money on capital projects. One of the differences between our style of borrowing and the previous era when oil prices were at the highest is that in May 2011, the debt was N2.5 trillion and oil price at that time was $111 to a barrel. By May 2015 when we came in, our debt has risen to N12 trillion. Meaning that in that period when oil prices were highest, the debt doubled but capital releases were very low. So, if we should be worried about debt accumulation, it should be that time. And we should be asking, why were capital releases so low and debt doubled when oil price was so high, at over $100 per barrel? Yes, there has been acceleration in debt, but there has been acceleration in capital releases and capital spending. On what we are doing, if we continue to get these major projects off the ground, they are the growth drivers: power, transport, agriculture and the economy has already started responding to the path of growth. We will have no problem managing our debts because it is sustainable. As the economy grows, we will get everyone to pay his or her tax so that we will be able to service the debts. If you compare us with any of our neighbouring countries, you will see that we are better than any of our neighbours. We will like to keep it that way. There is no sense having no debt, no road, no power and no prospect to growth. With the kind of young people that we have and the kind of jobs we want to create, we need to build infrastructure and we cannot use oil money alone to fund our debt. We have to be confident and say we are going to sort our roads, power, transport because with those things we can grow our economy.

    Can you explain the difference between Paris Club and this borrowing plan?

    Paris Club’s borrowing was a variable loan. So, what happened is that we were linked to variable interest rates and that got everybody into trouble. When the rates went up in London, the rates of those loans also went up too and then many countries, including Nigeria, found it very difficult to pay. But with the Fiscal Responsibility Act and ongoing reforms, Nigeria will not take loans with variable interest rate. We take bonds with fixed rate of interest. And so, whether interest rates go up or down, we know what the cost of borrowing is. It is fixed. Much of what we are doing is concessionary loans. Some of these loans we took are less than one percent – some were taken at 0.8 percent and 0.9 percent. So, what we did was to go for loans with cheap interest rate. The Eurobond aspect is the cheapest. Most of the works we have done is to look at the cheapest markets for concession funds. We took that first before we went into commercial money and they are all fixed price without risk that will suddenly double the loan. It is very manageable and we are managing it very actively. It is a deliberate strategy.  The value of the infrastructure is going to go up. We are a bit more confident that we can deliver on the promise to Nigerians.

    Why was borrowing necessary?

    It would have been longer if we had not borrowed because we would need to wait for oil price to recover. How would you have spent N307 billion on roads when oil price was low? Demand is falling, peoples’ confidence is low, the government stepped in and invested money in the economy.

    Apart from Lagos, Kaduna and Enugu states, how many other states have keyed into Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS)?

    Virtually all the states are involved in one degree or another through the Joint Tax Board. Lagos has been very much involved, given its status; so also the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Ogun and all other states are involved. Every state is now getting more people into its tax net. We realised that taxes are sustainable source of revenue for the government, and the government as you know cannot really depend on oil. We cannot be going to the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting every month, asking how much can we share  monthly. The focus has shifted from sharing; it is now is on internally generated revenue (IGR).

    There have been calls for the extension of the tax amnesty programme deadline. Is the Federal Government willing to grant the demand for extension of the VAIDS?

    That is a decision that will be taken by the President because there was an executive order for it. But I think the government has given enough time and sensitisation for tax payers to regularise their tax liabilities. Certainly, the feedback from people has been encouraging. For me, there is not going to be an extension.

    What is the role of ‘Project Lighthouse’ in aiding data mining of assets of tax defaulters?

    ‘Project Lighthouse’ is a unique project of the Federal Ministry of Finance that combines data from Federal and state agencies and overseas countries. Prior to its setting up, different types of data were held by the arms of government. So, for the tax authority, it does not get the accurate picture of what someone has. It is just to pool the data together and support the new approach in assessing peoples’ incomes. What we are doing is to take a different approach. So, if you look at someone’s assets, automatically you are asking him, what was the income you used in buying this asset? You take the initiative away from the tax payer because the government now has the data. And when someone says he has N1 million, you can ask him how come you own this huge amount of assets. It makes people to have a rethink.

    Why is Federal Government delaying the prosecution of the suspended Director-General of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as recommended by Administrative Panel of Inquiry (API)?

    The API has concluded its investigation and made recommendations to Mr. President. I cannot divulge the outcome of the API Report or recommendations.

    On your assumption of office, you promised to review import duty waivers. Why has there not been a review?

    A lot has been done and more are ongoing. We have reviewed the procedures. There are many categories that don’t qualify for import duty waiver. We have improved and made it harder for people to obtain import duty exemption for obvious reasons. On my assumption of office, we found that it was too easy to get a waiver of import duty. We have made it more difficult today, which has resulted in the reduction of numbers issued import duty waivers. For example, we used to get letters from organisations purporting to be charitable in the area of drugs. They usually write a letter to the Federal Ministry of Finance, claiming that they are donating items. We have directed that charitable organisations seeking import duty waivers in the health sector should get accredited and scrutinised by the Federal Ministry of Health. We are also working on automation. We do not have to see everybody face to face, if you are qualified, you should be able to get it promptly and quickly. We are working on the advanced stage that will enable us to digitalise the process. Without too much announcement, we have tightened up the procedures for import duty waivers.

    What innovation are you bringing to project execution?

    We have put up a Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF). Now we want to bring in a Medium Term Revenue Framework. Everyone usually lists all the projects they want to do, and if you do not show how you are going to make the money, funding the projects will be a problem. That is the innovation we are working on. Annually, there will be Medium Term Revenue Framework (MTRF), which will show us the revenue that will fund each budget. If the revenue come lower than expenditure, obviously there is no way you are going to execute all the projects. But I will say we have done very well in capital projects without blowing our trumpet. For the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, it was N19.3 billion spent in 2015, N307.4 billion in 2016 and N208.4 billion in N2017. Capital spending on transport is also remarkable. It was N6.49 billion in 2015, N143.1 billion in 2016 and N133.9 billion in 2017. From where we are coming from, it is a huge chunk, taking it from N6 billion to N133 billion. And there are so many agencies like that. What we are trying to do is to work on the procurement process, so that we do not have idle cash. We have so many ministries that have long-term projects for multi-year and as soon as you give them money, it is gone. There are some other agencies that are slower in their procurements, and sitting on money. What we are trying to do is to make sure that they only call for money when they are ready to go, so that we can really optimise the available fund genuinely. We have really improved on budget spending. Defence and Agriculture funding has improved on every front. There are major investments going on. We need to sustain this.

    What were the secrets of getting Nigeria out of recession?

    I said from the beginning that we have two choices to make when confronted with a problem. Either you can wait and see or you take a bold action. We chose to be bold. We said to everybody, we have to spend our way to get out of this problem. To spend that money, we have to borrow. And it was controversial, but it was the right decision because if we had waited, I am not sure the damage would have ceased. Maybe, we would have remained in recession for four or five years.We went through recession through five quarters. Yes, it was very painful, but our decision was the right way to go.   It was as short as possible and, fortunately, we are now moving in the right direction. There is no secret and Nigerians are very resilient. They kept fighting, encouraging the Administration until we got out of recession. Now the turnaround has come, they are going to reap the reward.

    Should the price of oil fall again, do you envisage Nigeria going back into another recession?

    No. Then we do not have as much as shock absorber as we have now.  Our growth formation is better. We have invested in a lot of infrastructure. The recently-launched Focus Labs is to harmonise the economic growth plan because infrastructure alone cannot address the problem without strategic planning. The psyche of Nigerians has changed. The psyche of Nigeria as an entity has also changed. We have seen what a fall in oil price can do. So, we are much conscious. We have better fiscal buffers and our reserves have improved. We have started rebuilding the shock absorbers, so that if there is God forbid, another falls in oil price, we won’t back to recession. Again, we have introduced some reforms. In OPEC meeting now, it is no longer the Ministry of Petroleum Resources that attends but Ministry of Finance now attends to get information. And we are getting outlook from there. If it does, we will respond much more quickly. We have now built early warning signals to enable us react proactively and the focus on taxes is part of it. We are also exploring other sources of revenue, building buffers and reserves.  For me, the biggest protection is the psychology of the people. When you have been into something, and you have seen what it is like, there is great consciousness as people to make sure we don’t go down that way again.

  • Google launches new job Search experience

    Google launches new job Search experience

    American multinational technology company, Google has announced a new job Search experience that aims to help job seekers find employment opportunities.
    This was announced at an event held at the country office at Ikoyi, Lagos State, hosting stakeholders like Jobberman, NGCareers, MyJobMag among others.
    In her speech, Juliet Ehimuan-Chiazor, Google Country Manager in Nigeria observed that unemployment contributes largely to the pressure that families, the society and the Nigerian nation suffer from, posing serious threat to national security.
    The Google Country Chief noted that unemployment is a major problem but emphasised another problem as “Connecting the right people with right employers.”
    “Job seekers say no job, employers say no employable persons. So even if the jobs are available, seekers don’t know how to find them, hence Google launches Job Search Within Google.”
    “Through the job search feature on Google, when someone uses their phone or computer to search on Google for a job, they will see a streamlined experience letting them explore, research and find relevant, local job postings.
    According to the search engine giant, this launch builds on its existing commitment in Sub Saharan Africa to improve economic opportunities for job seekers and employers, demonstrated through its Grow with Google initiatives.”
    Recall that the Digital Skills for Africa program, which Google committed to between April 2016 and March 2017 to train 1million African youth, was achieved and surpassed.
    In July 2017 this program was extended to see 10m youths trained by 2022 as well as 100,000 developers trained across the region. Ehimuan-Chiazor noted that the company took 6 startups to Silicon valley last year and will bring the initiative to Nigeria this year.
    Also speaking at the launch, Afolabi Imoukhuede Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Job creation & Youth empowerment, confirmed Ehimuan-Chiazor’s observation of the unemployability cases in Nigeria.
    According to him, the root causes for unemployment in Nigeria is largely unemployability. He stressed that when anyone disaggregates the unemployment rates in Nigeria, the real issues is when you begin to cascade down to youth demography.
    The NPower Project Coordinator noted that the whole point on the core of technology is that a lot of things would have been difficult to achieve without technology.
    “The job world is really evolving and I guess it has changed. In Nigeria, maybe our catch-up is a little slower but the job world is changed. All the job contracts I could see are traditional job contracts.
    “Thanks to Google, the world is moving in a completely different direction with new and emerging skills that are not even thought within the four walls of the university.
    “This is clearly an initiative, and a project that speaks very closely to the heart of what we do. Because it is a problem that we must attack head-on, and platforms like this, alliances and networks like this are the sustainable ways by which we can give a lasting solution to it.
    “This project is what the federal government is proud to endorse. We must commend Google for what they do. We recognise what technology means to us in Nigeria and what it means to the world.
    “We have the assets. The greater number of our population is the youths demography. Our focus is how to turn these our youths into an asset and not a liability,” Imoukhuede said.
    Ehimuan-Chiazor further added that fnding employment is still very difficult for many people. This new job Search experience will help the millions of Nigerians searching for new opportunities.
    “We believe that the web allows anyone, anywhere, of any age, to grow their business, learn the skills they need to get a job, to grow in their career, become an entrepreneur or developer. This new jobs Search tool will be a key driver for connecting job seekers to open opportunities, helping more people to Grow with Google,” she summed.
    What the launch means is that job seekers in Nigeria,  South Africa and Kenya will be able to use the new job search experience to quickly and easily find opportunities suited to them, through an immersive experience that lets them explore jobs from across the web and refine their search to meet their specific needs.
    Similarly, users will able to view at-a-glance details about the posting, such as job title, location, whether it’s full-time, part-time or an internship, as well as detailed information should a job be of interest. Using Google Maps integration, job seekers can search for jobs any place they can find on the map, and if they’re signed in, they can even see how long it would take to commute to the job from home through Google maps.
    Searching for a new job can take time, so if you step away from your job search, Google has made it easy to pick up where you left off as well as stay in the loop on opportunities that are right for you. Simply push the “get alerts” button to get email notifications when new jobs matching your search appear.
    “As this is an open ecosystem, Google is inviting all job sites, platforms and employers — big and small — to integrate with us and make their jobs eligible to display in the new jobs search experience.  With Google’s newly released open documentation, any jobs provider is able to integrate its content through open structured schema.org web markup standards Google supports,” the tech firm said.
    To optimise the feature and make it more useful, Google is working with a broad and growing cross-section of partners, such as the Federal Government, Jobberman, NGCareers, MyJobMag and other job resource websites in Nigeria. These collaborations ensure Google is able to present job postings content accurately, as soon as it is posted, to exactly the people that will find it most relevant.
  • ‘Govt must divest interest in refineries’

    ‘Govt must divest interest in refineries’

    Degeconek Oil and Gas Limited Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer Mr. Abiodun Adesanya is the immediate past president of the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE). In this interview with EMEKA UGWUANYI, he proffers a solution to revamping the refineries, the need for exploration in the frontier basins and how to optimise oil reserves and economy through the right policies and prudent financial management.

    What should be done to the refineries to make them work?

    It is traditionally believed that every venture government has a hand in does not work well. So, there is a need for either partial or total divestment and allow the business to go to the private sector. That, in a nutshell, is the way forward. Every other attempt by the government to monopolise and control 100 per cent any venture has not worked and will never work.

    A lot has been spent on refinery maintenance and turnaround maintenance. We still have those problems and we will continue to have them as long as that business is in the hands of government. Government should divest strategically, retaining about 20 per cent and let 80 per cent or more in the hands of the private sector. If you and I own a refinery and operate it, clearly we will watch out for our interest and run it as a business just as we have seen in the telecoms business and what we will see in the power sector when they eventually sort out their issues.

    The Federal Government has set 2019 to stop importation of refined petroleum products. Do you think that is a step to achieving self-sufficiency in fuel requirement?

    The reality is that our refineries are old and they haven’t been diligently maintained over the years due to corruption, among others. To meet that target is an uphill task in the light of what I’m seeing except if there is a magic wand somewhere, I don’t see us meeting that objective. We can move closer to realising that objective, but entirely achieving it is a tough one.

    The government is also suggesting co-location of new refineries with the existing ones. What is your take on this?

    They will benefit from similar infrastructure. They will benefit from roads, water, pipeline that supplies crude to the existing refineries’ facilities in the first instance. So, that will obviously have positive impact on the overall cost of having those refineries. So, for a cheaper cost you can actually have the value you try to create.

    What is the future of Nigeria’s oil and gas reserves with the dwindling exploration activities?

    The future of Nigeria’s oil and gas reserves is still bright. People think Nigerian basin is mature, but as a geoscientist and from NAPE perspective, I can tell you Nigeria still has the capacity. There are still enough of plays out there to be able to double what we have now. It is just making sure we have the right policies in place. We have to recognise that oil companies are into business. So, in any business you are, if you are not making money, I don’t know how you can continue in it. Also, because the world is dynamic, and the economy is dynamic, the government needs to respond with changes in policies. I can tell you in the times past when the price of oil was $10, the government responded by putting a policy in place to encourage exploration and there were some incentives.

    For example, if you go and explore and drill an exploration well, there is an incentive for it. There was also an incentive such as reserves addition bonus. But all those policies have relapsed. The major challenge that we have apart from the fact that oil price has come down, is that we have a lot of competitors within the African environment. A lot of the West African countries that had no oil in the past  have now discovered oil. There is virtually no country in the sub-region that has not found oil and gas.

    The question here is what makes same oil firms here to go there to explore and not explore here? It is because business people and the fiscal policies there are better and money will always chase investment where it will make profit. So, the right policies are there. The Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) has been before the National Assembly for about 17 years without passage. With the right policies and laws we can double the reserves we currently have as a country because there is no oil and gas technology in any part of the world that we don’t have in Nigeria. There is no frontier technology in the world that we don’t have in Nigeria. We have not even taken the value chain of oil and gas. We only think of oil and gas, most of the time, in terms of white products – petrol, diesel, kerosene, forgetting the petrochemical.

    The oil and gas industry is heavily capital intensive and has long gestation period. Sometimes you drill some dry wells and the cost of some of those wells, the cheapest one, are in the neighbourhood of between $20 million and $40 million. How many indigenous firms will be able to drill a dry well of $100 million twice and will be able to survive? So, to be able to do that, they have to spread the risk and that is why partners have to come in. Even in the deepwater acreages, the international oil companies (IOCs) partner, they don’t do it alone.

    Government’s slogan now is ‘diversification’ from oil and gas. Where do we diversify to and where is the money for this coming from?

    We have mentioned agriculture, solid minerals, but primarily because we are geologists, some of our professional colleagues are working in that sector also, so it will be easier to relate. Solid minerals, agriculture, ICT, tourism, among others, the list can be extended where we can diversify to? In 2016, I said we need to come out of the recession with lessons learnt. We need to avoid a situation where we make the same mistakes all over again and we go the cycle all over again. With prudency in financial management, with areas of wastages blocked, with men and women of knowledge and capacity put at the helm of affairs and with the right policy thrust by the government, whatever the volume of that money is, will be carefully managed and steer us into these other diversified areas. And we should be able to again see an expansion of those areas. Nigeria is never short of money, it is just the problem of management of that resource. If we manage it very well, we will have money to build infrastructure such as railways and we can progressively start. The issue of Apapa Port gridlock will be addressed. We can carefully tilt our policies and programmes in such a way that the areas that are essential for the growth of the economy, we put money there and we see the result.

    Do you think production from frontier basins will match that of the Niger Delta basin with time?

    It is not a competition. It is more of a diversification of the sources of the nation’s hydrocarbon. What is being done or advocated to be done, is for example, you need gas in Sokoto, Kano, Maiduguri, and if the only way to get that gas to such places is to run pipeline from the Niger Delta all the way to those places, that will be an expensive venture.

    That is not the reason behind exploration in those places. Exploration in those places is a matter of necessity. God gives you a resource, you don’t know it’s there, why not find out if it’s there or not. You are not hundred per cent sure it is there, but you are making effort to find it because it is there and you need to develop it for your development. If we find a big enough gas field in Bauchi-Gombe area, with that gas, you can build an independent power plant (IPP) on that spot and you can enter the national grid from that spot. You don’t need any partner, and the electricity is shared around the country. You can make that place an industrial hub for industries that need that gas for whatever their businesses are.

    So, it is a convenient, easier and sensible way, but you must do the hard work first. You must go and find it, if it’s there you must find out. The science says it is logical to look in that direction, so you want  to basically make sure you exploit that opportunity to the fullest. That’s all we are saying. So, it’s not a competition with Niger Delta. We may find something bigger or smaller than what we have in the Niger Delta. I cannot say that today because it is impossible to say that.

    So, is there any hope of finding oil in the frontier basins or has there been any discovery already?

    I’m not God, but I will try as much as possible. The reality is that the results from these basins are encouraging. I would isolate the 23 wells that were previously drilled in the Chad Basin. I’m looking at the three wells that were drilled in the Benue/Gombe/Bauchi area. One of them actually intercepted gas and that gas is what they now want to appraise. So, in the next three months Frontier exploration Service (FES), an arm of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) will be scudding and drilling that appraisal well. They will be doing that drilling and when the results come we will see, but most likely there will be an announcement of gas discovery in that Gombe/Bauchi axis. That’s our expectation.

    The demand for renewable energy is increasing globally. Can this be a threat to demand for fossil fuel in the future?

    To the extent that it is fuel, yes. Currently, I think about 64 per cent of global energy consumption comes from fossil fuels and the idea is that by 2025, that percentage would have dropped below 50 per cent. But oil and gas is still useful in other areas for petrochemical development – the shirt, button, jacket, plastics and fender of cars, among others, are products of oil and gas, products from petrochemical industry. We haven’t even scratched the ground on that basis at all in this our environment.

    So, if oil and gas is not giving us petrol, diesel, kerosene and Jet A1 for aircraft, among others, it will be giving us opportunity to set up plastic and fertiliser industries. Gas can be used for fertiliser. It is a major component of fertiliser. So, the agriculture and other things we want to do as a country, we will be able to do it better if we harness the hydrocarbon resource. All we are doing is trying to diversify and make sure we exploit the resource. So, it is something that will be around with us for a while. The other point that is also very important to notice is at what cost will all the other renewable energy sources be? How much money do you need to generate what? As it is now, gas is still the cheapest way to generate energy, fuel or power. Hydro, solar, nuclear and all the other renewable energy sources are there.

    In terms of today, how long or far does Nigeria want to make that extra dollar investment? We have oil and gas here, even if the whole world decides that they are burning hydrocarbon again, if we have a need, we use it ourselves. The whole idea is to use these resources for our development regardless of what is happening around the world. Even with what is happening around the world, it is quite expensive to attain right now.

    Nigeria is said to have one of the world’s highest production cost per barrel of oil. How can the nation cut this cost to maximise returns?

    I wouldon’t agree with this position. To be honest with you, I will say that cost per barrel is a function of cost of services. It is a function of wastages in the system (corruption, among others). But there is the actual cost per barrel. We don’t have any business having a high cost of per barrel given the matured and long history of exploration and production that we have had in Nigeria. If we move to new areas and try to develop them, that will be understandable. But currently, there is a lot of amortised infrastructure that have been built a long time ago and they have paid for themselves already and are just being utilised.

    But if you are going to a new area, for example, Aje field production, they need a lot of new infrastructure such as floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO), among others. So, we have gone past that point. Our cost per barrel has no business being high because we have been in recession and the industry has been challenged by oil price, service cost has also come down.

    Now there is an element that has nothing to do with oil and gas on the technical side that is also exacerbating the cost per barrel. This include the non-technical cost, cost of joint taskforce (JTF), navy patrol vessel, cost of providing security and community issues, among others. Cost of repairing in a cyclical way the damaged infrastructure because all those costs are eventually shared and passed on to the cost per barrel. So, there is a technical cost that we know – cost of drilling, logging a well and seismic, among others. There is cost of naval patrol vessel, gun-boat rental, repairing Trans Forcados multiple times, among others, which can easily be avoided. By the time you add these on to the technical cost, you have this bogus cost per barrel. So, if we can decompose, try and address those issues and bring them down, I think we will be alright.

    Nigerian graduates are said to be lacking the capacity to meet oil and gas industry expectations. What is NAPE doing to address this?

    We have the University Assistance Programme (UAP), which has a chairman and the chairman is on our executive council.  The UAP started over 15 years ago. It was primarily set up to increase the industry/academia relationship both on the lecturer and student sides. We have the internship programmes in the universities. They started when the UAP started. When a student gets to year three going to year four, mandatorily, he or she will go and spend six months in the industry.

    What has been the percentage success, how many students are available and how many openings are available?

    The openings available don’t match the number of students. So, some get left out. What we have instituted this year is to take the internship to the schools. How do we do that? We take all the 26 affiliated universities to NAPE. We group them regionally into six geo-political zones and we have a centre in each zone and we attract five best students from six schools, that is 30 students in all, and we run them through “a crash intense internship programme” over a weekend. They start on a Friday and end on Sunday evening. It is something that we see as a sacrifice because that way, people who ordinarily wouldn’t have had the opportunity of getting to hear anything about the industry will have that opportunity.

    They will know about exploration and production, among others. It is a crash and the criteria for selection have to include – having a very good class recommended by your Head of Department (HoD). There will still be the normal internship, but we are offering this one and each person from those five schools gets back to school and try and repeat the presentations they have learnt. There is a competition each of them will present back.

    It is quite intense, you work 8am till 8pm for those three days. We accommodate them, give them food and one university will host everybody and NAPE supports them with subvention. We put money on it. We have done one in Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Federal University of Technology, Owerri, University of Port Harcourt, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, We had about six schools in that zone and we brought them all to Awka successfully. We are doing the next one in Ilorin, University of Ibadan, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) Ife, University of Ilorin, among others, will come together again.

    Every quarter we will do that until we go round the geopolitical zones, and we keep on repeating it again and again. That way we will be able to get a greater number of people to benefit from the programme. Sometimes, having the opportunity and hearing about the oil industry is all you need to figure out and know exactly where to pitch your tent.  That is one critical area that we assist in addition to all that the UAP has been doing.

    We have been sponsoring lecturers to conferences, we have had leadership programmes and trained the trainers. We take the lecturers and train them too in order for them to be up-to-date and be familiar with the latest in the industry for them to pass that knowledge to their students. We give them scholarships, sponsor them to NAPE conference and we have mini-conference for university students every two years purely for educational institutions that offer geosciences.

    Degeconek Oil and Gas Limited is an upstream service company. W hat value does it add to the industry?

    Apart from our business, which is providing services in the areas of geosciences and reservoir engineering, we have also hired people. To be modest, we have hired a greater number of people than we actually need at any point in time. A number of them have left us as well and they are strategically in various companies all around. So, we have brought opportunities to those who ordinarily may not have had one. We believe we have contributed and are still contributing to the industry.

    What is your advice  to upcoming geologists, petrochemical engineers and other geosciences graduates?

    Basically, they need to be thirsty for knowledge. So, they have to go to where knowledge is being dispensed. They have to be very good in their lectures in class and make sure they come out with good grades. They have to, as much as possible, position themselves by attending conferences and technical seminars where their knowledge can be enriched; and they need to be dynamic and move around. Of course, it is not easy because they need money to do all these, but doing well in their lectures provides an opportunity for scholarship, among other benefits. But over and above that, they must be ready, because it requires a lot of hard work to make it in anything. They must be ready to walk the work as opposed to looking for shortcuts. They must not be distracted by short-time gains and not be lured into illegal things that people do to make money. They must work hard and know that with hard work and a bit of luck and prayer, which we cannot rule out, they will make it.

  • Method of Application for the on-going Police Recruitment

    Method of Application for the on-going Police Recruitment

    The Nigeria Police force has invited applications from qualified Nigerians for enlistment into the force as constables.

    In a Public announcement published on The Nation Newspaper and signed by CSP Jimoh Moshood, the force listed methods of application needed for the recruitment exercise.

    • You must have a functional email address and a Mobil Phone Number before you begin your application.
    • Visit policerecruitment.ng
    • Fill and submit the online form (Review the information before final submission).
    • Ensure that you print out the information that is sent automatically to your email, and do not forget to copy and save your REGISTRATION NUMBER for future correspondences. The Number is Case sensitive please.

    Read Also: 10 Requirements for on-going Police recruitment

    • You would be required to present a hard copy of email message sent to you if you are shortlisted and contacted for the next stage of the recruitment process.
    • WARNING
    1. No Email and / or phone number can be used to register more than once in this application.
    2. Applicants with multiple applications would be disqualified.
    • The Nigerian Police Force shall not enter into any correspondences with candidates or on behalf of candidates in this exercise aside this partial or candidates emails/telephones.
    • Application closes six weeks from the date of this publication which was Wednesday, 7th February 2018.

     

  • 10 Requirements for on-going Police recruitment

    10 Requirements for on-going Police recruitment

    The Nigeria Police force has invited applications from qualified Nigerians for enlistment into the force as constables.

    In a Public announcement published on The Nation Newspaper and signed by CSP Jimoh Moshood, the force listed some requirements needed to qualify for the recruitment exercise.

    • Interested candidate must be a Nigerian citizen by birth and possess National identity number.
    • must not be younger than 18 nor older than 25 years of age
    • Must have an O’level certificate of at least five credits level passes which includes Mathematics and English language in not more than two sittings.
    • Must be of good character and should not have been convicted of any criminal offence.
    • Must not be less than 1.67 metres in height for men and 1.64 metres for women.
    • For men, expanded chest measurement should be 86cm (34 inches)

    Read Also: Method of Application for the on-going Police Recruitment

    • Must not have abnormalities such as speech impediments, knock knees, bow legs, bent knees, flat feet, deformed hands, tattoos, bodily scar, defective eyesight or squint eyes, amputation of any part of the body, gross malformation of teeth, protruding navel.
    • Must not be pregnant at the time of recruitment.
    • Financial status: must be free from any form of pecuniary embarrassment.
    • Must download and fill the guarantors form, presenting verifiable references from any two of the following: Traditional rulers, Magistrate, Local Government Chairman, Heads of Educational Institutions attended, Career Civil Servant not below the rank of grade level12, Police Officer not below the rank of CSP, or Military Officer not below the rank of lieutenant colonel. Possession of a valid National Drivers’ License is an added advantage

     

    Interested candidates are to note that all Candidates must undergo medical examination before final selection. Also, the recruitment exercise is free.

  • Job Vacancy : Operations Geology Specialist

    Job Vacancy : Operations Geology Specialist

    The Early Capability Operations Geologist specialist, like all geoscientists, is expected to develop a broad range of fundamental geoscience skills and the ability to comprehend and integrate knowledge, ideas and skills to solve geologic problems across exploration, development, production and research functions. Assignments will provide the opportunity to acquire these fundamental skills through on-the-job experience and training. Work quality and quantity, demonstrating leadership and mentoring are performance dimensions that are expected to expand in scope and breadth through time. The specialist brings an analytical background, usually in geoscience or engineering, and may or may not have had experience with drillwell operations. The focus will be to build depth in the three sub-disciplines of Operations Geology: Site Investigation, Integrated Pore Pressure Prediction, and Well Planning and Surveillance. The Early Capability Operations Geology specialist will be able to contribute independently in their role as well as mentor those less experienced and those in other disciplines on the concepts of Operations Geology to ensure that the drilled wells attain the well objectives.

    Job Role Responsibilities

    • Active member of a subsurface team responsible for a geologic asset
    • Geologic inputs (including geohazards & pore pressure prediction) to the drill well planning
    • Ensures the input is aligned with the team’s objectives and there is proper integration of the drill well objectives
    • Provides active well surveillance during drilling operations
    • Builds familiarity with all the roles on the subsurface team
    • Mentors the team members on the operations geology input.
    • Tasks include shallow geohazards identification, pre-drill pore pressure prediction, pre-drill well planning, post-well follow up on all operations

    Requirements

    The ideal candidate must possess the following requirements:

    • Ph.D. or Masters degree in Geoscience (Geology or Geophysics) and a Bachelors degree with a minimum of second

    class upper in Geology, Geophysics or Physics

    •  A maximum of three (3) continuous years of relevant industry experience
    •  NYSC discharge or exemption certificate

    For more details: